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The high-level group, representing the Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI), called on churches in Western countries to try to help reverse the decline, which is having "catastrophic consequences" for workers in Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem.

Among the 12 delegates were the Anglican Bishop of Exeter in England, Michael Langrish, and senior members of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Union, the United Reformed Church and the Church of Scotland.

Bishop Langrish, an experienced visitor to the Holy Land, told ENI that his main impression this time had been "the silence" in places that are normally crowded with pilgrims.

"The Old City of Jerusalem was dead, with no economic activity," he said. "A pilgrim hotel was in darkness, and the owner told me that he hadn't had any visitors for several months. When I went to Calvary, I was the only person there."

In a two-week visit, members of the group went to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

Delegation member Gillian Kingston, of the Methodist Church in Ireland, said: "We walked through the squalor of refugee camps and sat in the elegance of bishops' palaces."

The delegation met people ranging from government ministers to Hizbollah activists, from patriarchs and grand muftis to refugees in Beirut and Amman.

Among a 16-point set of "preliminary reflections" from the visit, the ecumenical group stated that violence—"whether from stick or stone, or lethally from tank and helicopter-gunship"—would not solve the Palestine-Israel crisis.

The unrest has so far claimed 455 lives, including 130 people under the age of 18, according to a reporter in the region for the London Guardian newspaper. The great majority of deaths have been of Palestinians.

The CTBI group described as "simplistic," calls from the Israeli government to the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, to "stop the violence." and said that the Israeli claim to have acted with restraint "does not bear examination."

The US and British governments were castigated for what were seen as one-sided policies in the Middle East. "All over the region the cry of 'double standards' is loudly heard, contrasting Western policy on Israel with that on Iraq and other countries which defy UN resolutions," said the delegation.

The group also sought to dispel the idea that the conflict was about religion: "In the region which is the cradle of the three great Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—religion is not itself a cause of conflict, and in many instances is a source of reconciliation.

"A pluralistically minded Zionist Jew [said]: 'The land does not belong to us—we belong to the land—and the same can be said of Christians and Muslims'."

The organizer of the visit and a group member, Paul Renshaw—the CTBI's coordinating secretary for international affairs—told ENI that since the conflict pilgrim numbers to Israel/Palestine were down by 70 to 90 percent, and 20,000 hotel workers had been laid off.

He said: "Among potential visitors there has been a mass breakout of uncertainty [about whether it is safe to visit]. People are put off by what they see on the TV screen, but there isn't a war going on all the time.

"People might take another look. Certainly, the [Muslim and Christian] religious leaders are saying: 'Come and see us—we want you to see what's happening.' And of course they know where the safe areas are."

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April (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45