Christians in Jerusalem protest against attacks by settlers

Christians call for peace

More than a hundred Christian Jerusalemites walked from the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre through the streets of the Old City in Jerusalem to the Latin parish cemetery on Mount Zion last Sunday, (6 October 2013) to protest the frequent desecration of holy sites, and places of worship. The acts of vandalism are believed to be perpetrated by groups of extremist Jewish settlers.

The Latin cemetery was vandalized on Tuesday, 1 October, by extremist settlers who sprayed racist graffiti on the walls, in addition to desecrating and damaging the tombs.

Participants of the march carried a wooden cross, chanted and recited prayers along the way, denouncing acts of intimidation against convents, churches, mosques and cemeteries by groups acting under the slogan “price tag.”

Leaflets were distributed with the following statement: “We, the residents of Jerusalem are legitimate landowners, not marginalized human beings. From here, that is to say, from the Holy Land, we vehemently condemn all forms of oppression, harassment and repeated attacks committed by offensive, and disruptive extremist Jewish groups, against the burial sites of our loved ones and against our sanctuaries . ”

The statement called these acts of racism, as part of a series of in the attacks against Christian and Islamic shrines, committed by a group marked by hatred and racism, whose main goal is to kill the spirit of charity and threatens co-existence among the people, to accelerate the Judaization of the Holy City, or to drive out its own inhabitants.

The statement also called for a real unity among the various Christian communities of the Holy Land, saying that Christians, wherever they are, are supporters of charity, reconciliation and peace – the core values of the Christian religion.

Source: Latin Patriarch oif Jerusalem