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kidnapping and murder of</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/beirut/" rel="tag">Beirut</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/cairo/" rel="tag">Cairo</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/catholics/" rel="tag">Catholics</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-churches/" rel="tag">christian churches</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-faith/" rel="tag">christian faith</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-minorities/" rel="tag">christian minorities</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-population/" rel="tag">christian population</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christianity/" rel="tag">Christianity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians/" rel="tag">Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians-persecution-of/" rel="tag">Christians - 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Anwar</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/saudi-arabia/" rel="tag">Saudi Arabia</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/vatican/" rel="tag">Vatican</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/violence/" rel="tag">violence</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/west-bank/" rel="tag">West Bank</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d8%b3%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%85%e2%80%8e/" rel="tag">الإسلام‎</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%ad%d9%8a%d9%8a%d9%86/" rel="tag">بالمسيحيين</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: right; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 5px 0px 5px 15px; width: 360px; padding-top: 0px"> <div class="container"> <div class="shadow"> <div class="frame"> <strong>From Israel to Iraq, a Christian flight of Biblical proportions has begun.</strong> <p><a title="20100913_cross_with_lights_Arbil by Gorillas Guides, on Flickr" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27086036@N02/5117481728/" class="external" target="_blank"><img height="238" alt="20100913_cross_with_lights_Arbil" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333im_/http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1189/5117481728_113dc0d2e6_o.jpg" width="350"/></a></p> </p></div> </p></div> </p></div> </p></div> <p>In the centre of the rebuilt Beirut, the massive old Maronite Cathedral of St George stands beside the even larger mass of the new Mohammad al-Amin mosque. The mosque’s minarets tower over the cathedral, but the Maronites were built a spanking new archbishop’s house between the two buildings as compensation. Yet every day, the two calls to prayer – the clanging of church bells and the wailing of the muezzin – beat an infernal percussion across the city. Both bells and wails are tape recordings, but they have been turned up to the highest decibel pitch to outdo each other, louder than an aircraft’s roar, almost as crazed as the nightclub music from Gemmayzeh across the square. But the Christians are leaving.</p> <p>Across the Middle East, it is the same story of despairing – sometimes frightened – Christian minorities, and of an exodus that reaches almost Biblical proportions. Almost half of Iraq’s Christians have fled their country since the first Gulf War in 1991, most of them after the 2004 invasion – a weird tribute to the self-proclaimed Christian faith of the two Bush presidents who went to war with Iraq – and stand now at 550,000, scarcely 3 per cent of the population. More than half of Lebanon’s Christians now live outside their country. Once a majority, the nation’s one and a half million Christians, most of them Maronite Catholics, comprise perhaps 35 per cent of the Lebanese. Egypt’s Coptic Christians – there are at most around eight million – now represent less than 10 per cent of the population.</p> <p>This is, however, not so much a flight of fear, more a chronicle of a death foretold. Christians are being outbred by the majority Muslim populations in their countries and they are almost hopelessly divided. In Jerusalem, there are 13 different Christian churches and three patriarchs. A Muslim holds the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to prevent Armenian and Orthodox priests fighting each other at Easter. </p> <p>When more than 200 members of 14 different churches – some of them divided – gathered in Rome last week for a papal synod on the loss of Christian populations in the lands where Christianity began, it was greeted with boredom or ignored altogether by most of the West’s press.</p> <p>Yet nowhere is the Christian fate sadder than in the territories around Jerusalem. As Monsignor Fouad Twal, the ninth Latin patriarch of Jerusalem and the second to be an Arab, put it bleakly, "the Israelis regard us as 100 per cent Palestinian Arabs and we are oppressed in the same way as the Muslims. But Muslim fundamentalists identify us with the Christian West – which is not always true – and want us to pay the price." With Christian Palestinians in Bethlehem cut off from Jerusalem by the same Israeli wall which imprisons their Muslim brothers, there is now, Twal says, "a young generation of Christians who do not know or visit the Holy Sepulchre".