This article originally appeared in Middle East International on 26 March 1999 and is re-printed here with their permission.
Despite the pro-Israeli clamor generated by America's Christian Fundamentalists, significant recent declarations by three mainstream Christian bodies—the Lambeth Conference, the World Council of Churches and the Vatican—have all confirmed that Christians are energetically engaged on the side of justice and peace in the Holy Land, particularly in relation to the status and future of Jerusalem. Refreshingly, all three interventions are based implicitly or explicitly on the recognition that international law must play a crucial role in clarifying the historical context of the current situation and in defining the parameters within which an acceptable solution is fashioned.
In the summer of 1998 the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion, which includes the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the United States, agreed that "East Jerusalem is an integral part of the Occupied Territories and should be included in all political arrangements relating to those territories, including self-determination, release of prisoners, right of return, and eventual sovereignty." The conference urged "our political leaders to take every opportunity to encourage the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority to work urgently for a just and lasting peace" and urged "the United Nations and the governments of the United States and the European Community to use diplomatic and economic influence in support of the above and to demonstrate as firm a commitment to justice for the Palestinians as they do for the security of Israel."
A Rights-orientated Approach
The reference to the use of "economic influence" is intriguing. The potential economic leverage of the U.S. and the European Union over Israel is clear, but the resolution leads logically to the question of how individuals might also use their economic clout to promote justice in the Middle East. Will Anglicans be asked to boycott Israeli products in a campaign of the sort that was so significant a part of public action against the apartheid regime in South Africa?
Palestine was also high on the agenda when the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Geneva-based ecumenical organization that brings together 339 Protestant and Orthodox churches around the world, met for its 50th anniversary assembly just before Christmas. Fringe meetings were addressed by Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, a noted Anglican clergyman and director of Sabeel, the Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem. The assembly also adopted by an overwhelming majority a detailed and wide-ranging, "Statement on the Status of Jerusalem."
The statement emphasizes that Jerusalem "is central to the faith of Christians" and regrets that, due to the problem of Jerusalem being consistently postponed to indeterminate "future negotiations," the city has been left "vulnerable to a series of unilateral actions which have radically altered its geography and demography in a way which violates especially the rights of Palestinians and poses a continuing threat to peace and security."
This rights-oriented approach is highlighted by the statement's conclusion that the Jerusalem issue is "organically linked" with the lives of the people who live there, so that "the continuing presence of Christian communities in Jerusalem" must be ensured and "the violations of rights of Palestinians in Jerusalem which oblige many to leave" condemned.
Because the Christian presence must be not merely demographic but also moral, ethical and spiritual, the statement adopts the language of the joint Memorandum of the Heads of Christian Communities in Jerusalem, which was agreed in November 1994 and called on all parties "to go beyond exclusivist visions or actions and, without discrimination, to consider the religious and national aspirations of others, in order to give back to Jerusalem its true universal character and to make of the city a Holy Place of reconciliation for humankind."
Historically, WCC members (including of course the Orthodox churches) have had a direct interest in Jerusalem, since the majority of Christian holy places there and in neighboring areas belong to them. Thus the statement affirms, their "relationship... [with] the authorities [has been] guaranteed by ancient covenants and orders, and codified in international treaties and the League of Nations" under the rubric of the status quo.
Jerusalem's International Status
The fact that the holy places in Jerusalem enjoy an international legal status which puts them juridically in a class by themselves has had a major impact on the legal position of the city as a whole, as evidenced notably by a long series of UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions. Though not going into great detail on this, the WCC statement highlights among others the resolutions associated with the UN Partition Plan and usefully recalls documents whose current legal relevance is often overlooked. General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 1947 required the Arab and Jewish states which were to succeed the Mandate in Palestine to adopt as part of their constitutions provisions confirming "the existing rights in respect of Holy Places and religious buildings" and guaranteeing "liberty of access, visit and transit for all residents and citizens of the other State and of the City of Jerusalem subject to requirements of national security, public order and decorum."
According to the 1947 Partition Plan envisaged for Palestine, Jerusalem was to be a corpus separatum under a special international regime administered by the United Nations. Significantly, the international stake in religious sites in the Arab and Jewish states was to be given legal force by according the UN-appointed governor of Jerusalem the power to adjudicate disputes over holy places and religious rights not only in his own domain but also "within the borders of [each] state." The UN governor's extraterritorial jurisdiction would evidently have operated even when questions of national security arose—a useful reminder that when "security" is used as a cloak for international illegality it ceases to be exclusively the concern of the offending state.
Significantly, even months after the de facto division of Jerusalem between Israel and Jordan, the UN General Assembly, in Resolution 303 of 9 December 1949, still reiterated its intention that the city should be placed under a "permanent... special international regime... administered by the United Nations," a clear affirmation that international law retains its de jure relevance even in the face of attempts on the ground to "create facts" to the contrary.
Similarly, according to the WCC Statement, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 governing the rights of civilians under military occupation must be understood to prohibit boundary changes, annexation or settlement which would alter the religious, cultural, or historical character of Jerusalem without "the agreement of the parties concerned and the approval of the international community."
Though the statement does not elaborate on this, the necessity for international ratification, through the UN, of any final status arrangement would mean that, even if the Palestinian Authority were forced to accept a legally unsound settlement with Israel, those adversely affected could still argue that their international legal rights remained in force if the agreement had not received international approval. This is logically consistent with Articles 7 and 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and with the general principle that human rights are inalienable.
The Vatican's Intervention
As the policy of the WCC and its wide spectrum of member branches, this solidly law-based approach should provoke, within the churches and in the wider community, a more rights-oriented discussion of the final status arrangements for Jerusalem and exert some pressure on the international legal debate. But international law may be more directly influenced by the recent intervention from the Vatican, since the Holy See is the only Christian institution possessing international legal personality and the right to deal with states as an equal. This forthright declaration came at a symposium for representatives of Catholic bishops' conferences from around the world held in Jerusalem in October 1998 under the auspices of the Latin Patriarch, the respected Palestinian cleric Michel Sabbah.
Addressing this gathering, the secretary for the Holy See's relations with states (in effect the Vatican's foreign minister), Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, reaffirmed that the Vatican adhered "to the position of the majority in the international community, as expressed above in the pertinent UN resolutions," and had "the right and duty" to remind the parties "of the obligation to resolve controversies peacefully, in accordance with the principles of justice and equity within the international legal framework." "Without mincing words," he declared, the situation in Jerusalem today is "a case of manifest international injustice ... brought about and maintained by force... East Jerusalem is illegally occupied."
The suggestion appears to be that, as an unjustified use of force, Israel's military occupation is illegal per se, quite apart from any particular crimes committed by the occupation authorities. This conclusion has far-reaching implications, not least being that, under Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which outlaws agreements that violate fundamental norms of international law, any treaty purporting to legitimate continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories or the illegal consequences of such occupation would automatically be void. return to contents