THE SPINE DECEMBER 31, 2008
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
According to Reuters, the Archbishop on Canterbury, Rowan Williams,
once again has ideas on how to stop the bloodshed in the Middle East.
He urged President Bush and president-elect Barack Obama to do it.
The cleric has a lot of trouble in his own church which is about to be
sundered. Not his fault, really. But leadership and respect he does
not command. He has also messed quite frequently with the
Israel-Palestinian issue and, as it happens, he has done this
ignorantly and with episcopal moral certainty. His most remarkable
intervention in public affairs was to propose that British Muslims
should not be bound by state law in family matters but by Shari'a law.
In one fell swoop he would take the liberties of the English away from
innocent Muslims, and he would do this all in the name of
multi-culturalism.
Williams is very perturbed by what has happened in Gaza in the last few
days. He would be better positioned to state his views if he had been
also perturbed by what was happening from and out of Gaza during the
last year.
14 comments
The mark of a true hypocrite (Williams that is)... More than 80 rockets & mortar shells were launched on to Israel from Gaza last Wednesday & nary a peep from His "Holiness".
I wonder how he would have persuaded the Germans to be nice and not launch V-2's on London.
Hershel Ginsburg
Efrata / Jerusalem
- ginzy
December 31, 2008 at 5:14pm
Will this fool be writing for the New York Review of Books next?
- jacksondyer
December 31, 2008 at 5:48pm
Read here about an interview he did for the glossy Muslim "lifestyle" magazine Emel:
brockley.blogspot.com/.../rowan-williams-on-good-and-bad.html
- noga1
December 31, 2008 at 6:13pm
It's a free society and the Archbishop can say anything he wants, Marty. And there's no compulsion to listen.
noga, that was a great link. Full of very interesting blogs. Thanks.
- scrubbyoak
December 31, 2008 at 9:33pm
Marty is not telling the Archbishop to shut up, only to shift his brain into gear before putting his mouth in motion.
- nbarry
December 31, 2008 at 11:14pm
It doesn't matter how much he tries "to shift his brain into gear before putting his mouth in motion", the Archbishop is incapable of being fair to Israel. Based on his stated views over the years, one can fairly conclude that he's pretty much disposed to anti-Jewish bias. Perhaps not the virulent kind of antisemitism, but bias nonetheless.
It is what it is, and I think it's best to ignore him.
- scrubbyoak
January 1, 2009 at 6:31am
Here is an article by a Muslim physicians that puts Williams' facile and yes malicious views to shame:
"Gaza solution is in the hands of Palestinians"
Dec. 31, 2008
Tawfik Hamid , THE JERUSALEM POST
"After Israel launched its military attack on Hamas military installations in Gaza in response to repeated attacks on Israeli civilians, the Arab street wasted no time in demonstrating with passion against Israel. In Europe, many Westerners also took part in the protests.
As an Egyptian Muslim now living in America, I ask myself why the Arab street and its supporters in the West never show similarly strong response against Islamic terrorists who target innocents worldwide and explode markets full of predominantly Muslim civilians in Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey, etc. When you consider that the Israeli attack killed some 400 mostly Hamas militant in the first four days, the passive attitude of the Muslim world against the terrorists represents extreme hypocrisy. If it truly cared for Muslims' lives, it should have demonstrated in the same numbers and with equal vehemence against the Islamists who murder hundreds of thousands of their fellow Muslims, not to mention the Hamas slaughter of rival Fatah members - women and children included. ..."
Read the rest here:
www.jpost.com/.../Satellite
- jacksondyer
January 1, 2009 at 11:26am
Has anybody seen this news? With all due respect to the Brits, for having produced Shakespeare and Jane Austen, this is a scene that may soon be re-enacted in their own backyard. And the archbishop's loudmouth antisemitic slant will have contributed to its occurring:'
"Jewish-French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy was listed by a Belgium-based Islamist group as a target for assassination alongside other leading Jewish personalities in Europe, the Belgian daily La Derniere Heure reported earlier this week.
The planned assassination was apparently thwarted after group leader Abdelkader Belliraj, a Belgian of Moroccan ascent, was arrested last February in Morocco, the newspaper reported. [-]
The hit list mentioned the names of five other well-know Jewish figures in Belgium and France: Josy Eisenberg, producer of the A Bible ouverte (Open Bible) television program on FR2; Simone Susskind, a leader of Belgium's secular Jewish community; attorney Markus Pardes, president of the International Association of Jewish lawyers and jurists; Belgian writer Jean-Claude Bologne and La Derniere Heure reporter Edmond Blattche."
www.haaretz.com/.../1051943.html
www.dhnet.be/.../belliraj-visait-bhl.html
islamineurope.blogspot.com/.../antwerp-ael-riots-video.html
- noga1
January 1, 2009 at 1:51pm
The objection to the Archbishop's remarks appears to take issue with the notion that Israel, a western democratic state, should be held to a higher standard than a bunch of terrorist muderers. Get real. Israel appears to be engaged in a bit of the old eye for eye, tooth for tooth, a response as barbaric as it is futile. How can any reasonable person can support this?
- wmccwright
January 2, 2009 at 10:32am
The Anglican Church has long held a presence in the region and there are a substantial number, though not a high percentage, of Palestinians who are Anglican. So I think the Archbishop might actually be "minding his business."
- dabeffert
January 2, 2009 at 11:45am
An eye for eye would have been lobing unguided rockets into Gaza every time a Qassam fell on Sderot, and whoever gets killed, gets killed. Perhaps it is a solution Israel should seriously consider. Not try to remove the threat to its citizens but just to retaliate, in kind. And just to make the odds better for more Israeli dead, Israel should bus as many Israelis as possible to stand along the border with Gaza, so as to counter balance the crowdedness of Gaza's towns. It is only fair to give Hamas an even chance to kill as many Israelis as Israeli qassams will kill Palestinians.
- noga1
January 2, 2009 at 11:46am
"Get real," indeed. What then do you recommend when dealing with what you style "a bunch of terrorist murderers"? You never bother to say. Turn the other cheek? That would be very much in line with the empty rhetoric a guy like Williams might come up with. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. I agree "eye for eye" is not a policy that, in itself, can always work. But a policy that can work must be concrete. So what is it? You don't like "eye for eye;" you've made that clear. But what do you suggest?
- storchie
January 2, 2009 at 12:01pm
F**k him!! Who the hell cares what this a**hole says!
- dworkinm
January 2, 2009 at 4:17pm
nbarry said:
"Marty is not telling the Archbishop to shut up, only to shift his brain into gear before putting his mouth in motion."
What the hell does that mean? It seems that putting his brain into gear only means agreeing with you before speaking. It's funny all the the people supporting Israel keep bringing up comparisons with Nazi Germany, and yet no one sees the irony of them using the same type of fascistic, censorship mentality that they use to make their point.
Why don't you put your mind into gear and aprreciate people's right to free speech.
- glas0159
January 3, 2009 at 7:50pm