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The church and Islamism

The Christian churches are clearly going to be of no help in the current war to protect (among other things) their world too.

The Anglican Church

Rowan Williams

• The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is another one of those hopeless anti-Americans from whom we can expect no serious moral guidance.
  • Melanie Phillips articles on Rowan Williams.
  • The moral failure of Rowan Williams - He urges America to recognise that terrorists can "have serious moral goals". He is talking, as he says himself, about al-Qa'eda, whose goals are the establishment of Islamofascist rule and the extermination of unbelievers. He clearly regards calling al-Qa'eda "evil" and declaring total war against them as "simplistic". He described the liberation of Iraq as "immoral".
  • Tales of Canterbury's Future? by Peter Mullen, on Rowan Williams' disgusting response to Sept 11th. He refuses to call the mass killers of innocents "evil": "Bombast about evil individuals doesn't help in understanding anything." And yet later this man called the liberation of Iraq "immoral"!
  • Rowan Williams' ignorant statements on Iraq
  • Rowan Williams described the liberation of Afghanistan as "morally tainted" and an "embarrassment"
  • Tim Blair describes Rowan Williams as "a loser and a tool". OK it's not very intellectual, but it expresses how I feel. All that education, worthless because he has no moral compass.
  • I despair at the 9/11 naivety of Rowan Williams by Rev. Peter Mullen, September 07, 2004 - "This is a high-grade sample of the drivel we have heard these past three years from those in the West who despise the civilisation which is their inheritance. Of course the suicide bombers had "other options""
  • Rowan Williams and Arafat

• Rowan Williams fails to defend Christians around the world:
  • Islamist persecution of Christians (and here)
  • Moral confusion at Canterbury - Rowan Williams talks about irrelevant issues like Guantanamo Bay, yet ignores a far bigger issue: ".. the systematic worldwide Islamist persecution of Christians. In country after country, radical Islamists are murdering Christians and attacking their churches. ... In the face of such global terror against its own flock, the Church remains quite astoundingly mute. Through such craven silence, it unforgiveably betrays its own followers. But it also effectively abandons others - including moderate Muslims, Jews, Hindus and secularists - who are similarly the explicit targets of this Islamist fascism." See follow-up.
  • On his knees before terror - Melanie Phillips on Rowan Williams' sermon on the 3rd anniversary of 9/11. "You would never think, from the Archbishop's remarks, that he was the leader of a Christian world that is under murderous attack in Nigeria, Sudan, Pakistan and many other countries by an Islamic jihad that clearly states it intends to wipe out or subjugate Christianity throughout the lands of the medieval Caliphate. Not a word of this escaped the Archbishop's lips. Instead - unbelievably - he cast Christianity as the villain of the piece"

• Rowan Williams sucks up to Muslim magazine "Emel", Nov 2007.
  • Instead of telling them some hard truths about the oppression, persecution and killing of Christians in Muslim lands, he praises all their prejudices, and gives out endlessly about America, Israel and the West. "His voice is gentle" - as if that matters a damn when what he says is so disgusting.
  • He talks about persecuted Christians in Iraq - and blames "the West" rather than Islamism! He talks about persecuted Christians in Palestine - and blames "the wall" rather than Islamism! He talks about persecuted Christians in Pakistan - and he is "surprised" by how Muslims there perceive the tiny Christian minority as "so deeply threatening". And yet he doesn't condemn them!
  • Instead of attacking Islamist religious intolerance, and oppressive religious and tribal society in the third world, he attacks western free society: "There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul." Maybe I shouldn't expect any better from him. He is a religious nut after all.
  • "I ask him if America has lost the moral high ground since September 11th and his answer is simple: 'Yes.' " As if he knows anything about morality. He has less understanding of the nature of good and evil than almost anyone in the UK public domain. What a useless, useless man.
  • Victor Davis Hanson responds to this idiot. "Williams should read a little about British military campaigns in India, and then count the corpses. ... I don't recall the British, after their second year in India, fostering nation-wide elections."
  • Obviously, I have no interest in whether Williams preaches the gospel or not, but I sympathise with the Christian Mike Long: "Rowan Williams' fashionably blinkered view of the world reveals him to be far more interested in [an] intellectual fashion show than in preaching the Gospel".
  • Damian Thompson mocks him: "So the Archbishop of Canterbury has condemned American imperialism and "Zionists" in a Muslim magazine. That's very brave of you, Rowan! Nothing like confronting your audience with a few uncomfortable truths, eh?"
  • Damian Thompson: "One wonders what the millions of Christians persecuted by Islamist terrorists and governments will make of the Archbishop of Canterbury's interview with a Muslim lifestyle magazine. If they are looking for a condemnation of Islamic violence, they will be disappointed."
  • "The Michael Foot of Anglicanism"

