{"id":2750,"date":"2015-06-27T14:59:03","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T14:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=2750"},"modified":"2015-06-28T10:10:03","modified_gmt":"2015-06-28T10:10:03","slug":"vatican-formally-recognizes-palestinian-state-israel-angered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/vatican-formally-recognizes-palestinian-state-israel-angered\/","title":{"rendered":"Vatican formally recognizes Palestinian state, Israel angered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vatican signs first treaty with ‘State of Palestine,’ backs two-state solution<\/strong><\/p>\n

VATICAN CITY \u2014 The Vatican on Friday signed a treaty with the \u201cstate of\u00a0Palestine<\/a><\/span>,\u201d a development that the church hopes will lead to improved relations between Israel<\/a><\/span> and the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

The accord, the result of 15 years of negotiations, covers \u201cessential aspects of the life and activity of the Catholic Church in the State of Palestine,\u201d the Vatican said in a statement<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

In essence, it is a formal declaration of the Holy See\u2019s support for the creation of a Palestinian state and the peace process with Israel. \u201c[I]t is my hope that the present agreement may, in some way, be a stimulus to bringing a definitive end to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to cause suffering for both Parties,\u201d wrote Vatican foreign minister Archbishop Paul Gallagher.<\/p>\n

The Vatican\u2019s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, said the agreement could be a \u201cstimulus to bringing a definitive end to the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to cause suffering for both parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also called for the two countries to take \u201ccourageous decisions\u201d so that the \u201cmuch desired two-state solution may become a reality as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Vatican said last month that it would sign the agreement, which Archbishop Gallagher described as offering \u201ca good example of dialogue and cooperation\u201d to other countries in the Middle East, where some Christians have suffered persecution.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Gallagher and Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki of the\u00a0Palestinian Authority<\/a><\/span> signed the treaty at a ceremony in the Vatican.<\/p>\n

\"Palestinian<\/a>

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki, standing, at a treaty-signing ceremony at the Vatican on Friday. Photo credit: L’Ossservatore Romano via AP<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The Israeli Foreign Ministry expressed its disappointment on Friday, calling the signing of a treaty \u201ca hasty step\u201d that hurt the prospects of peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis hasty step damages the prospects for advancing a peace agreement, and harms the international effort to convince the Palestinian Authority to return to direct negotiations with Israel,\u201d said<\/a><\/span> Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon.<\/p>\n

The Israeli government surely knew this was coming. Back in May when the Vatican first signaled a shifting Palestine policy, commentators and pro-Israel writers warned that such decisions would, in fact make the odds of peace less likely. \u201cBy granting the Palestinians official recognition without first requiring them to make peace with Israel, Pope Francis and the church have only made it less likely that this will ever happen,\u201d Jonathan Tobin\u00a0wrote<\/a><\/span> for Commentary<\/i> magazine on May 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vatican signs first treaty with ‘State of Palestine,’ backs two-state solution VATICAN CITY \u2014 The Vatican on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,44,1],"tags":[75,204,26,356,27,243],"class_list":["post-2750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-middle-east","category-news","tag-conflict","tag-crisis","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-palestine","tag-vatican"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Vatican-Palestinians.jpg?fit=635%2C341&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-Im","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2754,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions\/2754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}