Vatican City
Reuters
Pope Francis said on Wednesday a two-state solution was needed for Israel and Palestine in order to put an end to wars such as the current one and called for a special status for Jerusalem.
Pope Francis leads the weekly general audience in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on 25th October, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Guglielmo Mangiapane/File photo
POPE SAYS HE WILL ATTEND COP28 CLIMATE SUMMIT IN DUBAI, A FIRST BY A PONTIFF
Pope Francis said on Wednesday that he will attend the COP28 climate conference starting next month in Dubai, the first time a pontiff will be at the UN environmental meeting since they began in 1995.
The Pope told Italy’s state-run RAI television TG1 news in an interview that he expected to be in Dubai from 1st to 3rd December. The conference runs from 30th November to 12th December.
In Dubai, the Pope is expected to drive home his recent appeal for action to curb global warming.
“We are still in time to stop it,” Francis said in the interview, speaking of global warming. “Our future is at stake, the future of our children and our grandchildren. A bit of responsibility is needed.”
Francis, 86, has made protection of the environment one of the hallmarks of his papacy and met last month with COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber.
In a major document on 4th October, Francis appealed to climate change deniers and foot-dragging politicians to have a change of heart, saying they cannot gloss over human causes or deride science while the planet “may be nearing the breaking point”.
The document, known as an Apostolic Exhortation and titled Laudate Deum (Praise God), was a follow-up to Francis’ 2015 encyclical on the environment Laudato Si’ (Praise Be). Laudate Deum was prompted by recent extreme weather events and mentioned the challenges facing COP28 several times.
Failure in Dubai, Francis said in the document, “will be a great disappointment and jeopardize whatever good has been achieved thus far”.
Heads of state usually attend only the opening sessions of the conferences and make keynote addresses. US President Joe Biden spoke at the start of the last two meetings at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, last year and Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021. Such conferences are also occasions for bilateral meetings
In an interview with Italian state television RAI’s TG1 news channel, Francis also said he hoped a regional escalation could be avoided in the conflict that began when Hamas militants entered Israel, killing some 1,400 Israelis, mainly civilians, and taking about 230 hostages.
“[Those are] two peoples who have to live together. With that wise solution, two states. The Oslo accords, two well-defined states and Jerusalem with a special status,” Francis said in an interview with Italy’s RAI broadcaster.
In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat shook hands on the Oslo Accords establishing limited Palestinian autonomy.
US President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat took part in the Camp David summit in 2000, but failed to reach a final peace deal.
Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in 1967 and in 1980 declared the entire city its “united and eternal capital”. Palestinians see the eastern part of the city as the capital of an eventual future state.
Israel has consistently rejected suggestions that the city, which is sacred to Christians, Muslims and Jews, could have a special, or international, status.
“The war in the Holy Land frightens me,” Francis said. “How will these people end this story?”
An escalation, he said, “would mean the end of so many things and so many lives”.
Francis, who has called for humanitarian corridors to help Gazans and a ceasefire, said he speaks by telephone every day to priests and nuns running a parish in Gaza that was sheltering about 560 people, mostly Christians but also some Muslims.
“For now, thank God, Israeli forces are respecting that parish,” he said.
He also said that he was concerned about the rise in anti-Semitism, adding that much of it still “remains hidden”.
The war between Israel and Hamas, he said, should not make people forget other conflicts, including in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen and Myanmar.
– Additional reporting by KEITH WIER
