"We need advocates for the truth," they tell him

By Stuart Littlewood * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Dr Williams is the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury

Kairos Palestine, the voice of Palestinian Christians, has given the Archbishop of Canterbury a strong ticking-off for remarks he made during a BBC interview.

Rifat Kassis, Coordinator of Kairos Palestine, said he was "deeply troubled" by the archbishop's "inaccurate and erroneous remarks" about the situation of Christians in the Middle East. He called the archbishop's failure to mention the Israeli occupation and the regime's oppressive policies "shocking".

In a letter [.PDF] to the archbishop, he said:

We were deeply saddened by your declarations because we know that Your Grace is well informed ... and you know very well that in the Bethlehem area alone there are 19 illegal Israeli settlements (such as nearby Har Homa built on Jabal Abu Ghneim) and the wall that have devoured Christian lands and put Bethlehem in a chokehold. You know well that only 13 per cent of Bethlehem area is available for Palestinian use and the wall isolates 25 per cent or the Bethlehem area's agricultural land. Not to mention the situation of Christians in Jerusalem, which you know very well, since you should have received reports from the Anglican bishop in the city whose residency permit was denied by the occupying power.

Mr Kassis ended by saying: "We would like to remind Your Grace that Christian Palestinians need advocates for the truth. It is the truth, and only the truth, that will lead to peace and justice in our home."

So what did Archbishop Rowan Williams say to the BBC that so infuriated his Palestinian brethren?

Apparently, it was the way he talked about the ethnic cleansing of Christians, referring to extreme pressure in Iraq while suggesting that the exodus of Christians from Palestine was due to "a much more undramatic but equally steady and strong pressure".

Interviewer: But that's a strong term to use isn't it, ethnic cleansing?

Archbishop: It is a strong term but I think not disproportionate where Iraq is concerned. The level of violence has been extreme.

However, Williams seemed careful to avoid connecting the term "ethnic cleansing" with Israel's programme to dispossess and terrorize Palestinians:

Interviewer: Do you think that the British government, other governments, should be more vocal in their support for Christians who you are seeing at the moment under great difficulty in a number of these countries?

Archbishop: Well, to be honest, I think at the moment there is quite a lot of support. And I can't fault what's been said by our government on this issue because I think the issue of religious freedom in general has very high priority in the Foreign Office at the moment. So I hope that continues.

The truth is that the British Foreign Office is infested with pro-Israel placemen and has not lifted a finger for religious or any other freedoms in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The archbishop continued: "Also I think people in the West know perfectly well that if foreign powers take up the cause of a minority in another country it can be utterly counterproductive."

Was he, by any chance, thinking about the foreign powers that implanted Jewish aliens in the Holy Land in 1947 and the running sore ever since?

He went on the say:

I think there are still perhaps too few people in this country who are aware of the haemorrhaging of Christian populations from the Holy Land. The fact that Bethlehem, a majority Christian city just a couple of decades ago, is now very definitely a place where Christians are a marginalized minority. We want that to be a little bit higher on people's radar...

But the archbishop was careful not to offend the Israeli occupiers.

Interviewer: Would you see what's happening in Bethlehem as another example of what you've described as ethnic cleansing?

Archbishop: It's not ethnic cleansing exactly because it's been far less deliberate than that I think. What we've seen, though, is a kind of Newtonian passing on of energy or force from one body to another so that some Muslim populations in the West Bank, under pressure, move away from certain areas like Hebron, move into other areas like Bethlehem. And there's nowhere much else for Christian populations to go except away from Palestine.

I'm sure that trapped and imprisoned Palestinian Christians will be relieved to hear that their misery is all down to Newtonian energy effects.

Archbishop Williams's comments about Bethlehem were "particularly faulty and offensive", according to Rifat Kassis, especially his claim that Muslims coming into the Bethlehem area, where space is limited, was forcing Christians to leave.

Are the archbishop and his Anglican Church the "advocates for the truth" so desperately needed?

It is not the first time the archbishop has upset Palestinian Christians. For decades the Israelis' game has clearly been to obstruct and paralyse Christianity in the Holy Land. When Palestine was under British mandate, Christians accounted for 20 per cent of the population. Sixty-three years of hostilities, dispossession, interference and economic ruination have whittled their numbers down to less than 2 per cent. At this rate, there will soon be no Christians left in the land where Christianity was born.

