Jihad’s Own Patriarch
- 12.20.2007 - 2:11 PMOn Wednesday, longtime jihad apologist Michel Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch and Archbishop of Jerusalem, lashed out against Israel once again. The Jerusalem Post reports:
“If there’s a state of one religion, other religions are naturally discriminated against,” Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah told reporters at the annual press conference he holds in Jerusalem before the Christian holiday.
In his address, which he read in Arabic and English, Sabbah said Israel should abandon its Jewish character in favor of a “political, normal state for Christians, Muslims and Jews.” Sabbah’s rap sheet of anti-Semitism and Islamist sympathy is long and storied, and well worth reading. However, his recent claim itself demands rebuttal, lest people begin weighing in with the “he’s a bad guy, but . . .” canard.
It’s worth noting that the Patriarch himself is emissary of a state—the Vatican—the citizens of which are “subject to the sovereignty of the Holy See” as well as emissary to a state that’s declared Islam its official and sole religion. It’s this habitual blindness to contradiction that characterizes analyses of Israel, whether by interested or non-interested parties.
Israel is simply the most religiously plural state in the Middle East—by an enormous margin. Muslims and Christians have equal rights under Israeli law: they vote in elections; they hold elected positions; they enjoy religious freedoms; and so on. This is to say nothing of the humanitarian purpose served by Israel’s open-door policy for Jewish refugees.
In Egypt, Coptic Christians may be imprisoned for their beliefs. In Saudi Arabia, the practice of non-Muslim religions is illegal. In Jordan, Jews are denied citizenship. A true representative survey of the region’s discriminatory policies could fill a library, let alone a blog posting. When the head rabbi of Riyadh speaks up, perhaps the issue of Israel’s religiously exclusionary nature can be revisited.
| »Back to Contentions | »Back to Commentary |
December 21st, 2007 at 10:20 AM
Sabbah’s conduct in the past has not been confined merely to verbal denunciations of Israel, although such incendiary statements have constituted a permanent feature of his religiously contexted demagoguery throughout the tenure of his stay in Israel.He has continually sought to deligitimise Israel, and especially its Jewish character.[Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land has been burning the kishke-linings of some sections of the Catholic Church and certain others, since the birth of the State………and long may it continue to do so.]
As regards Sabbah though, his constant barrage of verbal and religio-political aggression against Israel, and this while serving as a formally appointed emissary of the Vatican, is not, one would assume, quite what the initiators and proponents of reconciliation and interfaith dialogue movement [myself among them] had in mind, when contemplating how the past iniquities of the Catholic Church towards the Jewish People should be redressed and how a better way forward for both faith communities, should be sought.
The main story on Sabbah himself though, is that during the course of carrying out his ostensible “religious” functions as Latin Patriarch, he has, on more than one occasion, come pretty darn close, both in his words and his deeds, to, shall we for delicacy’s sake say, crossing certain lines which Israel, as a Sovereign State, should neither be required to tolerate, nor to pass over in silence.
If Sabbah, through his future words or deeds, continues to engage in such behaviour, and with deleterious consequences for Israel, he should simply be unceremoniously shown the door, or, if found to have engaged in actual acts of sedition, be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, just like any other agent of forces seeking to overthrow the the present social and political order.
Soft-pedalling the very dangerous and damaging actions of this man have been allowed to go on for far too long, with largely unspoken, major havoc having being caused to Catholic-Jewish relations, due to his actions, and also to our relations with the larger Christian World.
The man is, at the end of the day, simply another ordinary, garden variety Antisemite, with clear anarchist and terrorism-friendly proclivities, and our real friends in the Christian World will, or should, also be able, finally, to see through this man for what he really is, and to support putting an end to any such further shenanigans by him, in the future.