• Christian David Fischler does a nice detailed reply to Williams' idiotic world view:
  • On Williams' bizarre claim that nothing has been done to rebuild Iraq: "has Rowan Williams been in a coma for the last several years, and just completely unaware of these efforts? Or is he playing the utopian game of claiming that US and UK efforts have been worthless because they didn't turn Iraq into paradise overnight and with no cost?"
  • On Williams' snide remarks about "Christian Zionism" being behind the support for Israel: "In the Archbishop's world, there's apparently no room for those who support Israel because 1) it's a Western democracy; 2) it's a staunch ally of the US and UK; 3) it's a haven of safety for people whom many nations have oppressed and expelled, including Britain; 4) it's home to the freest Arab population in the Middle East; 5) it's been the object of multiple invasions and is the object of continuing attacks; 6) insert your favorite reason."

• The brave Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky on people like Rowan Williams - people who are educated and sophisticated but have no moral compass. He contrasts them with people like Ronald Reagan, who brilliantly called the Soviet Empire "evil". "Reagan may have confused names and dates, but his moral compass was always good. Today's leaders, in contrast, may know their facts and figures, but are often woefully confused about what should be the simplest distinctions between freedom and tyranny, democrats and terrorists."

• Archbishop of Canterbury wants to ban all "thoughtless and cruel" speech about religion, Jan 2008.

Rowan Williams supports Islamic law

• You couldn't make him up: Archbishop of Canterbury argues for Islamic law in Britain, February 2008.
  • He argues that sharia law should be introduced for British Muslims.
  • The best response to Britain's Greatest Idiot is from the Muslim Tory Baroness Warsi: "All British citizens must be subject to British laws developed through Parliament and the courts." Exactly. No cleric, of any religion, can be given any authority to enforce a decision on a British citizen. (Anyone who wants to voluntarily follow some cleric is of course free to do so.)
  • Melanie Phillips on how this buffoon is an enemy, not a friend, of British Muslims: "his proposal would also mean that Britain would simply abandon its female Muslim citizens whose parlous position in respect of forced marriages, honour killings and all the other horrors that follow from their second-class religious status would be institutionalised by giving sharia law official recognition."
  • Lovely comment: "Archbishop Rowan, Sir, Excellency, might you possibly consider giving up Islam for Lent? And, converting to Christianity?"
  • Melanie Phillips: "Dr Williams is the head of a church whose members are being persecuted, harassed, attacked, forcibly converted and murdered in large numbers at the hands of sharia law across Africa and Asia. He has, to my knowledge, said nothing at all about this. Instead, he is now proposing that sharia should be made a ‘supplementary jurisdiction’ in Britain".
  • Hugh Hewitt: "but how can the Church of England have fallen into such a state .. to be led by someone like this?"

• Has the Archbishop gone bonkers? produces a lot of interesting comment.
  • As an atheist, I don't really care about the Anglican church, but I do have to sympathise with Christians like this guy: "As a practising Christian I have watched with despair as our politicised Archbishop of Canterbury sets about dismantling the Anglican church." And here: "No wonder the Church of England is in such decline. Who would want to associate with these views?" And this Christian: "there is very little joy in admitting it was a terrible mistake to have this gentle but foolish and out-of-touch man elected in the first place! Even with the best will in the world, it is impossible to understand or excuse such a terrible blunder which has aggravated just about every section of our society, religious or otherwise."
  • The best answer is from this person: "Yes. Totally bonkers. Mad as a box of frogs."

