Oddly enough, the main Christian churches over the last number of years have developed
what might be called a "left-wing foreign policy"
- anti-America, anti-Britain, anti-Israel,
and generally sympathetic to Arab and Muslim causes
and foreign tyranny.
The Christian churches are clearly going to be of no help in
the current war
to protect (among other things) their world too.
Roland Shirk, December 14, 2010, asks why the churches have become left-wing on many issues (the economy, foreign policy, Islam) since the late 20th century.
"It would take not a single blog post but a very long essay indeed to analyze why Christian churches and leaders now embrace irresponsible leftist politics that they never would have in previous decades - as if the text of the Bible or the Church Fathers had suddenly morphed, yielding radically different doctrines than prevailed for some 20 Christian centuries."
Of course, I'm not a fan of their previous doctrines either!
But it is interesting how they have changed.
Peter Mullen
is good to read if you can't stand Rowan Williams.
Online game - Bash the Bishop!
(With a sponge)
"a game to relieve you of your Sharia stress"
From The Sun.
They
may be a dumbed-down tabloid,
but they sure know what we all feel like doing
every time we see that idiot
Rowan Williams.
Rowan Williams
is one of those hopeless anti-Americans
from whom we can expect no serious moral guidance.
The moral failure of Rowan Williams
- He urges America to recognise that terrorists can
"have serious moral goals".
He is talking, as he says himself, about al-Qa'eda,
whose goals are the establishment of Islamofascist rule
and the extermination of unbelievers.
He clearly regards calling al-Qa'eda "evil"
and declaring total war against them
as "simplistic".
He described the liberation of Iraq as
"immoral".
I despair at the 9/11 naivety of Rowan Williams
by Rev. Peter Mullen, September 07, 2004
- "This is a high-grade sample of the drivel we have heard these past three years
from those in the West who despise the civilisation which is their inheritance.
Of course the suicide bombers had "other options""
Moral confusion at Canterbury
- Rowan Williams talks about irrelevant issues like
Guantanamo Bay, yet ignores a far bigger issue:
".. the systematic
worldwide Islamist persecution of Christians.
In country after country, radical Islamists are murdering Christians and attacking their churches.
...
In the face of such global terror against its own flock, the Church remains quite astoundingly mute. Through such craven
silence, it unforgiveably betrays its own followers.
But it also effectively abandons others - including moderate Muslims,
Jews, Hindus and secularists -
who are similarly the explicit targets of this Islamist fascism."
See follow-up.
On his knees before terror
- Melanie Phillips on Rowan Williams' sermon
on the 3rd anniversary of 9/11.
"You would never think, from the Archbishop's remarks, that he was the leader of a Christian world
that is under murderous attack in
Nigeria, Sudan, Pakistan and many other countries
by an Islamic jihad that clearly states it intends to wipe out or subjugate Christianity
throughout the lands of the medieval Caliphate. Not a word of this escaped the Archbishop's lips.
Instead - unbelievably - he cast Christianity as the villain of the piece"
Instead of telling them some hard truths about the
oppression, persecution and killing of Christians
in Muslim lands,
he praises all their prejudices,
and gives out endlessly about America, Israel and the West.
"His voice is gentle"
- as if that matters a damn when what he says is so disgusting.
He talks about persecuted Christians in Iraq
- and blames "the West" rather than Islamism!
He talks about persecuted Christians in Palestine
- and blames "the wall" rather than Islamism!
He talks about persecuted Christians in Pakistan
- and he is "surprised" by how Muslims there
perceive the tiny Christian minority
as "so deeply threatening".
And yet he doesn't condemn them!
Instead of attacking Islamist religious intolerance,
and oppressive religious and tribal society in the third world,
he attacks western free society:
"There is something about western modernity which really does
eat away at the soul."
Maybe I shouldn't expect any better from him.
He is a religious nut after all.
"I ask him if America has lost the moral high ground since September 11th
and his answer is simple: 'Yes.' "
As if he knows anything about morality.
He has less understanding of the nature of good and evil
than almost anyone in the UK public domain.
What a useless, useless man.
Victor Davis Hanson
responds to this idiot.
