Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem’s visa revoked



Anglican Bishop
Suheil Dawani

 by Arieh Cohen
Israel considers Anglican Bishop Suheil Dawani a foreigner in Israel, because he was born in Nablus. The Anglican cathedral and offices are in East Jerusalem. Without a visa, in theory he can be arrested and deported at any time.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) - Israel’s Interior Ministry has revoked the permit for the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, The Rt Revd Suheil Dawani, to live in Jerusalem, and has refused requests to reinstate it, in spite of protests by Anglican authorities in the West specifically the United States.

The Bishop is a native of the Holy Land and has spent most of his life and ministry here, but cannot obtain either citizenship or legal residence in Israel, since he was born in Nablus, i.e. in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, but has not been annexed to Israel.

East Jerusalem, where the Anglican Cathedral and Diocesan offices are situated, was also occupied at the same time, but Israel annexed it and considers it part of its national territory (although no other country in the world recognizes this annexation). Therefore, Bishop Dawani is considered by Israel to be a foreigner who can only visit East Jerusalem with a special permit, which the Israeli authorities can either grant or deny at their sole discretion.

In fact, all the original Palestinian inhabitants of East Jerusalem, and their descendants, are considered by Israel to be foreigners who are no more than possessors of a residence permit, which Israel can revoke. Since the Bishop has of course remained at his post, in Jerusalem, without the permit, he could be arrested at any moment, be put on trial for being in Israel illegally, be sentenced to a prison term – or simply be forcibly removed from Jerusalem.

For more information check out:

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/digest/index.cfm/2011/2/26/Anglican-Bishop-of-Jerusalems-visa-revoked

Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports German Chancellor getting impatient with Israel

Merkel chides Netanyahu for failing to make 'a single step to advance peace'

In a tense telephone call, PM tells German chancellor that he was disappointed by Germany's vote at UN, but assures her he intends to launch new peace plan soon; Merkel reportedly did not believe Netanyahu, saying he disappointed her.

Merkel and Netanyahu meet in Israel 3 weeks ago.
We now know there was tension in the air

A crisis erupted between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. During a telephone call this week, Merkel told Netanyahu that he had disappointed her and had done nothing to advance peace, sources told Haaretz.

The prime minister tried to persuade Merkel that he was about to launch a diplomatic initiative, explaining he is making a speech in two weeks in which he will outline a new peace plan.

A senior German source said Netanyahu had called Merkel on Monday, following the American veto in the UN Security Council last Friday and Germany's vote in favor of the Palestinian proposal to condemn construction in West Bank settlements.

The conversation between the two leaders was extremely tense and included mutual accusations and harsh statements, the official said.

Netanyahu told Merkel he was disappointed by Germany's vote and by Merkel's refusal to accept Israel's requests before the vote, the source added. Merkel was furious.

"How dare you," she said, according to the official. "You are the one who disappointed us. You haven't made a single step to advance peace."

The prime minister assured Merkel that he intended to launch a new peace plan that would be a continuation of his Bar-Ilan University speech, given in June 2009, in which he agreed to establishing a Palestinian state, the official revealed. "I intend to make a new speech about the peace process in two to three weeks," Netanyahu told Merkel.

The German chancellor and her advisers, who have been repeatedly disappointed by Netanyahu's inaccurate statements and failure to keep promises, did not believe a word of what the prime minister told her, the source said.

Merkel ended her visit in Israel three weeks ago deeply disappointed, a German official said. While here, she told Netanyahu the situation in the Middle East, in view of the revolution in Egypt, made it necessary for Israel to create a peace initiative.

US uses veto at UN to protect illegal Israeli settlements

Washington blocks resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories as an obstacle to peace.

The US has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israeli settlements as "illegal" and called for an immediate halt to all settlement building.

All 14 other Security Council members voted in favour of the resolution, which was backed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), on Friday.

Mark Lyall Grant, the British ambassador to the UN, speaking on behalf of the UK, France and Germany, condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "They are illegal under international law," he said.
He added that the European Union's three biggest nations hope that an independent state of Palestine will join the UN as a new member state by September 2011.

The veto by the  administration of Barack Obama, is certain to anger Arab countries and Palestinian supporters around the world. An abstention would have angered the Israelis, the closest ally of Washington in the region, as well as Democratic and Republican supporters of Israel in the US Congress.

The US says it opposes settlements in principal, but says that the UN Security Council is not the appropriate venue for resolving the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, told council members that the veto "should not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity".
"While we agree with our fellow council members and indeed with the wider world about the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, we think it unwise for this council to attempt to resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians," she said.

PA pressured
Earlier, the Obama administration had tried to exert pressure on the Palestinian Authority to drop the UN resolution in exchange for other measures, but this was rejected by the authority. The decision to back the resolution was made unanimously by the PLO's executive and the central committee of Abbas's Fatah movement on Friday, at a meeting to discuss Obama's appeal to Abbas by telephone a day earlier.