• The response of the heroic Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund (which campaigns for Christians persecuted by Islamism in the third world):
  • Britain's Greatest Idiot claims not to support the harsher punishments of sharia, but only "harmless" rules to do with dispute resolution, marriage, divorce, inheritance and other matters.
  • But as Sookhdeo points out, these are not so harmless. "His view of shari`a is utopian and naïve." For example, the punishments for apostasy and atheism: "The array of punishments for leaving Islam include not only death, but also matters of family law, the very part of shari`a which the Archbishop wants to see applied in the UK, such as annulment of marriage, loss of access to children, and loss of inheritance."
  • Again, Rowan Williams is an enemy, not a friend, of British Muslims: "Embedding shari`a in British law will negatively impact many vulnerable members of the Muslim community: women, children as well as secularists and liberals. They will all face increasing pressure to comply with traditional shari`a norms. Once shari`a is in place, community and religious pressure will make it exceedingly difficult for them to opt to be judged by English law."
  • And Rowan Williams seems to show little understanding of the church he is supposedly a leader of: "Furthermore for the many Anglicans and other Christians living in contexts where shari`a is being applied and causing untold misery and suffering, for example in parts of Nigeria and parts of Sudan, the Archbishop of Canterbury`s suggestions are not just unwise, but insensitive to the point of callousness."

• Heere Bigynneth the Tale of the Asse-Hatte, Iowahawk's "Archbishop of Canterbury Tale".
  • Sayeth the Bishop, strokynge his chin,
    "To the Mosque-man, sexe is sinne
    So as to staye in his goode-graces
    Cover well thy wenches' faces
    And abstain ye Chavs from ribaldry
    Welcome him to our communitie."
  • The pilgryms shuffled for the door
    To face the rule of the Moor;

Michael Nazir-Ali

• Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, Apr 2007, praises the terror state of Iran for not killing its British hostages. "I saw on the one hand what Iran was doing, and what the president [of Iran] said had much to do with the moral and spiritual tradition of their country. The president talked about the religious background to the release, with reference to the Prophet's birthday and the passing over of Christ. What struck me was that if there were any values on the British side they were free-floating and not anchored in a spiritual and moral tradition."
  • Let's parse this. The unelected, so-called "president" of Iran is involved in killing British soldiers in Iraq, oppressing his own people, and persecuting, torturing and executing minorities and political dissenters. These are his "values", those of eastern despotism and cruelty, and we are supposed to admire them because they are overlain with a veneer of religious bullshit?
  • Meanwhile, the brave British soldiers are fighting and dying in order to give Iraqis one chance at freedom, one chance to escape from the Iran-like despotism that has dominated their history and the entire region. The British soldiers are the ones who are fighting a brave fight of good against utter evil, and they are the ones whose values are in question, because they do not cover them with a veneer of religious bullshit?
  • What Michael Nazir-Ali is saying, as so many religious people have said throughout history, is: "No matter how evil you are, no matter what you are doing, if you spout about religion, I will in some way admire you."

• Michael Nazir-Ali may not understand Iran, but he writes some sense about Britain: Extremism flourished as UK lost Christianity, 6 Jan 2008.
  • On Islam in Britain: "there has been a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism. One of the results of this has been to further alienate the young" [i.e. young British Muslims] "from the nation in which they were growing up and also to turn already separate communities into "no-go" areas where adherence to this ideology has become a mark of acceptability. Those of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work there because of hostility to them and even the risk of violence. In many ways, this is but the other side of the coin to far-Right intimidation."
  • Islamic radicals have tried to prove him wrong, that Islam is not a threatening faith, by threatening to kill him and his family. Hypocritical savages.
  • "I had similar threats when I was a bishop in Pakistan", he says. Islamism, because it is weak and false, cannot tolerate free discussion.

Other Anglicans

• The idiot Archbishop of York and the idiot Bishop of Durham show that Rowan Williams is not alone in his moral blindness in the Church of England.
• The idiot Archbishop of Wales on the death of Arafat.

• Terry Waite is a decent man who was kidnapped for 4 years by "Islamic Jihad", the cover name for the Islamofascist group Hizbollah.
  • But he seems to have learnt nothing about the nature of evil. He describes Islamofascist kidnappings as "almost being cries of desperation from disenfranchised young men who really have become almost victims of a system that's highly dysfunctional".
  • Terry Waite says the West must open peace talks with Osama bin Laden, Sept 2007.

• Here's someone better:
  • George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury (1991-2002) criticises Islam. - "it is sad to relate that no great invention has come for many hundred years from Muslim countries."
  • Lord Carey on the Pope Benedict XVI riots of 2006.
  • The Archbishop of Sydney: "In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence. There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages."

