Peace Not Walls Action Alert

September 10, 2015

Urge your elected officials to call upon the Israeli government to halt separation wall/barrier construction and home demolitions at the ELCA Action Center!

In recent weeks the Israeli government has taken two related series of actions on Palestinian land and against Palestinian property that make prospects for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians more difficult. In the short- and medium-term, these actions threaten further the realization of a just two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Israeli military has resumed construction of the separation wall in the Cremisan Valley in the West Bank after the Israeli High Court in July effectively reversed its decision in the spring to prevent the wall from being constructed between the Salesian Sisters Convent and the monastery of the Salesians of Don Bosco.

His Beatitude Fouad Twal, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, issued a statement last month, strongly condemning “this Israeli conducted operation, which is without regard to the rights of the families of the valley; the rights that these same families have bravely tried to defend before the law over the past decade. We join with the sorrow and frustration of these oppressed families, and we strongly condemn the injustice done to them.” He called on the Israeli authorities to halt work on the wall before a decision was made on a petition submitted by the families of the valley.

The Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA), a coordination forum of international nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations working in the occupied Palestinian territory, issued a report recently that drew attention to a surge in home demolitions by the Israeli army in August. They determined that the recent demolitions “rendered 132 people homeless, including 82 children, accounting for a quarter of the displacement from demolitions in 2015 and marking the highest number of people rendered homeless from demolitions in nearly three years.”

The AIDA also noted, “These demolitions are being carried out against the backdrop of the government of Israel’s plan to ‘relocate’ 7,000 Palestinians living in 46 communities throughout Area C. The international community has repeatedly called on the government of Israel to cancel the ‘relocation’ plan. The plan affects Bedouin and herding communities in the central parts of the West Bank, including the E1 area around Jerusalem, where the government of Israel plans to expand settlements, which are illegal under international law.” The Lutheran World Federation is a member of AIDA.

These events directly affect the situation and ministries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s companion church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, and the lives, livelihoods and security of Israelis and Palestinians.

In view of this disturbing and destructive series of actions, write your members of Congress and senators to urge them to call upon the Israeli government to halt these harmful actions immediately and avoid further hostile activities that dim the prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.