From the New Duranty Times, with thanks to Seymour Paine:
LONDON, June 24 – The Anglican Church’s international advisory body voted Friday to urge the church to consider withdrawing its investments in companies that support the occupation of Palestinian territories.
The move, presented as a message of solidarity with Palestinian Christians, immediately came under attack by Jewish groups, with some calling it ill timed and predicting a likely chill in Anglican-Jewish relations….
Before the vote, the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Riah Hanna Abu El-Assal, who helped lead the effort, talked about the occupation’s effect on Palestinian Christians. He urged council members to support the resolution, saying it would send a strong message of disapproval to Israel.
Canon James Rosenthal, the council’s communications director, said the remarks, and those by others, resonated with group members.
“When we hear the Christian population has dwindled to 1.5 percent, we are dramatically concerned,” Canon Rosenthal said. “We have heard stories of humiliating experiences by Christians, and it is clear that the council sees the support of the Christian community as one of their foremost concerns.”
Canon Rosenthal is talking about humiliation by Israelis. He doesn’t seem to have noticed information like this, from “Christians in Holy Land in Crisis, Says Report,” from Zenit:
For its part, in the city of Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, the growth of militancy among Muslims has caused a mass exodus from a town which up to 1948 and the establishment of the state of Israel had been entirely Christian, observes ACN.
“All the Muslims like to come to this town. Little by little the Christians leave because they cannot live with the Muslims. There are some fanatics who do not like the fact that we exist,” explains a longtime parish priest of Ramallah, Father Nazaih.
The priest also mentioned the bitterness that still exists several years after Muslim fanatics stole Christian land next to the church to build a mosque.
“They came with tractors and burst into the place,” he said. “They broke the walls of the houses. We did not realize what was happening. They took everything. Even the governor could do nothing.”
Of the thousands of families present in Ramallah in 1948, only a few hundred remain. Up to 40,000 Christians have gone to the United States, he added.
The New Duranty Times article goes on:
“Israelis are already traumatized and feel that the world is against them,” said Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, earlier this month. The resolution, he added, would be “another knife in the back.”