Finally we se an acknowledgment on the Franciscan website that christians might not be faring too well in arab lands. Rather than an article this comes as a short book review whereby the statistic of middle eastern christians reducing from 20% after WWI to 10% is explaine as, "in the 2000’s, for several reasons: a low birth rate, a division
into several churches (Coptic, Maronite, Armenian, Melkite, Chaldean,
Byzantine, Syriac) and especially Islamic fundamentalism."
I would be very surprised if this figure of 10% holds now after Iraq ethnically cleansing a million christians in the last ten years and with the decimation of christian communities elsewhere. The cleansing of christians are most notable after the Arab Spring/Winter in Egypt and Syria but this is also happening in all other arab and islamic countries. As islamist countries invoke sharia law, violence against christians increases, and their population shrinks. Simple isn't it, but you will search in vain for this simple equation on catholic websites.
Of more interest to catholic institutions however is to keep up their ungrateful yet continuous lambasting of Israel. Christians are under attack everywhere in the middle east by islamists whilst in Israel christians lead free and equal lives. This doesn't impress the leaders of catholics in Israel however. To welcome Obama, various catholic websites have been promoting the euphemistically named, "Justice and Peace commission (ACOHL) 'letter', a diatribe containing all the usual apartheid references such as the 'separation wall' (rather than what is mostly is, a security fence built to keep out waves of arab suicide bombers who killed over a thousand israelis).
Of course this incitement against Israel never mentions the real oppression carried out against christians in palestinian arab controlled areas of Judea and Samaria and Gaza. Confiscations of land, attacks on people. Even the Franciscans finally admitted to an attack on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem recently, whilst trying to avoid reference to who actually did it (coming after an attack on Israel, without close reading of the article, the impression could have been gained that Israeli's may have been responsible). Such a low key response to the third mass attack on a catholic institution by palestinian arabs.
Whilst all these attacks on Israel by catholic leaders will in the long run have little effect on a tiny country that is nevertheless managing to forge an ever brighter future for itself amongst a sea of arab self-inflicted misery, christians will continue to pack their bags and leave arab countries for the West (ot christians in Israel though. They share fully in Israel's success).
I would be very surprised if this figure of 10% holds now after Iraq ethnically cleansing a million christians in the last ten years and with the decimation of christian communities elsewhere. The cleansing of christians are most notable after the Arab Spring/Winter in Egypt and Syria but this is also happening in all other arab and islamic countries. As islamist countries invoke sharia law, violence against christians increases, and their population shrinks. Simple isn't it, but you will search in vain for this simple equation on catholic websites.
Of more interest to catholic institutions however is to keep up their ungrateful yet continuous lambasting of Israel. Christians are under attack everywhere in the middle east by islamists whilst in Israel christians lead free and equal lives. This doesn't impress the leaders of catholics in Israel however. To welcome Obama, various catholic websites have been promoting the euphemistically named, "Justice and Peace commission (ACOHL) 'letter', a diatribe containing all the usual apartheid references such as the 'separation wall' (rather than what is mostly is, a security fence built to keep out waves of arab suicide bombers who killed over a thousand israelis).
We, the heads of the Catholic/Christian Churches in Jerusalem, welcome you wholeheartedly on your forthcoming visit to Israel and Palestine. On this occasion we would like to draw your attention to some major problems that deeply affect the Christian presence in these countries.It is fanciful to expect that the truly decent new pope will have any effect whatsoever on the legions of jew hating catholic clerics who use every opportunity to attack Israel. I've said it before that the tragedy of christians is their leaders. Whilst muslims are killing and ethnically cleansing their bretheren everywhere in muslim lands, christian leaders continue to berate the one island of safety for christians in the middle east.
In this year, the Palestinian people are living for 46 years under Israeli military occupation. The plight of the Palestinian Christians is the same as that of the Palestinian People as a whole, and as a consequence everything that affects the Palestinian people also affects the Christians.
In the occupied Palestinian territories, among the numerous violations of international law by the Israeli authorities we mention only a few: illegal Israeli settlements, a permit regime which restricts severely access to the Holy places for Muslims and Christians alike, expropriation of privately owned Palestinian land for settlement expansion and the construction of the separation barrier (like in the present case of the valley Cremisan), etc.
Of course this incitement against Israel never mentions the real oppression carried out against christians in palestinian arab controlled areas of Judea and Samaria and Gaza. Confiscations of land, attacks on people. Even the Franciscans finally admitted to an attack on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem recently, whilst trying to avoid reference to who actually did it (coming after an attack on Israel, without close reading of the article, the impression could have been gained that Israeli's may have been responsible). Such a low key response to the third mass attack on a catholic institution by palestinian arabs.
Whilst all these attacks on Israel by catholic leaders will in the long run have little effect on a tiny country that is nevertheless managing to forge an ever brighter future for itself amongst a sea of arab self-inflicted misery, christians will continue to pack their bags and leave arab countries for the West (ot christians in Israel though. They share fully in Israel's success).
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