</p> <p>The Jordanian royal family have always protected their Christian population – at 350,000, it is around 6 per cent of the population – but this is perhaps the only flame of hope in the region. The divisions within Christianity proved even more dangerous to their community than the great Sunni-Shia divide did to the Muslims of the Middle East. Even the Crusaders were divided in their 100-year occupation of Palestine, or "Outremer", as they called it. The Lebanese journalist Fady Noun, a Christian, wrote a profound article from Rome last week in which he spoke of the Christian loss as "a great wound haemorrhaging blood", and bemoaned both Christian division and "egoism" for what he saw as a spiritual as well as a physical emigration. "There are those Christians who reach a kind of indifference… in Western countries who, swayed by the culture of these countries and the media, persuade eastern Christians to forget their identity," he wrote.</p> <p>Pope Benedict, whose mournful visit to the Holy Land last year prompted him to call the special synod which ended in the Vatican at the weekend, has adopted his usual perspective – that, despite their difficulties, Christians of the "Holy Land" must reinvigorate their feelings as "living stones" of the Middle Eastern Church. "To live in dignity in your own nation is before everything a fundamental human right," he said. "That is why you must support conditions of peace and justice, which are indispensable for the harmonious development of all the inhabitants of the region." But the Pope’s words sometimes suggested that real peace and justice lay in salvation rather than historical renewal.</p> <p>Patriarch Twal believes that the Pope understood during his trip to Israel and the West Bank last year "the disastrous consequences of the conflict between Jews and Palestinian Arabs" and has stated openly that one of the principal causes of Christian emigration is "the Israeli occupation, the Christians’ lack of freedom of movement, and the economic circumstances in which they live". But he does not see the total disappearance of the Christian faith in the Middle East. "We must have the courage to accept that we are Arabs and Christians and be faithful to this identity. Our wonderful mission is to be a bridge between East and West."</p> <p>One anonymous prelate at the Rome synod, quoted in one of the synod’s working papers, took a more pragmatic view. "Let’s stop saying there is no problem with Muslims; this isn’t true," he said. "The problem doesn’t only come from fundamentalists, but from constitutions. In all the countries of the region except Lebanon, Christians are second-class citizens." If religious freedom is guaranteed in these countries, "it is limited by specific laws and practices". In Egypt, this has certainly been the case since President Sadat referred to himself as "the Muslim president of a Muslim country".</p> <p>The Lebanese Maronite Church – its priests, by the way, can marry – understands all too well how Christians can become aligned with political groups. The Lebanese writer Sami Khalife wrote last week in the French-language newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour – the francophone voice of Lebanon’s Christians – that a loss of moral authority had turned churches in his country into "political actors" which were beginning to sound like political parties. An open letter to the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, warning him to try to turn Lebanon into a "front line" against Israel, was signed by 250 Lebanese. Most of them were from the minority Christian community.</p> <p>Nor can the church ignore Saudi Arabia, where Christianity is banned as a religion just as much as the building of churches. Christians cannot visit the Islamic holy cities of Mecca or Medina – the doors of the Vatican and Canterbury Cathedral are at least open to Muslims – and 12 Filipinos and a priest were arrested in Saudi Arabia only this month for "proselytism" for holding a secret mass. There is, perhaps, a certain irony in the fact that the only balance to Christian emigration has been the arrival in the Middle East of perhaps a quarter of a million Christian Filipino guest workers – especially in the Gulf region – while Patriarch Twal reckons that around 40,000 of them now work and live in Israel and "Palestine".</p> <p>Needless to say, it is violence against Christians that occupies the West, a phenomenon nowhere better, or more bloodily, illustrated than by al-Qa’ida’s kidnapping of Archbishop Faraj Rahho in Mosul – an incident recorded in the US military archives revealed on Saturday – and his subsequent murder. When the Iraqi authorities later passed death sentences on two men for the killing, the church asked for them to be reprieved. In Egypt, there has been a gloomy increase in Christian-Muslim violence, especially in ancient villages in the far south of the country; in Cairo, Christian churches are now cordoned off by day-and-night police checkpoints.</p> <p>And while Western Christians routinely deplore the falling Christian populations of the Middle East, their visits to the region tend to concentrate on pilgrimages to Biblical sites rather than meetings with their Christian opposite numbers. </p> <p>Americans, so obsessed by the myths of East-West "clashes of civilisation" since 11 September 2001, often seem to regard Christianity as a "Western" rather than an Eastern religion, neatly separating the Middle East roots of their own religion from the lands of Islam. That in itself is a loss of faith.