"Williams should read a little about British military campaigns in India, and then count the corpses.
...
I don't recall the British, after their second year in India, fostering nation-wide elections."
Obviously, I have no interest in whether Williams preaches the gospel or not,
but I sympathise with the Christian
Mike Long:
"Rowan Williams' fashionably blinkered view of the world reveals him to be far more interested in [an] intellectual fashion show than in preaching the Gospel".
Damian Thompson mocks him:
"So the Archbishop of Canterbury has condemned American imperialism and "Zionists" in a Muslim magazine. That's very brave of you, Rowan! Nothing like confronting your audience with a few uncomfortable truths, eh?"
Damian Thompson:
"One wonders what the millions of Christians persecuted by Islamist terrorists and governments will make of the Archbishop of Canterbury's interview with a Muslim lifestyle magazine. If they are looking for a condemnation of Islamic violence, they will be disappointed."
Christian
David Fischler
does a nice detailed reply to Williams' idiotic world view:
On Williams' bizarre claim that nothing has been done to rebuild Iraq:
"has Rowan Williams been in a coma for the last several years, and just completely unaware of these efforts? Or is he playing the utopian game of claiming that US and UK efforts have been worthless because they didn't turn Iraq into paradise overnight and with no cost?"
On Williams' snide remarks about "Christian Zionism"
being behind the support for Israel:
"In the Archbishop's world, there's apparently no room for those who support Israel because 1) it's a Western democracy; 2) it's a staunch ally of the US and UK; 3) it's a haven of safety for people whom many nations have oppressed and expelled, including Britain; 4) it's home to the freest Arab population in the Middle East; 5) it's been the object of multiple invasions and is the object of continuing attacks; 6) insert your favorite reason."
The brave Soviet dissident
Natan Sharansky
on people like Rowan Williams - people who are educated and sophisticated
but have no moral compass.
He contrasts them with people like
Ronald Reagan,
who brilliantly called the Soviet Empire "evil".
"Reagan may have confused names and dates, but his moral compass was always good.
Today's leaders, in contrast, may know their facts and figures, but are often woefully
confused about what should be the simplest distinctions between freedom and tyranny,
democrats and terrorists."
He shows no understanding of Mao's China:
"The culture of total state provision collapsed during and after the Cultural Revolution; under Deng Xiaoping, the new tolerance of capitalist enterprise fostered a driven and selfish climate".
Um, the "culture of total state provision" killed
maybe 65 million people.
The state destroyed the economy and the food supply,
and there was apocalyptic, every-man-for-himself,
famine in which the starving Chinese resorted to cannibalism.
In fact, the "culture of total state provision"
caused the greatest famine in the history of the world (1958-61).
Is that of no importance?
How many died of starvation under the post-1978 "selfish" capitalism
that this rich and foolish Westerner sneers at?
Rowan Williams, 14 May 2008,
says that "before the Cultural Revolution" (i.e. before 1966),
Mao's China was
"essentially something which guaranteed everyone's welfare".
Rowan Williams' partisan attack on the Tories:
Rowan Williams, June 2011,
guest edits
the far left magazine, the
New Statesman,
and launches a
furious front-page attack
on the Tory-led coalition government.
"We are being committed to radical, long-term policies for which no one voted."
Why doesn't he stick to religion?
Why does he go on about politics?
Why does he only represent leftie Christians?
Damian Thompson, 8 June 2011:
"The Archbishop of Canterbury’s highly politicised and biased criticisms of the Coalition lessen the dignity of his office."
Prime Minister Cameron responds, Dec 2011. He accuses the Archbishop of failing to
promote Christianity, failing to distinguish right from wrong,
getting up to his neck in partisan politics,
and only representing leftie Christians.
Cameron really nails the clerical buffoon.
Rowan Williams' statements on the 2011 riots:
You don't expect serious moral guidance on the riots from the Archbishop of Canterbury. And you won't get it.
Rowan Williams, 5 Dec 2011:
"Too many of these young people assume they are not going to have any ordinary, human, respectful relationships with adults – especially those in authority, the police above all."
