Annunciation basilica under "permanent siege"? (Israel).

Nazareth--Reports from the Vatican news agency Fides confirm that work is proceeding on the construction of a mosque in front of the Basilica of the Annunciation here. Nazareth, which has a mixed population of Christians and Muslims, is located in Israeli territory. Permission to build the mosque was provisionally granted by the Israeli Home Ministry, but construction had been stalled due to objections from the Christian community, supported by such Muslim leaders as Yasser Arafat and prominent Egyptian Iman Hussein Tantawi.

Despite Israeli claims to have blocked construction, work on the mosque foundations is proceeding by night. Yet the regular Muslim community of Nazareth does not require this mosque; it is the project of a local fundamentalist group which at Easter 1999 attacked pilgrims at the basilica. They have not yet received final building permits from the government.

Fr. Jaeger of the Custody of the Holy Land states, "We are not in conflict with the Muslims; the Israeli government is to blame." He suspects it is a "cynical attempt to exploit the present international situation, as well as the dramatic conditions elsewhere in the Holy Land."

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with Judaism, who was in Israel November 21, 2001, to visit with Israeli Foreign Minister, Moshe Katsau, has stated that the new mosque "might generate problems in the state of Israel" (Zenit, Nov. 21/01). Leaders of various Christian churches have issued a complaint to the Israeli government through the Vatican agency Fides that, with the construction of the controversial mosque in Nazareth, Israel is no longer a credible guarantor of the Holy Places in the Holy Land.