...I cannot say there will never be any extremist act, but as Athenagoras said, ‘I have no fear. I’m disarmed.’

...For us, it is not the time to ask for our rights, but to rediscover our mission in an Arab world that is being reborn. Preaching peace, legality and justice is our way to accompany events, both at home and abroad.

...This is a modern war, and the media have become “despotic” and play a “destructive” role.

...Let me go back to what I said. I am not a politician. In politics, nothing is certain. When blood is spilled, it is always my brother’s blood. Besides, whilst people are worked up about Syria, they forget Israel and the Palestinian cause. I wrote to all European leaders on 2 April 2011, calling on them to do something to find a solution to the Palestinian conflict because once this conflict is solved, half of the problems in the Arab world will also be solved. Now, after 63 years of crisis, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict still lacks a solution. Why is it that no country has recognised a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations? It is capitulation. It is unworthy.

And, as I said before, the Christian attempt to be accepted as "good Arabs" will fail as spectacularly as the Jewish attempt in he 19th and 20th centuries to be accepted as "good Germans", "good Austrians", "good Frenchmen", "good Dutchmen", etc.

I think that Middle Eastern Christians should have their eyes wide open and be aware that, as long as there is no fundamental change in the social paradigm of Muslim Arab society, they will always be outsiders, always be Dhimmis, and will always be subject to persecution. Their only real hope is to work for a long-term solution in which a pluralistic, democratic society based on strong civil institutions and the principle of protection of minority rights is firmly established in the rule of law and the attitudes of society.

And, much as it may pain Middle Eastern Christians to admit it, the one place in which these principles are established and generally observed is Eretz Yisrael.

I think that Middle Eastern Christians should have their eyes wide open and be aware that, as long as there is no fundamental change in the social paradigm of Muslim Arab society, they will always be outsiders, always be Dhimmis, and will always be subject to persecution. Their only real hope is to work for a long-term solution in which a pluralistic, democratic society based on strong civil institutions and the principle of protection of minority rights is firmly established in the rule of law and the attitudes of society.

And, much as it may pain Middle Eastern Christians to admit it, the one place in which these principles are established and generally observed is Eretz Yisrael. So maybe a more open-eyed view of the Palestinian issue would be a first start for them. Hamas, Hezbollah, and Fatah are no more friends of Christians than they are of Jews. The truly bizarre aspect of all this is Middle Eastern Christian view Jews in the same light that most American Jews view conservative American Christians.