As Peter Mullen replies:
"So the rioters don’t like the police much? Wow! That does come as a revelation. Violent lawbreakers resent the forces of law and order – whatever next? There is more of this sort of wisdom".
But perhaps I will spare you.
Read his nonsense for yourself.
New Year's message, Jan 2012.
Instead of condemning the wicked, lazy, greedy, violent, selfish rioters, he said:
"The youngsters out on the streets ... are a minority of their generation – the minority whose way of dealing with their frustrations was by way of random destructiveness and irritability.
...
We have to ask, what kind of society is it that lets down so many of its young people? That doesn’t provide enough good role models and drives youngsters further into unhappiness and anxiety by only showing them suspicion and negativity."
Yes, people, it is society's fault.
Sickening. No moral compass at all.
He argues that sharia law should be introduced for British Muslims.
The best response to Britain's Greatest Idiot is from
the Muslim Tory
Baroness Warsi:
"All British citizens must be subject to British laws developed through Parliament and the courts."
Exactly.
No cleric, of any religion,
can be given any authority to enforce a decision on a British citizen.
(Anyone who wants to voluntarily follow some cleric is of course free to do so.)
Melanie Phillips
on how this buffoon is an enemy, not a friend, of British Muslims:
"his proposal would also mean that Britain would simply abandon its female Muslim citizens whose parlous position in respect of forced marriages, honour killings and all the other horrors that follow from their second-class religious status would be institutionalised by giving sharia law official recognition."
Lovely comment:
"Archbishop Rowan, Sir, Excellency, might you possibly consider giving up Islam for Lent?
And, converting to Christianity?"
Melanie Phillips:
"Dr Williams is the head of a church whose members are being persecuted, harassed, attacked, forcibly converted and murdered in large numbers at the hands of sharia law across Africa and Asia. He has, to my knowledge, said nothing at all about this. Instead, he is now proposing that sharia should be made a 'supplementary jurisdiction' in Britain".
Hugh Hewitt:
"but how can the Church of England have fallen into such a state .. to be led by someone like this?"
As an atheist, I don't really care about the Anglican church,
but I do have to sympathise with Christians like
this guy:
"As a practising Christian I have watched with despair as our politicised Archbishop of Canterbury sets about dismantling the Anglican church."
And here:
"No wonder the Church of England is in such decline. Who would want to associate with these views?"
And this Christian:
"there is very little joy in admitting it was a terrible mistake to have this gentle but foolish and out-of-touch man elected in the first place!
Even with the best will in the world, it is impossible to understand or excuse such a terrible blunder which has aggravated just about every section of our society, religious or otherwise."
The best answer is from
this person:
"Yes. Totally bonkers. Mad as a box of frogs."
Britain's Greatest Idiot
claims not to support the harsher punishments of sharia,
but only "harmless" rules to do with
dispute resolution, marriage, divorce, inheritance and other matters.
But as Sookhdeo points out, these are not so harmless.
"His view of shari`a is utopian and naïve."
For example, the punishments for apostasy and atheism:
"The array of punishments for leaving Islam include not only death, but also matters of family law, the very part of shari`a which the Archbishop wants to see applied in the UK, such as annulment of marriage, loss of access to children, and loss of inheritance."
Again, Rowan Williams is an enemy, not a friend, of British Muslims:
"Embedding shari`a in British law will negatively impact many vulnerable members of the Muslim community: women, children as well as secularists and liberals. They will all face increasing pressure to comply with traditional shari`a norms. Once shari`a is in place, community and religious pressure will make it exceedingly difficult for them to opt to be judged by English law."
And Rowan Williams seems to show little understanding of the church
he is supposedly a leader of:
"Furthermore for the many Anglicans and other Christians living in contexts where shari`a is being applied and causing untold misery and suffering, for example in parts of Nigeria and parts of Sudan, the Archbishop of Canterbury`s suggestions are not just unwise, but insensitive to the point of callousness."
Sayeth the Bishop, strokynge his chin,
"To the Mosque-man, sexe is sinne
So as to staye in his goode-graces
Cover well thy wenches' faces
And abstain ye Chavs from ribaldry
Welcome him to our communitie."
