CNA: The U.S. bishops’ international justice and peace representative has called on the state department to pressure the Israeli government to cease its efforts to confiscate Palestinian land in the West Bank.
“I ask you once again to urge the Government of Israel to cease and desist in its efforts to unnecessarily confiscate Palestinian lands in the Occupied West Bank,” Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines wrote Jan. 28 to John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State.
Earlier in the month, Bishop Pates, along with 13 other bishops, had visited the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in a mission of solidarity with the Palestinian people. They visited Bethlehem in the West Bank, and the Cremisan Valley, where a proposed Israeli security barrier would cut off the access of 58 Christian families from the land by which they earn their livelihood. Read more here.
