Christian sympathy for the Islamic Arab cause has ranged over the years from outright collaboration with terrorists, to financial and moral support. Two of the more infamous examples of the former involved a pair of Israel-based Christian leaders. Greek Catholic archbishop Hilarion Capucci smuggled weapons for the PLO from Lebanon to Israel in 1974. He was arrested, jailed, but released under pressure of the Vatican. Pope Paul VI later said his time in prison had been endured "for peace and reconciliation among the peoples of the Middle East". Capucci's brother-in-arms, Anglican priest Elias Khoury, drove two terrorists to plant bombs at a Jerusalem supermarket and the British Consulate in 1971. The explosions killed two and wounded 11. Despite of or perhaps because of his extracurricular activities, Khoury was subsequently made bishop of the church in Amman, and later a member of the PLO executive.
While most Christians who lean towards the Palestinian cause would distance themselves from such blatant identification, many use other methods to achieve the same ultimate end. Each year around Christmas time, the situation in Bethlehem is exploited by some Christians to promote the anti-Israel cause. In the birthplace of Jesus itself, Arab clergy use the opportunity to pay allegiance to their new Islamic political masters. Further afield, other churches join the fray.
The January 1997 edition of the Australian Uniting Church's magazine On Being contains an insidious article on Bethlehem. Writer Jim Wackett's argument is a simple one:
"As their land is taken away and their livelihood undermined [by Israel], present-day inhabitants of Bethlehem face an uncertain future".Christian residents of the town, he writes, continue to suffer under Israeli oppression, for although Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority has administered the town for the past year,
"it remains substantially under Israeli occupation".Among other atrocities, Wackett accuses Israel of conspiring to build "a new Bethlehem" to accommodate Christian pilgrims expected to visit the country in the year 2000, in a cunning plot to rob the "old Bethlehem" of its primary source of income, tourism. Unstated, but clearly evident between the lines, is the spectre of Jewish money-grabbers trampling the needy.
Unfortunately, the article as have its predecessors ignored the real plight of Bethlehem's Christian
population, the one which has prompted thousands to leave Israel over the past decades:
Islamic domination
and repression.
Another recent example of anti-Jewish views emanating from Christian denominations emerged late last year, with the purchase of a full-page advertisement in the New York Times calling for a "shared Jerusalem" (December 21).
"Jerusalem at peace cannot belong exclusively to one people, one country or one religion," it reads. "Jerusalem should be open to all, shared by all, two peoples and three religions."The many signatories included clerics from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church, Reformed Church and the United Church of Christ.
While the sentiments expressed may at first appear reasonable, it is clear the churches involved believe Jewish, Islamic and Christians claims to Jerusalem should hold equal weight, and that Israel's sovereignty over the city though historically and biblically sound is unacceptable.
This is therefore yet another case of Christians placing the interests of the disciples of Allah above those of the followers of the one true God, the God of the Bible, their own God. It is the fruit of the unquestioning swallowing of decades of Arab propaganda; of thriving Christian anti-Semitism; and of a heretical brand of New Testament-only theology which argues that the church has replaced Israel as God's chosen. A not irrelevant additional observation is the fact that the churches concerned did not include in their advert a single scriptural reference to bolster their call. Whether they could not find one, or whether they simply did not think of it, is unclear. It is a sad reality that many Christians are so compromising in their faith that they no longer believe the Bible in any case.
The 208th general assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the US last year ratified resolutions which called, among other things:
Reacting to the letter, an aide in the prime minister's office said: "There was shock in this office. The same church who turned a blind eye to the Holocaust now adopts an activist approach against the haven created for those who were left."
Back in 1992, senior Arab churchmen in Israel joined forces with the Islamic mufti of Jerusalem to protest what they feared were attempts by Israel to discuss the city's future with the Vatican. In a mutual statement of protest, the religious leaders wrote that
"any talks concerning the Holy City should not overlook the historical Arab sovereignty over the city and the freedom of worship and preservation of the holy sites enjoyed over the centuries and guaranteed by historical covenant of Caliph Omar, derived from tolerance of Islam and the teachings of the messenger of love and peace, Jesus Christ."(The warm collaboration between the churchmen and Mufti Sa'ad Al-Din el Alami is especially noteworthy in the light of the mufti's inflammatory message to Saddam Hussein shortly before the Gulf War: "May you purge these sanctified Muslim lands of the contamination of the American armed forces and their helpers ... May Allah help you against your enemies and the enemies of Islam ...")
Not only did the Christians clergymen once again seek to place claims of "Arab sovereignty" over those of the Jews, but they also wittingly or otherwise figuratively spat on the memories of the thousands of co-religionists whose seventh century enslavement, rape and murder by the forces of Caliph Omar compelled the head of the Christian community in Jerusalem at the time, Sophronius, to bow the knee to the Islamic invaders and accept their "historical covenant" .
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