The pilgryms shuffled for the door
To face the rule of the Moor;
Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, Apr 2007,
praises the terror state of Iran
for not killing its
British hostages.
"I saw on the one hand what Iran was doing,
and what the president [of Iran] said had much to do with the moral and spiritual tradition
of their country.
The president talked about the religious background to the release,
with reference to the Prophet's birthday and the passing over of Christ.
What struck me was that if there were any values on the British side
they were free-floating and not anchored in a spiritual and moral tradition."
Let's parse this. The unelected, so-called
"president" of Iran is involved in killing British soldiers in Iraq,
oppressing his own people, and persecuting, torturing and executing minorities
and political dissenters.
These are his "values",
those of eastern despotism and cruelty,
and we are supposed to admire them
because they are overlain with a veneer of religious bullshit?
Meanwhile, the brave British soldiers are fighting and dying
in order to give Iraqis
one chance at freedom, one chance to escape from the Iran-like despotism
that has dominated their history and the entire region.
The British soldiers are the ones who are fighting a brave fight of good against
utter evil,
and they are the ones whose values are in question,
because they do not cover them with a veneer of religious bullshit?
What Michael Nazir-Ali is saying, as so many religious people have said throughout history, is:
"No matter how evil you are, no matter what you are doing,
if you spout about religion, I will in some way admire you."
On Islam in Britain:
"there has been a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism. One of the results of this has been to further alienate the young"
[i.e. young British Muslims]
"from the nation in which they were growing up and also to turn already separate communities into "no-go" areas where adherence to this ideology has become a mark of acceptability.
Those of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work there because of hostility to them and even the risk of violence. In many ways, this is but the other side of the coin to far-Right intimidation."
Bishop Stephen Venner
said:
"We've been too simplistic in our attitude towards the Taliban.
...
simply to say therefore that everything they do is bad is not helping the situation. The Taliban can perhaps be admired for their conviction to their faith and their sense of loyalty to each other."
In the past, churchmen made cruel and arbitrary moral judgements
based on a nonsensical holy book.
In the present, their job is to attack anyone who makes any moral judgements at all
as "simplistic".
I'm not sure which is worse.
Perry de Havilland, 14 Dec 2009:
"But how is 'conviction' and 'loyalty' in the service of evil somehow admirable?"
Nile Gardiner is brilliant, 14 Dec 2009:
"During the Second World War, remarks like these about the enemy would have rightly been regarded as an act of treason.
...
Bishop Venner's comments are a sickening disgrace
...
At a time of war, political and religious leaders must never give comfort to the enemy. That is exactly what Venner has done - he has crossed the line and disgraced his position.
He should also do the decent thing and step down from his post - it's hard to see how Bishop Venner can serve his country with an ounce of dignity after offering the Taliban a propaganda coup."
And because we know, we just know that the Bishop
has only vague ideas about what exactly the Taliban do,
here again is
The Taliban way of war.
Here's someone better:
George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury (1991-2002)
criticises Islam.
- "it is sad to relate that no great invention
has come for many hundred years from Muslim countries."
The Archbishop of Sydney:
"In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence.
There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages."
Anti-Israel Anglican vicar
Stephen Sizer
poses
with
Jew-hating Islamic fundamentalist
Raed Salah.
From
here.
Anti-Israel dhimmi
Karin Brothers,
of Canada's
largest Protestant church,
takes to the stage in Toronto, Aug 2011, with a load of fanatic Khomeinists who want to enslave her under Islamic law.
See the other speeches.
This is the annual festival of Islamic terrorism and Jew hatred called
"Quds Day".
"I feel very strongly that economic links to America have made us very blind to the moral issues",
said the Archbishop, who thinks that the moral issue is to oppose, not support, the war.
"I think as a nation there has not been sufficient questioning of these rendition flights and the link of Ireland with the war in Iraq, whether we like it or not.
I feel that the Irish Government have compromised themselves.
People will say that politics always has an element of compromise, but I believe one of the chief moral issues of today is the issue of war."Again, this arrogant assertion that morality is on his side
rather than on his opponents' side.
He just assumes his opponents are driven by economic greed, or some other compromise.
