The Justice and Peace Commission of the Latin-rite Catholic Patriarchate of Jerusalem has issued a statement placing the responsibility for violence in the Holy Land squarely on the Israel.

The Justice and Peace Commission explicitly rejects the argument that violence is spawned by “Palestinian, Arab or Islamic ideologies that reject Israel, Israelis and even Jews.” Instead the statement insists that “the root cause and primary context of the violence is the occupation of Palestine, an occupation that has gone on for fifty-five years.”

The statement says that the Commission was “stunned” by the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, an Al-Jazeera correspondent, by Israeli troops on May 11.