Pizzaballa says that the current negotiations represent the "last chance" for peace between Israel and Hamas.

Speaking at the Rimini Meeting in Italy, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem described the situation as a "fateful moment", calling for an immediate ceasefire to prevent the crisis from deteriorating further.

The war, which began on 7 October following a Hamas attack on Israel, has led to unprecedented suffering for both Israeli and Palestinian populations.

Pizzaballa highlighted both sides' deepening hatred, resentment and mistrust, stressing the urgent need for political and religious leadership to guide the region out of its current turmoil.

"We cannot talk about peace at this moment" the Patriarch stated, reflecting on the persistent violence. He acknowledged that while a path to peace exists, institutional leaders lack the resolve to pursue it.

"War will end" he added. "I hope that the negotiations will resolve some problems: I have my doubts, but this is the last train."

Anti-semitism condemned

The Latin Patriarch noted the internal strains within the Catholic Church, with some members serving as soldiers in the Israeli army. In contrast, others endure the hardships of living under bombardment in Gaza.

Amidst this, the small Christian community in the Holy Land continues to face significant challenges. Despite their political insignificance, Pizzaballa emphasised that the mere presence of Christians in the region is symbolically important.

The Patriarch also condemned the resurgence of anti-Semitism, calling it a "drama" and a sign of "deep decadence of civilisation". He stressed the responsibility of religious leaders to oppose ideologies that deny others the right to exist.

Push for diplomatic solutions

Meanwhile US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been actively engaged in Middle East negotiations, urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire.

Blinken highlighted the importance of humanitarian aid reaching affected areas and called for the protection of civilians. His involvement underscores the Biden administration's push for diplomatic solutions amid escalating violence.

Blinken also stressed that any ceasefire must include provisions for the safe release of hostages held by Hamas. His diplomatic efforts are seen as crucial in preventing further deterioration of the conflict and fostering a sustainable peace in the region.

Sources

Vatican News

Katholisch

The Guardian

CathNews New Zealand

He was a tyrant, they said, who, after 14 years of marriage, wouldn't let their sister, Rana, 31, have her own mobile phone. He isolated her from friends and family, guarding her jealously.

Although Diyaa and Rana were both from Qaraqosh, the largest Christian city in Iraq, they didn't know each other before their families arranged their marriage. It hadn't gone especially well.

Rana was childless, and according to the brothers, Diyaa was cheap. The house he rented was dilapidated, not fit for their sister to live in.

Qaraqosh is on the Nineveh Plain, a 1,500-square-mile plot of contested land that lies between Iraq's Kurdish north and its Arab south.

Until last summer, this was a flourishing city of 50,000, in Iraq's breadbasket. Wheat fields and chicken and cattle farms surrounded a town filled with coffee shops, bars, barbers, gyms and other trappings of modern life.

Then, last June, ISIS took Mosul, less than 20 miles west. The militants painted a red Arabic ‘‘n,'' for Nasrane, a slur, on Christian homes.

They took over the municipal water supply, which feeds much of the Nineveh Plain.

Many residents who managed to escape fled to Qaraqosh, bringing with them tales of summary executions and mass beheadings.

The people of Qaraqosh feared that ISIS would continue to extend the group's self-styled caliphate, which now stretches from Turkey's border with Syria to south of Fallujah in Iraq, an area roughly the size of Indiana.

In the weeks before advancing on Qaraqosh, ISIS cut the city's water. As the wells dried up, some left and others talked about where they might go.

In July, reports that ISIS was about to take Qaraqosh sent thousands fleeing, but ISIS didn't arrive, and within a couple of days, most people returned. Diyaa refused to leave. He was sure ISIS wouldn't take the town. Continue reading

Sources

• Eliza Griswold is the author of ‘‘The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam.'' The article above is from The New York Times.
• Image: Middle East Eye

But sometimes a footnote can help illuminate a tragedy's unhappy whole.

For decades, the Middle East's increasingly beleaguered Christian communities have suffered from a fatal invisibility in the Western world.

And their plight has been particularly invisible in the United States, which as a majority-Christian superpower might have been expected to provide particular support.

There are three reasons for this invisibility.

The political left in the West associates Christian faith with dead white male imperialism and does not come naturally to the recognition that Christianity is now the globe's most persecuted religion.

And in the Middle East the Israel-Palestine question, with its colonial overtones, has been the left's great obsession, whereas the less ideologically convenient plight of Christians under Islamic rule is often left untouched.

To America's strategic class, meanwhile, the Middle East's Christians simply don't have the kind of influence required to matter.

A minority like the Kurds, geographically concentrated and well-armed, can be a player in the great game, a potential United States ally.

But except in Lebanon, the region's Christians are too scattered and impotent to offer much quid for the superpower's quo.

So whether we're pursuing stability by backing the anti-Christian Saudis or pursuing transformation by toppling Saddam Hussein (and unleashing the furies on Iraq's religious minorities), our policy makers have rarely given Christian interests any kind of due.

Then, finally, there is the American right, where one would expect those interests to find a greater hearing.

But the ancient churches of the Middle East (Eastern Orthodox, Chaldean, Maronites, Copt, Assyrian) are theologically and culturally alien to many American Catholics and evangelicals.

And the great cause of many conservative Christians in the United States is the state of Israel, toward which many Arab Christians harbor feelings that range from the complicated to the hostile. Continue reading

Source

• Ross Douthat in The New York Times

Ross Douthat joined The New York Times as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009.