</p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-exodus-the-changing-map-of-the-middle-east-2116463.html" class="external" target="_blank">Robert Fisk: Exodus. The changing map of the Middle East – Robert Fisk, Commentators – The Independent</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-11577"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/10/09/association-with-occupying-powers-makes-christians-targets/#respond" title="Comment on Association with occupying powers makes Christians targets">No Comments</a></span> Posted on October 9th, 2010 by Mohammed Al-Hamadani</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/10/09/association-with-occupying-powers-makes-christians-targets/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Association with occupying powers makes Christians targets">Association with occupying powers makes Christians targets</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/category/human-rights/" title="View all posts in Human Rights" rel="category tag">Human Rights</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/arabs/" rel="tag">Arabs</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/armenians/" rel="tag">Armenians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/assassination/" rel="tag">assassination</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/assassination-attempts/" rel="tag">Assassination attempts</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/assyria/" rel="tag">Assyria</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/assyrian/" rel="tag">Assyrian</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/assyrians/" rel="tag">Assyrians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/basra/" rel="tag">Basra</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/bombings/" rel="tag">Bombings</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/catholic-church/" rel="tag">Catholic Church</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/catholics/" rel="tag">Catholics</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/chaldean-catholic/" rel="tag">chaldean catholic</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/chaldean-church/" rel="tag">chaldean church</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/chaldeans/" rel="tag">Chaldeans</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-minority/" rel="tag">christian minority</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-population/" rel="tag">christian population</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians/" rel="tag">Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians-killing-of/" rel="tag">Christians - 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Their businesses are targeted by extremists. Their leaders are kidnapped and assassinated. The Christian minority in Iraq, once a community left in peace to prosper, continues to be under threat from a campaign of persecution which has forced as many as 500,000 Christians to flee the country.</p> <p>During the reign of Saddam Hussein, the estimated 1.4 million Christians – many of them Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians, with small numbers of Roman Catholics – were generally left alone if they didn’t oppose the government and they lived in relative peace with the country’s Sunnis and Shiites. </p> <p>Some, such as Tariq Aziz, Saddam’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, rose to the highest levels of power.</p> <p>Things changed after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq toppled Saddam’s regime. Christians became a target of violence when Islamist groups and ordinary Muslims angered by the military action began seeing them as the enemy, associating with them with the "crusaders" – the invading armies of the United States and Britain.</p> <p>Tensions over their religious ties with the West and their differing beliefs to the strict Islamic majority, which had been simmering for years, spilled over as the occupying forces dug in.</p> <p>"Iraqi Christians became caught up in the overlapping violence and multiple conflicts unleashed after 2003," Dr. Kristian Ulrichsen, an Iraq expert at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told Deutsche Welle. "They became exposed to the similar patterns of kidnappings, extortion, beheadings, rape and forced taxation that affected all other communities as the erosion of central government control left a security vacuum that was exploited by organised and opportunistic criminality and anti-occupation resistance groups." </p> <p>"In addition to this, Christians specifically were targeted by Church bombings and assassination attempts owing to a perceived association with the aims and intentions of the occupying forces."</p> <h3>Association with occupying powers makes Christians targets</h3> <p>In 2004, insurgents launched a coordinated bombing campaign targeted churches in Baghdad. In 2007, after Pope Benedict XVI made comments perceived to be anti-Islam, nationwide attacks on churches hit an all-time high and a priest in the northern city of Mosul was kidnapped and later found beheaded. In January 2009, 40 Iraqi Christians were killed and approximately 12,000 fled their homes.</p> <p>In February this year, at least 10 Iraqi Christians were killed by unknown gunmen in Mosul as the country was preparing for the March 7 elections. The escalating violence ahead of the ballot led to hundreds of Iraqi Christians taking to the streets in a number of protests, chanting slogans such as "Stop the killing of Christians."</p> <p>During the years since the invasion, life for the Christian minority has become beset by danger. The waves of violent attacks against churches, businesses and homes have forced more than half of the Christian population to flee for their lives, according to statistcs from the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Those churches which remain standing are mostly empty, their congregations long gone or too afraid to attend.