And in November 2008, while Israel was planning its murderous assault against Gaza's civilians (including the Christian community), the Archbishop of Canterbury was gallivanting with Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks on a visit to the former Nazi camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland to demonstrate their joint solidarity against the extremes of hostility and genocide.

"This is a pilgrimage not to a holy place but to a place of utter profanity," said the archbishop, "a place where the name of God was profaned because the image of God in human beings was abused and disfigured. How shall we be able to read the signs of the times, the indications that evil is gathering force once again and societies are slipping towards the same collective corruption and moral sickness that made the Shoah possible?"

Evil was again gathering its forces and corruption and moral sickness were on the rampage even as he spoke. And did the Archbishop and the chief rabbi afterwards go to sniff the stench where the name of God had been profaned in the ruins of the Gaza Strip and utter the same brave words?

Did they hell!

When the Church of England's head honcho finally visited Gaza, the Israelis refused him access to the Strip but at the last minute allowed him into the shattered enclave for just one-and-a-half hours, enough time to show his face at the hospital and no more. He said nothing about his experience to the House of Lords where he has a seat and the support of a large gaggle of bishops.

This despite his claim to be "in a unique position to bring the needs and voices of those fighting poverty, disease and the effects of conflict, to the attention of national and international policy makers", despite his declaration that "Christians need to witness boldly and clearly", and despite his urging greater awareness of the humanitarian crisis to ensure that the people of Gaza are not forgotten.

The archbishop's website, however, did report how he hobnobbed with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, paid his respects to Yad Vashem and the Holocaust, and talked with the president of Israel. There was no mention of any similar get-togethers with senior Islamic figures, leaving a question-mark over his real commitment to inter-faith engagement.

The archbishop's agreeing to accept the hospitality of Jewish political and religious dignitaries while they squished his wish to carry out his Christian duties in Gaza, tells us a great deal.

So is the guy a closet Zionist like so many other so-called Christians?

I'm reminded of the he words of Desmond Tutu: "Where there is oppression, those who do nothing side with the oppressor."

"Christianity destroyed not by Muslims but by Israel"

The archbishop has a chance to redeem himself with the international conference on Christians in the Holy Land he plans to hold next month. For two days I've been asking his press office for details of delegates, keynote speakers, etc but have received nothing. We are left to speculate.

It would be nice if the conference were addressed by that excellent trio from the Holy Land: Archbishop Theodosius Hanna (Greek Orthodox Church), Monsignor Manuel Musallam (Latin Catholic) and Mr Constantine Dabbagh (Executive Director of the Middle East Council of Churches). These courageous spiritual leaders and human rights defenders toured Ireland last November to raise awareness of the situation in their homeland under Israeli military occupation and the plight of the dwindling Christian community. Their central message was simple: "We need only one thing - to be protected by the world against the crimes of Israel" (For details please see my article "No such thing as justice in the Holy Land".)

Fr Manuel told members of the Irish government:

Christianity in the region has been destroyed not by Muslims but by Israel. Israel destroyed the church of Palestine and the church of Jerusalem beginning in 1948. It, not Muslims, has sent Christians in the region into a diaspora... Christians in Palestine are not suffering persecution, because we are not considered to be a religious community, but rather the people of Palestine. We have the same rights and the same obligations.

We have spoken to Israel for more than 18 years and the result has been zero. We have signed agreements here and there at various times and then when there is a change in the government of Israel we have to start again from the beginning. We ask for our life and to be given back our Jerusalem, to be given our state and for enough water to drink... I have not seen Jerusalem since 1990.

However, given the Anglican Church's recent form, it wouldn't surprise me if the conference is hosted by the CMJ (the Church's Ministry among Jewish People). The CMJ is "propelled by devotion to God and the fulfillment of His promises to His people Israel". In its statement of faith the CMJ says Christians have "a special responsibility to love, defend and share the Gospel with God's historic, chosen People, the Jews".

The CMJ's attitude to the Israel-Palestine struggle is unhelpful to the Palestinians. For example:

• Gentiles are "fellow-citizens with God's people"...
• CMJ rejoices that, "after 2,000 years ... the Jewish people now, at last, have returned to the land from which the majority were dispersed in AD70..."
• CMJ recognizes that the state of Israel was set up "as a result of a majority vote of the United Nations in 1947..." However the ministry does not hold any official position as to the appropriate location of the borders of the state.

