“Only with people, with community” will the Holy Land remain holy, says Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, the region’s Roman Catholic leader. But the number of Christians in Israel and the West Bank is declining at an alarming rate.

Watch more of Kim Lawton’s interviews about the diminishing numbers of Christians in the Holy Land and the complicated—sometimes controversial—efforts to support them.

At a meeting in London’s historic Lambeth Palace, top Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders launched a new effort to support Christians in the Holy Land. "Have these people a future in their ancestral home? We hope and pray that they do,” says Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

Watch more from participants in this week’s conference at London’s Lambeth Palace about the situation of Christians in the Holy Land and how people of faith around the world can help work for Middle East peace.

Christians, Jews, and Muslims have a sacred connection to the city of Jerusalem, says author James Carroll, and “that sacred connection, even though at the present moment it’s a source of contention, is actually a profound source of union.”

Violence in Jerusalem is no surprise, according to writer James Carroll, “because that’s the human story. The great thing about Jerusalem is it’s a place where the human story gets transcended.”

“We are Jews. We don’t have to save the Palestinian heritage,” says Itzik Shweky of the Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites. But an American Jew from Brooklyn says the abandoned Palestinian village of Lifta is important for Jews as well as Arabs.

"Something is changing," says an Israeli sociologist, "and I don't know, but I think it will come here. It's very difficult to believe the whole Arab world will be in riots and Jerusalem and West Bank are going to be quiet."

"Many people are hoping there will be a more pluralistic government that will embrace the Christian Copts," says Qamar-ul Huda, a senior program officer at the US Institute of Peace.

"Criticism of Israel indicates engagement with Israel. American Jews should be worried when their children stop criticizing Israel," says Professor Steven Cohen, a sociologist of American Jewry on the faculty at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.