New York | Letter from His Eminence Archbishop Melchisdeck to US President Joe Biden

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His Eminence Abina Melchisdeck, Archbishop of the Palestinian Orthodox Church, is Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights, Ambassador of Peace of the Universal Peace Council (UPC) for Human Rights and Interfaith Dialogue. He is a Palestinian born in Bethlehem and raised in Chicago, USA, by a Polish Roman Catholic family.

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Mr. President Joseph Biden

White House

1600 Washington Ave NW

Washington, DC 20500

Palestinian Orthodox Church in America, His Beatitude Abina Melchisdeck, urges Israelis and Palestinians to seek dialogue after surging violence in Jenin, Napuls, and Jericho.

His Beatitude Abina Melchisdeck today urged Israeli and Palestinian authorities to make greater efforts to seek dialogue following recent deadly bomb attacks in Jerico, Jenin, and Nabulus and clashes in the West Bank.

“Violence kills the future, interrupting the lives of the youngest and weakening the hopes for peace. Let us pray for these young people who died and for their families, especially for their mothers.”

“I hope that Israeli and Palestinian authorities take the search for dialogue to heart in a greater way, building reciprocal trust, without which there will never be a solution for peace in the Holy Land,”

The deaths of dozens of people among them are particularly “terrible and unacceptable,” His Beatitude Abina Melchisdeck said. “Their death is a sign that people do not want to build the future, but to destroy it.”

His Beatitude Abina Melchisdeck of the Palestinian Orthodox Church urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders “to stop the clamour of arms and to walk the path of peace, with the help of the international community.”

He called for “unceasing” prayer for Israelis and Palestinians to “find the path of dialogue and forgiveness, to be patient builders of peace and justice, opening up, step-by-step, to a common hope, to coexistence between brothers.”

His Beatitude Abina Melchisdeck then asked the faithful to pray for the victims of the conflict, “especially the children.”

He urged “the acknowledgment by all of the right of two states to exist and to live in peace and security within internationally recognized borders.”

His Beatitude Abina Melchisdeck also took a stand for the poor, suffering under tensions between Israelis and Palestinians to end.

“Never let the past determine your lives,” he said. “Violence is not overcome by violence. Violence is overcome by peace.

His Beatitudes Abina Melchisdeck calls upon the International Community, President Biden, US Congress, and the European Union to end the Violence between Palestinians and Israel and to build a dialogue based on peace and two State Solution. The need for tolerance and diversity urged everyone to put aside grievances and divisions.

His Beatitude Abina Melchisdeck said Let us ask the Holy Spirit to prepare our hearts to encounter our brothers and sisters so that we may overcome our differences rooted in political thinking, language, culture, and religion.

His Beatitude Abina Melchisdeck also voiced his hope that “peace and prosperity” would prevail for the Palestinian people.

“The psalmists remind us that peace is God’s gift,” he said, a reference to the strife that has long plagued the region. “May peace be God’s gift to the land He chose as his own.

At this hopeful moment, our prayers are with all who share this Land: Israelis and Palestinians, Christians, Jews, and Muslims, that we will very soon see decisive action and courageous steps to bring an end to violence and injustice and accomplish peace and reconciliation in the Land we all call Holy.

Given this day, the 8th of March, in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Three, at our Chancery Office of the Archdiocese of North America and Abroad.

His Beatitude Archbishop Melchisdeck

Metropolitan of North America and Abroad