It never seems to occur to him that his opponents are driven by morality too.
As Tony Allwright says,
it is shocking that people like John Neill,
and members of the Green Party,
"have such little regard for one of the Arab world's few constitutional democracies that they likewise would wish to impede its legitimate Government's desire for foreign assistance in trying to bring security to its beleaguered people.
...
Ireland should be proud of its small contribution in making Shannon available to the brave American soldiers as they try to help the Iraqis.
Ms McKenna
and her cohorts should be ashamed of their obstructionism and the additional loss of Iraqi life this could entail were they successful in thwarting the Americans."
Susan Hood, of the
Church of Ireland's Representative Church Body,
leads an Irish ecumenical (Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian)
visit to the Holy Land.
She's a smart person, and I admire some of her other work,
but she seems to understand little about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
They go
"to identify with the plight of 200,000 Christians left in Israel/Palestine."
She says Christians are
"now diminished to just 2 per cent of the overall population".
But for some reason
she has no interest in saying why
(the triumphant, all-pervasive Islamism that increasingly makes it impossible to be
a non-Muslim under the Hamas and Fatah Islamic regimes).
For some reason, she does not complain about the oppression of Christians by Islamists,
the hatred and incitement to murder
in Palestinian schools and TV,
the vile terror attacks against women and children,
and the lack of democracy or any desire for peace among the Palestinians.
Rather, bizarrely,
she complains about counter-terrorism measures that would be removed the day the terror threat ended.
She complains about
"the devastating effects of the Separation Wall"
and so on, as if these were the causes of the conflict.
As long as people in the West think this way,
Christians in the Palestinian territories have a bleak future.
Reply
to Susan Hood:
"I was disappointed and a little shocked that neither she nor the churchmen she interviewed saw fit to mention the chief reason for much Christian suffering in the region, namely the attacks on Christians and on churches by militant Muslim groups.
These attacks, many resulting in bloodshed and murder, have been calculated attempts to remove a non-Muslim presence from Gaza and the West Bank. The Christian population there has declined severely, whereas the community in Israel has increased steadily over the past 60 years. Other religious minorities in Israel - notably the Baha'is, a community persecuted or banned in all Muslim countries - have flourished. By ignoring this disparity, the article leaves the reader with a broad impression that Israel is to blame for all these problems.
How far from the truth that is."
Pious Nonsense:
The unholy "Christian" case against war
by Christopher Hitchens, March 10, 2003.
Hitchens is, like me, an atheist amused by the church opposition
to war on Iraq.
People regard this as having some moral force,
ignoring the churches' appalling record on war.
The church did not support the Allies in World War Two, for example.
Only on Communism has the church a record
of standing on the side of good.
It has a dreadful record on Fascism and Islamofascism.
It's a bit like the secular left that way.
Only on Fascism has the left a record
of standing on the side of good.
It has a dreadful record on Communism
and Islamofascism.
Vatican appeasement,
by Joseph D'Hippolito,
Jan 5, 2004
- asks "whether a pope and his Vatican
that behaved like Winston Churchill in the face of communism
will continue to behave like Neville Chamberlain in the face of jihadism and Islam."
Iraq
The moral sickness of the modern church was made clear
in Feb 2003,
when the Pope granted an audience to the Iraqi butcher
Tariq Aziz,
trying to find a way to help him and his fellow mass-murdering thugs
stay in power.
Aziz prayed at the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi
and called for "peace".
The Pope did not condemn Aziz's regime.
The Vatican's sympathy for Saddam at his capture, Dec 2003
- "I felt pity to see this man destroyed,
... They could have spared us these
pictures
... Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears,
I had a sense of compassion for him"
Pope John Paul II,
who once stood up to Soviet tyranny,
said:
"At this hour of sadness at the passing of President Yasser Arafat ...
While entrusting his soul into the hands of the Almighty and Merciful God ...".
Disgusting.
Whatever moral authority the pope had during the Cold War,
he's burnt it now.
Irish Catholic bishops call for boycott of Israel, Feb 2007.
See here.
