Ainsley Henriques, Contributor
The Rt. Rev. Riah Abu El-Assal, Anglican Diocesan Bishop of Jerusalem, during a public lecture on the topic 'Arab Christians: An Endangered Species' held at St. Andrew Parish Church in Half-Way Tree on Tuesday. - FILE
FIRST I wish to publicly congratulate the St. Andrew Parish Church congregation on the celebration of its 340th anniversary, a significant milestone and I look forward to the 350th anniversary.
That congregation invited the Rt. Rev. Riah Abu El-Assal, the Anglican Diocesan Bishop of Jerusalem as their guest and speaker for this celebration. He seemed to have spoken on many subjects. The issues that I wish to address are those that have been reported on in the Saturday Gleaner of October 8.
The Rt. Rev. Bishop entered the Middle East political fray with an accusation that Israel had ignored the U.N.'s repeated appeals to release the lands that it had captured in the Six day war. In doing so he forgot to mention that Israel was attacked in this war in 1967 by Egypt, Jordan and Syria and that Gaza was captured from Egypt along with the Sinai and its oil wells. Th Sinai, was returned to Egypt and I might add, for the second time. He failed to be asked nor did he volunteer to say why Gaza was not returned. Did Egypt want the return of Gaza by Israel?
He went on to say that Israel has not ended the occupation of Gaza but begun a new occupation. His argument is based on the facts that the people of Gaza cannot leave Gaza without crossing the Israeli border and being searched, that they, the people of Gaza do not control their airspace nor the sea. The facts are accurate, the argument with regard to a new occupation, is false.
The Bishop is forgetting that no country allows others free entry through their borders. The people of Gaza were never Israeli citizens. Gaza is not yet a recognised country. Until it becomes one there must be responsibility for its air space and territorial waters.
SUPPORT SYSTEMS DOWN
He goes on to say that the people of Gaza have been left to fend for themselves without meaningful support systems related to health care and food. If these were being provided by the Israelis then the occupation must have had a humanity to it that the press have never reported nor the Arabs never publicly recognised. Were the people of Gaza so dependent on the Israelis?
I regret that I was not there to ask these questions and seek his answers.
Then he blames Israel for leaving synagogues so that they could blame the people of Gaza for their destruction, really! Is it unimaginable that these buildings, left behind, could have been used by the people of Gaza for two purposes: first, to prove that they do not destroy the former places of worship by others and second, to use the buildings for their own purposes?
He goes on to blame the birth of Israel by implication for the decline in the Anglican population of the Middle East. He seems to have forgotten that there has been a rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Muslim countries.
This has targeted their Christian and Jewish populations. Most of them who had elsewhere to live have migrated. He also seems to have not recalled the fact that before 1967 the Christian and Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem and in the West Bank were under Jordanian rule. They were not protected by that state. Today the holy sites of all three religions, Christian, Muslim and Jewish are under the protection of the State of Israel.
The wall is another issue. No one wants a wall or a fence as a boundary.
WALL DEFENCE EFFECTIVE
This wall does, however, have a proven value. It has reduced the infiltration by suicide bombers and the taking of their lives and the lives of innocent civilians in Israel. Other walls, which he does not mention, are usually built to keep out people seeking to enter a country to stay for economic purposes, such as the one between Mexico and the USA, or between India and Kashmir and in many other parts of the world.
His Christianity holds to the concept of good and evil. This is not the same concept that Muslim Arabs understand. What motivates a suicide bomber is the concept of honour and shame. The lack of this understanding permeates the entire Judeo/Christian west.
The Rt. Reverend Bishop is entitled to his political opinions as he is to his religious beliefs. In Israel, as in Jamaica, he is free to speak his mind on both of these subjects. Elsewhere, and especially in his part of the world, such freedom of speech is not enjoyed. His comments should also be directed at the faults of those regimes that lack this freedom rather than to apply the entire blame of the condition of the people of Gaza/Palestine on Israel.
Ainsley Henriques is the honorary consul of Israel.
