www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall George Galloway

if i live in china then am i chinese? lol
But if a jew were to live in china(were china would be just like lebanon and palestine) he would call himself chinese although it is obvious that he doesnt look chinese!
That is what they r doing in palestine when they call themselves semites.haha funny eh?

I think we would all be happy (especially the Israelis) if BOTH Hezbollah and Israel got out of Lebanon. Only then would there be peace.

Charbel,

Do you support the Hezbollah�s intentional attempts to kill innocent Jews, Christians and Muslims who live in the state of Israel?

If no, what are you doing to stop Hezbollah from attacking the innocent? If they had not bombed Israel there would have been no war this summer. Israel would not have been forced to destroy southern Lebanon just to keep their own citizens safe.

CJ

Quote: Charbel,

Do you support the Hezbollah�s intentional attempts to kill innocent Jews, Christians and Muslims who live in the state of Israel?

If no, what are you doing to stop Hezbollah from attacking the innocent? If they had not bombed Israel there would have been no war this summer. Israel would not have been forced to destroy southern Lebanon just to keep their own citizens safe.

CJ

I don't support hezbollah, but i do know that what israel is doing is much worse than what hezbollah did. hezbollah would send one rocket then israel would send douzens instead with the sgniatures of israeli children on the rockets...yes pretty shocking.
so when u said that israel was forced to destroy southern lebanon..hmmmm it destroyed most of lebanon not only the south i was in lebanon yesterday...my god they even bombed in my village in the north which is totally christian. thousands have died in lebanon while tens have only died in israel....u can know what is justice and what isnt!

PGH Rusyn puts this to me:

There's a lot more than just my word for it. This happened in the late nine-teen sixties, and was widely covered in the Catholic press in the USA - it's not hard to grasp that the news that a Catholic Archbishop was voting Communist made sensational news in that period.

It could also easily have been confirmed by asking Archbishop Joseph himself; unfortunately he fell asleep in the Lord on 10 June 2005. But I feel safe in predicting that an eventual biography of His Eminence will include the episode.

As for the comment that "The Bishop really needed to be reminded that he should involve himself with the spiritual not the political", there were, of course, people who tried to suggest that to His Eminence. The Archbishop responded that, first of all, what provoked his electioneering was the Zionist government which asked him to urge his faithful not to vote Communist, at a time when the Communist Party was the only organized political voice supporting the Arabs. Evidently it makes a difference which political party the Archbishop might choose.

His Eminence continued with the point that through no fault of his own, or of the Church, the Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Galilee was the ethnarch and would have been quite irresponsible had he failed to provde leadership to his people in such a situation. Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky made a similar point in the nineteen-twenties.

I might well add that "spiritual" and "political" are not mutually exclusive words - the Bible is full of politics - and in a state where one's standing before the goverenment and the law is determined by one's adherence to a particular religion, it is absurd to claim that a Catholic Archbishop should confine himself to "spiritual" matters - this is reminiscent of "pie in the sky by and by".

Fr. Serge

Go raibh maith agat, Father Serge. I'm happy to find you posting thoughts here on the matter. Thank you for the much-appreciated input.

`Afi `aleik, Sharbel, bi taree'it hakyo wa usloobo, maa bi'as'sir بقصّر hal Galloway.

I would like to contribute to the thread with this report from Amnesty International revealing the extent of cruelty in the crimes that were committed in this latest homicidal military operation by the I.D.F.:

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE180072006

Israeli government spokespeople have insisted that they were targeting Hizbullah positions and support facilities, and that damage to civilian infrastructure was incidental or resulted from Hizbullah using the civilian population as a "human shield". However, the pattern and scope of the attacks, as well as the number of civilian casualties and the amount of damage sustained, makes the justification ring hollow. The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes and industry was deliberate and an integral part of the military strategy, rather than "collateral damage" � incidental damage to civilians or civilian property resulting from targeting military objectives.

Being here in Lebanon now and during the events in question (not that it poses as a necessary requirement for the following for anyone anywhere else keeping up with the news), I hardly need the contents of this report to convince me not even to ponder how such actions as what were realised in Lebanon could be regarded as anything in concord with the most basic standards of ethics, let alone compatible with Christian moral law. These acts were plainly evil, born of the same spirit of murder that possessed Cain of old. He might well be the I.D.F.'s patron saint.

