| | CMEP Weekly Bulletin: Jordan’s King Abdullah to Visit Ramallah to Lower Tensions Ahead of Ramadan A look at calls for intervention, settlements and expulsions, and more news in this week’s bulletin. CMEP’s Bulletin is a weekly round-up of news from the Middle East and represents an array of perspectives on the issues we cover. CMEP does not necessarily agree with all the views expressed in the articles, and they do not speak on CMEP’s behalf. | | | |  | Image: Jordan's King Abdullah II and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas observe the honor guard during a visit in the West Bank city of Ramallah on August 7, 2017. (AFP photo/ Abbas Momani) | | | Jordan’s King Abdullah to visit Ramallah to lower tensions ahead of Ramadan Times of Israel “Jordan’s King Abdullah will visit Ramallah later this month for the first time in nearly five years as Amman intensifies its efforts to lower tensions between Israelis and Palestinians with a confluence of religious holidays on the horizon, a Palestinian official told The Times of Israel on Monday (March 20). Confirming reporting from the Kan public broadcaster, the official said that the meeting will stress the importance of creating a diplomatic horizon between Israel and the Palestinians, ‘without which it is much harder to control the situation on the ground.’” | | | | | | | |  | Image: Rabbi Yonatan Neril posts an interfaith letter against the war in Ukraine to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on the walls of Jerusalem’s Holy Trinity Cathedral, March 21, 2022. (Lazar Berman/Times of Israel) | | | Local clergy affix letter calling for end to Ukraine war to Jerusalem Russian church
Times of Israel “Senior religious leaders in Israel on Monday (March 21) entreated the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church to urge Russia’s president to seek a peaceful end to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Druze clergymen and women affixed a letter to the outer wall of Jerusalem’s Russian Orthodox Holy Trinity Cathedral, beseeching Patriarch Kirill to ask Vladimir Putin to ‘take immediate steps to de-escalate the conflict, and seek a peaceful resolution to it.’" | | | | | | | |  | Image: Israeli forces conducting a training drill near and inside villages in the Masafer Yatta area, West Bank, February 3, 2021. (Keren Manor/Activestills.org) | | | Israel’s top court will decide whether to expel 1,300 of my neighbors
972 Mag “When I was three years old, Israeli soldiers marched through my village on their way to forcibly expel my neighbors, arresting anyone who tried to remain. In the village of a-Tuwani, where I was born and raised, the soldiers let us be, yet over 700 others turned into refugees in a heartbeat. That was in 1999, following a decision by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The army demolished 14 of the surrounding villages in the Masafer Yatta region of the South Hebron Hills, located in the occupied West Bank." | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | Upcoming Webinar: Mystagogia: What Can We Do to Build a Better Future in Palestine and Israel, May 19, 1 - 3 PM ET
A part of a series of webinars on Christians in the Holy Land with Association of US Catholic Priests taking place during the pre-Pentecost Novena inviting the Holy Spirit, this webinar will feature some of the key ongoing challenges for peace and a just future in Israel-Palestine in East Jerusalem (demolitions, evictions, and confiscations) and the West Bank (challenges within Palestinian civil society). Each speaker will then address where transformation and glimmers of a “better future” have come from: What do you hope to see happen? Finally, what role can foreign actors play in resolving these aspects of the conflict? | | | | |  | We’re Hiring! CMEP is seeking to hire a part-time Development Coordinator to support the Development Portfolio of CMEP, including conducting funder research, contacting donors, administrative support for grants, maintaining our donor database, producing data reports, meeting project-based needs as they arise, and offering day-to-day administrative support. We're also seeking applicants for the position of Mobilization Manager, Ambassador Warren Clark Fellow, and summer interns. Check out our website for more information on each of those. | | | | |  | Public Statement: CMEP Condemns the Murder of Four Israelis in Beersheba:
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) condemns the murder of four Israelis in Beersheba by an Israeli citizen of Bedouin ethnicity, who had previously been affiliated with ISIS. On March 22, 2022, 34-year-old Mohammad Ghaleb Abu al-Qian, previously imprisoned in 2016 for affiliation in ISIS and released in 2019, killed two women and two men near a shopping center. Abu al-Qian injured two others before being killed by a bus driver he attacked. Abu al-Qian and all his victims were civilians. | | | | | | | | Support CMEP Monthly sustaining donations are vital to our work. Please become a monthly donor by selecting that option in the donate link. | | | | | | | | | |  | Image: The settler outpost built near the Palestinian village of Battir, West Bank, 2022. (Emil Salman) | | | Israeli settlers set up outpost on UNESCO World Heritage site
Haaretz “Israeli settlers established a new outpost on a UNESCO World Heritage Site last week, near the Palestinian village of Battir. The Palestinian owners of the land near the outpost said they have been barred from accessing their land since the outpost appeared. They said they have asked Israel's Civil Administration to remove it, and have also contacted UNESCO over the matter." | | | | | | | |  | Image: A Palestinian holds a placard reading in English " Boycott divestment, sanctions" as part of a protest during which they try to set up a tent on June 8, 2013 near the Jewish settlement of Bat Ayin and the West Bank village of Surif, west of Hebron. (Hazen Bader/AFP via Getty Images) | | | Israel: international organisations and academics call for sanctions
Middle East Monitor “Dozens of international organisations, human rights networks, academics and researchers from forty-five countries have called on the UN and the West to sanction Israel for its occupation of Palestine and its apartheid regime, Wafa news agency has reported. The Secretary General of the International Academic Campaign against Occupation and Apartheid, Ramzi Odeh, said that 67 international organsations and human rights groups, as well as 279 academics and researchers, have added their names to the call for sanctions." | | | | | | | |  | Image: President of Lebanon Michel Aoun in Beirut, Lebanon on 14 October 2021. (Lebanese Presidency/Anadolu Agency) | | | Aoun says Christianity in Lebanon 'not in danger'
Middle East Monitor “Lebanese President, Michel Aoun, said Sunday (March 20), that ‘Christianity in Lebanon is not in danger’ and that his country will remain a model for ‘co- existence’. Lebanon includes 18 Muslim and Christian sects, with a population of about 6 million, and is the only country in the Middle East where a Christian holds the presidential post. Aoun's statements came upon his arrival in Rome on a 3-day visit, during which he will visit the Vatican and meet with Pope Francis and Italian President, Sergio Mattarella, the Lebanese presidency said on Twitter." | | | | | | | | CMEP's Bulletin is a weekly round-up of news from the Middle East and represents an array of perspectives on the issues we cover. CMEP does not necessarily agree with all the views expressed in the articles, and they do not speak on CMEP's behalf. | | | | Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP)
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