from a Palestinian Media Watch Special Report released July 14, 2005 entitled "A Study of the Ongoing Anti-British Religious Hatred in the PA", By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook....
Less than 24 hours after the July 7 terrorist bombings in London, a Palestinian Authority Television sermon called for the extermination of every single Infidel: "Annihilate the Infidels and the Polytheists! Your [i.e. Allah's] enemies are the enemies of the religion! Allah, disperse their gathering and break up their unity, and turn on them, the evil adversities. Allah, count them and kill them to the last one, and don't leave even one." [Suleiman Al-Satari, PA TV, July 8, 2005.View an excerpt of this sermon online here]
This call for the genocide of all Infidels is particularly striking coming as Britain was still reeling from the London terror attacks - especially since PA religious usage routinely includes Britain in the "Infidel" category. [See examples below.] Such a call does not represent a new policy - or even a shift in policy. While the PA is careful to exclude this hate ideology from the image it presents to the foreign media, to its own people in Arabic the PA has always presented itself as part of a greater Arab-Islamic conflict against the West. This enmity is focused primarily on the US and Britain, who are seen as the dominant forces of Western civilization. This enmity is neither time nor event dependent, but is presented as part of Allah's plan. The ultimate victory is predetermined, Palestinians are taught, and Islam will eventually rule over America and Britain.
This representation of current affairs as an Islamic-Western religious conflict is of particular significance given the overwhelming religious sentiment in PA society. In a recent poll, 69% of Palestinians preferred that the PA follow the Shari'a - Islamic religious law, while only 16% preferred laws passed by their own Palestinian Legislature. Another 11% wanted both. [Palestinian Center for Research and Cultural Dialogue, March 3, 2005]
The following is a review of some of this religious hate expression towards Britain as reported in the PA media. It is important to understand the depths of this pan-Islamic, anti-Western religious sentiment when searching for the motivation of the London suicide terrorists.
Britain is among the Infidels.
"America, Britain and Spain ... are uniting to strike at the people of truth [i.e. Muslims] in their homeland. This is the Infidels' way, Oh Muslims... The United Nations, to our regret, has become Dar al-Nadwa [literally 'House of Assembly,' the term for the pre-Islamic meeting place in Mecca], because that is where the Infidels meet." [Ibrahim Mudayris, PA TV, February 28, 2003. View an excerpt of this sermon online here]
"The Infidel countries under the leadership of the US made up an excuse and justification to wage their dirty war [post 9-11 war in Afghanistan] against Islam and the Muslims... Concerning evil Britain, which directly brought about this corrupt entity [Israel] on Palestinian land. Britain forgot that it is the height of terror and the height of hatred against Islam and Moslems." [Yusuf Abu Sneina, Iman of Al-Aqsa Mosque, PA Radio, December 28, 2001.Hear an excerpt of this sermon online here]
Prayers to Allah to destroy Britain
Dr. Ikrime Sabri, Mufti of Jerusalem, highest-ranking Islamic figure in the Palestinian Authority, just 18 days before the September 11 attacks against America in 2001: "Oh, Allah, destroy America and its supporters and collaborators. Oh Allah, destroy Britain and its supporters and collaborators." [Ikrime Sabri, PA Radio, August 24, 2001.Hear an excerpt of this sermon online here]
"It is our obligation to prepare for the soldiers of Allah who are advancing in the will of Allah, glorified and praised. We will prepare a foothold for them. Allah willing, this oppressive state will disappear, the oppressive state Israel. The oppressive country America will disappear. The oppressive country Britain will disappear - those who caused our people's Catastrophe [PA term for the establishment of Israel]. [Muhammad Ibrahim Maadi, PA TV, June 8, 2001.View an excerpt of this sermon online here]
"We shall rule Britain"- the ultimate victory is predetermined "The Palestinian nation is the strongest on earth. Look at all the civilizations! Look at all the states! Look at all the civilizations and forces and empires. To where did Great Britain disappear..? We [Muslims] have ruled the world and a day will come, by Allah, and we shall rule the world [again]. The day will come and we shall rule America. The day will come and we shall rule Britain." [Ibrahim Mudayris, PA TV, May 13, 2005.View an excerpt of this sermon online here]
Britain hated because of war in Iraq
"Allah, punish our enemies! You enemies, the enemies of the Religion [i.e. Islam]... Allah, punish America and those who set an alliance with it... Destroy them and destroy their weapons... Allah, cleanse the land of Islam from the treachery and shame, cleanse our lands from the conquerors' filth, from the filth of America and the defilement of Britain..." [Muhammad Jamal Abu Hanud, PATV, August 1, 2003]
Britain hated because of Israel's existence
"Those [Jews] do not know what a homeland is and do not know what a land is... Concerning Palestine, it belongs to us... They came, expelled from every land, came to this lanevery country andd claming to have a national homeland on the land of Palestine, with the help of Britain. That vengeance still stands between us and them; [a vengeance] that will not be forgotten except by a coward or traitor." [Ibrahim Mudayris, PATV, April 4, 2004]
"In 1917 of the previous century, Palestine was conquered by Britain, on whom we place full responsibility for the events in this land. At this opportunity, we put the responsibility on Britain [for the creation of the state of Israel] and say: we will never forget our revenge! We will never forget our revenge on Britain, who cannot escape the burden of its historical, political and moral responsibility because of what it committed on the land of Palestine... "Britain [is the one] that promised them [i.e. Jews] the establishment of a national homeland on the land of Palestine. Why? Because Britain resented the Jewish presence there, in Britain, and wanted to be relieved of them..."
[Ibrahim Mudayris, PATV, May 13, 2005.View an excerpt of this sermon online here]
To Contact Palestinian Media Watch
p:+972 2 625 4140
e: pmw@pmw.org.il
f: +972 2 624 2803
w: http://www.pmw.org.il/
Friday, July 15, 2005
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Terrorism works
from Jerusalem Post, Jul. 14, 2005 1:03 By EVELYN GORDON ...
There has been much talk about terrorism's 'root causes' following last week's London bombings, but I have yet to hear anyone mention the most important cause of all: the fact that terrorism has thus far proven extremely effective thereby encouraging the terrorists to continue.