</p> <p>"The Christian minority in Iraq has been reduced to a shadow of its former self," said Ulrichsen. "Up to two-thirds of the pre-war community has been displaced or forced to flee the country. Although conditions in Iraq have improved somewhat since 2007, the security situation remains intensely fragile and prone to reversal, and the return of refugees and displaced persons to their homes has been very slow and halting."</p> <p>"There’s a real possibility that 2,000 years of settlement by Christian communities in Iraq is in danger of near-total extinction." </p> <h3>US withdrawal leave Christians’ fate in Iraqi hands</h3> <p>As the United States steps up its military withdrawal from Iraq, the Christian minority is forced to look at the Iraqi security structure for protection. However, the prospect of being protecetd by the Iraqi police and armed forces fails to instill any confidence in the Christian minority.</p> <p>"The greatest concern about a US pullout is that extremists will exploit any lapses in security and attack vulnerable groups, including Christians," Samer Muscati, an Iraq expert from the Middle East division at Human Rights Watch, told Deutsche Welle. </p> <p>"Although the Iraqi government publicly condemns violence against Christians and other minority groups, it has not taken measures to bolster security in areas where minorities are particularly vulnerable to attacks, and it has not thoroughly investigated attacks," he added. "Iraqi security forces rarely apprehend, prosecute and punish perpetrators of such attacks, which has created a climate of impunity."</p> <h3>Christians search for ways to protect themselves </h3> <p>One muted proposal to protect the Christian minority involves the creation of an autonomous province on a neglected area of land located to the north and west of Mosul, called Ninawah Plain, which would act as a sanctuary.</p> <p>While advocates of the idea say it wouldn’t stop the violence against Christians in the large, high-risk cities of Mosul, Baghdad, and Al-Basrah, it would give the Christians a place where their needs could be met, their beliefs supported and their security guaranteed.</p> <p>The proposals suggest that Ninaweh Plain would an autonomous administrative region in which the Christian minority could govern themselves and would be free to participate in the federalist system which is developing in Iraq.</p> <h3>Creation of autonomous region plagued by problems </h3> <p>However, the idea of an autonomous region for the Christian minority in reality looks unviable. </p> <p>"The image of a real autonomy is unrealistic," Nizar Hanna, director of the Assyrian Democratic Movement’s Baghdad office, told Deutsche Welle. "Up to now, there are no concrete plans which show how this would work. Even in the Kurdish constitution, they have the right to autonomy in the areas where they are the majority but nowhere is this the case. Besides, there are no areas in which only Christians live. Shabak, Yazidis, Kurds and Arabs also live there." </p> <p>"To an extent a safe haven for Christians exists in Iraqi Kurdistan," Kristian Ulrichsen said. "Thousands of internally displaced Iraqi Christians have moved there. Although viable on humanitarian grounds, the creation of a specific region for Christians would be a short-term measure that does not offer a longer-term solution to the reconstruction of Iraqi society and the reintegration of its communities."</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6052335,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-world-4025-rdf" class="external" target="_blank">Iraqi Christians fear escalating persecution as US forces withdraw | World | Deutsche Welle | 09.10.2010</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-8312"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/01/15/louis-sako-synod-of-middle-east-churches-mission-and-a-return-to-dialogue/#respond" title="Comment on Louis Sako: Synod of Middle East Churches: mission and a return to dialogue">No Comments</a></span> Posted on January 15th, 2010 by Fatima Jameel</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/01/15/louis-sako-synod-of-middle-east-churches-mission-and-a-return-to-dialogue/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Louis Sako: Synod of Middle East Churches: mission and a return to dialogue">Louis Sako: Synod of Middle East Churches: mission and a return to dialogue</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/category/religion/" title="View all posts in Religion" rel="category tag">Religion</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/archbishop-louis-sako/" rel="tag">Archbishop Louis Sako</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/asia-news/" rel="tag">Asia News</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/catholic-archbishop/" rel="tag">catholic archbishop</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/catholic-church/" rel="tag">Catholic Church</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/chaldean-catholic/" rel="tag">chaldean catholic</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/chaldean-church/" rel="tag">chaldean church</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-arab-contribution-to-region/" rel="tag">Christian Arab contribution to region</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-ecumenism-need-for/" rel="tag">Christian ecumenism - 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We need more unity among Christians, divided into countless groups and traditions. And a mature dialogue with Islamic communities, showing them the important contribution of Christians in the past and present history of Arab culture. </p> <p><strong>Editor’s Note:</strong> Louis Sako is the Archbishop of Kirkuk</p> </p></div> <p>Kirkuk (<a title="AsiaNews" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Synod-of-Middle-East-Churches:-mission-and-a-return-to-dialogue-17345.html" class="external" target="_blank">AsiaNews</a>) – Christians in the East are decreasing in numbers due to wars, migration, low birth rates, the expansion of Islam and divisions within the community itself. The threats and pressures to sell land and houses, bought by Muslims and with the support – including economic – of fundamentalists, suggests that the Christian presence in the Middle East is destined disappear.    </p> <p>The Synod of the Churches of the Middle East can help us avoid this fate if we go to the roots of the crisis.  </p> <p>The early Church (which was Middle Eastern) was close to people and presented the Gospel message conforming to the culture of the people, proclaiming the faith in their own language, so that the message was attractive and effective. The prophetic role of the Church was manifest and worked in the truth and from it, people were able to derive meaning for their lives and a sign of great freedom and dignity. For this reason, many converted and decided to embrace Christianity.    <br/>Today, the Christian presence is a cultural one, a historical and tradition-bound presence, an ethnic identity according to the millet system, which is a perfected form of the Institute of Islamic dhimma [the pact of "protection" for non-Muslims, which made Christians and Jews second class citizens - ed.] The Apostolic Churches, however, have lost the enthusiasm of their origins in the work of witness: the role of prophecy, love and zeal for the proclamation of the Gospel to others.    </p> <p>The future of the community depends on several factors, two of which are of fundamental importance: the relationship between Christians, i.e relations between the different Churches and the relationship with Muslims.  </p> <h3>The relations between Christians    </h3> <p>Christians today need to promote, in a continuous and influential manner, a culture of love and dialogue, openness and diversity. Current divisions leave a strong and negative mark on their presence and their testimony. The relationship between the various churches is going through difficult times and seems to move backward.    </p> <p>The Church is the community of believers who look to Christ and testify to the announcement of Good News, which is continuously renewed. The Church can not merely limit itself to being a sociological, ethnic or cultural entity… Preaching the Gospel means welcoming the Good News with the commitment to live it and correcting erred behaviour. Baptism becomes the culmination of the journey of faith. This should be done not only with the elite, but also with simple people.      </p> <p>Most churches in the Middle East are small churches and live with an identity crisis because of their dual membership (i.e.: ethnic identity of a political, social and cultural nature and the one linked to the universality of their mission). And groups of evangelical churches: do we call them churches in the nominal sense or are they rooted or tradition?      We need a serious self-criticism and to reconsider our reality and our mission. The future depends on our cooperation, our service and our witness. We are one family, we must overcome the barriers that divide us. We are united in the Word of God, we have the same profession of faith, despite the differences in form, and generally, the same sacraments. We must strive for mutual enrichment and deepen all the peculiarities of our faith in God’s love, forgiveness, the joy that comes from welcoming.    </p> <p>We all need to be patient and learn to read history, to assess the facts impartially without emotion. The real strategy is to work together Christians of Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Palestine. Even the Christian political parties are divided and in conflict, they must unite to support the Christian presence, otherwise our fate will be of wailing and lamentation in front of our land.    </p> <h3>Dialogue with Islam    </h3> <p>Today the affirmation of political Islam is clear. It has made this religious identity the central one in the Middle East. This identity has overshadowed the Arab nationalist ideology (the umma) and political participation derives from the principles of Islam.    </p> <p>Together Christian churches and not isolated, must talk to face this reality and establish rules of civil coexistence.    </p> <p>Dialogue with Islam is the only civilian rule, effective for interacting with everyone, taking into account all that has been achieved over the course of history especially during the periods known as the Ommiad (7th – 8th century) and Abbasids (8th – 13th  century).    </p> <p>Christians have an obligation today to offer theological approaches to the faith in a new and understandable language, the line of biblical theology rather than in a classic, philosophical language.  </p> <p>In this dialogue, they must be allowed to demonstrate the contribution they have given to the Arab and Islamic civilization, the history of these regions is not entirely Muslim, but pluralistic, and make sure it is recognised that the Christian Arab factor is a source of enrichment rather than depletion . They must clearly state that they had no relation with the Crusaders when they invaded the East; nor with the colonial powers that invaded the Arab countries without taking the national charter into account; nor with the occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; they have always supported the cause of the Palestinians. These points are very important at the level of Muslim public awareness.    <br/>Dialogue is the only way to resolve differences and restore security and stability. The opening up of Christians, their qualifications and skills may be useful for Muslims. For this we must encourage:    </p> <p>a) adoption of new programs of religious education, based on tolerance and acceptance of others, refraining from all forms of violence.    </p> <p>b) ensure that all are equal before law with equal rights – without any discrimination of race, religion or sex – which creates trust and improves coexistence, strengthening the sense of responsibility of each individual.    </p> <p>c) a commitment to promoting and encouraging solidarity with the poor and marginalized, whatever their race, colour or religion, overcoming injustices and wrongs.   </p> <p><strong>Source:</strong> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Synod-of-Middle-East-Churches:-mission-and-a-return-to-dialogue-17345.html" class="external" target="_blank">VATICAN – MIDDLE EAST Synod of Middle East Churches: mission and a return to dialogue</a> by Archbishop Louis Sako – <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://www.asianews.it/en.html" class="external" target="_blank">Asia News</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-8216"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/01/08/alexander-cockburn-obamas-broken-promise-has-invited-terrorism/#respond" title="Comment on Alexander Cockburn: Obama’s broken promise has invited terrorism">No Comments</a></span> Posted on January 8th, 2010 by Editors</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/01/08/alexander-cockburn-obamas-broken-promise-has-invited-terrorism/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Alexander Cockburn: Obama’s broken promise has invited terrorism">Alexander Cockburn: Obama’s broken promise has invited terrorism</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/category/analysis-briefings-commentary/" title="View all posts in Analysis Briefings Commentary" rel="category tag">Analysis Briefings Commentary</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/war-on-terror/" rel="tag">"War on terror"</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/american-war-on-islam/" rel="tag">American war on Islam</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/barack-obama/" rel="tag">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/barack-obama-cairo-speech/" rel="tag">Barack Obama - Cairo speech</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/crusaders/" rel="tag">crusaders</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <p><strong>Weak security is not to blame – it’s Obama’s betrayal of his promise to change US ways</strong></p> <p>Look on the bright side. They finally found a WMD. Not in the desert wastes of Iraq, nor in the cellar of one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. Not in an Iranian nuclear facility. But in Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s underpants. </p> <p>The would-be Detroit bomber has been charged by a US grand jury with "attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction". Who’d have thought a weapon of mass destruction could be so small? Or that "mass" could mean something less than a four-digit casualty list? "Suitcase bomb" used to be about as low as they’d go in dimensions. </p> <p>Connoisseurs of the ritual known as "Accepting full responsibility" will surely grade Obama a mere B for his performance yesterday at his White House press conference. "Ultimately, the buck stops with me," Obama said, apropos of al-Qaeda’s near miss on Northwest Flight 253. "As president, I have a solemn responsibility to protect our nation and our people, and when the system fails, it is my responsibility." </p> <p>First strike against Obama’s speech writer is the weasly use of "ultimately", not to mention the mawkish use of "solemn". Second strike is his habitual dive into "systemic failure", as the president termed it earlier in the week. Everyone knows that systemic failure – which Obama has been hawking all week – spells out as "No one is to blame. This is bigger than all of us." That’s the phrase’s singular beauty. </p> <p>I’d give John Brennan low marks too. "I told the president today I let him down," said Obama’s top counter-terrorism aide, who followed his boss at the press briefing. Okay so far. Exciting, even. In medieval Japan he would have stuck a sword in his stomach at this point. Not Brennan. "I am the president’s assistant for homeland security and counter-terrorism and I told him I will do better and we will do better as a team." </p> <p>The all-time champ at accepting, while not accepting, "full responsibility" was Ronald Reagan, shouldering blame for the criminal saga known as ‘Iran-Contra’ for which he was indeed entirely responsible and for which he should have been impeached and thrown into prison. The 76-year old president addressed the nation on March 4, 1987, after the Tower Commission had issued a savage rebuke to the White House for its guiding role. </p> <p><strong>Stage one:</strong> artful deflection of blame: "First, let me say I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration," said Reagan. "As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I’m still the one who must answer to the American people for this behaviour. And as personally distasteful as I find secret bank accounts and diverted funds – well, as the Navy would say, this happened on my watch." </p> <p>A small masterpiece, as I’m sure you’ll agree. </p> <p><strong>Stage