• Survey of human-rights criticisms by churches sums up the entire sickness of the western left.

• Left-wing Charities
  • Christian Aid (Anti-Israel)

• The Church of England's hostility to Israel
  • The Church of England Synod votes to disinvest from companies whose products are used by Israel in the occupied territories (such as Caterpillar), Feb 2006. Shame, shame on the Church of England and their left-wing foreign policy. This is disgraceful.
    • As Melanie Phillips says, the Church of England is "singling out the one country on the planet that is targeted for extermination".
    • The left-wing Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, supported the vote to disinvest.
    • George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, opposed it. After the vote, he said he was "ashamed to be an Anglican".

  • Anglicans for Israel are trying to fight against the left-wing, anti-Israel consensus in the church.
    • They described the disinvestment motion as "founded on ignorance and deceit".

Church of Ireland

• John Neill, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, condemns Ireland for allowing the U.S. military use its airports, Hot Press, issue dated 8 Aug 2007. Also here.
  • "I feel very strongly that economic links to America have made us very blind to the moral issues", said the Archbishop, who thinks that the moral issue is to oppose, not support, the war.
  • "I think as a nation there has not been sufficient questioning of these rendition flights and the link of Ireland with the war in Iraq, whether we like it or not. I feel that the Irish Government have compromised themselves. People will say that politics always has an element of compromise, but I believe one of the chief moral issues of today is the issue of war." Again, this arrogant assertion that morality is on his side rather than on his opponents' side. He just assumes his opponents are driven by economic greed, or some other compromise. It never seems to occur to him that his opponents are driven by morality too.
  • As Tony Allwright says, it is shocking that people like John Neill, and members of the Green Party, "have such little regard for one of the Arab world's few constitutional democracies that they likewise would wish to impede its legitimate Government's desire for foreign assistance in trying to bring security to its beleaguered people. ... Ireland should be proud of its small contribution in making Shannon available to the brave American soldiers as they try to help the Iraqis. Ms McKenna and her cohorts should be ashamed of their obstructionism and the additional loss of Iraqi life this could entail were they successful in thwarting the Americans."

The Catholic Church

• Pious Nonsense: The unholy "Christian" case against war (and copy) by Christopher Hitchens, March 10, 2003. Hitchens is, like me, an atheist amused by the church opposition to war on Iraq. People regard this as having some moral force, ignoring the churches' appalling record on war. The church did not support the Allies in World War Two, for example.

• Sanctions v. War (In defence of war)

• The fight for human freedom
  • Only on Communism has the church a record of standing on the side of good. It has a dreadful record on Fascism and Islamofascism.
  • It's a bit like the secular left that way. Only on Fascism has the left a record of standing on the side of good. It has a dreadful record on Communism and Islamofascism.

• The War on Fascism
  • Christianity and the Holocaust - The church did not support the Allies against the Nazis.

• The War on Islamofascism
  • The Pope opposed the first Gulf War too
  • Vatican appeasement, by Joseph D'Hippolito, Jan 5, 2004 - asks "whether a pope and his Vatican that behaved like Winston Churchill in the face of communism will continue to behave like Neville Chamberlain in the face of jihadism and Islam."

• Iraq
  • The moral sickness of the modern church was made clear in Feb 2003, when the Pope granted an audience to the Iraqi butcher Tariq Aziz, trying to find a way to help him and his fellow mass-murdering thugs stay in power. Aziz prayed at the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi and called for "peace". The Pope did not condemn Aziz's regime.
  • In Iraq, the Catholic Bishop of Baghdad, Matti Shaba Matoka, openly supported Saddam Hussein, as did the leader of the Chaldean Catholics Raphael Bidawid.
  • Later the same year, 2003, the church described homosexual behaviour as "evil".

  • The Vatican's sympathy for Saddam at his capture, Dec 2003 - "I felt pity to see this man destroyed, ... They could have spared us these pictures ... Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him"
  • Hey, these moral cripples could hold a requiem mass for him, like they did for Hitler.