...if you examine the terrorists' real goals, rather than the West's starry-eyed interpretation of them, it turns out that terrorism has scored tremendous achievements over the past five years. In Israel's case, for instance, Hamas, which pioneered suicide bombings inside Israel, has never concealed the fact that its goal is Israel's eradication. And many Palestinians share this goal: Opinion polls repeatedly found that while 40-50 percent of Palestinians viewed the intifada's goal as expelling Israel from the territories, the other 40-50% (exact proportions varied) viewed the goal as "liberating all of historic Palestine," including pre-1967 Israel.
Rephrasing the question produced even larger majorities: In a Pew Research poll published in June 2003, 80% of Palestinians said their "rights and needs" cannot be met as long as Israel exists.
Toward this goal, terrorism has produced substantial progress – because a necessary precursor to eradicating Israel is destroying its international legitimacy, which is precisely what has been occurring over the last five years. For the first time since Israel's founding, the question of whether Israel has a right to exist has become an open and acceptable topic of debate in the West. And even when not discussed explicitly, the idea of Israel's illegitimacy is gaining ground implicitly – as in the Christian divestment campaign, or the famous December 2003 poll in which 59 percent of Europeans deemed Israel the greatest threat to world peace.
.....THE SAME paradigm holds for al-Qaida's attacks on America. While initially America was viewed as the victim, that view quickly shifted. Even in the West, opinion polls in recent years have consistently ranked America second only to Israel on the list of most hated countries and greatest threats to world peace. Just last month, a Pew poll found that most Europeans – even in Britain, America's closest ally – view repressive China more favorably than America. Moreover, while Europe once largely accepted America's global leadership, it now overwhelmingly rejects it.
...Now, this same process is occurring with the London attacks: A growing number of media pundits and politicians, both in Britain and abroad, have already shifted the blame from the terrorists to Britain's "provocative" presence in Iraq. Even Tony Blair has proclaimed that Arab-Muslim grievances must be addressed.
While these intangibles are their greatest success, the terrorists have also reaped some tangible achievements. One, obviously, was the upset victory for Spain's socialists and the subsequent withdrawal of Spanish forces from Iraq produced by the 2004 Madrid bombings. Another is Israel's withdrawal from Gaza without getting anything in exchange, which 72 percent of Palestinians rightly deem a victory for terror.
But no such concession will ever end terrorism, because new grievances can always be found. Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 offers a prime example: Hizbullah, instead of ending attacks on Israel, invented a new bit of "occupied Lebanese territory," the Shaba farms, to justify their continuation. And true to form, despite Hizbullah's refusal to honor the UN-certified international border, the EU still has not declared it a terrorist organization – while media reports routinely term Shaba "disputed territory," forgetting the UN's determination that the area is not Lebanese.
Individual terrorists may be irrational, but terrorist organizers and leaders generally are not: They launch attacks out of a cold-blooded calculation that such attacks serve their goals.
And terrorism will continue to serve their goals for precisely so long as the world, despite its lip-service condemnations, responds by blaming the victims and seeking to address the terrorists' "grievances."
There has been much talk about terrorism's 'root causes' following last week's London bombings, but I have yet to hear anyone mention the most important cause of all: the fact that terrorism has thus far proven extremely effective thereby encouraging the terrorists to continue.
...if you examine the terrorists' real goals, rather than the West's starry-eyed interpretation of them, it turns out that terrorism has scored tremendous achievements over the past five years. In Israel's case, for instance, Hamas, which pioneered suicide bombings inside Israel, has never concealed the fact that its goal is Israel's eradication. And many Palestinians share this goal: Opinion polls repeatedly found that while 40-50 percent of Palestinians viewed the intifada's goal as expelling Israel from the territories, the other 40-50% (exact proportions varied) viewed the goal as "liberating all of historic Palestine," including pre-1967 Israel.
Rephrasing the question produced even larger majorities: In a Pew Research poll published in June 2003, 80% of Palestinians said their "rights and needs" cannot be met as long as Israel exists.
Toward this goal, terrorism has produced substantial progress – because a necessary precursor to eradicating Israel is destroying its international legitimacy, which is precisely what has been occurring over the last five years. For the first time since Israel's founding, the question of whether Israel has a right to exist has become an open and acceptable topic of debate in the West. And even when not discussed explicitly, the idea of Israel's illegitimacy is gaining ground implicitly – as in the Christian divestment campaign, or the famous December 2003 poll in which 59 percent of Europeans deemed Israel the greatest threat to world peace.
.....THE SAME paradigm holds for al-Qaida's attacks on America. While initially America was viewed as the victim, that view quickly shifted. Even in the West, opinion polls in recent years have consistently ranked America second only to Israel on the list of most hated countries and greatest threats to world peace. Just last month, a Pew poll found that most Europeans – even in Britain, America's closest ally – view repressive China more favorably than America. Moreover, while Europe once largely accepted America's global leadership, it now overwhelmingly rejects it.
...Now, this same process is occurring with the London attacks: A growing number of media pundits and politicians, both in Britain and abroad, have already shifted the blame from the terrorists to Britain's "provocative" presence in Iraq. Even Tony Blair has proclaimed that Arab-Muslim grievances must be addressed.
While these intangibles are their greatest success, the terrorists have also reaped some tangible achievements. One, obviously, was the upset victory for Spain's socialists and the subsequent withdrawal of Spanish forces from Iraq produced by the 2004 Madrid bombings. Another is Israel's withdrawal from Gaza without getting anything in exchange, which 72 percent of Palestinians rightly deem a victory for terror.
But no such concession will ever end terrorism, because new grievances can always be found. Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 offers a prime example: Hizbullah, instead of ending attacks on Israel, invented a new bit of "occupied Lebanese territory," the Shaba farms, to justify their continuation. And true to form, despite Hizbullah's refusal to honor the UN-certified international border, the EU still has not declared it a terrorist organization – while media reports routinely term Shaba "disputed territory," forgetting the UN's determination that the area is not Lebanese.
Individual terrorists may be irrational, but terrorist organizers and leaders generally are not: They launch attacks out of a cold-blooded calculation that such attacks serve their goals.
And terrorism will continue to serve their goals for precisely so long as the world, despite its lip-service condemnations, responds by blaming the victims and seeking to address the terrorists' "grievances."
Netanya bombing death toll rises to 5
from Jerusalem Post , Jul. 14, 2005 1:16 By DANIELLA CHESLOW AND JPOST STAFF
A soldier who was critically wounded in Tuesday evening's suicide bomb attack in Netanya died of his wounds, ZAKA officials reported.
