Archbishop warns of "Israeli plan to expel the Christians of Palestine"
Headline: “Religious figures warn of Israeli plan to expel Palestine’s Christians”
“Christian religious figures and public opinion shapers warned of an Israeli plan to expel the Christians of Palestine. They emphasized the spirit of fraternity and love binding the Muslims and Christians in Palestine and in the Middle East. These sentiments were expressed in statements documented on an Internet forum established by an Arab-European research center located in Paris, under the heading, ‘Is there a plan to remove the Christians of the East?’
The Archbishop of Sebastia from the Orthodox Patriarchate at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Archbishop Atalla Hanna, said: ‘Yes, there is a plan to remove the Christians from the East, and this is because the Israeli occupation wants to present the Palestinian issue as a religious conflict, while it is not so. This is a conflict between the Israeli occupation, which has no right, and the Palestinian people, which possesses the right and the land.’
Hanna added: ‘We believe that there is an Israeli plan to empty out the holy land, and that the disappearance of Christians from the East is a clear Israeli interest, because Israel wants Palestine to look as though it is one single color, one single group.’…
Director of the Royal Jordanian Institute for Religious Research, Kamal Abu Jibar, said: ‘In practice, there is an Israeli plan, which Israel has been working on since 1948, to empty out Palestinian land – and, if possible, also the region – in order to prove to the West that the problem is Jewish, with Islam.’ [wording in the original not clear].
The permanent supervisor on the Social Committee at the UN, Amb. Nosair Al-Hamoud, said: ‘The Christians of the East are an integral part which cannot be separated from the history of the region or from its future. The Arab East was Christian for six hundred years prior to the appearance of Islam… Also, they [the Christians] have Islamic, Arab culture in their hearts and in their conduct.”
“Christian religious figures and public opinion shapers warned of an Israeli plan to expel the Christians of Palestine. They emphasized the spirit of fraternity and love binding the Muslims and Christians in Palestine and in the Middle East. These sentiments were expressed in statements documented on an Internet forum established by an Arab-European research center located in Paris, under the heading, ‘Is there a plan to remove the Christians of the East?’
The Archbishop of Sebastia from the Orthodox Patriarchate at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Archbishop Atalla Hanna, said: ‘Yes, there is a plan to remove the Christians from the East, and this is because the Israeli occupation wants to present the Palestinian issue as a religious conflict, while it is not so. This is a conflict between the Israeli occupation, which has no right, and the Palestinian people, which possesses the right and the land.’
Hanna added: ‘We believe that there is an Israeli plan to empty out the holy land, and that the disappearance of Christians from the East is a clear Israeli interest, because Israel wants Palestine to look as though it is one single color, one single group.’…
Director of the Royal Jordanian Institute for Religious Research, Kamal Abu Jibar, said: ‘In practice, there is an Israeli plan, which Israel has been working on since 1948, to empty out Palestinian land – and, if possible, also the region – in order to prove to the West that the problem is Jewish, with Islam.’ [wording in the original not clear].
The permanent supervisor on the Social Committee at the UN, Amb. Nosair Al-Hamoud, said: ‘The Christians of the East are an integral part which cannot be separated from the history of the region or from its future. The Arab East was Christian for six hundred years prior to the appearance of Islam… Also, they [the Christians] have Islamic, Arab culture in their hearts and in their conduct.”