That signifies approval for Israel's continuing land-grab and lawlessness. If CMJ recognizes the UN's partition it should also accept the borders on which it was based.

According to Wikipedia, "CMJ has always adopted a Zionist position, and expressed the view that the Jewish people deserved a state in the Holy Land decades before Zionism began as a movement."

The CMJ was adopted as an official ministry of the Church of England in 1995 and has been operating in the shadows ever since. It is, if you like, the Church of England's Zionist wing.

* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

Related posts:

• No such thing as justice in the Holy Land, Palestinian Church leaders tell the Irish
• Christmas in the Holy Land – 2009 [Video]
• Archbishop of Canterbury: “US is worst’ imperialist”

Tell how it really is in Gaza, especially if you're an archbishop

By Stuart Littlewood * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Archbishop Barry Morgan of Wales

To their eternal shame, Western churchmen seem to care little about the plight of their brothers and sisters in the Holy Land or the fate of the holy places where Christianity was born.

There are, of course, honourable exceptions. One such is the Archbishop of Wales, the Most Reverend Dr Barry Morgan, whose church has provided the Gazans with a mobile dental unit.

He is not best pleased that the Israelis make it difficult to obtain fuel and medical supplies for it, and he didn't mince his words when recently reporting to the Church's governing body how things really are in Gaza.

The truth of the matter seemed to annoy a certain Mr Simon McIlwaine, who complained that the archbishop's words put the state of Israel in an unduly harsh light and he was compelled to "provide some badly needed context". Whereupon Mr McIlwaine launched into the familiar anti-Gaza, anti-Hamas rant we're used to hearing from the pro-Israel lobby.

"The archbishop raises a central issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict – anti-Semitism..."

The central issue is 62 years of criminal oppression. The charges include land theft, illegal occupation, ethnic cleansing, disregard for human rights, and war crimes such as those documented in the Goldstone report. The action required is set out in international law, numerous UN resolutions and every code of human decency.

"Hamas is an explicitly anti-Semitic organization that at the very least seeks to exercise a veto over the Jewish right to self-determination."

Israel is deeply anti-Arab and continues to dispossess and remove Arabs not only from Israel proper, but also from areas of the West Bank and East Jerusalem that Israel has earmarked for permanent occupation.

Palestinians have been denied the right to self-determination for decades and Israel even refuses to recognize their perfectly satisfactory democratic process.

"Hamas's anti-Semitic ideology pre-existed the blockade..."

Israel's illegal occupation pre-dates the founding of Hamas.

"Hamas's attacks against Israel are not merely motivated by a desire to end the blockade, but to deprive the Jewish people of their ability to enjoy a national life of their own."

The irony of that remark is apparently lost on Mr McIlwaine.

"Clearly, anti-Semitism plays a significant role in fomenting violence against Israel in the Middle East."

Playing the anti-Semitism card yet again. Israel is the violator. Hamas chief Khaled Mesh'al has explained that armed resistance against Israel is the result of Israeli occupation, injustice and oppression, not religious differences.

"The archbishop describes the devastation in the Gaza Strip without acknowledging the role Hamas played in bringing the destruction about."

Israel broke the ceasefire with a raid killing at least six Palestinians in order to provoke the sort of retaliation that could then be used as an excuse to launch Operation Cast Lead, the three-week onslaught Israel had been preparing for months.

"History has shown that isolating tyrannical regimes such as Hamas results in civilian suffering."

Israel was making Palestinians' lives a misery long before Hamas appeared on the scene. What right has Israel or anyone else to isolate a democratically elected government and its people anyway?

Hamas is an Islamic party legitimately ruling a mainly Islamic country. It is the people's choice. How can it be any more "tyrannical" than the Jewish State with its exclusivity laws and lethal attitude towards non-Jews?

"...Responsibility for the disruption of daily life in the Gaza Strip lies with Hamas. By way of comparison, daily life in the West Bank, which has not been the source of rocket attacks, is improving."

