Irineos sacked

[Ekaterina]

Tedious isn't it?!?!?! But I guess SOMEONE needs to be blamed... sigh

Katya

[melk]

If you could only understand what is going on you would see why so many Palestinians are frustrated and that the best way to get rid of Islamic Fundamentalism is combatting such unfair conditions that make people sympathetic to it.

I think that I understand better then you know. I spend six months of every year in Israel and I have seen both sides of the argument. I have seen "Palestinian" Christians harassed and bullied by Israeli security forces. I have seen Israeli retalitory strikes against Palestinian neighborhoods. However, I have also seen the aftermath of Palestinian death squads raiding Israeli grammar schools. I have seen Israeli babies sniped in their strollers. I have seen buses of religious childern blown up and held those children in my arms as they died trying to stop the bleeding. This is not a one sided problem. Even here in America, after 9-11 we bombed Afganistan into the stone age, yet Israel deals with terrorism on a daily basis and yet shows a great deal more restraint.

Though what I find the most disturbing is the apparent desire by Palestinian Christians to first ally themselves with Muslim fundamentalists, who will kill them as soon as the Jews are gone(just look at Sudan if you want proof), and also with terrorists while they demonize all Israelis. First this is the same kind of talk that the Latin Church used in the inquisition, and denies the very nobility shown by the Orthodox Church especially in Bulgaria during WWII.

Second it also denies the thousands of Arab and Armenian Israelis who are Orthodox Christians, who fight in the Israeli Army, and who in fact are often the ones that Israel, their chosen home country, sends into these situations with "Palestinians" so as to not make it a religious/ethnic situation.

Then you have a very basic fact that outside of the muslim quarter in Jerusalem, the vast majority of Arabs, these being Christian, are in fact Israelis. The greatest sweep in this direction came during the camp David peace accords when Israel, under the leadership if Ehud Barak, offered to give East Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority(an offer they turned down). When the Arab Christians found out that if they were not Israeli citizens their neighborhoods would be turned over to the PA an amazing 65% of them applied for Israeli citizenship.

As far as religious Jews spitting on crosses, they have no such custom. Granted they do not respect the religious symbol and in fact many find it very offensive. But also bear in mind that most of the religious Israelis come from Eastern and Western Europe, where they lived under the domination of the Latin Church and its doctrines of persecution and genocide in the name of Jesus and under the symbol of the Cross. Unfortunately that has turned the glorious Cross, in their minds, into a symbol of rape and murder, instead of a symbol of the grace of God. As an Orthodox Christian that was raised a religious Jew I believe I understand this better than most.