Your Holiness I am writing to you, Your Holiness, to draw your attention to the unending ordeal of the Palestinian people, Muslims and Christians alike. London December 4,2000 Your Holiness I am writing to you, Your Holiness, to draw your attention to the unending ordeal of the Palestinian people, Muslims and Christians alike. Your have had played, Your Holiness, an enormous role in improving Christian-Jewish relations and have expressed, on multiple occasions, your regrets for atrocities perpetrated by Christians towards Jews throughout history. Your Holiness, I have welcomed your speech on the “Purification of the memory” even before it was delivered. I expressed pride in the Christian capacity for regular critical introspection and hoped that Israelis and Jews around the world will seize your speech as an opportunity for an identical exercise in soul searching. That was to no avail and no reciprocal expression of regret was issued. On the contrary our cry for freedom out of captivity and bondage is met with the most brutal repression and aggression with the world watching either impotently or complacently. Your Holiness, it so happens that the Christians of Asia, Africa and the Americas have had nothing to do with the discrimination and the persecution that occurred on the European continent. And it so happens that we the Christians of the Holy Land are not the tormentors of Jews but their victims from 1948 until today. A clear message from Your Holiness calling for the end of Israeli occupation will help dispel the feeling among Palestinian Christians that we are “the forgotten faithful” will improve Christian-Muslim relations not only locally but globally and will adjust the perception that the Holy See is not euro-centric but is genuinely a universal church. With high hopes and great expectations, please accept, Your Holiness, the expression of my highest consideration. Afif Safieh Palestinian General Delegate to the United Kingdom and to the Holy See