As long as Israel occupies Gaza's airspace, coastal waters and air-waves, controls all access points (except now the Egyptian border, although it still interferes there), maintains a sea blockade and attacks and even murders volunteers bringing humanitarian supplies, it is ridiculous to suggest that anyone else is responsible for disrupting daily life.

In 2007, when Israel tightened the siege on Gaza, the prime minister's adviser, Dov Weisglass, said: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger." According to documents just released under a Freedom of Information petition by Gisha, an Israeli law centre, Israel operated "a policy of deliberate reduction" of basic goods in the Gaza Strip. Gisha's director accuses Israel of "paralyzing normal life in Gaza", and adds: "I am sorry to say that major elements of this policy are still in place."

The documents confirm that the siege was not for security reasons but aimed at keeping Gazans at near-starvation level. Since around half the population are growing children this act of collective punishment has meant that hundreds of thousands are undernourished.

Mr McIlwaine is right that no rockets have been fired from the West Bank. Why, then, are the shredded remains of that territory still under cruel occupation and tight restriction?

"Hamas has murdered its political opponents, threatened its critics and stolen humanitarian aid shipped in from outside."

Another classic piece of irony for us to savour. Assassinations and extra-judicial executions are an Israeli speciality. So is thieving. They even steal British passports for their murder squads.

We never hear what happens to humanitarian aid seized in international waters by Israeli thugs who abduct passengers and crew and rob them of their possessions. Remember how Israel kept stealing Gaza's tax revenues? Did they ever give the money back?

Simon McIlwaine is co-director of Anglican Friends of Israel, an organization whose aims include:

• Securing defensible borders for the State of Israel. (What borders? Its ever-expanding illegal borders enclosing stolen lands or its internationally-recognized 1967 borders?)
• Calling Anglicans to repentance for the wrongs inflicted by Christians on the Jewish people and the nation of Israel.
• Protecting the Christian communities threatened by Islamic extremism in the Middle East (though not, it seems, against the crushing oppression of Israeli extremists).

The puzzle is why any Anglican would befriend a regime with so much blood on its hands and attack a bishop who speaks up for its wretched victims. St Augustine must be spinning in his grave.

At least Dr Morgan went to Gaza to see for himself. Did Mr McIlwaine?

What did the good archbishop say that so rattled Mr McIlwaine's cage?

Regarding Gaza, Dr Morgan observed: "Two-thirds of these people live in abject poverty, in refugee camps, after the confiscation of their homes and land by the Israeli government. The situation is worse now than when I visited in 2001..." He described how people lived in zinc shacks, without electricity or water and with open sewers running down the streets, and how Gaza City itself was like a bombsite.

Only 32 per cent of the industrial fuel needed in one week in August 2010 for Gaza's power plant was allowed into Gaza. The result was that the power plant shut down completely for two days after exhausting its reserves of fuel, triggering power cuts of 16 hours per day – affecting water supply, sewage treatment and removal, and the functioning of health services. Thirty per cent of households in Gaza have access to running water for only four to eight hours per week; 40 per cent receive water once every four days and the other 30 per cent obtain it once every two days. Half of the normal level of need of cooking gas entered Gaza in August; no diesel or petrol has been delivered for weeks - hence diesel and petrol being taken through the tunnels at the risk of attack by the Israelis. Imports are limited, raw materials severely restricted, no building materials are allowed into Gaza, exports from Gaza are banned entirely.

"The blockade in Gaza has destroyed public service infrastructure and hospitals have power cuts for twelve hours a day, emergency medical treatment for residents of Gaza is denied, and 40 million litres of sewage is being discharged every day into the sea because of lack of fuel to pump or treat human waste. Family members in Gaza have been separated from relatives living in the West Bank and elsewhere.

All of which is confirmed by other sources.

Dr Morgan continued: "The United Nations, the Security Council and the European Union want crossings to Gaza to be permanently open to allow access for humanitarian and commercial aid and all of this was agreed between Israel and the Palestinian authorities in 2005."

He also referred to the Kairos document issued by Palestinian Church leaders a year ago and the report "Justice and Peace for Palestine" discussed recently by the Methodist Church. "Both of those reports say that the key hindrance to security and a lasting peace for all in the region is the occupation of Palestinian territory by the State of Israel..."

For 43 long years. Who is foolish enough to believe there can be peace under the jackboot of occupation?