• Palestine
  • Having learnt nothing from their tolerance for Hitler, the Vatican on the death of the Jew-killing mass murderer Arafat in 2004: "The Holy See joins in the pain of the Palestinian people for the death of President Yasser Arafat." Referring to the blood-soaked terrorist and unelected dictator, the Vatican hoped that he would now enter into paradise: "May God welcome in His mercy the soul of the illustrious deceased".
  • Pope John Paul II, who once stood up to Soviet tyranny, said: "At this hour of sadness at the passing of President Yasser Arafat ... While entrusting his soul into the hands of the Almighty and Merciful God ...". Disgusting. Whatever moral authority the pope had during the Cold War, he's burnt it now.
  • Irish Catholic bishops call for boycott of Israel, Feb 2007. If you can show me where these moral idiots called for a boycott of Cambodia, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Vietnam and Zimbabwe, tell me here.

• Left-wing Charities
  • Trocaire (Anti-America, Anti-Israel)

• The Pope Benedict XVI riots of 2006 - The Catholic church under John Paul II never stood firmly against the evil of Islamism. Maybe under Benedict XVI this is changing.

• Thomas Burns, Catholic Bishop, Apr 2007, praises the terror state of Iran for not killing its British hostages.
  • He says about the Iranian terror masters: "they have then chosen to put their faith into action to resolve the situation. Faith in a forgiving God has been exemplified in action by their good deeds. They are offering to release the sailors and marines, not just as the result of diplomacy, but also as an act of mercy in accordance with their religion." Their "religion" being eastern despotism, cruelty, and the arbitrary whims of tyrants.
  • "We all profess to hold a faith that comes from Abraham - the Father of all Nations." No we don't.
  • "We all adore the one, merciful God, who will be mankind's judge on the last day." I don't, and he will not be, and there will be no such day.
  • "All nations form one community: we come from the one God who created us," No we don't. There is no evidence we were created by anyone.
  • "and we will return to the one God as our common destiny." Again, nonsense. We will not "return" anywhere. I guess if Thomas Burns believes all this made-up nonsense, it's no surprise he is impressed that the Iranian thugs believe the same.

The persecution of Christians in Bethlehem

• Islamist persecution of Christians worldwide (and here)

• Articles:
  • Muslims persecuting Bethlehem's Christians, Dec 2005, and the Christian churches in the West don't care, or blame the Jews.
  • O, Muslim town of Bethlehem ..., Dec 2006.
  • Bethlehem Christians fear neighbors, Jan. 25, 2007: "15 years from now there will be no Christians left in Bethlehem. Then you will need a torch to find a Christian here. This is a very sad situation."

• The Catholic church:
  • Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, head of the Catholic church in England and Wales, deplores the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem, Dec 2005. Yet he blames Israel rather than the true reason for the slow ethnic cleansing of Christians - Islamic fundamentalism and Palestinian Authority rule.

• The Anglican church:
  • The idiot Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams (and here and here) bemoans the (Islamist) persecution of Christians in Bethlehem, Iraq and the Middle East, Dec 2006. And then he blames Christians and Jews for it, rather than the Islamists. He blames America, Britain and Israel for somehow having policies that "enrage" the Islamists and make them persecute minorities (which they would never do otherwise, apparently).
  • Rowan Williams "understands" rather than attacks the Islamist killers, torturers and persecutors of Christians, and even says we should give them what they want. The message they receive is that violence works, keep it up, and even escalate it. Far from standing up for Christians worldwide, he is encouraging their persecutors to keep going.

  • Peace on earth, but hatred towards Israel - Melanie Phillips on the Archbishop of Canterbury, December 18, 2006:
    • "the principal reason for the Christians' flight is Muslim violence. Indeed, if it were Israel's behaviour it would hardly be only Christians who were fleeing."
    • She quotes a report that says: "Every one of the more than twenty Muslim states in the Middle East has a declining Christian population. In fact, Israel is the only state in the region in which the Christian Arab population has grown in real terms - from approximately 34,000 in 1948 to nearly 130,000 in 2005."
  • More from Melanie Phillips on "the appalling misrepresentation of the Church of England of the plight of Bethlehem's Christians and the scapegoating of Israel for their situation by the Archbishop of Canterbury."
  • The Christmas libel, Melanie Phillips, 18 Dec 2007. "a few years ago Bethlehem was mainly Christian, now it is 80 per cent Muslim .. Might the fact that such a dramatic change occurred simultaneously with Bethlehem coming under Muslim control after Oslo ... just possibly have something to do with it?"

