http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129120 Mixed Christian Reactions to Operation Cast Lead
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
(IsraelNN.com) There have been quick reactions from international and local Christian organizations to the ongoing Israeli counter-terrorist Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Most have wavered between condemnation of Israel and noncommittal calls for "the violence" to end.
Alongside words, however, there have been actions, as well. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews announced on Monday that it will be providing NIS 1,100,000 to Israeli communities currently under fire from the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.
In Bethlehem, the mayor shut off the decorative lights and the Christmas tree decorating the city "to protest against the massacres committed in Gaza," Mayor Victor Batarseh told Agence France Presse (AFP). Bethlehem is the location of the Church of the Nativity, where Christians believe Jesus was born. The city of Bethlehem was a majority Christian city on the eve of the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA), but now, due to unofficial and official persecution by the PA Muslim community, Christians are a small and dwindling minority.
In Gaza, with a Christian population of around 3,000 people, the Hamas takeover in June 2007 led to a series of attacks on Christian institutions. Attacks included murder, vandalism, bombings and abductions, most especially targeting schools and churches. Last Wednesday, jihadists fired a mortar at the Erez Crossing into Israel just as a group of Christians were on line, waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas. Most Gazan Christians belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, while others are Roman Catholic.
The Roman Catholic pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, delivered a speech on Sunday in which he said that "the Holy Land" has "again seen itself struck by an outbreak of unprecedented violence. I am profoundly saddened by the deaths, the wounded, the material damage, the suffering, and the tears of the peoples victim to this tragic recurrence of attacks and reprisals."
More explicitly taking a side, the World Council of Churches (WCC) condemned "the violence against Gaza." The WCC, which works with the Roman Catholic Church, includes 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches, representing more than 560 million Christians in more than 110 countries.
WCC General Secretary Dr. Samuel Kobia, a reverend representing the Methodist Church in Kenya, called on "governments in the region and abroad" to seek the protection of "those who are at risk... on both sides of the border." Yet he singled out "over 300 lives lost, more than 1,000 people wounded, [and] uncounted thousands traumatized" in Gaza as a result of the "bombardment of one of the most densely populated places on Earth."
Most explicit in condemning Israel, however, was the Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. On Monday, she said, "I join my voice to theirs and those of many others around the world, challenging the Israeli government to call a halt to this wholly disproportionate escalation of violence. I challenge the Palestinian forces to end their rocket attacks on Israelis." Of immediate primary concern, in Schori's view, is getting "vital humanitarian assistance to the suffocating people of Gaza."
Topic: Large% of liberal Christians vehemently anti Israel (Read 2344 times)