two:</strong> manly openness about some trifling blunders: "One thing still upsetting me, however, is that no one kept proper records of meetings or decisions. This led to my failure to recollect whether I approved an arms shipment before or after the fact. I did approve it; I just can’t say specifically when." (A lot better than Nixon’s lawyer-speak: "To the best of my recollection I cannot recall at this point in time.") Then Reagan pledged to do better. "Well, rest assured, there’s plenty of record-keeping now going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." </p> <p><strong>Stage three:</strong> onward and upward! "You know," Reagan concluded affably, "by the time you reach my age, you’ve made plenty of mistakes. And if you’ve lived your life properly – so, you learn. You put things in perspective. You pull your energies together. You change. You go forward." And all this from a man with incipient Alzheimer’s. </p> <p>The problem with all the gabble about systemic failure – and with not making Brennan or at least the head of the US Embassy in Lagos resign – is that it reminds people that Obama hasn’t got much of a spine, also that systemic failures are impossible to fix within the system’s terms, a judgment wonderfully ratified by Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano’s insistence on December 27 that "the system worked". </p> <p>America’s defences against terror fouled up on December 25, 2009 for the same reasons they fouled up on September 11, 2001, even though the 9/11 attacks were followed by vast bureaucratic upheavals and searching scrutinies of intelligence procedures. </p> <p>Now Obama is listing the orders he’s issued to improve inter-agency cooperation: expand the Watch List, enlarge the overall terror database, train up more security personnel at airports. It fulfills the first law of reactive politics – Do something. Issue orders. Look busy. But beyond that, will it stop the next bomber? </p> <p>It was Napolitano herself, formerly governor of Arizona, who said of the wall being built to stop illegal migrants crossing the southern border from Mexico, "You show me a 50ft wall and I’ll show you a 51ft ladder… That’s the way the border works." </p> <p>By the same token, show me a top ‘red alert’ urgent intelligence report and I’ll show you 100 other ‘red alert’ intelligence reports sitting on top of it. Show me the 16 agencies which make up the "US Intelligence Community" – plus tactical military intelligence and security organisations, plus those responsible for security responses to transnational threats, including terrorism, cyber warfare and computer security, narcotics trafficking, and international organised crime – and I’ll show you bureaucratic rivalry, buck-passing, active sabotage of rival agencies, incompetence, sloth and all the sins and inefficiencies familiar to anyone who has ever read a decent work of history about such matters. </p> <p>Add to all this the fact that no one "responsible" ever does have to pay any sort of price. A lot of people lost their lives on September 11, 2001 but so far as I can recall no one lost their job for letting it happen. No lives at all were lost on December 25, 2009, but no jobs either, from Brennan on down. Maybe there’s progress. The lowly TSA official who didn’t notice a man going through the "No Entry" gate to give his girlfriend another goodbye kiss at Newark Airport (total shut-down, mass panic) has been placed on leave. </p> <p>Personally, I’m not at all dismayed at evidence that intelligence gathering networks are flawed, that bureaucrats pass the buck. Hyper-efficiency in these matters would indicate we had arrived at the perfect police state. Of course there is room for commonsense and elementary vigilance. In the case of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/6376,news-comment,news-politics,virginia-tech-shootings-32-dead" class="external" target="_blank">the Virginia Tech killer</a> there was plenty of evidence that Cho Seung-hui was a timebomb waiting to explode. Students talked about him as a possible shooter and refused to take classes with him. His essays so disturbed one of his teachers with their violent ravings that she arranged a secret signal in case she needed security during her tutorials. </p> <p>Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/55714,news-comment,news-politics,fort-hood-killer-dreaded-deployment-to-a-war-zone-kimberley-munley" class="external" target="_blank">murderous rampage at Fort Hood</a> offers another bracing illustration of the human capacity to avoid unpleasant decisions, like dealing with an Army shrink who had ‘Soldier of Islam’ on his visiting cards, and discussed openly the ethics of armed resistance to Christian assaults on Islam and so forth. </p> <p>Now there’s an avalanche of punditry about Britain’s Islamic minority as the petri dish in which toxic cultures of militant Islam flourish and multiply. At this rate they’ll soon be deploying the Delta Force in Tower Hamlets and assassinating imams. </p> <p>The petri dish for terror is US national policy, abetted by junior partners in the UK, France and Germany: widening attacks on Afghanistan, an unfolding record of torturing captives to death since 2001, full support for Israel’s onslaughts on Palestinians and calculated mass murder. It’s scarcely surprising that we’ve had this terror bid in the new Age of Obama and its supposed swerve into rationality. The swerve has been the other way and, guess what, the Muslim world has noticed. </p> <p>What words can a radical imam in the UK or Yemen have to offer as incitement to attack America that