Corporal Maor Jan, 21, of Deganya, who was hospitalized at Haifa's Rambam Hospital, passed away Thursday morning, raising the death toll in the attack to five.
Jan will be laid to rest at the military cemetery in Netanya at 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
Eighteen more victims of the deadly bombing were still hospitalized Thursday, Army Radio reported, with two of them - a female and a male soldier -still in serious condition.
Best friends Rachel Ben-Abu and Nofar Horowitz, both 16, were laid to rest in a joint funeral Wednesday afternoon in Tel Aviv's Hayarkon Cemetery.
...The other victims of the bombings were Yulia Voloshin, 31, of Netanya and Anya Lifschitz, 50.Lifschitz, died of her wounds Wednesday morning in Netanya's Laniado Hospital.
She succumbed to her wounds at about 10 a.m. Her 26-year-old daughter Marguerita and three-year-old granddaughter Liel were struggling with burns and other wounds Wednesday night.
...Judy Siegel and Shani Rosenfelder contributed to this report.
A soldier who was critically wounded in Tuesday evening's suicide bomb attack in Netanya died of his wounds, ZAKA officials reported.
Corporal Maor Jan, 21, of Deganya, who was hospitalized at Haifa's Rambam Hospital, passed away Thursday morning, raising the death toll in the attack to five.
Jan will be laid to rest at the military cemetery in Netanya at 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
Eighteen more victims of the deadly bombing were still hospitalized Thursday, Army Radio reported, with two of them - a female and a male soldier -still in serious condition.
Best friends Rachel Ben-Abu and Nofar Horowitz, both 16, were laid to rest in a joint funeral Wednesday afternoon in Tel Aviv's Hayarkon Cemetery.
...The other victims of the bombings were Yulia Voloshin, 31, of Netanya and Anya Lifschitz, 50.Lifschitz, died of her wounds Wednesday morning in Netanya's Laniado Hospital.
She succumbed to her wounds at about 10 a.m. Her 26-year-old daughter Marguerita and three-year-old granddaughter Liel were struggling with burns and other wounds Wednesday night.
...Judy Siegel and Shani Rosenfelder contributed to this report.
Net closes on racists
from the Toowoomba Chronicle, 14 July 2005, by Susan Searle (susans@thechronicle.com.au) ....
NAZI hunters are using the Internet to track white supremacists and believe Toowoomba's hate mail campaign is the work of a Crows Nest man.
The online hunt has unearthed an Internet alias, an age, occupation, and personal detail down to a swastika on his motorcycle and a curious affiliation with a Returned Services League.
Mat Henderson-Hau, the campaign co-ordinator Fight Dem Back!, is missing one key element in exposing the culprit: the man's name.
His group's focus stems from the distribution of a brochure promoting white women as an endangered species and attached pamphlet, The Nationalist, subtitled The Voice of White Pride Coalition of Australia (WPCA).
....We don’t want these people thinking they can go around putting things in people’s letter boxes, or putting up posters, and for there to not be a reaction to it.
....Executive officer of the Social Justice Commission for the Catholic Diocese of Toowoomba Mark Copland was appalled.
And the pair have been pondering the next step.
Meanwhile, Mr HendersonHau, and his band of 300 Fight Dem Back! surfers, are trailing footprints over the Internet. "The Internet changes everything — he’s up there is South-East Queensland, I’m down here in Sydney — I can still have an effect on what he does and these people need to realise that," he said. He says he is aware of a KKK presence in southern Queensland.
Any information can be submitted anonymously via the Internet site http://www.fightdemback.com/
NAZI hunters are using the Internet to track white supremacists and believe Toowoomba's hate mail campaign is the work of a Crows Nest man.
The online hunt has unearthed an Internet alias, an age, occupation, and personal detail down to a swastika on his motorcycle and a curious affiliation with a Returned Services League.
Mat Henderson-Hau, the campaign co-ordinator Fight Dem Back!, is missing one key element in exposing the culprit: the man's name.
His group's focus stems from the distribution of a brochure promoting white women as an endangered species and attached pamphlet, The Nationalist, subtitled The Voice of White Pride Coalition of Australia (WPCA).
....We don’t want these people thinking they can go around putting things in people’s letter boxes, or putting up posters, and for there to not be a reaction to it.
....Executive officer of the Social Justice Commission for the Catholic Diocese of Toowoomba Mark Copland was appalled.
And the pair have been pondering the next step.
Meanwhile, Mr HendersonHau, and his band of 300 Fight Dem Back! surfers, are trailing footprints over the Internet. "The Internet changes everything — he’s up there is South-East Queensland, I’m down here in Sydney — I can still have an effect on what he does and these people need to realise that," he said. He says he is aware of a KKK presence in southern Queensland.
Any information can be submitted anonymously via the Internet site http://www.fightdemback.com/
Preacher Condemns London Attacks and the Crowd Cheers 'Death to America...England...Israel'
from a transcript on MEMRI TV:
The following are excerpts from a Friday sermon at Tehran University by Ayatollah Mohammad Amami-Kashani, which aired on Iranian TV Channel 1 on July 8, 2005
Kashani: .... The entire Iranian people condemns this. Massacring women, children, old and young is entirely inappropriate for a human being, and cannot be accepted by anyone with a conscience. Iran has expressed its people's solidarity with the survivors of these incidents in London.
You speak of terror and Al-Qaeda. Have you forgotten who the mother and father of Al-Qaeda are? America is its father, and Israel its mother. It is the illegitimate child of these powers. You yourselves have brought it about...
Crowd:Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Khamenei is the leader. Death to those who reject the rule of the jurisprudent. Death to America. Death to England. Death to the hypocrites (Mojahedin-e Khalq) and Saddam. Death to Israel.
Kashani: You yourselves have brought it about ....You brought (Al-Qaeda) about in order to bring calamity to our lives, but, thank God, it has brought calamity to yours."
To view a video of the sermon click here.
The following are excerpts from a Friday sermon at Tehran University by Ayatollah Mohammad Amami-Kashani, which aired on Iranian TV Channel 1 on July 8, 2005
Kashani: .... The entire Iranian people condemns this. Massacring women, children, old and young is entirely inappropriate for a human being, and cannot be accepted by anyone with a conscience. Iran has expressed its people's solidarity with the survivors of these incidents in London.