If you can show me where these moral idiots
called for a boycott of
Cambodia,
China,
Cuba,
Egypt,
Iran,
Libya,
North Korea,
Pakistan,
the Palestinian Authority,
Russia,
Rwanda,
Saudi Arabia,
Sudan,
Syria,
Vietnam
and
Zimbabwe,
tell me here.
Economics
On economics, the Catholic church also at some point, without anyone noticing,
became bog-standard socialists.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Jan 2009, rather overreacts to the present financial crisis:
"he went on to say that in 1989, with the collapse of the Berlin wall, that 'communism had died'.
In 2008, he said, 'capitalism had died'."
"Want a bet?", is all I'll say.
Go away and come back in 10 years and see who's right - me or the churchman.
The Pope Benedict XVI riots of 2006
- The Catholic church under John Paul II
never stood firmly against the evil of Islamism.
Maybe under Benedict XVI this is changing.
He says about the Iranian terror masters:
"they have then chosen to put their faith into action to resolve the situation.
Faith in a forgiving God has been exemplified in action by their good deeds.
They are offering to release the sailors and marines, not just as the result of diplomacy,
but also as an act of mercy in accordance with their religion."
Their "religion" being eastern despotism, cruelty,
and the arbitrary whims of tyrants.
"We all profess to hold a faith that comes from Abraham - the Father of all Nations."
No we don't.
"We all adore the one, merciful God, who will be mankind's judge on the last day."
I don't, and he will not be, and there will be no such day.
"All nations form one community: we come from the one God who created us,"
No we don't.
There is no evidence we were created by anyone.
"and we will return to the one God as our common destiny."
Again, nonsense. We will not "return" anywhere.
I guess if Thomas Burns believes all this made-up nonsense,
it's no surprise he is impressed that the Iranian thugs believe the same.
The persecution of Christians in Bethlehem by Islamists
is a case study in how the western Christian churches fail to stand up for third world
Christians against their tormentors.
Bethlehem,
birthplace of Jesus,
now under Islamic terrorist rule.
And Christians in the West don't care.
Christians in the West
sing hymns about Bethlehem
every Christmas,
but they don't care about the state of the real Bethlehem.
Even worse, many of them support Islamic terrorist rule of Bethlehem.
From
Google Maps.
Palestinian persecution of Christians.
There were 20,000 Christians in Bethlehem in 1995,
when Israel handed over Bethlehem to Arafat and his Islamic terrorists.
By 2010, there were only 7,500 Christians in the town.
A few more years of PA rule and Bethlehem will be entirely Muslim.
Bethlehem Christians fear neighbors, Jan. 25, 2007:
"15 years from now there will be no Christians left in Bethlehem. Then you will need a torch to find a Christian here. This is a very sad situation."
Interview, December 05, 2008, with Joseph Hakim of the International Christian Union:
"Christian minorities in the Middle East are in a critical state, and unless the West can provide security and a strong financial base for Christians, it is doubtful that the Christian communities in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and the Palestinian Territories will survive. If action is not taken immediately, I don't see how the Christians will survive in the next 50 years."
The Catholic church:
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor,
head of the Catholic church in England and Wales,
deplores the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem, Dec 2005.
Yet he blames Israel
rather than the true reason for the slow ethnic cleansing of Christians
- Islamic fundamentalism and Palestinian Authority rule.
The Anglican church:
The idiot Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams
(and here
and here)
bemoans the (Islamist) persecution of Christians in Bethlehem, Iraq
and the Middle East, Dec 2006.
And then he blames Christians and Jews for it, rather than the Islamists.
He blames America, Britain and Israel for somehow having policies that "enrage"
the Islamists and make them persecute minorities (which they would never do otherwise,
apparently).
Rowan Williams "understands" rather than
attacks the Islamist killers, torturers and persecutors of Christians,
and even says we should give them what they want.
The message they receive is that violence works,
keep it up,
and even escalate it.
Far from standing up for Christians worldwide, he is encouraging their persecutors
to keep going.
"the principal reason for the Christians' flight is Muslim violence.
Indeed, if it were Israel's behaviour it would hardly be only Christians who were fleeing."
