Christian Leaders play anti-Israel political games in Jerusalem

 

The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem (Christian Leaders) request for an urgent dialogue with “Israel, Palestine and Jordan” on protecting the Christian community in Jerusalem and the integrity of the Christian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem – is an anti-Israel political ploy that should be rejected by Israel.

The requested dialogue is clearly against Israel’s national interest for the following reasons: 

• The Christian Leaders acknowledged that threats to Christians were not limited to Jerusalem only - but extended to Christians throughout the Holy Land:
  
  

  ”Throughout the Holy Land Christians have become the target of frequent and sustained attacks by fringe radical groups. Since 2012 there have been countless incidents of physical and verbal assaults against priests and other clergy, attacks on Christian churches, with holy sites regularly vandalized and desecrated, and ongoing intimidation of local Christians who simply seek to worship freely and go about their daily lives. These tactics are being used by such radical groups in a systematic attempt to drive the Christian community out of Jerusalem and other parts of the Holy Land.”

• Inviting “Palestine and Jordan” to participate in a dialogue solely on Jerusalem was a blatant attempt by these Christian Leaders to undermine Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem by replacing Israel as the sole Authority responsible for ensuring the security and safety of the Christian community in Jerusalem.

• Israel’s Christian community actually grew by 1.4 percent in 2020 and now numbers some 182,000 people

Certainly Israel should meet with these Christian Leaders to address and allay their concerns in relation to threats to the Christian community in Jerusalem. 

However these same Christian Leaders have not called for dialogues with “Palestine” and Jordan to deal with similar threats affecting their respective Christian communities. Failure to do so makes a mockery of these Christian Leaders expressed concerns for Christians living outside Jerusalem.

The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem comprise:

His Beatitude Theophilos III
Patriarch of Jerusalem
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem

His Beatitude Patriarch Fuad Twal
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem
Latin Patriarchate

His Beatitude Patriarch Nourhan Manougian
Armenian Patriarch
Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem

His Grace Archbishop Dr Anba Abraham
Coptic Orthodox Archbishop
Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem & the Near East

Very Rev. Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa
Custos of the Holy Land
Custody of the Holy Land

Bishop Munib A. Yunnan
Lutheran Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land

Bishop Suheil Dawani
Archbishop
Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East

His Grace Archbishop Abba Kwestos
Ethiopian Orthodox Archbishop
Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarchate

His Grace Archbishop Mar Swerios Malki Murad
Syrian Orthodox Archbishop
Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate

Archbishop Joseph – Jules Zerey
General Patriarchal Vicar in Jerusalem
Greek Melkite Catholic Church

His Eminence Msgr. George Chihan
Patriarchal Administrator
Maronite Archdiocese of Haifa and the Holy Land

His Grace Bishop Gregor Peter Malki
Syrian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate
Syrian Catholic Church

His Excellency Monsenieur Joseph Kallekelian
Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate
Armenian Catholic Church

These venerable clergymen should surely be also focusing on threats to Christians and Christian property not only in the Holy Land - but throughout the Middle East. Yet these communities did not rate a mention in their statement (see image below).

Threats to Christians and Christian properties are also increasing in Europe and America.

All threats against Christians – wherever occurring - must be condemned and ended.

Playing anti-Israel political games in Jerusalem at the expense of safeguarding their communities’ security and safety there by working closely with Israel is a foolhardy decision by these Christian Leaders and also runs the risk of fuelling Christian anti-Jewish hatred in Jerusalem.

These Christian Leaders are on a hiding to nothing for their highly irresponsible action.

Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.

Beating The BDS Jew-haters

[Published 11 June 2015]


Recently, a group of 52 Harvard students - of all backgrounds and faiths - visited Israel for 10 days during the Harvard Israel Trek 2015

Sometimes the impact of such a trip cannot be expressed in prose - but can only be captured in poetry.

What follows is a poem - posted on the Harvard trek blog by Oliver Marjot - a British PhD candidate studying Medieval Latin at Harvard - that reflects his transformative experience.

Oliver expected that the Trek would confirm his reasonable European certainty of Israel’s arrogant oppression. That’s not quite the way things turned out.

Oliver’s Poem eloquently answers those who continue their vicious attempts to denigrate and delegitimize Israel by exhorting the boycott and isolation of Israel, its people, products, commercial enterprises, medical breakthroughs, academics and artists:

“To my newfound Love,

I came to you, Israel, wanting to hate you. To be confirmed in my reasonable European certainty of your arrogant oppression, lounging along the mediterranean coast, facing West in your vast carelessness and American wealth. I wanted to appreciate your history, but tut over the arrogant folly of your present. I wanted to cross my arms smugly, and shake my head over you, and then leave you to fight your unjust wars.

I wanted to take from you. To steal away some spiritual satisfaction, and sigh and pray, and shake my head over your spiritual folly as well. To see the sad spectacle of the Western wall, and bitterly laugh at your backward-looking notion that God sits high on Moriah Mount, distant and approachable. I wanted to smirk in my Protestant confidence, knowing that God is with me, even if you refuse to turn to him, standing instead starting blankly at a wall of cold stone, pushing scribbled slips of paper into the Holy mountain, not daring to raise your face, and ask with words.

I wanted to see your sights, to bask in your sun, to tramp my feet over your soil, to swim in your seas, to eat the fruit of your fields. I wanted to be amazed, to be interested, to be engaged. I wanted.

I didn’t realise you were broken as well as wealthy, fragile as well as strong. I didn’t realise that you suffer from a thousand voices clamouring in your head, and that some of those voices care about justice and democracy, and that some of them love their neighbours. I didn’t realise that a thousand enemies press on your borders, hoarding instruments of death, as chaos and darkness and madness consume the world every way you look. I didn’t realise that you care about your past - that some of those voices of yours treasure the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob every bit as much as I do. I didn’t realise. Nobody told me. Or maybe they did, and I refused to listen

I didn’t expect to fall in love with you. Your beauty caught me like a hook. Seeing you, I see what Solomon saw when he wrote about his Beloved. I see that homeland that Jesus loved. The lush green of your Galilee, the stark strength of your desert, the bare whiteness of your Judean hills. I love the Hebrew you speak, the churches your wear like flowers in your hair, the proud golden dome that crowns your head. I love the strength of your soldiers, the warmth of your sun, the joy of your songs, the peace of your kibbutzim.

This cold Boston air is a mockery of your spring warmth, and in this vast sprawl of concrete and red brick it’s no exaggeration to say that I yearn for your troubled horizons, your ancient hills. I’m not ashamed to say it. I love you.

I’m sorry I had to leave you. I know I have no right to love you. What’s ten days compared to a year, a childhood, a lifetime? Or the five-thousand year lifetime of a people? I know that you won’t remember me, that you probably barely even registered my short time with you. I’m sure my love means nothing to you amid the whispers of a million other lovers, and you’re so very far away.

But I will come back to you. I will. I’ll leave these busy, harried, Western shores, and come to you, to the East. I’ll learn your Hebrew, I’ll share your troubles, I’ll breath your air, I’ll walk in your fields again.

I will. I will.

Until then, Israel, mon amour, my love. Until then, shalom.”

The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) started in 2005 by “Palestinian Civil Society” falsely claims that Israel is persistently violating international law — whilst that Society’s Government — the Palestine Liberation Organisation — continues to reject substantive segments of international law formulated over the last 95 years legalizing Jewish self-determination:

”The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”

The European Union — threatening to join these racist-inspired, Jew-hating BDS campaigners — is being well and truly conned.

Think again Europe. A Harvard student has — so should you.