ECI

As the capital city of Israel is facing yet another attempt to divide it, the European Coalition for Israel, together with a network of respected international prayer leaders, is calling for prayer for a united Jerusalem.

On June 1, a campaign to advocate for a united Jerusalem and a negotiated, just and lasting peace agreement in the Middle East was launched in the European Parliament in Brussels. On June 7, which also marked Jerusalem Day according to the Gregorian calendar, a call for Prayer was issued on a global level.

The prayer coalition is asking believers not only to pray for a united Jerusalem, but also for their own national governments. Governments will soon have to vote on the issue of a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state at the upcoming United Nation General Assembly in New York, starting on Sept. 19. The campaign concludes that a unilateral declaration would in fact divide Jerusalem and is illegal according to international law.

While the government of Israel was one of the first countries to offer help to Japan after the massive tsunami which hit the Japanese coastland on Friday, a Palestinian terrorist brutally slaughtered a Jewish family of five in the Israeli town of Itamar, the youngest of whom was a baby less than a year old.

The two main news items of the weekend contradict one another in that the Israeli government is reaching out to save lives, while its adversaries take lives by murdering innocent children in their sleep.

The European Union (EU) has failed to promote democratic reforms among its immediate neighbours around the Mediterranean Sea, writes the European Coalition for Israel (ECI) in a statement on Monday. The following is a statement from the ECI:

Instead of supporting the opposition movements, which are now reshaping the region, it has kept old despots in power by providing them with important European business opportunities and by legitimizing their power base. Now the EU needs to seriously reconsider its neighborhood policy in order to help support the democratization of the Mediterranean region.