"Obviously there is Biblical curiosity, if you will, by Members who go there who want to see what they learned about in Sunday school all these years."
–Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, who is leading a delegation of 25 Republican congressmen to visit Israel (& Palestine), at behest of AIPAC educational arm in August. Steny Hoyer is bringing Dems later in the summer, sez RollCall.
Meantime, Jinsa, the Jerusalem Institute for National Security Affairs, trashes the 8 Congressmen who reportedly went to Gaza–seems to worry that the Congressmen might end up blaming Israel for everything–and says that UNRWA’s John Ging, whom the congressmen met, is working with radicals. Oh my, he’s doing relief work for people dispossessed for more than 60 years. Why do I give the neocons a platform? Because they’re still important in the US discourse. Colin Powell says JINSA dreamed up the Iraq war.
Henry Hyde, of all people, once paused in his campaign of supporting all things Israeli to criticize the wall around Bethlehem and the way it impeded the religious freedom of Bethlehem’s Christian population. This momentary attack of conscience didn’t seem to extend to Palestinians in general, however.
I have always wondered why the fact that Palestinian Christians are discriminated against by Israel solely on account of their religion (in other words, they are not Jewish), has not filtered through the thick skulls of Christian-Zionists.
Christianity of course presumes a universality of concern for all humankind’s suffering which should include the suffering of Palestinian Muslims as well, but one would at least hope that in the Christian-Zionist worldview such concern would at least extend to their fellow Christians.
As a recovering Catholic who has no love for the Catholic church, I at least will give the Pope some grudging respect for his statements of concern for Palestinian Christendom.
As an altar boy who left the Catholic Church at age 14, I wonder too, how any Christians can ignore the discrimination against Christians by Israelis. Jeez, even
the Mormons agreed not to try to sell their beliefs in Israel. And they don’t even
complain back here in the states. Neither do the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who stood up against the Nazi’s while in concentration camps back in those days. Horray for the Pope!
How many Christians in America know that Palestinian Christians exist? And out of those that know, how many have been persuaded to believe that the Palestinian Muslims are the ones that are making their lives impossible?