'Israel needs to offer some concessions'

Since the end of the Gulf war, the Vatican has stepped up its efforts to find a solution to the Palestinian issue. Patriarch Michel Sabbah, one of the Pope's principal advisors on the issue, briefs Timothy Elphick on current progress — or not.
THE Gulf war and the death and destruction it brought to the Middle East have changed the hearts and minds of a sufficient number of people on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute for a regional peace settlement to work, according to Jerusalem's Latin rite patriarch.
"III is an opportunity — an occasion — which must be seized. Now is the time to make peace," said Patriarch Michel Sabbah, 58, the first Palestinian to head the Catholic church in the Holy Land. "If nothing is done now the troubles in the occupied territories will go on, leading to more suffering, more Injustice and more violence," he said.
Patriarch Sabbah stressed that in every parish in his diocese "one or two of our young people" had been killed in the conflict, and "dozens" were in the prisons. He pointed out that the Christian population of the Holy Land was part of the Palestinian people, and not a community which could be separated in some way from the political problems within Israel.
But the "long history" of suffering and injustice had made victims of all those trying to find their identity in the area, Jews and Arabs alike, the patriarch said. The church upheld not only the rights of the Palestinians but also the right Of the Israelis to secure borders safe from outside interference, he said. And he hoped that US secretary of state James Baker's diplomatic initiative in the capitals of the Middle East for a peace conference would bear fruit.
Iraq's Scud missile attacks on Tel Aviv during the war to liberate Kuwait had demonstrated that any country could now be attacked from a great distance, not just by its neighbours. "The true borders today are not the borders drawn on the land but those in the hearts of people. As long as a country is surrounded by enemies it has reason to be afraid. The answer is to convert your enemies into friends," Patriarch Sabbah said.
Peace between Israel and the Arab countries would automatically follow from a just settlement for the Palestinians, said Patriarch Sabbah. But the question still remained as to whether there was a genuine will in the Israeli Knesset which would make the necessary territorial concessions possible.
East Jerusalem, which Israel Formally annexed after the 1967 Six Day War in contravention of
United Nations resolution 242, should he granted "shared sovereignty" with the rest of the city in recognition of its special status as a place sacred to Christians, Jews and Moslems, the patriarch said.
A "formula" would have In be found, he admitted. But it was "feasible" for Jerusalem to he at the same time the internal capital of a Jewish state and a capital for the Palestinians — an approach closely in line with a plan put forward six weeks ago by the Vatican for the creation of a federal slate in the Holy Land.
But Israel would eventually have to concede ground on the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Patriarch Sabbah claimed. And although the Israeli government was still supporting the
establishment of new Jewish
settlements in Palestinian areas, such as that at Revava on the
West Bank, the settlers would he able to remain in their homes once the Israelis had withdrawn if they so chose.
The conflict over land between Jews and Palestinians dated back to the beginning of the 20th century. although it had become more acute after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, Patriarch Sabbah pointed out.
Since 1948 there had been wars at regular intervals, including the Palestinian
Intifada begun in 1988 against Israeli rule in the occupied
territories and the Gulf war
itself, he said. The international community had reversed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait within six months, and Patriarch Sabbah urged that the same degree of urgency now be applied to the Palestinian issue.
As long as the current stalemate continued, Christian numbers in Israel would carry on falling, Patriarch Sabbah said. But despite everything, a small core of Christians would always remain in the Holy Land. "The church is the people, so we share the problems of those who feel forced to emigrate by the difficult situation in the country," he stressed.
He emphasised that the Latin patriarchate was constantly engaged in an exchange of views with representatives of the Israeli ministry for religious
affairs, as well as the leaders of other Christian denominations in Jerusalem belonging to the Middle East Council of Churches.