Joseph D’Hippolito in FrontPage tells the sad story of the dhimmi Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah:
Christmastime in Bethlehem does not stand for “peace on earth” but for intensified jihad against the occupying Jews, as least according to the highest-ranking Roman Catholic prelate in the Holy Land.
Michel Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, has praised jihad, justified suicide bombing, and led marches at the behest of the late Yasser Arafat — leading some to question whose bidding the patriarch is doing.
Sabbah, an Arab and a native of Nazareth, expressed his collaborationist sympathies most forcefully during a visit to a refugee camp near Bethlehem in 1999. During that visit, the patriarch placed a wreath on a memorial to so-called “martyrs.” He then maintained that the right of return is “an existing fact that cannot be given up,” and declared that Israel’s “extracting our rights in all circumstances is a form of jihad” against the Palestinians.
However, he has not always objected to holy war. “Love is power and jihad and does not express weakness,” he told the newspaper Al-Quds.
Sabbah goes further by excusing suicide bombing as a legitimate response to Israeli policy. Sabbah said in a 2002 videotape to Palestinian Christians:
Ours is an occupied country, which explains why people are tired and blow themselves up. The Israelis tell Palestinians: Stop the violence and you will have what you want without violence. But one has seen in the history of the last ten years that the Israelis have moved only when forced by violence. Unfortunately, nothing but violence makes people march. And not only here. Every country has been born in blood.
Read it all.