According to Israel’s Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra, what happened at the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth city recently was not a terrorist attack. There was no intention, he said, to harm the church. It was all done by three mentally deranged Israelis.
But this was not the first attempt to ruin and destroy religious shrines in the occupied territories. An Israeli terrorist tried to burn down Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Israeli leaders said back then that he too was mentally deranged. In another attempt, an Israeli terrorist attacked hundreds of people offering Fajr (dawn) prayers in Al-Ibrahimi Mosque. Using the same line of defense, Israelis said that the man was insane. Translation: Israelis are free from terrorists and terrorism attacks. But we will have to conclude that half of the Israeli citizens are lunatics if we counted the number of terrorist attacks the Israeli government has initiated against unarmed Palestinian citizens.
The recent incident was the third of its kind against the Church of Annunciation. The Israeli Army surrounded Al-Qiyamah and Al-Mahd (the Nativity) churches and dropped bombs on Al-Mahd Church claiming that terrorists were hiding inside the church. In fact, the three Israelis who violated the Church of Annunciation threatened to blow up Al-Mahd Church as reported by the Israeli media. The Israeli government didn’t worry much about the threats. Why should they? There may be mentally ill people, heroes and citizens in Israel but no terrorists.
According to Israel and its friends, Arabs are the only terrorists because they are fighting occupiers to free Palestine. This is legally permitted under international law, agreements and conventions. An occupied people have every right to resist. But not Palestinians, because that is detrimental to the interests of Israel. So Palestinians are constantly described as terrorists for defending their land and the United States along with other European countries condemn them labeling their fight for freedom as terrorism.
US President Bush makes no secret of his bias toward Israel against the Palestinians. He even dared to call the Butcher of Beirut Sharon a “man of peace”. He explained the meaning of the term peace in his last State of the Union address. Ms. Condoleezza, his secretary of state, did the same during her tour of Arabic countries. She reacts to the results of the Palestinian elections by calling on Palestinians to take action that best serves Israel’s interests and deny Hamas the victory it won in a free and fair election.
The Palestinians, who rushed to protect the Church of Annunciation and then protested against what happened, were Muslims and Christians. We, Arabs, don’t differentiate between religions. Throughout history, Muslims and Christians have carried the flag of unity defending Islamic and Christian religious sites in Palestine, especially in Jerusalem.
What happened in the church was nothing but a terrorist crime. This forms part of a plan that seeks to destroy Christian and Islamic religious properties so as to make Jerusalem an exclusively Jewish city. This is why rabbis preach terrorism to their followers, who know nothing about their religion or the message delivered to Prophet Moses (peace be upon him).
I expected the Christian world to take serious action against the Israeli attacks on the church the purpose of which the Western world knows only too well even if they dread to admit it.
The pope didn’t condemn the crime; in fact his man in Jerusalem volunteered to forgive the three terrorists who attacked the Church of the Annunciation in the name of peace and forgiveness.
Peace and forgiveness, undoubtedly, are the basic principles of Christianity. But by now it should be clear to all that neither the Israeli leaders nor their mentally disturbed citizens care or worry about these principles.
