아시아 10/05/11 KOREA - Holy Land pilgrims urged to help Palestinians

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KOREA - Holy Land pilgrims urged to help Palestinians

Published Date: May 17, 2010

Catholic pilgrims in Cairo while on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2007

SEOUL (UCAN) — Pilgrims to the Holy Land should try to help the Palestinian people, a Protestant group says.

“We should be looking more at ‘pilgrimages for peace,’” the Alternative Pilgrimage group said.

“We should go beyond what we consider a normal pilgrimage to Israel — which doesn’t care for human rights or the economic situation of the Palestinian people. Currently we only go there to satisfy our sentimental religious feelings.”

The group held the meeting titled Recovering Peace in Palestine at the Korea YMCA in Seoul on May 11.

“We may just be forgetting the Lord’s will if we just look around Bethlehem with emotional, religious feelings alone,” one of the speakers, Reverend Ku Kyo-hyong, said. “It is a place where Israel has built a wall, a place where the military keeps a strict watch.

“We should not just be celebrating 2,000 years of history through pilgrimages. Rather, we should be asking if such pilgrimages contribute to peace in the land, or whether, they help support injustices against Palestinian people,” said Reverend Ku, secretary-general of Bible Korea.

Bible Korea is an ecumenical NGO working mainly to encourage youths to show concern for and tackle social issues.

Seo Jung-ki, another speaker, said 2.7 million people visited Israel in 2008.

The educational coordinator of the Korea Anabaptist Center added, “The number of Korean visitors to Israel was the highest from Asia and sixth in the world, thereby contributing a significant amount of tourism revenue toward Israel’s coffers. But little toward peace in the land.”

According to Alternative Pilgrimage, it plans to introduce pilgrimages which will see pilgrims hiring Palestinian guides, buying Palestinian products, and using Palestinian accommodation to help boost their economy.

The Alternative Pilgrimage is composed of six Protestant organizations, including the Korea YMCA. Since it was launched in November 2009, it has organized meetings in an effort to change the focus of pilgrimages to ones that promote peace and boost economic assistance to Palestinian territories and its people.