Holy Land Christians call for protest…

Against the Muslim  persecution of Christians in Palestine?

Don’t be silly. The protest is against something much more important, something discriminatory: Israeli travel permits for Easter.

Christians call for protest against Israeli travel permits for Easter.

Holy Land Christians are calling on their religious leaders to protest against the travel permit system imposed by Israel during Easter celebrations.

The situation is complicated in 2010 by the overlapping of Easter with the Jewish feast of the Passover.

“Any system which assigns entry permits to Easter celebrations necessarily denies the rest of the faithful their rights of participation in these religious events,” they wrote in a letter that has been circulated during the month of March.

Some 103 Christian lay leaders and 21 Christian organizations of all denominations, including the Near East Council of Churches, Gaza and Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees, Sabeel, the YMCA-Jerusalem, Bethlehem Bible College, Norwegian Church Aid and Arab Orthodox Society, signed the document.

Like all West Bank Palestinians, Christians must have permits to travel to Jerusalem.

“This is further proof of the inherently discriminatory nature of the denial of the basic rights to religious observance”.

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Rowan Williams is baffled and angry at Israel

From here:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that despite believing Israel has a right to defend itself, he is “baffled and angry” at some of its methods.

Dr Rowan Williams spoke in conversation with Times editor James Harding in front of more than 200 people at a JC-sponsored event organised by the Board of Deputies on Wednesday.

Less than 15 minutes into the 90- minute discussion, Mr Harding asked Dr Williams to face the “elephant in the room” and reveal his views on Israel.

“The state of Israel is a legitimate state,” the archbishop said. “It has a right to exist and right to defend itself. The very fact that Israel makes so much of its status as a democratic state leaves me baffled and sometimes angry at what seems like collusion with unauthorised parties. I want to hear a legal defence of settlements and I am yet to hear it.

“Unless there is a way of representing the settlements as legitimate self-defence I remain very disturbed about that, along with many.”

Rowan would undoubtedly be much happier if Israel would engage Hamas – who don’t seem to make Rowan angry at all – in Indaba sessions, holy listening and telling stories; then, at least everyone would be baffled.

Where do Arabs in Gaza get their drinking water?

A coterie of buffoons

Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu and Kofi Annan, among others, are Elders apparently and are out to save the world. Having solved the problem of discrimination against women – without mentioning Islam – they are about to focus their gaze on the Middle East; no doubt all strife and dissent with wither before the blinding light of their collective intelligence. In other words, look out Israel, you are in for another bashing.

“The Elders” are coming to the Middle East, ostensibly bringing wise diplomatic counsel, but actually are likely to deliver yet another ultimatum to Israel.

A brainchild of British billionaire and gadfly Richard Branson, “The Elders” are ostensibly a wise junta of “eminent global leaders” bringing “their collective influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.”

Naturally, Jimmy Carter is an Elder.  So too is retired South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former Irish President Mary Robinson, former Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, former Marxist Mozambican first lady (and later wife to Nelson Mandela) Graca Machel, and former Norwegian Premier Gro Bruntland, along with several other Third World luminaries and global justice advocates, all of whom are left of center.

These Elders generally advocate a flavorless globaloney approach to the world, usually guided by all the usual bromides echoing among the bureaucracies of the United Nations, the European Union, most NGO’s, Ivy League universities, and left-leaning philanthropies like Ford, Rockefeller, and Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation.  The Elders seem to draw their oxygen, stale though it is, from a self-enclosed phalanx of these mutually re-enforcing chattering societies.