"The Palestinian leadership has decided to proceed to the UN Security Council, to pressure Israel to halt settlement activities. The decision was taken despite American pressure," said Wasel Abu Yousef, a PLO executive member. Obama, who had said Israeli settlements in territories it captured in a 1967 war are illegal and unhelpful to the peace process, has argued that the resolution could shatter hopes of reviving the stalled talks. In a 50-minute phone call on Thursday, he asked Abbas to drop the resolution and settle for a non-binding statement condemning settlement expansion, Palestinian officials said.


'Goldstone 2'
"Caving in to American pressure and withdrawing the resolution will constitute Goldstone 2," said a Palestinian official, speaking on terms of anonymity before the meeting. He was referring to the wave of protest in October 2009 accusing Abbas of caving in to US pressure by agreeing not to submit for adoption a UN report that accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes during the invasion of Gaza two years ago.
Abbas maintains he insisted on submitting the report.


'Nothing to lose'
Obama initially pressured Israel to maintain the moratorium only to relent in the run-up to the 2010 US mid-term elections to avoid, some analysts said, alienating key voters. One PLO official said the leadership was determined not to cave in "even if our decision leads to a diplomatic crisis with the Americans", adding: "Now we have nothing to lose."

Since 2000, 14 Security Council resolutions have been vetoed by one or more of the five permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the US. Of those, 10 were US vetoes, nine of them related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Egypt's Islamic Brotherhood tells Iranian President that Egyptian movement is different



Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has told Iranian President that he should mind his own business

 Ikhwanweb, the Muslim Brotherhood’s official English website editor in chief Khaled Hamza  has stated that the current uprising in Egypt is a revolution of the Egyptian people and is by no means linked to any Islamic tendencies, despite allegations nor can it be described as Islamic.

Hamza stressed that the revolution is peaceful and calls solely for reform and a democratic civil state initiated by the youth through the social networking service Facebook and is far removed from any Islamist groups.

He criticized allegations and reiterations by some countries that the uprising was Islamic and denounced claims by the Iranian Supreme Leader Mr. Khamenai that the protests are a sign of an Islamic Awakening inspired by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
 Hamza maintained that the Egyptian protests are not an 'Islamic' uprising, but a mass protest against an unjust, autocratic regime which includes Egyptians from all walks of life and all religions and sects.

In a related note the elected President of the National Council of Resistance in Iran Maryam Rajavi denounced attempts by Khamenai to attribute Egypt’s uprising to Iran, describing it as a desperate attempt to advocate support of fundamentalism and terrorism, describing them as the worst enemy of Islam and Muslims adding, “The day will come when they will be forced to let go of the name of Islam”.

For more information on the Egyptian Islamic Brotherhood, check out their website at :
http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=27963

United Church of Canada sends factfinding delegation to Jerusalem

The United Church of Canada is taking another look at its position on Israel/Palestine. It has circulated among its members a document prepared by Kairos Palestine, a "cri de coeur" from 13 different Christian organizations in East Jerusalem. The document calls for Western churches to bring economic and political pressure on Israel to defend the rights of Palestinians. The UCC is also sending a fact finding delegation to see the situation on the ground. 

The United Church of Canada, Canada's second largest religious organization, is sending a high-level delegation to Jerusalem this month to inquire into the situation of Palestinans - particularly that of the dwindling number of Christian Palestinians.


The decision to send a fact-finding delegation arises out of a big debate at the UCC's General Council in 2009 at which the Church first seemed to approve a statement criticising Israel, and then backed down under a barrage of criticism by the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC). The delegation includes the Moderator, the former Moderator, the General Secretary, and a number of church officials from across Canada.


In preparation for their visit, the UCC delegation visited several cities in Canada and met with a variety of organizations including the CJC, Independent Jewish Voices, The Palestinian Canadian Congress and many others. 


It has also taken the dramatic step of circulating within the United Church a document entitled "A moment of Truth". Developed by a group of 13 Palestinian Christian leaders rallied under the name Kairos Palestine, the text has been in circulation in other denominations in Canada and elsewhere for some time but was not officially presented to the United Church until last November’s meeting of the General Council Executive in Toronto. 


Echoing an appeal issued by South African churches in the mid-1980s during the height of the apartheid regime. "The problem, say the authors, “is not just a political one. It is a policy in which human beings are destroyed, and this must be of concern to the Church.”

Much of the 8,000-word document is devoted to placing the Palestinian “catastrophe” in a theological context, couching a case for justice based on “faith, hope and love” in often dense religious language. The authors are more straightforward as they assail Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza, and criticize conservative theologians in the West for imparting “a biblical and theological legitimacy” to the occupation. 



Now that it is widely available, the document will no doubt raise the profile of the Israel-Palestine issue across the church. The importance of that is not lost on longtime activists. 


“It is the first document of its kind from brother and sister Christians in Palestine that clearly notes both non-violent methods of overcoming injustice and a commitment to the same,” says Rev. Brian McIntosh of the Holy Land Awareness task group. “It’s really a moral call to the churches around the world.”  


It is expected that the issue of the United Church's position on Israel and Palestine will come back before the General Council in 2011. We can also expect that the report of the factfinding delegation, no matter how they carefully they couch it, will be immediately attacked by the Israel lobby in Canada.


For more information, see the UCC newsletter at http://www.ucobserver.org/faith/2011/02/palestine/