You speak of terror and Al-Qaeda. Have you forgotten who the mother and father of Al-Qaeda are? America is its father, and Israel its mother. It is the illegitimate child of these powers. You yourselves have brought it about...
Crowd:Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Khamenei is the leader. Death to those who reject the rule of the jurisprudent. Death to America. Death to England. Death to the hypocrites (Mojahedin-e Khalq) and Saddam. Death to Israel.
Kashani: You yourselves have brought it about ....You brought (Al-Qaeda) about in order to bring calamity to our lives, but, thank God, it has brought calamity to yours."
To view a video of the sermon click here.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Face up to the truth
from The Observer Comment Face up to the truth: by Nick Cohen, Sunday July 10, 2005 ....
We all know who was to blame for Thursday's murders... and it wasn't Bush and Blair
...In these bleak days, it's worth remembering what was said after September 2001. A backward glance shows that before the war against the Taliban and long before the war against Saddam Hussein, there were many who had determined that 'we had it coming'. They had to convince themselves that Islamism was a Western creation: a comprehensible reaction to the International Monetary Fund or hanging chads in Florida or whatever else was agitating them, rather than an autonomous psychopathic force with reasons of its own. In the years since, this manic masochism has spread like bindweed and strangled leftish and much conservative thought.
All kinds of hypocrisy remained unchallenged. In my world of liberal London, social success at the dinner table belonged to the man who could simultaneously maintain that we've got it coming but that nothing was going to come; that indiscriminate murder would be Tony Blair's fault but there wouldn't be indiscriminate murder because 'the threat' was a phantom menace invented by Blair to scare the cowed electorate into supporting him.
I'd say the 'power of nightmares' side of that oxymoronic argument is too bloodied to be worth discussing this weekend and it's better to stick with the wider delusion.
On Thursday, before the police had made one arrest, before one terrorist group had claimed responsibility, before one body had been carried from the wreckage, let alone been identified and allowed to rest in peace, cocksure voices filled with righteousness were proclaiming that the real murderers weren't the real murderers but the Prime Minister.... upright men and women who sat down to write letters to respectable newspapers within minutes of hearing the news.
...At no point did they grasp that Islamism was a reactionary movement as great as fascism, which had claimed millions of mainly Muslim lives in the Sudan, Iran, Algeria and Afghanistan and is claiming thousands in Iraq. As with fascism, it takes a resolute dunderheadedness to put all the responsibility on democratic governments for its existence.
... Whether you are brown or white, Muslim, Christian, Jew or atheist, it is uncomfortable to face the fact that there is a messianic cult of death which, like European fascism and communism before it, will send you to your grave whatever you do. But I'm afraid that's what the record shows.
.... In the past two years in Iraq, UN and Red Cross workers have been massacred, trade unionists assassinated, school children and aid workers kidnapped and decapitated and countless people who happened to be on the wrong bus or on the wrong street at the wrong time paid for their mistake with their lives.
What can the survivors do? Not a lot according to a Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He told bin Laden that the northern Kurds may be Sunni but 'Islam's voice has died out among them' and they'd been infiltrated by Jews. The southern Shia were 'a sect of treachery' while any Arab, Kurd, Shia or Sunni who believed in a democratic Iraq was a heretic. ......as the past 40 years have shown, Islamism is mainly concerned with killing and oppressing Muslims.
.....There are many tasks in the coming days. Staying calm, helping the police and protecting Muslim communities from neo-Nazi attack are high among them. But the greatest is to resolve to see the world for what it is and remove the twin vices of wilful myopia and bad faith which have disfigured too much liberal thought for too long.
We all know who was to blame for Thursday's murders... and it wasn't Bush and Blair
...In these bleak days, it's worth remembering what was said after September 2001. A backward glance shows that before the war against the Taliban and long before the war against Saddam Hussein, there were many who had determined that 'we had it coming'. They had to convince themselves that Islamism was a Western creation: a comprehensible reaction to the International Monetary Fund or hanging chads in Florida or whatever else was agitating them, rather than an autonomous psychopathic force with reasons of its own. In the years since, this manic masochism has spread like bindweed and strangled leftish and much conservative thought.
All kinds of hypocrisy remained unchallenged. In my world of liberal London, social success at the dinner table belonged to the man who could simultaneously maintain that we've got it coming but that nothing was going to come; that indiscriminate murder would be Tony Blair's fault but there wouldn't be indiscriminate murder because 'the threat' was a phantom menace invented by Blair to scare the cowed electorate into supporting him.
I'd say the 'power of nightmares' side of that oxymoronic argument is too bloodied to be worth discussing this weekend and it's better to stick with the wider delusion.
On Thursday, before the police had made one arrest, before one terrorist group had claimed responsibility, before one body had been carried from the wreckage, let alone been identified and allowed to rest in peace, cocksure voices filled with righteousness were proclaiming that the real murderers weren't the real murderers but the Prime Minister.... upright men and women who sat down to write letters to respectable newspapers within minutes of hearing the news.
...At no point did they grasp that Islamism was a reactionary movement as great as fascism, which had claimed millions of mainly Muslim lives in the Sudan, Iran, Algeria and Afghanistan and is claiming thousands in Iraq. As with fascism, it takes a resolute dunderheadedness to put all the responsibility on democratic governments for its existence.
... Whether you are brown or white, Muslim, Christian, Jew or atheist, it is uncomfortable to face the fact that there is a messianic cult of death which, like European fascism and communism before it, will send you to your grave whatever you do. But I'm afraid that's what the record shows.
.... In the past two years in Iraq, UN and Red Cross workers have been massacred, trade unionists assassinated, school children and aid workers kidnapped and decapitated and countless people who happened to be on the wrong bus or on the wrong street at the wrong time paid for their mistake with their lives.
What can the survivors do? Not a lot according to a Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He told bin Laden that the northern Kurds may be Sunni but 'Islam's voice has died out among them' and they'd been infiltrated by Jews. The southern Shia were 'a sect of treachery' while any Arab, Kurd, Shia or Sunni who believed in a democratic Iraq was a heretic. ......as the past 40 years have shown, Islamism is mainly concerned with killing and oppressing Muslims.
.....There are many tasks in the coming days. Staying calm, helping the police and protecting Muslim communities from neo-Nazi attack are high among them. But the greatest is to resolve to see the world for what it is and remove the twin vices of wilful myopia and bad faith which have disfigured too much liberal thought for too long.
