RAMALLAH: The chief Palestinian negotiator on Sunday welcomed a call from Catholic bishops for the international community to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
Saeb Erakat said Christians were an "integral part of the Palestinian people" and blamed Israel for their emigration from the Holy Land, which he added "gravely damages… the prospects of our future state."
"We join the synod in their call to the international community to uphold the universal values of freedom, dignity and justice," he said in a statement.
"The international community must uphold its moral and legal responsibility to put a speedy end to the illegal Israeli occupation."
His remarks came after the bishops and patriarchs of the region’s Catholic churches called on the international community to take "the necessary legal steps to put an end to the occupation of the different Arab territories."
"The Palestinian people will thus have an independent and sovereign homeland where they can live with dignity and security" alongside a secure Israel, said a final statement issued after a two-week synod chaired by Pope Benedict XVI.
The Palestinians welcomed the synod’s reference to UN resolutions calling for Israel to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967.
"This is a clear message to the government of Israel that it may not claim that Jerusalem is an exclusively Israeli city," Erakat said, referring to Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel seized in 1967 and annexed in a move not recognized by the international community.
Israel views all of Jerusalem as its "eternal, undivided" capital, and the city’s fate has been one of the most intractable disputes in the peace process.
The United States convinced the two sides to renew peace negotiations in early September but the talks ground to a halt later that month when a 10-month partial Israeli moratorium on settlements expired.