• Richard Landes on how the silence of the victims in a tyrannical society is not understood by idiots in the West: "The silence is a direct function of the issue about which it does not speak. ... We in civil society do not have a clue how rare and precious our ability to speak up. This means that, faced with a choice between reading silence as evidence of calm, or as evidence of violence, we will naturally prefer the former explanation."

• And of course we take it for granted that no Jew could exist or live in Bethlehem. Terence Mendoza points out how shocking this is. That if the biblical Joseph and Mary travelled to Bethlehem today, they would be slaughtered as Jews within hours.

Bethlehem would be better off as part of Israel

• Why Christians leave Mideast (and more), Dec 2005 - "It is becoming an annual Christmas tradition - blaming Israel for the dwindling Christian population in formerly Christian towns like Bethlehem." In reality: "If the Israelis contributed in any way to the exodus of Christians, it was by withdrawing from Bethlehem and .. the West Bank" and leaving them at the mercy of the Palestinian Authority.

• "Open Bethlehem" blames (of course) Israel for Bethlehem's problems.
  • Why not: "Free Bethlehem from Islamist rule"?
  • Or, if you really want to help Bethlehem: "Allow Bethlehem become part of Israel".

• Arab citizens of Israel:
  • The 1.5 million Arabs who find themselves within Israel know how good they have it, and have no wish to join the corrupt and oppressive Palestinian Authority.
  • See this survey: "A survey of residents of Umm el-Fahm .. in the summer of 2000 asked whether they would like to include their city in a potential Palestinian state. The question elicited resounding opposition from 83% of respondents. Among those opposed, 54% cited as explanation for their position the desire to continue living under democratic rule, and the fact that they enjoy a good standard of living."
  • Arabs move to get on Israel side of barrier, Khaled Abu Toameh, May 14, 2007 - "In the past four years, thousands of Arab Jerusalemites living outside the municipal boundaries of the city have moved back into Jerusalem for fear of being left on the other side of the security fence." "People see the anarchy and instability in the Palestinian Authority areas and prefer to leave to a safer place", explained an Arab businessman from Beit Hanina. "Also, people are afraid of losing their status as permanent residents of Israel and that's why they are moving back into Jerusalem. After all, life inside Israel is much better than the West Bank."
  • Israeli Arab Muslims on pilgrimage to Mecca actually defend Israel against the hostility of the Muslims they meet. "Jum'a also encounters anti-Israel views. He holds the Arab media partially to blame for this, for failing to provide an accurate and comprehensive picture of Israeli culture and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 'The Arab media always shows negative things about Israel and as a Muslim Arab living inside Israel I want to show a positive side of the country. I tell them there are good things in Israel and that we live side by side with the Jews. There are problems sometimes but the relations with our Jewish neighbors are generally good.' ... The Muslims in Israel have freedom and passports, he tells them. They have a good economic situation and good jobs; they get along with their Jewish neighbors and they benefit from Israel's services. ... Sheikh 'Ali Bakr, 47, an imam from northern Israel ... says: 'Some think that Israeli Arabs are neglected and underprivileged, so we tell them that's not the case, that we live here as equal citizens and that we fit well into the Jewish social fabric.'"

• Some Palestinians prefer life in Israel: In East Jerusalem, residents say they would fight a handover to Abbas regime, Mark Mackinnon, October 16, 2007 - Arabs in Jerusalem horrified at the thought they might be forced out of Israel and into the corrupt, oppressive Palestinian Authority. "If there was a referendum here, no one would vote to join the Palestinian Authority. ... They dislike the idea of their neighbourhoods, which are generally more prosperous than other parts of the West Bank, being absorbed into the chaotic Palestinian territories. ... Mr. Gheit said that over the past five years, some 5,000 people have moved into Ras Hamis from other parts of the West Bank, concerned that they would lose their Israeli identification cards if they didn't live within the city limits. There would be a mass exodus into other parts of the city, or other towns in Israel, if it looked likely that Ras Hamis and Shuafat, home to a combined 50,000 people, were about to be declared no longer part of Jerusalem."
• As always - as with Florida and Cuba, as with East and West Germany, as with Europe and the Islamic world - people vote with their feet. Their actions are far more eloquent than their words.

See full size: From BlueStarPR.

See full size: From BlueStarPR.