She quotes a report that says:
"Every one of the more than twenty Muslim states in the Middle East has a declining Christian population. In fact, Israel is the only state in the region in which the Christian Arab population has grown in real terms
- from approximately 34,000 in 1948 to nearly 130,000 in 2005."
More
from Melanie Phillips on
"the appalling misrepresentation of the Church of England of the plight of Bethlehem's Christians and the scapegoating of Israel for their situation by the Archbishop of Canterbury."
The Christmas libel, Melanie Phillips, 18 Dec 2007.
"a few years ago Bethlehem was mainly Christian, now it is 80 per cent Muslim .. Might the fact that such a dramatic change occurred simultaneously with Bethlehem coming under Muslim control after Oslo ... just possibly have something to do with it?"
In 1914, Christians were 26 percent of the population of (what is now)
Israel, Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
In 2005 they were at most 9 percent.
Israel's Christian population grew by 25 percent
from 1995 to 2007.
Israel's Jewish population grew by 21 percent
from 1995 to 2007.
Since 1949, the number of Christians in Israel has grown by 345 percent.
Richard Landes
on how the silence of the victims in a tyrannical society
is not understood by idiots in the West:
"The silence is a direct function of the issue about which it does not speak.
...
We in civil society do not have a clue how rare and precious our ability to speak up.
This means that, faced with a choice between reading silence as evidence of calm, or as evidence of violence, we will naturally prefer the former explanation."
And of course we take it for granted that no Jew
could exist or live in Bethlehem.
Terence Mendoza
points out how shocking this is.
That if the biblical Joseph and Mary travelled to Bethlehem today,
they would be slaughtered as Jews within hours.
'If Jesus were to come this year, Bethlehem would be closed', Phoebe Greenwood, The Guardian, 22 December 2011.
A disgusting piece in a disgusting paper.
She notes the massive decline in the Christian population of Bethlehem, and blames it not on corrupt and
oppressive Fatah rule,
and Muslim persecution of Christians,
but rather on ... Israel!
She does not mention the massive increase in the Christian population of Israel.
She also shows no understanding that if Jesus really were to come to Bethlehem today, without IDF protection,
he would be killed by the Palestinians.
A children's Christian book
(also here)
asks what if Jesus were born today.
The sad answer is that if a Jewish family went into Bethlehem today,
they would be killed.
Why Christians leave Mideast
(and more), Dec 2005
- "It is becoming an annual Christmas tradition - blaming Israel for the dwindling Christian population in formerly Christian towns like Bethlehem."
In reality:
"If the Israelis contributed in any way to the exodus of Christians,
it was by withdrawing from Bethlehem and .. the West Bank"
and leaving them at the mercy of the Palestinian Authority.
"Open Bethlehem"
blames (of course) Israel for Bethlehem's problems.
Why not:
"Free Bethlehem from Islamist rule"?
Or, if you really want to help Bethlehem:
"Allow Bethlehem become part of Israel".
The 1.5 million Arabs who find themselves within Israel
know how good they have it,
and have no wish to join the corrupt and oppressive Palestinian Authority.
See this survey:
"A survey of residents of
Umm el-Fahm ..
in the summer of 2000 asked whether they would like to include their city
in a potential Palestinian state.
The question elicited resounding opposition from 83% of respondents.
Among those opposed, 54% cited as explanation for their position the desire
to continue living under democratic rule,
and the fact that they enjoy a good standard of living."
Arabs move to get on Israel side of barrier, Khaled Abu Toameh, May 14, 2007
- "In the past four years, thousands of Arab Jerusalemites
living outside the municipal boundaries of the city
have moved back into Jerusalem for fear of being left on the other side of the security fence.""People see the anarchy and instability in the Palestinian Authority areas
and prefer to leave to a safer place", explained an Arab businessman from Beit Hanina.
"Also, people are afraid of losing their status as permanent residents of Israel
and that's why they are moving back into Jerusalem.
After all, life inside Israel is much better than the West Bank."
Israeli Arab Muslims on pilgrimage to Mecca
actually defend Israel against the hostility of the Muslims they meet.