Settlements by Israeli settlers are illegal under international law, and over one third have been built on Palestinian privately owned land. The wall that has been built covering a distance of 702 kilometres ... not only separates Israelis from Palestinians but Palestinians from family members and friends. In rural areas, it effectively cuts them off from their olive trees and fruit and vegetable plantations. In July 2004, the International Court of Justice declared the separation barrier illegal, and called on Israel to cease construction to dismantle constructed areas and provide reparation to those materially damaged by the construction.

"Settlers" is too nice a word for my taste. It suggests peaceful pioneers wishing to integrate. Israeli "settlers" are anything but. They are squatters, half a million in over 100 illegal colonies – ugly blots on an otherwise lovely landscape. They include gangs of armed delinquents who terrorize local villagers, vandalize their crops, pollute their land and harass their children.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention clearly forbids an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

Next time, the archbishop might question why the Separation Wall, if meant for security, wasn't built within Israel's internationally-recognized borders. Its actual route bites deep into Palestinian territory and is designed to annex choice agricultural land and the Palestinians' precious water supplies. Palestinians are now severely rationed and have to pay Israel inflated prices for a dribble of their own water while Israelis splash around in their swimming pools and wash their cars.

The archbishop finished by saying:

Now we, as a Church, perhaps cannot do very much except that we ought to acquaint ourselves with what is going on, and fight against injustice, and demand that the rule of law be upheld wherever it is being flouted for whatever reason. We have a duty to speak out.

On an earlier occasion in 2009, after Israel's blitz on Gaza, Dr Morgan was saying:

Having visited Gaza twice over the past few years I have seen the appalling conditions in which the people there live ... with no proper homes, sanitation or means of escape. Their lives are now unbearable as they come under daily fire and are too scared to even leave their homes. We have heard that it has now become too dangerous for our clinic, which was being used as a frontline hospital dealing with casualties, to continue its work.

It is tragic that there is so much violence in an area known as the Holy Land... It is time for the fighting to stop – enough children have died and enough homes have been destroyed and it is immoral for the world to stand by and do nothing.

How very refreshing. Those other bishops who loaf around the House of Lords and never open their mouths when so much needs to be said and done, please note.

* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

Related posts:

• Israeli anger over Turkish TV show
• The US Congressman who sold his soul to the Israel lobby
• John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt: pro-Israel Lobby influence over U.S. foreign policy on the recent Israel-Lebanon war

The University of Johannesburg's Senate will next week meet to decide whether to end its relationship with an Israeli institution, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, on the grounds of that university's active support for and involvement in the Israeli military. Archbishop Desmond Tutu supports the move. He explains why.

By Archbishop Desmond Tutu | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Photo: ROBYN BECK / AFP)

"The temptation in our situation is to speak in muffled tones about an issue such as the right of the people of Palestine to a state of their own.

We can easily be enticed to read reconciliation and fairness as meaning parity between justice and injustice. Having achieved our own freedom, we can fall into the trap of washing our hands of difficulties that others face. Yet we would be less than human if we did so. It behoves all South Africans, themselves erstwhile beneficiaries of generous international support, to stand up and be counted among those contributing actively to the cause of freedom and justice." - Nelson Mandela, December 4 1997

Struggles for freedom and justices are fraught with huge moral dilemmas. How can we commit ourselves to virtue - before its political triumph - when such commitment may lead to ostracism from our political allies and even our closest partners and friends? Are we willing to speak out for justice when the moral choice that we make for an oppressed community may invite phone calls from the powerful or when possible research funding will be withdrawn from us? When we say "Never again!" do we mean "Never again!", or do we mean "Never again to us!"?

Our responses to these questions are an indication of whether we are really interested in human rights and justice or whether our commitment is simply to secure a few deals for ourselves, our communities and our institutions - but in the process walking over our ideals even while we claim we are on our way to achieving them?

The issue of a principled commitment to justice lies at the heart of responses to the suffering of the Palestinian people and it is the absence of such a commitment that enables many to turn a blind eye to it.

Consider for a moment the numerous honorary doctorates that Nelson Mandela and I have received from universities across the globe. During the years of apartheid many of these same universities denied tenure to faculty who were "too political" because of their commitment to the struggle against apartheid. They refused to divest from South Africa because "it will hurt the blacks" (investing in apartheid South Africa was not seen as a political act; divesting was).

