c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) As the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon entered its 13th day Tuesday (July 25), mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders around the world continued to press the combatants _ and the Bush administration _ for an immediate cease-fire.

But as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to beleaguered Beirut on Monday, neither Israel nor the United States appeared willing to begin the bargaining that could bring an end to the hostilities.

Many Christian groups have been pressing for a cease-fire since the crisis began on July 12, when Lebanon-based Hezbollah guerrillas entered Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers.

Most recently, on Monday (July 24), the World Alliance of Reformed Churches called for “an immediate cessation of violent acts by all parties,” and said the first step “is for all acts of violence to end immediately.”

In a July 21 letter to Bush, signed by more than a dozen Roman Catholic and Protestant groups _ including the National Council of Churches _ Churches for Middle East Peace told the president his leadership “and the full weight of the Untied States, acting in concert with the international community, must be applied now to achieve an immediate cease-fire and to launch an intensive diplomatic initiative for the cessation of hostilities.

“This is a necessary first step toward the diplomatic resolution of this crisis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the way toward a comprehensive Middle East peace,” the letter to Bush said.

Churches for Middle East Peace is an umbrella group whose board members include representatives from the Alliance of Baptists, the American Friends Service Committee, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Roman Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men’s Institutes, the Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, the Unitarian Universalist Assocation and the United Church of Christ.

Earlier, U.S. Catholic bishops made a similar argument.

“The tragic and terrifying cycle of provocation and response, of occupation and resistance, has erupted in another spasm of deadly violence,” the chairman of the bishops’ international policy committee said in a July 18 statement. “This cycle must be broken, especially before it continues to expand into a broader and deadlier conflict.

“The violence must stop and a cease-fire must be secured,” said the statement, issued by Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, Fla.

Wenski, chairman of the international policy committee, said it is “long past time” for Palestinian leaders “to reject violence and terror” but he also said the United States must act “to restrain Israel” as the U.S. seeks a comprehensive solution to the crisis.

The Bush administration, however, has rejected calls for cease-fire as premature or “not sustainable.” Instead, it wants Hezbollah removed as a threat to Israel, either by the disarming of the organization, which is both a military force and a political party in Lebanon, or by removing Hezbollah weapons from a buffer zone along the Israeli border, according to wire reports from Beirut.

U.S. officials have also suggested a stronger United Nations peacekeeping force be deployed in the buffer zone to act against Hezbollah.

And as she left Beirut for Jerusalem, Rice indicated she would not press Israel for an end to its offensive aimed at destroying Hezbollah’s infrastructure.

The World Council of Churches echoed a number of critics of the Israeli policy, calling it “disproportionate,” and saying that self-defense is not a license for retaliatory violence.

WCC General Secretary Samuel Kobia said: “In Lebanon, Gaza, the West bank and Israel as well as Iraq, no amount of fear and anger can justify retaliatory targeting of homes, bombing of communities and destruction of a nation’s infrastructure.

“Acts of terror do not give license to wreak terror in return.”

Most Jewish groups in the United States have given the administration strong backing.

On July 20, 40 top American Jewish community leaders gathered in Washington to press Israel’s case with the administration and members of Congress.

“While these are dangerous times for Israel, I came away from our meeting today greatly reassured that the objectives of the American Jewish community in safeguarding Israel’s present and its future resounded in the halls of Congress and with the administration,” said Michael Bohnen, co-chair of the United Jewish Community and Jewish Council for Public Affairs’ Israel Advocacy Initiative.

William Daroff, the UJC’s vice president for public policy, said the group “heard a unanimous bipartisan choir of support for Israel’s right to defend itself” and that there is “no discernible difference” between Republicans and Democrats on the issue.

The Middle East Council of Churches has reported that 750 Lebanese civilians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, though wire reports put the number at closer to 400, including 20 Lebanese soldiers and 12 Hezbollah fighters. Israeli casualties have been reported as 17 civilians and 22 soldiers.

The bombing campaign has also destroyed about $1 billion worth of the Lebanese infrastructure, including the airport, power plants and other utilities, according to reports from Beirut.

In addition, some 600,000 to 750,000 people _ almost 20 percent of Lebanon’s population _ have been displaced by the fighting, creating a looming humanitarian crisis, according to the Lebanese government and Jan Egeland, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator. Egeland said Monday the humanitarian situation in Lebanon “is rapidly deteriorating” and appealed for $150 million in aid and the establishment of “humanitarian corridors that go to the country and within in it to help the people.”

State Department officials said the United States was offering $30 million in humanitarian aid.

DSB/JL END ANDERSON