"Jum'a also encounters anti-Israel views. He holds the Arab media partially to blame for this, for failing to provide an accurate and comprehensive picture of Israeli culture and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
'The Arab media always shows negative things about Israel and as a Muslim Arab living inside Israel I want to show a positive side of the country. I tell them there are good things in Israel and that we live side by side with the Jews. There are problems sometimes but the relations with our Jewish neighbors are generally good.'
...
The Muslims in Israel have freedom and passports, he tells them. They have a good economic situation and good jobs; they get along with their Jewish neighbors and they benefit from Israel's services.
...
Sheikh 'Ali Bakr, 47, an imam from northern Israel
... says: 'Some think that Israeli Arabs are neglected and underprivileged, so we tell them that's not the case, that we live here as equal citizens and that we fit well into the Jewish social fabric.'"
Some Arab Israelis are in fact conservative, hawkish, pro-Israel and right-wing.
Someone like Druze Israeli politician
Ayoob Kara,
for example,
does not seem to fit into the simplistic world view of the average anti-Israel westerner.
An Arab member of Likud.
An Arab Deputy Minister of Israel.
Many Arab Muslims prefer Israeli rule to PA rule:
Some Palestinians prefer life in Israel: In East Jerusalem, residents say they would fight a handover to Abbas regime, Mark Mackinnon, October 16, 2007
- Arabs in Jerusalem horrified at the thought they might be forced out of Israel
and into the corrupt, oppressive Palestinian Authority.
"If there was a referendum here, no one would vote to join the Palestinian Authority.
...
They dislike the idea of their neighbourhoods, which are generally more prosperous than other parts of the West Bank, being absorbed into the chaotic Palestinian territories.
...
Mr. Gheit said that over the past five years, some 5,000 people have moved into Ras Hamis from other parts of the West Bank, concerned that they would lose their Israeli identification cards if they didn't live within the city limits. There would be a mass exodus into other parts of the city, or other towns in Israel, if it looked likely that Ras Hamis and Shuafat, home to a combined 50,000 people, were about to be declared no longer part of Jerusalem."
Similar quotes from Arabs of Jerusalem in 2000:
"The whole world seems to be talking about the future of the Arabs of Jerusalem, but no one has bothered asking us. The international community and the Israeli Left seem to take it for granted that we want to live under Mr. Arafat's control. We don't. Most of us despise Mr. Arafat and the cronies around him, and we want to stay in Israel. At least here I can speak my mind freely without being dumped in prison, as well as having a chance to earn an honest day's wage."
Similar quotes from Arabs of Galilee in 2004:
"Yasir Arafat runs a dictatorship, not a democracy. No one here would accept to live under that regime."
And another:
"Here you can say whatever you like and do whatever you want - so long as you don't touch the security of Israel. Over there, if you talk about Arafat, they can arrest you and beat you up."
Sept 2011 poll:
39 percent of Arabs in Jerusalem prefer Israeli citizenship
to Palestinian citizenship.
42 percent say they would try to move to Israel
if their neighbourhood became part of a Palestinian state.
Consider this:
How many Arabs and Muslims move every year from Israel to the Palestinian territory?
What's stopping them?
Why does almost nobody move in that direction?
Why is almost all the movement the other way?
As always - as with Florida and Cuba,
as with East and West Germany,
as with Europe and the Islamic world -
people vote with their feet.
Their actions are far more eloquent than their words.
"whereas on politics his statements display a passionate certainty that exceeds the amount of thought
invested in their construction, the opposite is true of his approach to church matters."
- The Times, leader, 9 Nov 2010, on Rowan Williams, the idiot Archbishop of Canterbury,
who spends all his time attacking Western democracies on political matters with his latest half-baked opinions
from The Guardian,
while largely ignoring the decline of his church
and the terrible persecution of Christians worldwide.
"More recently he has cultivated a special affection for one faith in particular.
Unfortunately it is not his own."
-
Daniel Johnson, July/Aug 2011, on the love of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for Islam.
I am not even a Christian, but I wish that Rowan Williams would defend and promote Christianity.
How must actual Christians feel?
Hope at last for the Church of England! Sept 2011. Rowan Williams may step down soon.
Since 1995.
