Declarations

 

Jerusalem Peace Resolution

September 22, 2003

This is the Resolution that was signed for 400 Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders after they marched from the Wailing Wall to the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock to the Mount of Olives, all significant holy sites of the three Abrahamic Faiths.

We religious leaders, faithful Jews, Christians, Muslims, and believers from all religious traditions, are assembled in the Holy City of Jerusalem on this 22nd day of September 2003, for the sake of G-d and the peace of the peoples of Israel and Palestine. We are 120 Christian ministers, Muslims and Jews from America, 120 rabbis and Jewish leaders from Israel, and 120 Muslim and Christian leaders from the Holy Land. We stand as one, pilgrims inspired by G-d. We hereby join together with one heart and voice:

1. We declare that G-d is one, and the founders of our religions -- Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Prophet Mohammed, and all religious founders -- are one.

2. We affirm that all people on Earth are brothers and sisters, one family under G-d.

3. We call on all religious leaders to lift up the will of G-d above the parochial interests of their particular faith, nationality or race. Religions have the responsibility to unite as one for the sake of peace.

4. We affirm that G-d instructs every single person to live in peace with all people from all faiths. We find this teaching in the Torah, the New Testament, the Qur’an, and all Holy Scriptures.

5. In the spirit of understanding, reconciliation and harmony, we truly repent and beg forgiveness from G-d and from one another for the dark parts of our past, for having sometimes fallen into ways abhorrent to G-d, persecuting and killing others. We cast no blame on others. Instead we seek to follow a new way, G-d’s way of peace, from this day forward.

6. We respect and honor all the holy places of Jerusalem, and the right and responsibility of each religion to administer its patrimony for the benefit of all peoples and for the sanctity of the entire Holy Land.

7. We declare that politics in isolation from spiritual leadership cannot find solutions to conflicts in the region. Violence cannot lead to peace.

8. We declare that governments and political and civic leaders need the guidance and enlightenment of religious leaders, united as one in their commitment to peace. Religious leaders, for their part, need permanent forums from which to guide and enlighten political and civic institutions. Therefore we call for the establishment of religious peace councils at all levels, from local governments to the United Nations.

9. We call upon political and civic leaders to cooperate with these peace councils, and to govern for the sake of reconciliation, peace, and justice.

10. We affirm that the Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon was called by God for the sake of this ideal, and has worked tirelessly, in the spiritual and the physical worlds, to establish the conditions for its realization at this time.

On this day, September 22, 2003, in Jerusalem, we hear God’s desperate cry that we stop killing one another and begin to treat one another, each and every one as God’s beloved. The voices of our slain children, both Israeli and Palestinian, cry out from the ground. It is our responsibility as religious leaders to see that this bloodshed does not continue. Moreover, we believe that the peace of Jerusalem will become a model of peace for the peoples of the world.

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