U.S. Religious Leaders Urge Bush to Condition Israeli Loan on an End to Settlement Activity
Episcopal News Service. February 7, 1992 [92026]
Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning and 14 other U.S. religious leaders have urged President Bush to affirm the Mideast peace process by denying Israel's request for housing loan guarantees until Israel ends its settlement activity on occupied Palestinian lands.
In a statement delivered to the White House on January 28, the religious leaders commended Bush for his leadership in bringing Arab and Israeli representatives to the long-elusive negotiating table. Characterizing Israel's settlement activity in the occupied territories as "an enormous obstacle to this fragile peace process," the religious leaders urged the president "to oppose housing loan guarantees to Israel until it halts construction and expansion of settlements in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem."
Israel contends that it needs a $10 billion loan guarantee from the United States to absorb Jews from the former Soviet Union. However, critics charge that U.S. aid to Israel has indirectly enabled the Israeli government to develop Jewish settlements on Palestinian and Syrian land, occupied by Israel since the 1967 war.
The religious leaders said that Israel's continuing settlement drive in occupied territories jeopardizes the ultimate goal of "peace and security for Israel" and "justice and self-determination for Palestinians." The United States has long considered Israel's settlement activity a violation of international human rights conventions. The current Israeli loan request has provided the Bush administration with the dual opportunity to emphasize U.S. policy on the issue and to force Israeli Prime Minister Shamir to choose between expanding settlements and encouraging Jewish immigration to Israel.
Bishop Samir Kafity, president-bishop of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, termed the appeal to Bush "a positive and constructive step" that shows American churches "are not just observers to the peace process."
In addition to Bishop Browning, signatories of the statement included the Rev. Joan B. Campbell, general secretary, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.; the Rev. Herbert Chilstrom, bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; the Rev. James E. Andrews, stated clerk of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (USA); Patricia J. Rumer, general director, Church Women United; and the Rev. Paul Sherry, president, United Church of Christ.