Monday, July 11, 2005
new Anglican leader joins the IR fight
from The Australian: Anglican leader joins the IR fight [July 11, 2005]: by Andrew West, July 11, 2005 ...
THE new leader of Australia's 4 million Anglicans has attacked the Howard Government's proposed industrial relations reforms....
Brisbane Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, elected as the Anglican primate at the weekend, yesterday said "I don't agree with (Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews) when he says we should butt out. The key principle the church would want to defend is proper protection for the weakest and most vulnerable in our community. That is a prime value of the Judeo-Christian tradition, one that rings through the prophets and the Gospel."
...."I think members of churches do have to be prepared to stand up for deeply held values," he said. "And that sort of thing does happen from time to time."
Dr Aspinall defeated his major rival, Sydney archbishop Peter Jensen, to win the primacy after a third candidate, Perth prelate Roger Herft, withdrew.
Forty electors met in Sydney's St Andrew's Cathedral on Saturday to choose a replacement for Peter Carnley, who recently retired as Perth archbishop. Dr Aspinall, 44, is the youngest man to hold the primacy but his term will last only two years.
He said his primary mission was to rebuild the Anglican congregations, which outside the Sydney diocese have dwindled by 7 per cent over the past decade.
"I want to call the 4million Anglicans in Australia to a unity of commitment, to Jesus Christ and Christ's mission in Australia," he said.
"We have a lot of very important things to say in our community and we need to be creative about getting out there and saying those things. We need to communicate the riches of the Anglican tradition and the good news of the Gospel."
Dr Aspinall is a theological liberal who supports the consecration of women bishops. But he declined to reveal whether he supported the ordination of practising homosexuals to the priesthood. "No statement from me today about homosexual or women bishops is going to resolve those issues," he said.
THE new leader of Australia's 4 million Anglicans has attacked the Howard Government's proposed industrial relations reforms....
Brisbane Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, elected as the Anglican primate at the weekend, yesterday said "I don't agree with (Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews) when he says we should butt out. The key principle the church would want to defend is proper protection for the weakest and most vulnerable in our community. That is a prime value of the Judeo-Christian tradition, one that rings through the prophets and the Gospel."
...."I think members of churches do have to be prepared to stand up for deeply held values," he said. "And that sort of thing does happen from time to time."
Dr Aspinall defeated his major rival, Sydney archbishop Peter Jensen, to win the primacy after a third candidate, Perth prelate Roger Herft, withdrew.
Forty electors met in Sydney's St Andrew's Cathedral on Saturday to choose a replacement for Peter Carnley, who recently retired as Perth archbishop. Dr Aspinall, 44, is the youngest man to hold the primacy but his term will last only two years.
He said his primary mission was to rebuild the Anglican congregations, which outside the Sydney diocese have dwindled by 7 per cent over the past decade.
"I want to call the 4million Anglicans in Australia to a unity of commitment, to Jesus Christ and Christ's mission in Australia," he said.
"We have a lot of very important things to say in our community and we need to be creative about getting out there and saying those things. We need to communicate the riches of the Anglican tradition and the good news of the Gospel."
Dr Aspinall is a theological liberal who supports the consecration of women bishops. But he declined to reveal whether he supported the ordination of practising homosexuals to the priesthood. "No statement from me today about homosexual or women bishops is going to resolve those issues," he said.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Jordan's king says Arab frustration fuels extremism
from Jordan's king says Arab frustration fuels extremism - Yahoo! News: Sat Jul 9, 2:57 PM
...Jordan's King Abdullah said the world must tackle Arab frustration over poverty and perceived injustices in the Israeli-Palestinian and Iraqi conflicts if it is to stem militant violence.
"... the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- that is the first thing that these extremists use to raise the level of tension," Abdullah said in an interview with CNN on Saturday. "The second one is Iraq so if we deal with these core issues it does allow us to bring the level of tension down, but at the same time we do have to improve the lives of Arabs."
"... the international community needed to help tackle the root causes of extremism."
(Sandgroper: this is another voice of appeasement from the so-called "moderate" King Abdullah - "...tackle the root causes..." is synonymous with saying is that we should give in to terrorism's blackmail, and hope they won't find new demands afterwards....)
...Jordan's King Abdullah said the world must tackle Arab frustration over poverty and perceived injustices in the Israeli-Palestinian and Iraqi conflicts if it is to stem militant violence.
"... the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- that is the first thing that these extremists use to raise the level of tension," Abdullah said in an interview with CNN on Saturday. "The second one is Iraq so if we deal with these core issues it does allow us to bring the level of tension down, but at the same time we do have to improve the lives of Arabs."
"... the international community needed to help tackle the root causes of extremism."
(Sandgroper: this is another voice of appeasement from the so-called "moderate" King Abdullah - "...tackle the root causes..." is synonymous with saying is that we should give in to terrorism's blackmail, and hope they won't find new demands afterwards....)
Friday, July 08, 2005
Threats to the disengagement
from The Washington Times, Editorials/Op-Ed, July 7, 2005 ...
With the start of disengagement of Israel from Gaza less than six weeks away, the differences between the Israeli and Palestinian Authority approaches could hardly be any greater.
On the Israeli side, the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is carefully preparing for Aug. 15 -- the day it will begin to remove 8,500 men, women and children from 21 settlements in Gaza and more than 500 from four settlements in the northern West Bank.
To bolster the sagging fortunes of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Sharon, who transferred the West Bank cities of Jericho and Tulkarm to Palestinian security control in the spring, wants to do that in Bethlehem, Ramallah and Qalqilya before the withdrawal begins.
On the Palestinian side, for all of Mr. Abbas' stated good intentions about making peace with Israel, he hasn't done much.
Palestinian security forces remain in disarray. Lt. Gen. William Ward, the American soldier who four months ago was tasked with the responsibility to help the Palestinians rebuild their security forces, last week described his experience in trying to help reorganize a "dysfunctional" system of command. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that only about 22,000 of the 58,000 persons in the security forces actually bother to show up for work. But on paper, even 22,000 security officers should be quite capable of taking on Hamas and the other rejectionist groups.
One reason the security forces have failed so badly, Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Youssef candidly told the Palestinian Legislative Council recently, is that they include terrorists and gangsters responsible for creating the lawlessness that has enveloped the West Bank and Gaza.
