Source: Agence France-Presse
Wed Dec 19, 7:10 AM ET
News.Yahoo
JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Catholic leader in the Holy Land said on Wednesday in a Christmas message that peace depended on Israel and rejected the idea of a religious state on land revered by Christians, Jews and Muslims.
"To attain peace, it is necessary to believe that Israelis and Palestinians are equal in all things, that they have the same rights and the same duties," Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah said in Jerusalem.
"The strong party, the one with everything in hand, the one who is imposing occupation on the other, has the obligation to see what is just for everyone and to carry it out courageously."
..."There is something new in this Annapolis. That the American administration is decided (to push for peace), though the decision will be taken by those who are here, Palestinians and Israelis," he said.
"And the one who will make the decision will be Israel. If Israel decides for peace, we will have peace," Sabbah said.
The patriarch, who oversees Catholics in Cyprus, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories, said the Holy Land was universal to Christians, Jews and Muslims, and that any state must recognise those claims.
"This land cannot be excluded for anyone... The land belongs to three religions, without excluding one religion or the other," he said.
"That's why establishing a religious state, with a Jewish or Muslim religious character, would exclude the other religion and would treat unjustly the believers of other religions," he said.
Israel wants the Palestinians to recognise the state's Jewish nature.
Palestinians refuse this, seeing it as de facto rejection of the right of return for refugees who fled when the state of Israel was created in 1948.
..."There is discrimination linked to the nature of the state. Israel says simply 'I am a Jewish state' and that creates discrimination with regard to non Jews," said Sabbah, who was born in Nazareth, today in northern Israel.
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