Arafat meets with church delegation, Florida bishop joins in dialogue with PLO chairman at his West

A Florida bishop was among a recent delegation of church officials from Europe and North America to meet with Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat. The beleaguered PLO president – under virtual house arrest by Israeli military – reportedly told the delegation he believed there is no military solution to the Mideast peace process. As part of an intensive, three-day tour of the region featuring meetings with political, church and civic leaders, Palm Beach Bishop Anthony J. O’Connell said an hour-long meeting with Arafat Jan. 24 concluded a Vatican-initiated mission of solidarity. Others in the delegation of bishops had met earlier in the week with the president of Israel, Moshe Katsav.

PALM BEACH GARDENS

Traveling in a convoy of vehicles from Jerusalem to the West Bank, Bishop O’Connell – invited to the delegation to represent Catholic Relief Services – said the meeting with Arafat took place in an conference room at his residential compound in Ramallah.

After giving a 30-minute address, Arafat took questions from the bishops, including one from Bishop O’Connell concerning the prospects for a peaceful solution to the on-going Israeli-Palestinian crisis. “(Arafat) said, ‘There is definitely no military solution to it,'” Bishop O’Connell said, “but he also said we have to sit down and work out the differences and that they can’t do it alone; they need outsiders to help bring it about and they need observers to enforce it.” Arafat expressed gratitude for the role of “people of faith” in the peace process dialogue. He also talked about Pope John Paul II’s tireless efforts toward peace in the region, according to the bishop. “He actually quoted from the comments made from the pope’s Angelus Address on Jan. 20 when the pope pleaded for all nations in the world not to turn their backs on the Middle East,” Bishop O’Connell said. “Arafat said it was people of faith who would make the difference.”

Arafat also spoke of the hardship of living apart from his wife, of Israeli occupation, a lack of fresh water in the Palestinian territories, and of the difficulty Palestinians have in traveling locally. Present at the meeting were also His Beatitude Michel Sabah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem; Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; and Archbishop Patrick Kelly, vice president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

Without prompting, Arafat volunteered to discuss the situation of the 50 tons of arms that Palestinian radicals reportedly purchased from Iran but which were seized by Israelis last month during shipment. The arms discovery has greatly angered both U.S. and Israeli leadership, but Arafat presented the allegations to the bishops as an “impossibility” and that it is “extremely unlikely” that Palestinians would be buying arms from the Iranians since relations are not good between the two. “He certainly denied he had knowledge of it,” Bishop O’Connell said, reserving his own judgment. Bishop O’Connell, a native of Ireland, said that his first meeting with Arafat reminded him of the Northern Ireland peace process and the need to dialogue with all sides of a conflict. “There is a real weariness with the rounds of bombings and shootings by terrorists and the inevitable reprisals by the government forces,” Bishop O’Connell wrote in his column this week in The Florida Catholic.

“There is an acknowledgment by both sides that the questions regarding the settlements and occupation can be resolved (as they almost were last year),” he wrote. “Many leaders claim that the issue of Jerusalem and its government is not beyond solution either.” Considering the representatives from Europe and North American countries on hand, the meeting with Arafat was a good opportunity for him to make his case, “just as I am sure the president of Israel made to the delegation that went to see him on Tuesday (of that week),” Bishop O’Connell said. On Jan. 28, following the meeting, a top Vatican official recommended that international observers be sent to the Holy Land, saying the world cannot stand idly by while the Israeli and Palestinian death toll mounts. Jesuit Father Drew Christiansen, counselor for international affairs to the U.S. bishops’ conference and an organizer for the recent delegation, told The Florida Catholic there have been numerous church contacts with Arafat over the years, including meetings with the Holy Father. “What was unique about this meeting is there were delegates from several countries and councils of bishops,” Christiansen said, noting that the visits to both Arafat and the Israeli president Katsav were “not just a pastoral meetings, but some political contact to give (the bishops) a sense of the situation.”

During the meeting with President Katsav, which Father Christiansen described as more formal, the bishops extended condolences for a recent terrorist killing of Jews during a bar mitzvah there. “There was also some exchange about complimenting the president on his desire to speak to the Palestinian president in Ramallah, which was later cancelled by the Israeli prime minister,” the priest said.

Moreover, the Holy Land visit, according to Bishop O’Connell, was an opportunity for the church to pledge continued support for Christians living there and to call on both sides to reconcile their differences. “What we don’t want to do is abandon the people of the Holy Land; we don’t want to just have museums over there,” he said, adding that pilgrimages and the tourism industry there have come to a halt. “What we need to do most of all is to multiply our prayers,” Bishop O’Connell said. “If there ever will be a softening of hearts there it will be by the grace of God.”

Bishops pledge support for Holy Land

Following their meeting in the Holy Land Jan. 21-24, bishops from Europe and North America will bring home pleas for greater solidarity with Christians in birthplace of Christ. In the United States, the members of the American delegation will work on 12 resolutions to be presented to the entire body of U.S. bishops at a meeting later this year Jesuit Father Drew Christiansen, counselor for international affairs to the U.S. bishops’ conference, said the resolutions fall into three main categories: A financial crisis now facing Catholic schools in the Holy Land, the need for more tourism, pilgrimages and people-to-people visits to the region; and media treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“There were three bishops from Canada and Switzerland who went to Gaza,” Father Christiansen said. “They returned quite convinced that if people went to Gaza they would understand the desperate situation there.” The biggest problem for the church is the crisis facing 48 Catholic schools under the auspices of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The problem is due to “widespread unemployment and the inability of Palestinians to travel to their usual places of work outside of the zones where they live,” Palm Beach Bishop Anthony J. O’Connell wrote in The Florida Catholic this week.

– Tom Tracy.