November 4, 2007 - This just in: the Israeli security barrier is the cause for the mass emigration of Arab Christians from the Holy Land. Such were the sentiments of the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post on Thursday, Williams blamed the ongoing, mass exodus of Arab Christians from Israel on "the daily burdens caused by the fence faced by Christians in Bethlehem and other cities." What is it about God's Chosen people that makes the spiritual head of the 77 million strong Anglican Communion notoriously hate them so much? After all, such animosity by the archbishop of Canterbury toward the Jewish people is hardly exclusive to Dr. Rowan Williams. It can be traced back to the Middle Ages. In 1222, the archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, prohibited Jews from building new synagogues as well as mixing with Christians. Sixty years later, the new archbishop of Canterbury, John Pectin closed every synagogue in London. And now, in 2007, Archbishop Rowan Williams, in a scathing criticism of the Israeli government, places the blame for Arab-Christian emigration on Israel's security fence--an implementation that, statistics show, has reduced incidents of terrorism in Israel by nearly 80%. Evidently, the archbishop sees no correlation between the mass exodus of Arab-Christians from Israel--particularly, southern Israel--and the rise of radical Islam, which has resulted in a dramatic increase in Christian persecution in the region.
I wonder, would the Arab-Christians stay put if the security fence--the prime deterrent to terrorism in Israel--were taken down?
