News and Updates

Ecumenical Group Urges Preparation For Scheduled Peace Summit; GMP Talks Peace In Washington
November 9, 2007

The National Interreligious Leadership Initiative wants the United States to be more assertive as it prepares for the Middle East peace summit, which is scheduled to take place later this month in Annapolis, Md. In a letter faxed to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Nov. 1, the Initiative (NILI) urged Palestinians and Israelis to improve the chance for success at the upcoming summit by working to end all violent attacks and counter attacks through achieving a comprehensive ceasefire prior to the start of the summit.

The NILI letter also pressed the Palestinian Authority to confiscate illegal weapons and disband militias, and advised Israel to halt the expansion of settlements and lift restrictions on movement for Palestinians on the West Bank by decreasing the number of checkpoints. General Minister and President Sharon E. Watkins was a co-signer of NILI's consensus statement, "Arab-Israeli-Palestinian Peace: From Crisis to Hope" in December 2006.

For more about NILI, see: www.ncccusa.org/news/071101riceurged.html

In addition, Watkins attended a meeting in Washington this week of a select group of rabbis, clerics, bishops and patriarchs from the Middle East. The religious leaders, who together form the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land, have been in discussions with United States Ambassador Tony P. Hall and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for the past eight months on behalf of Secretary Rice and members of Congress. For more, visit: www.disciples.org/dns/Releases2007/07179.html