www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News I Am Shocked At This Smear

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,

In none of these posts has anyone substanciated your "charges" against the Patriarch. If he is the Patriarch of Terror, and a schmuck then all of the Patriarchs based in the Middle East are since they have stated the same thing.

You folks have produced three pages on the Patriarch, but yet have not produce a full one on any of the articles that I and other Middle Eastern Christians have posted about the plight of Palestinian Christians. You all have greatly disappointed me.

Poosh BaShlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
Yuhannon

I have read your posts, and am taking no position on the Patriarch, since I don't have enough information. I would think that if he were as bad as indicated, Rome would remove him. That thread has really drifted off the subject anyway.

Shlomo, Yuhannon. Don't be disappointed in "all of us". I made a statement about the condition of Arab Christians in the occupied territories (fourth reply, page 1).

The Arab Christians have themselves been victim of countless atrocities of the occupation. Some of us do indeed recognize that.

I never dreamed I would say this about any Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, but the attacks make me consider that Michel Sabah may actually be worth having around!

Incognitus

Ok, has the Patriarch supported murdering of Jews? If he has then he deserves approbation. If he hasn't he deserves our prayer, praise, and support.

Give us the real story and this issue can be settled immediately.

I believe Christians and Jews have suffered for centuries under Muslim dominance. I also believe that Palestinian Christians are in a very difficult situation indeed. They suffer from evil actions against them not only from the Muslims but from the Jews.

Dan L

Good point, Dan. I think some of the fundamentalist Christians who support Israel regardless of what it does, don't realize that their affection for the Jews is not a mutual affection.

The fundamentalist Christians support for Israel is meant to bring about the Eschaton. Will YOU be left behind?

I will be, I'm pretty sure.

So, this will add only a little bit to this discussion (and a good dose of a kind of conspiracy theory), but (from Newsweek):

Concerning Israel, "36% of those polled who support Israel say they do so because they believe in biblical prophecies that Jews must control Israel before Christ will come again" (p. 46-47).

"Many (not all) evangelicals believe that Jesus won't return until the Jewish state is fully re-established, including Jerusalem" (Newsweek, June 2, 2003). http://www.endtimeinsights.com/site/v1/content/view/51/41/

This site talks about Palestinian Christians viz. American tourists and what constitutes the Holy Land:

http://www.americandaily.com/article/4810

domilsean, it occurs to me that when all those fundamentalists are taken to Heaven, the place won't be heavenly anymore.

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,

I did not mean that every member of the board was a disappointment, but that certain ones were with what they were saying.

As for HB Patriarch Sabbah's stands on the issue of violence, I will let him speak for himself.

"Every believer who is sincere -- Jew, Christian or Muslim -- must ask himself in anguish: How long will religion be the cause of war and disputes between believers?" he said in 1992.

In his Easter message of 1997, Sabbah said, "Blood is still being shed. . . . The blood being shed is innocent blood."

Last month, in a speech to the U.S. Bishops Conference, the patriarch said, "Violence is only the visible aspect of the Palestinian-Israeli struggle. The press, the media, politicians, even statesmen, try to reduce the conflict to various manifestations of violence, as if quelling the violence is sufficient to resolve the underlying problem.

"Violence has a cause," he said, "and the cause has to be removed in order to remove violence. That cause is the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian land."

Last week, Sabbah told The Chronicle that he is only talking about the 22 percent of the historic Palestine that Israel seized in 1967. "Why isn't Israel satisfied with 78 percent of the Palestinian land?" he said.

Sabbah said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat cannot control extremist elements, because there is no way he can tell his people, " 'No. We cannot have our land, and we have to accept the Israeli occupation.'

"No leader can control that situation," Sabbah said. "You can't side with the occupier."

Poosh BaSlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
Yuhannon

So, if Israel moves away from the land that they took in 1967 after they suffered a sneak attack from the Arab nations the Palestinians will no longer try to push Israel into the sea?

Dan L

I think getting Israel to give up Jerusalem is about as impossible as things can get. It will never happen.

Shlomo Dan,

Actually Israel started the war in '67.

Further, the Catholic Church's position has always been, right up into the establishment of Israel, that the Zionist movement was not a legitimate nationalistic movement, in that said lands were already occupied by an innocent group of people, who had nothing to do with the expultion of the Jews.
In 1904, Theodore Herzl had an audience with Pope Pius X. Pope Pius X stated flatly that the Church would not support Zionism. [Andrej Kruetz, Vatican Policy on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990), 29.]

Zionist envoy Nahum Sokolow met with Pope Benedict XV in 1917, he, too, refused to support the idea of a Jewish homeland: When the British government promised such a homeland in its 1917 Balfour Declaration, the Vatican made its opposition.(Kreutz, Vatican Policy, 33.) Said policy carried on into the 40's.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

I'm sorry, but Israel did not start the 1967 war. Israel responded to attacks to her territory from the West Bank and Gaza made by the same terrorist groups that have continued to make attacks on her territory and civilians ever since. The only difference is that Jordan, which was supposed to be in administrative control of that land in 1967, did not or could not or would not put an end to the violence that the Palestinians were directing toward the state of Israel from those territories. The 1967 war was only one of a number of wars of aggression made on Israel by Arab armies and Palestinian terrorists. The Israelis occupied these territories in order to try to stop the violence that was first directed toward them by the terrorists.

BOB

To truly understand the situation in the Holy Land from a Palestinian perspective I highly reccommend "Bitter Harvest" by Sami Hadawi.

Yuhannon,

I'm a bit surprised at your assertion that the Israelis started the 1967 war. I think that the Israelis could do much better than they have been if they are to survive at all they must be able to protect themselves.

Israel must withdraw from the kibutzim on the occupied territory and not build anymore. Beyond that what else should they do?

The Palestinians must stop the homocide bombings and the Intifada and renounce all desire to destroy Israel. Their threats are real and not conducive to justice or peace.

It isn't possible to have any coherent discussion when simple historical facts are twisted to fit an agenda.

Dan L