Instead of disarming terrorists, Mr. Abbas has tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade groups like Hamas to take their gunmen into his security forces. Earlier this week, Hamas rejected Mr. Abbas' offer to join his government. It has responded to his efforts to halt the anti-Israel violence by firing rockets at the Gaza settlements and Israeli towns in the Negev Desert.
Even more ominously -- both for Mr. Abbas and the Israelis -- Hamas has taken advantage of the Israeli decision taken earlier this year, to help Mr. Abbas, to refrain from offensive military operations against Hamas.
The Israel withdrawal from Gaza and the northern West Bank next month will be extraordinarily difficult. The Israeli military is bracing for an extensive campaign of civil disobedience by settlers. The terrorist attacks and threats emphasize the remarkable risks Mr. Sharon is taking to achieve historic compromise with the Palestinians.
With the start of disengagement of Israel from Gaza less than six weeks away, the differences between the Israeli and Palestinian Authority approaches could hardly be any greater.
On the Israeli side, the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is carefully preparing for Aug. 15 -- the day it will begin to remove 8,500 men, women and children from 21 settlements in Gaza and more than 500 from four settlements in the northern West Bank.
To bolster the sagging fortunes of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Sharon, who transferred the West Bank cities of Jericho and Tulkarm to Palestinian security control in the spring, wants to do that in Bethlehem, Ramallah and Qalqilya before the withdrawal begins.
On the Palestinian side, for all of Mr. Abbas' stated good intentions about making peace with Israel, he hasn't done much.
Palestinian security forces remain in disarray. Lt. Gen. William Ward, the American soldier who four months ago was tasked with the responsibility to help the Palestinians rebuild their security forces, last week described his experience in trying to help reorganize a "dysfunctional" system of command. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that only about 22,000 of the 58,000 persons in the security forces actually bother to show up for work. But on paper, even 22,000 security officers should be quite capable of taking on Hamas and the other rejectionist groups.
One reason the security forces have failed so badly, Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Youssef candidly told the Palestinian Legislative Council recently, is that they include terrorists and gangsters responsible for creating the lawlessness that has enveloped the West Bank and Gaza.
Instead of disarming terrorists, Mr. Abbas has tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade groups like Hamas to take their gunmen into his security forces. Earlier this week, Hamas rejected Mr. Abbas' offer to join his government. It has responded to his efforts to halt the anti-Israel violence by firing rockets at the Gaza settlements and Israeli towns in the Negev Desert.
Even more ominously -- both for Mr. Abbas and the Israelis -- Hamas has taken advantage of the Israeli decision taken earlier this year, to help Mr. Abbas, to refrain from offensive military operations against Hamas.
The Israel withdrawal from Gaza and the northern West Bank next month will be extraordinarily difficult. The Israeli military is bracing for an extensive campaign of civil disobedience by settlers. The terrorist attacks and threats emphasize the remarkable risks Mr. Sharon is taking to achieve historic compromise with the Palestinians.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
United Church of Christ joins divestment bandwagon
from SFGate.com, by ERRIN HAINES, Associated Press Writer, Tuesday, July 5, 2005
(07-05) 21:34 PDT ATLANTA, (AP) --
The United Church of Christ voted Tuesday to use 'economic leverage' to promote peace between Israel and Palestinians and to call for the dismantling of the Jewish state's security fence.
The resolutions were criticized by some Jewish leaders, who called them anti-Semitic.
...Peter Makari, the church's executive director for the Middle East and Europe, said the church remains committed to religious dialogue and participation among Jews, Christians and Muslims.
"These resolutions condemn all acts of violence on both sides and indicate a clear desire by the Synod to end violence and promote peace," Makari said.
However, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called the resolutions "functionally anti-Semitic." He accused the UCC, which has 1.3 million members and 5,700 congregations, of holding Israel to a different moral standard.
"The UCC has disqualified itself as a legitimate partner for a just and equitable peace in the Holy Land," Cooper said.
.....The second resolution calls for the Israeli government to stop construction of the security barrier ....David Elcott, the American Jewish Committee's U.S. Director of Interreligious Affairs, criticized the measure. "We understand Christian concerns about a wall, but we believe that saving human lives is more significant than property," he said. "That wall has saved the lives of Jews, Christians and Muslims."
(07-05) 21:34 PDT ATLANTA, (AP) --
The United Church of Christ voted Tuesday to use 'economic leverage' to promote peace between Israel and Palestinians and to call for the dismantling of the Jewish state's security fence.
The resolutions were criticized by some Jewish leaders, who called them anti-Semitic.
...Peter Makari, the church's executive director for the Middle East and Europe, said the church remains committed to religious dialogue and participation among Jews, Christians and Muslims.
"These resolutions condemn all acts of violence on both sides and indicate a clear desire by the Synod to end violence and promote peace," Makari said.
However, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called the resolutions "functionally anti-Semitic." He accused the UCC, which has 1.3 million members and 5,700 congregations, of holding Israel to a different moral standard.
"The UCC has disqualified itself as a legitimate partner for a just and equitable peace in the Holy Land," Cooper said.
.....The second resolution calls for the Israeli government to stop construction of the security barrier ....David Elcott, the American Jewish Committee's U.S. Director of Interreligious Affairs, criticized the measure. "We understand Christian concerns about a wall, but we believe that saving human lives is more significant than property," he said. "That wall has saved the lives of Jews, Christians and Muslims."
Saudi King Fahd is sinking - The Saudi stock exchange slumps
from DEBKAfile : July 7, 2005, 11:31 AM (GMT+02:00)
Saudi King Fahd is sinking. He is unconscious and hooked to a breathing machine.
Wednesday, July 6, his doctors decided to carry out a tracheotomy to help him breath.
Saudi official spokesmen claim the king is on the mend from a bout of pneumonia. But news of his deterioration spread through the oil kingdom and caused sharp drops on the Riyadh stock exchange.
Saudi King Fahd is sinking. He is unconscious and hooked to a breathing machine.
Wednesday, July 6, his doctors decided to carry out a tracheotomy to help him breath.
Saudi official spokesmen claim the king is on the mend from a bout of pneumonia. But news of his deterioration spread through the oil kingdom and caused sharp drops on the Riyadh stock exchange.
Jews embarrass the world
by Olive Schreiner, South African novelist, as quoted by Chief Rabbi J.H. Hertz, p,177,180, Ibid, p. 180
(thanks to Doron for passing this on.....)