Let this inconsistency please not be the case with support for the Palestinians in their struggle against occupation.

I never tire of speaking about the very deep distress in my visits to the Holy Land; they remind me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like we did when young white police officers prevented us from moving about. My heart aches. I say, "Why are our memories so short?" Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their own previous humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?

Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about all the downtrodden?

Together with the peace-loving peoples of this Earth, I condemn any form of violence - but surely we must recognise that people caged in, starved and stripped of their essential material and political rights must resist their Pharaoh? Surely resistance also makes us human? Palestinians have chosen, like we did, the nonviolent tools of boycott, divestment and sanctions.

South African universities with their own long and complex histories of both support for apartheid and resistance to it should know something about the value of this nonviolent option.

The University of Johannesburg has a chance to do the right thing, at a time when it is unsexy. I have time and time again said that we do not want to hurt the Jewish people gratuitously and, despite our deep responsibility to honour the memory of the Holocaust and to ensure it never happens again (to anyone), this must not allow us to turn a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinians today.

I support the petition by some of the most prominent South African academics who call on the University of Johannesburg to terminate its agreement with Ben-Gurion University in Israel (BGU). These petitioners note that: "All scholarly work takes place within larger social contexts - particularly in institutions committed to social transformation. South African institutions are under an obligation to revisit relationships forged during the apartheid era with other institutions that turned a blind eye to racial oppression in the name of 'purely scholarly' or 'scientific work'." It can never be business as usual.

Israeli Universities are an intimate part of the Israeli regime, by active choice. While Palestinians are not able to access universities and schools, Israeli universities produce the research, technology, arguments and leaders for maintaining the occupation. BGU is no exception. By maintaining links to both the Israeli defence forces and the arms industry, BGU structurally supports and facilitates the Israeli occupation. For example, BGU offers a fast-tracked programme of training to Israeli Air Force pilots.

In the past few years, we have been watching with delight UJ's transformation from the Rand Afrikaans University, with all its scientific achievements but also ugly ideological commitments. We look forward to an ongoing principled transformation. We don't want UJ to wait until others' victories have been achieved before offering honorary doctorates to the Palestinian Mandelas or Tutus in 20 years' time.

(Times Live - South Africa)

Related posts:

• Archbishop Desmond Tutu to UC Berkeley: Divesting is the Right Thing To Do
• Eight American Universities Say Yes to Apartheid
• Desmond Tutu Letter to Bil’in

Video link: http://vimeo.com/9496852

As a child, Elias Chacour lived in a small Palestinian village in Galilee. The townspeople were proud of their ancient Christian heritage and lived at peace with their Jewish neighbors. But in 1948 and ’49 their idyllic lifestyle was swept away as tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and nearly one million were forced into refugee camps. As an exile in his native land, Elias began a years-long struggle with his love for the Jewish people and the world’s misunderstanding of his own people, the Palestinians. He is convicted by the haunting words of the Man of Galilee: “Blessed are the Peacemakers”. Father Chacour has become an ambassador for non-violence. He has a vision and passion to build peace through education and is the founder of the Mar Elias Educational Institutions, open to all the children of Israel; Jewish, Christian and Muslim. He has received many international peace awards and been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on three occasions. He is the author of Blood Brothers and We Belong to this Land. Father Chacour is the Archbishop of the Melkite Catholic Church in Haifa, Occupied Palestine.

Related posts:

• Anti-Semitism: Zionist myth v truth and reality
• Gaza Kids Reality: The Reality of the Israeli Terrorism
• William A. Cook – Walled in by Myth and Deceit

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday.

Rowan Williams claimed that America's attempt to intervene overseas by "clearing the decks" with a "quick burst of violent action" had led to "the worst of all worlds".

In a wide-ranging interview with a British Muslim magazine, the Anglican leader linked criticism of the United States to one of his most pessimistic declarations about the state of western civilisation.

He said the crisis was caused not just by America's actions but also by its misguided sense of its own mission. He poured scorn on the "chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God's purpose for humanity"... Read on!

Related posts:

• Archbishop Tutu banned in a USA University, tagged as Anti-Semitic
• Surprise: United States & Israel among least peaceful nations!
• US visa policy scares off visitors