Anglican Communion News Service

The Archbishop of Canterbury is to be urged at the next year's Lambeth Conference to help exiled Palestinian Christians return to Jerusalem.

The Rt Revd Riah Abu El-Assal, Coadjutor Episcopal Bishop in Jerusalem, says he wants to see "A Christian aliyah " - the Hebrew world for the migration of Jews to Israel - and he wants the Anglican Church world-wide to fund the Palestinian Christians' return.

Bishop Riah, who succeeds the Rt Revd Samir Kafity as Bishop towards the end of next year, deplores the decline of the Arab Christian community in Jerusalem. "Time is running out", he says. "If the city where Christianity was born is to remain anything other than a city of Christian relics."

On his travels he has discovered thousands of Palestinian Christians, now living abroad, who would move to Jerusalem if their migration were subsidised. His idea is to raise funds from governments and private institutions to finance their return and settlement, drawing directly on the Israeli experience of bringing in Jews from the diaspora. The money would also help the immigrants find homes, jobs and schools, and cover the cost of learning Hebrew, where necessary.

Bishop Riah sees the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops as a launching-pad for his scheme. "If Dr Carey were to say that he was initiating it, it would instantly attract the attention of Christian communities everywhere to the plight of Palestinians in Jerusalem. It is time for some dramatic and flamboyant action, before it is too late."

The Israeli authorities have been accused of using economic and political pressure to squeeze Palestinians off their land: and "Arabs there are asking what the Church at large is doing about justice and securing peace," says Bishop Riah, who was visiting Britain last month.

Statements of support from Christian leaders were no longer enough:"Strong and concrete measures" were needed from the Lambeth Conference.

Under Israeli law, Arab East Jerusalem is regarded as being part of the Jewish state. So Palestinians living there (as opposed to those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip) have Israeli citizenship; and the same applies to tens of thousands of Palestinians who currently live abroad.

Resettlement funding would have to come from Christian sources, Bishop Riah says, since Arab states will help only the Palestinian Muslim community in the Holy Land. And, he says, Palestinian Christians are wondering how long they are going to remain abandoned, "A small, threatened community in the Holy Land".

He looks forward to the day when the first jumbo jet arrives at Tel Aviv with 400 Christian immigrants on board, bound for Jerusalem.

"A dramatic event like that will prove to the Israelis, and the rest of the world, that Arab Christians definitely have not given up the struggle for the Holy Land."

Article by: Gerald Butt, Church Times 27 June