Christian Attitudes

Link: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16525

Although written in January 2005, this article by Joseph D'Hippolito is worth reading again, to remind ourselves what kind of a ‘Christian’ leader Sabbah is.

Michel Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, has praised jihad, justified suicide bombing, and led marches at the behest of the late Yasser Arafat – leading some to question whose bidding the patriarch is doing.

Sabbah, an Arab and a native of Nazareth, expressed his collaborationist sympathies most forcefully during a visit to a refugee camp near Bethlehem in 1999. During that visit, the patriarch placed a wreath on a memorial to so-called “martyrs.” He then maintained that the right of return is “an existing fact that cannot be given up,” and declared that Israel’s “extracting our rights in all circumstances is a form of jihad” against the Palestinians.

He cannot entirely conceal his underlying prejudice.

Sabbah’s anti-Semitism is deep and overt, as evidenced by his remarks toward Arafat during Christmas Mass in 1995. In welcoming Arafat, the patriarch “was happy to recall” how Byzantine Patriarch Sophronius tried to persuade Muslim Caliph Umar Ibn al-Khattab to prohibit Jews from living and worshipping in Jerusalem after conquering it in 636 – eight years after Sophronius instigated a widespread massacre of Jews.