would be as vividly persuasive as the policies adopted by Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton – expanding the war in Afghanistan, cheerleading for Israel and, it turns out, initiating a dirty war in Yemen? When the US Congress on November 4 last year voted 334 to 36 to condemn the Goldstone Report for its charge that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza, how many young Muslims exclaimed, ‘That does it!’ and headed for their local terrorist recruiting office? </p> <p>How the terrorists – al-Qaeda or cognate conspiracies – must be exulting! All they have to do is get someone on the plane with explosive deployed on or in their persons. They don’t need even to set the bomb off. Result: political hysteria in the US, and another savage blow to the aviation industry and tourism. The latest US Dept of Commerce statistics show a continued fall in foreign visitors to the US. Since 9/11/2001 there’s been a 17 per cent decline – 60 million tourists. A survey concludes that a negative impression of the US is the primary reason for this decline. The new security screenings will accelerate that trend. </p> <p>Back in 1962, Roberta Wohlstetter published <em>Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision</em>, a famous reconstruction of the indications and warning process preceding the successful Japanese surprise attack of 7 December 1941. The book was a disingenuous one since part of Wohlstetter’s agenda was to discredit the fairly persuasive evidence that Roosevelt was aware of an impending Japanese attack – though not its dimensions – and saw it as something that would finally allow him to trump all opposition to the US’s entry into the war. </p> <p>But Wohlstetter, excavating all the "systemic" obstructions to the efficient use of intelligence before the Japanese attack, did accurately conclude: "We have to accept the fact of uncertainty and learn to live with it". </p> <p>Obama promised change, in his campaign and in Cairo. So far as the Islamic world is concerned, he’s betrayed that promise. That’s the systemic failure. It’s no solution to requisition bigger and better x-ray machines at points of departure and entry.,</p> <p><strong>Source: </strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/58129,news-comment,news-politics,alexander-cockburn-obamas-broken-promise-has-invited-terrorism" class="external" target="_blank">Obama’s broken promise has invited terrorism</a> | News & Politics | News & Comment | The First Post <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/author,73,alexander-cockburn" class="external" target="_blank">By Alexander Cockburn</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-6286"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/2009/05/24/%d8%aa%d9%84%d8%ac%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%81-%d8%a8%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d8%b9%d8%aa%d9%82%d8%af-%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%87-%d9%85%d9%83%d9%84%d9%81-%d8%a8%d9%85%d9%87%d9%85%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%87%d9%8a%d8%a9/#respond" title="Comment on تلجراف: بلير اعتقد انه مكلف بمهمة الهية بادخال بريطانيا الحرب على العراق">No Comments</a></span> Posted on May 24th, 2009 by Editors</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/2009/05/24/%d8%aa%d9%84%d8%ac%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%81-%d8%a8%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d8%b9%d8%aa%d9%82%d8%af-%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%87-%d9%85%d9%83%d9%84%d9%81-%d8%a8%d9%85%d9%87%d9%85%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%87%d9%8a%d8%a9/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to تلجراف: بلير اعتقد انه مكلف بمهمة الهية بادخال بريطانيا الحرب على العراق">تلجراف: بلير اعتقد انه مكلف بمهمة الهية بادخال بريطانيا الحرب على العراق</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/category/iraq/" title="View all posts in News" rel="category tag">News</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/crusaders/" rel="tag">crusaders</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/tony-blair/" rel="tag">Tony Blair</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/war-criminals/" rel="tag">war criminals</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/war-criminals-tony-blair/" rel="tag">War criminals (Tony Blair)</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <div dir="rtl" align="right"> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27086036@N02/3559007202/" class="external" target="_blank"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="20090523_tony_blair_crusader" border="0" alt="20090523_tony_blair_crusader" align="left" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130127044333im_/http://gorillasguides.com/wp-content/uploads/20090523-tony-blair-crusader.jpg" width="352" height="434"/></a>في تغطية نشرتها صحيفة الديلي تلجراف عن حياة توني بلير السياسية واختلاطها بمعتقداته الايمانية. </p> <p>كتبت موضوعا تحت عنوان  : عرّاب توني بلير يقول ان بلير اعتقد ان الله اراد له ان يذهب الى الحرب لقتال الاشرار. </p> <p>هذا العراب يقول ايضا ان قرار بلير بادخال بريطانيا في حربي العراق وكوسوفو انما كانت جزءا من "معركته المسيحية" ضد الباطل والشر. </p> <p>وتنقل الصحيفة عن جون بيرتن، المندوب السياسي لبلير في دائرة بلير الانتخابية لنحو 24 عاما، قوله ان المعتقد الديني لرئيس الوزراء البريطاني السابق كان له تأثير على قرارات الاخير السياسية الكبرى. </p> <p>ويضيف ان بلير كان معتقدا اعتقادا جازما بأنه على حق في اتخاذ تلك القرارات، وانه كان مؤمنا تمام الايمان بأن "الحق لا بد ان ينتصر على الباطل</p> </p></div> 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