It's not the first time I've said it, but with so many children being killed by the Israelis then, the occurrence of St. Elias' feast day during that violent episode made it appear as if this was another Baal that was taking Lebanese lives. I still find the metaphor strangely apt.

Samer

I read this profile on George Galloway...truthfully, I had never heard of him before today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway

one of my favorite books was one I read many years back by Father (now Archbishop) Elias Chacour entitled "Blood Brothers". The book opened my eyes to the issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflcit, and caused me to question many previous assumptions. Apart from my theological position, which utterly rejects the notion that the secular state of Israel is a prophetic fulfillment of the Biblical Israel, I still cannot stand anything that smacks of anti-semitism. To be sure there are evils on both sides of this war and no easy solutions.

Gordo

Elias Chacour is thoughtful and well worth listening to - but sometimes his optimism leads him away from realism.

By the way, the Arabs are themselves Semites. that's not just a wisecrack; the similarities are there and can be observed.

Fr. Serge

Ahlen ya Samer,

You just reminded me of what happened in my village on the saint Elias feast day. People in my village (kobayat, north of lebanon)were celebrating next to a church. Unfortunately, the israeli planes saw them and started throwing flare bombs and targetted twice the road the is right in front of them, however, they were surounded with pine trees, so those flare bombs lit the forest on fire keeping the people trapped not know what to do. hmmm yes very very evil. So the saint elias day was not as happy as it use to be.

Cheers
Charbel Touma

There was an Archbishop on EWTN who stated Hezbollah never, ever gave the Christian villages a bit of trouble. He also stated that the first step to peace was for both sides to adhere to a prescribed set of rules. One was that Israel be required to maintain a fixed borders; something every other nation on the planet is required to do.

If American foreign policy continues to maintain double standards in relation to this volatile region, the situation will never improve. It's ridiculous to point out and go after one side for its violations of UN resolutions while turning a blind eye to the other side's violations.

But, American foreign policy is skewed by the interest of big business and when you have a wreckless and totally unobjective approach to the world you'll end up with many bad days, bad guys, bad relationships, wars, death, destruction and the list goes on.

It's not about Republicans or Democrats. Both sides have their good and bad people and points. The problem is fundamentally spiritual in nature. The deadliest sin: Greed powers this machine. That god mammon.

We've bought into the greed game. We as a people are enslaved by unnecessary consumption. We consume too much food, oil, etc. This powers big business to meet the demand. Big business has shareholders who, motivated by greed want their profits and divedends now. So, they export the jobs overseas and engage in what is essentially slave labor in undemocratic places such as China where Christians are persecuted, women are forced to abort babies, etc. Saddam murdered people and we had to invade. China carries out much worse and gets favored trade status. It's okay, they make all that cool stuff "we need."

It's okay; we're not the ones running the sweat shops. We just keep them going by buying more stuff. More stuff, keep up with the Jones', get an SUV, look cool...

But wait, we can't afford all that cool stuff. Mom has to go to work now too. Ah, we have the SUV and cool stuff and the children are relegated to a babysitter, watching garbage on TV or getting into trouble because the parents are busy working to pay for all the cool stuff.

We're encouraged to vote for guys and gals who say they oppose abortion but after they're elected they don't say another word or remain active for the cause. They become shills for big business and the cycle continues. Bigger, more important things must have come up.

Our illustrious President walks around like a cowboy and bullies world leaders. He refuses to engage people in an intelligent manner; he's the "decider" and lacks the ability to debate a simple toad. His policies and those of his predecessors are utter failures. Could it be because they've left behind the fundamental values that made America great? Have they sold our birthright to big business and their "American interests?"

The media is owned by just a few corporations. Only offering the most villifying sound bites of foreign leaders; you get, not news but a slanted, skewed perspective. It's crafty and witty. Just enough information to keep you angry at those other guys all the while advertising more stuff that you don't really need.

So, it all boils down to the people's spiritual condition. All of the legislation in the world can't fix the illnesses of the heart we suffer from. It is up to us to stop buying into the lies. Only we can return to the core values of our Faith and begin teaching our children and others there is a better way to live. This is the real grass roots movement; the one that turned the world upside down.