Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, strongly criticised the U.S.-led Board of Peace, an international body chaired by President Donald Trump to oversee the governance and reconstruction of Gaza. During an event at the Roman parish of San Francesco a Ripa Grande, Pizzaballa was asked by moderator Maria Gianniti, Rome correspondent for the Italian news channel RAI, about his thoughts on the Board of Peace.

“What do I think of the Board of Peace? I think it is a colonialist operation: others deciding for the Palestinians,” Pizzaballa said, according to a report by Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. The cardinal also commented on the invitation extended to the Vatican to join the international body and its $1-billion price tag for a permanent seat on the board.
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Pope Francis has urged U.S. Catholics and people of goodwill to not give in to “narratives” that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to migrants and refugees.

“I recognize your valuable efforts, dear brother bishops of the United States, as you work closely with migrants and refugees, proclaiming Jesus Christ and promoting fundamental human rights,” he said in a letter to the U.S. bishops published by the Vatican Feb. 11.

Pope Francis said he was writing because of “the major crisis that is taking place in the United States” with the start of President Donald J. Trump’s “program of mass deportations.”

In his presidential executive order, “Protecting the American people against invasion,” released Jan. 20, Trump said, “Many of these aliens unlawfully within the United States present significant threats to national security and public safety, committing vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans.”

Pope Francis said, “The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.”
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World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay has described the proposal of US President Trump as “tantamount to proposing full-scale ethnic cleansing and neo-colonization of the homeland of the 2 million Palestinians of Gaza.”

Pillay noted that the proposal violates every applicable principle of international humanitarian and human rights law, flouts decades of efforts by the international community – including by the USA – for a just and sustainable peace for the peoples of the region, and would if implemented constitute multiple international crimes of the most serious kind. “The standing of the United States of America as a responsible member of the international community has been gravely diminished by the proposal itself, not to speak of any actual implementation thereof,” Pillay said. 

In a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 4 February, President Trump said the United States “will take over” the Gaza Strip — possibly with the help of American troops — while the Palestinians who live there should leave. “The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,” said President Trump. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings,” he said, describing his vision for the area as a new “Riviera.”
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