Indeed it is difficult for all other nations of the world to live in the presence of the Jews. It is irritating and most uncomfortable. The Jews embarrass the world as they have done things which are beyond the imaginable.
They have become moral strangers since the day their forefather Abraham introduced the world to high ethical standards and to the fear of Heaven. They brought the world the Ten Commandments which many nations prefer to defy.
They violated the rules of history by staying alive, totally at odds with common sense and historical evidence. They outlived all their former enemies, including vast empires such as the Romans and the Greeks.
They angered the world with their return to their homeland after 2000 years of exile and after the murder of six million of their brothers and sisters.
They aggravated mankind by building, in the wink of an eye, a democratic State which others were not able to create in even hundreds of years.
They built living monuments such as the duty to be holy and the privilege to serve one's fellow men.
They had their hands in every human progressive endeavor, whether in science, medicine, psychology or any other discipline, while totally out of proportion to their actual numbers. They gave the world the Bible and even their "savior".
Jews taught the world not to accept the world as it is but to transform it, yet only a few nations wanted to listen. Moreover, the Jews introduced the world to one God, yet only a minority wanted to draw the moral consequences. So the nations of the world realize that they would have been lost without the Jews. And while their subconscious tries to remind them of how much of Western civilization is framed in terms of concepts first articulated by the Jews, they do anything to suppress it. They deny that Jews remind them of a higher purpose of life and the need to be honorable, and do anything to escape its consequences. It is simply too much to handle for them, too embarrassing to admit, and above all too difficult to live by.
So the nations of the world decided once again to go out of its way in order to find a stick to hit the Jews. The goal: to prove that Jews are as immoral and guilty of massacre and genocide as some of themselves are. All this in order to hide and justify their own failure to even protest when six million Jews were brought to the slaughterhouses of Auschwitz and Dachau; so as to wipe out the moral conscience of which the Jews remind them.
And they found a stick.
Nothing could be more gratifying for them than to find the Jews into a struggle with another people (who are completely terrorized by their own leaders) against whom the Jews, against their best wishes, have to defend themselves in order to survive. With great satisfaction, the world allows and initiates the rewriting of history so as to fuel the rage of yet another people against the Jews. This in spite of the fact that the nations understand very well that peace between the parties could have come a long time ago, if only the Jews would have had a fair chance. Instead, they happily jumped on the wagon of hate so as to justify their jealousy of the Jews and their incompetence to deal with their own moral issues.
When Jews look at the bizarre play, taking place in The Hague (sandgroper says: and in the Presbyterian and Anglican Churches, and in so many ways.....) they can only smile as this artificial game once more proves how the world paradoxically admits the Jews uniqueness. It is in their need to undermine the Jews that they actually raise them.
The study of history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one uniform lesson:
That the nations which received and in any way dealt fairly and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have tortured and oppressed him have written out their own curse.
(thanks to Doron for passing this on.....)
Indeed it is difficult for all other nations of the world to live in the presence of the Jews. It is irritating and most uncomfortable. The Jews embarrass the world as they have done things which are beyond the imaginable.
They have become moral strangers since the day their forefather Abraham introduced the world to high ethical standards and to the fear of Heaven. They brought the world the Ten Commandments which many nations prefer to defy.
They violated the rules of history by staying alive, totally at odds with common sense and historical evidence. They outlived all their former enemies, including vast empires such as the Romans and the Greeks.
They angered the world with their return to their homeland after 2000 years of exile and after the murder of six million of their brothers and sisters.
They aggravated mankind by building, in the wink of an eye, a democratic State which others were not able to create in even hundreds of years.
They built living monuments such as the duty to be holy and the privilege to serve one's fellow men.
They had their hands in every human progressive endeavor, whether in science, medicine, psychology or any other discipline, while totally out of proportion to their actual numbers. They gave the world the Bible and even their "savior".
Jews taught the world not to accept the world as it is but to transform it, yet only a few nations wanted to listen. Moreover, the Jews introduced the world to one God, yet only a minority wanted to draw the moral consequences. So the nations of the world realize that they would have been lost without the Jews. And while their subconscious tries to remind them of how much of Western civilization is framed in terms of concepts first articulated by the Jews, they do anything to suppress it. They deny that Jews remind them of a higher purpose of life and the need to be honorable, and do anything to escape its consequences. It is simply too much to handle for them, too embarrassing to admit, and above all too difficult to live by.
So the nations of the world decided once again to go out of its way in order to find a stick to hit the Jews. The goal: to prove that Jews are as immoral and guilty of massacre and genocide as some of themselves are. All this in order to hide and justify their own failure to even protest when six million Jews were brought to the slaughterhouses of Auschwitz and Dachau; so as to wipe out the moral conscience of which the Jews remind them.
And they found a stick.
Nothing could be more gratifying for them than to find the Jews into a struggle with another people (who are completely terrorized by their own leaders) against whom the Jews, against their best wishes, have to defend themselves in order to survive. With great satisfaction, the world allows and initiates the rewriting of history so as to fuel the rage of yet another people against the Jews. This in spite of the fact that the nations understand very well that peace between the parties could have come a long time ago, if only the Jews would have had a fair chance. Instead, they happily jumped on the wagon of hate so as to justify their jealousy of the Jews and their incompetence to deal with their own moral issues.
When Jews look at the bizarre play, taking place in The Hague (sandgroper says: and in the Presbyterian and Anglican Churches, and in so many ways.....) they can only smile as this artificial game once more proves how the world paradoxically admits the Jews uniqueness. It is in their need to undermine the Jews that they actually raise them.
The study of history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one uniform lesson:
That the nations which received and in any way dealt fairly and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have tortured and oppressed him have written out their own curse.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Christian Hate?: Anglican Consultative Council passes disinvestment resolution
from a new Blog by a concerned Anglican Christian Hate?: Anglican Consultative Council passes disinvestment resolution: Tuesday, June 28, 2005
As an Anglican I note with deep concern that the ...resolution ...passed unanimously at the meeting in Nottingham last week of the Anglican Consultative Council...
.....it raises all of the three basic concerns that I have about Christian Aid’s stance on the conflict.
As an Anglican I note with deep concern that the ...resolution ...passed unanimously at the meeting in Nottingham last week of the Anglican Consultative Council...
.....it raises all of the three basic concerns that I have about Christian Aid’s stance on the conflict.
