Bishop Graham Tomlin and the Demonization of Israel

by Denis MacEoin • June 24, 2018 at 5:00 am

If Israel plays a part in the persecution of Christians, it must be doing a very bad job indeed.
"Shortly after the [1967] war, [Israeli Defense Minister] Dayan met with officials of the Muslim Wakf, who governed the holy site, and formally returned the Mount to their control.... the Wakf would determine who prayed at the site, an arrangement that would effectively bar non-Muslim prayer." — Yossi Klein Halevi, The Atlantic.
It should be clear from the above that Israel is one of the least likely countries in the world to persecute the followers of any religion. A well-educated and thinking man, Bishop Tomlin ought to have known this or have been able to check the facts for himself. None of the above is remotely secret.
"[A]re the world Christian bodies denouncing the Islamic forces for the ethnic cleansing, genocide and historic demographic-religious revolution their brethren are suffering? No. Christians these days are busy targeting the Israeli Jews." — Giulio Meotti, Italian journalist.

Protected by Israel's freedom of religion, Baha'is have built their two holiest shrines in Israel, and on the slopes of Mount Carmel their World Center (pictured): vast terraced gardens and white marble buildings, including the seat of their international governing body, the Universal House of Justice, and central archives. (Image source: US Embassy Israel/Wikimedia Commons)

Anglican Bishop Graham Tomlin, heads the diocese of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which has many of London's most expensive residential properties, is undoubtedly a man of brains and good works.[1]

On May 26, 2018, however, he published in The Times an article, entitled, "If this rich vein of wisdom disappears, a part of us dies". The "rich vein of wisdom" to which he refers is the long tradition of Christian thought and experience in the region where the religion first appeared, and was handed down through centuries of Islamic rule. For the most part, the article is a well-argued defence of Christians in the Middle East:

The systematic persecution of Christians in the Middle East is a serious threat. The number of Christians in Middle Eastern countries has fallen from about 20 per cent to 4 per cent in recent years and regular bomb attacks on Christians in Egypt are becoming part of a deadly pattern.

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Iraq: The Banker, the Mullah, the Militia and the Cook

by Amir Taheri • June 24, 2018 at 4:00 am

The young technocrats around Muqtada al-Sadr get their ideas, especially on economics, more from Milton Friedman's texts than Muhamad-Baqir al-Sadr's "Our Economy".
The next step should be to also accept ideological and political diversity. I believe that in the past 15 years, Iraq has made significant progress in that direction.
In a system of down-to-earth politics, Iraq would be liberated from utopian illusions that have caused it so much tragedy, and focus on bread-and-butter issues closer to the concerns of both our banker friend and his cook.

Muqtada al-Sadr is a maverick Iraqi Shiite cleric who has recast himself as a talented political maneuverer, trying to captain a team that brings together antediluvian Communists on the one hand and shadowy Shiite militiamen on the other. (Image source: France24 video screenshot)

"How is Iraq?" we asked a friend just back from Baghdad the other day.

"Bad, very bad, my friend," was the reply. "Even my cook has an opinion about how to form the new government."

The Iraqi friend is a prominent banker who spent his youth in exile in the West and returned home only after the fall of Saddam Hussein. However, he seems to have retained the traditional mindset of many of us Middle Easterners, who see ourselves as victims of despotism and yet fear any system in which even the cook has an opinion.

To be fair to our friend, the current political scene in Baghdad isn't exactly reassuring. The general election failed to produce an outright majority and the formation of a new government could take weeks if not months.

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