- The singling out of Israel. Although the ACC passed other resolutions on political issues, and notably on the situation in Zimbabwe, none calls for economic pressure to be put on any other state.....In an orgy of destruction lasting just a month Robert Mugabe’s regime has left one and a half million Zimbabweans homeless, according to the UN’s estimate. Their crimes? Poverty, powerlessness and voting for the opposition. The ACC's resolution has strong words about the regime's record, but...no suggestion of disinvestment or any other form of economic pressure. And it "asks" the government to mend its ways - a courtesy not extended to Israel.
- The one-sided apportioning of blame, manifested in the assumption that only one side needs to be pressured into seeking peace and justice. Yes, there is the phrase about “violence against innocent Israelis”, but what an empty gesture of even-handedness that is – as if the C of E might have investments in companies that deal directly with Islamic Jihad! Much more to the point is that investment in “a future Palestinian state” is commended without any suggestion of its being made conditional on an end to terrorist violence.And note that, whereas the right to their land is asserted for Palestinians collectively and unconditionally, Israelis are divided into sheep and goats – the “innocent” who deserve to be spared from being blown up, and, implicitly, the guilty who don’t.
- The absence of the humility that should inform post-Holocaust Christians’ dealings with the Jewish people. Instead, we find Christians arrogating to themselves the right to pass judgment, without a hint of self-criticism, on the way Jews have tried to deal with their experience of persecution and ultimately genocide at the hands of a Christian culture.In present-day Germany there is a strong feeling that it is not for Germans - especially, not for the German state - to criticize Israel. One can argue whether the taboo has been taken too far, but the point is that it represents an owning of collective responsibility for the sins of the past – something deplorably lacking in the ACC’s stance.
......The ACC has met in an atmosphere of division and crisis unparalleled in the history of the Anglican Communion. In the identification of a common enemy, however, they have been enabled to achieve not just unity but unanimity. The psychological mechanism of scapegoating is familiar enough. That the common enemy turns out to be the ancient enemy of the faith speaks, at the very least, for an alarming lack of self-awareness.
... when the First Crusade set out on its journey to Palestine in 1096 (incidentally following a period of chronic division within the Church), it first turned its zeal on the Jewish communities of the Rhineland. ...they were presented at swordpoint with the choice between conversion and death. Loyalty to their faith cost 1300 men, women and children their lives in the city of Mainz alone.
Make no mistake, an unbroken thread links the prejudices of the eleventh century with those which helped the Nazis to power and enabled them to carry through the Final Solution with minimal resistance from the churches. And now it seems to me we are seeing something very close to an updated version of the old ultimatum being addressed to Jews. Now the choice is “give up your state or die”.
Jews are being categorized (for example by the academic boycott campaigners) into bad Zionists and good anti-Zionists. When Palestinian militants claim the right to inflict indiscriminate violence on the bad Zionist Jews, many on the western Left look the other way or openly applaud. And fury greets Israeli attempts to defend themselves, notably by the security fence. Yes, I know it’s been built on Palestinian land, and of course that’s wrong, but the sheer vehemence of the criticism, and the total lack of interest in the possibility that the fence has actually been effective in saving lives, leads me to suspect that there is something more primal underlying this: Jews are supposed to be defenceless. How dare they acquire power? How dare they place such an inflated value on their lives?
Is all this really something the Anglican Communion wants to be part of?
Anglican poll winner to face major disputes
from The Australian: : "Anglican poll winner to face major disputes ", Andrew West, July 06, 2005
AUSTRALIA'S four million Anglicans will have a new leader this weekend, with archbishops Peter Jensen from Sydney, Phillip Aspinall from Brisbane and the new archbishop of Perth Roger Herft the likely contenders.
Whoever takes over the position from Peter Carnley will have to wrestle immediately with the church's enduring disputes over women bishops and, even more controversially, the ordination of practising homosexuals.
Forty electors will meet in Sydney's St Andrew's Cathedral on Saturday to vote for the new primate, a position generally considered one of influence but holding little formal power. 'It has clout but it is not an Anglican papacy,' Dr Jensen said. "
.....Looming over the election will also be the spectre of a threat to the worldwide unity of the Anglican communion.
At a recent international summit, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of the US were effectively sidelined because they have blessed same-sex unions and, in the US, consecrated a practising homosexual as bishop -- Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
No Australian bishop has ever ventured that far but in the recent past Dr Jensen has suggested his Sydney diocese would find it hard to be in communion with a diocese that ordained or consecrated practising homosexuals. He has also lamented the possibility of "two Anglicanisms" developing and hinted he might be more comfortable as part of an informal network of Biblically orthodox dioceses in the developing world.
Dr Carnley, who announced his retirement last year, will head an international body established to resolve the dispute over the ordination of homosexual and female bishops. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams appointed Dr Carnley last month to chair a 13-member panel that includes clergy, lawyers and lay theologians. The panel will have no power to intervene in disputes but will mediate between liberals and conservatives to try to avert further division within the church.
AUSTRALIA'S four million Anglicans will have a new leader this weekend, with archbishops Peter Jensen from Sydney, Phillip Aspinall from Brisbane and the new archbishop of Perth Roger Herft the likely contenders.
Whoever takes over the position from Peter Carnley will have to wrestle immediately with the church's enduring disputes over women bishops and, even more controversially, the ordination of practising homosexuals.
Forty electors will meet in Sydney's St Andrew's Cathedral on Saturday to vote for the new primate, a position generally considered one of influence but holding little formal power. 'It has clout but it is not an Anglican papacy,' Dr Jensen said. "
.....Looming over the election will also be the spectre of a threat to the worldwide unity of the Anglican communion.
At a recent international summit, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of the US were effectively sidelined because they have blessed same-sex unions and, in the US, consecrated a practising homosexual as bishop -- Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
No Australian bishop has ever ventured that far but in the recent past Dr Jensen has suggested his Sydney diocese would find it hard to be in communion with a diocese that ordained or consecrated practising homosexuals. He has also lamented the possibility of "two Anglicanisms" developing and hinted he might be more comfortable as part of an informal network of Biblically orthodox dioceses in the developing world.
Dr Carnley, who announced his retirement last year, will head an international body established to resolve the dispute over the ordination of homosexual and female bishops. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams appointed Dr Carnley last month to chair a 13-member panel that includes clergy, lawyers and lay theologians. The panel will have no power to intervene in disputes but will mediate between liberals and conservatives to try to avert further division within the church.
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