Roll up! Roll up! See the amazing acrobatic Anglican bishop! Watch his agile attempts to escape the pointed questions aimed at him by Stephen Sackur in "Hard Talk"! See Bishop Riah weave and twist about! Watch him perform somersaults and swing from a trapeze – anything to avoid answering the questions. Watch with amazement as he wobbles along a verbal tight-rope, trying not to condemn suicide bombing. What a performance!

You can have the joy of watching him here, on Hard Talk.

Stephen Sackur is evidently well-informed about Riah, and his questions are intelligent, but Riah tries to deflect them by throwing large handfuls of clichés in the face of his pursuer.

Bishop Riah describes Bush and Blair as “Christless Christians”. Well, it takes one to know one. While he lauds Muslim suicide bombers as ‘martyrs’ and plays his dhimmi role by pretending that Jews have never been persecuted by Arabs or refusing to acknowledge that Islamic extremists pose a threat to the Christian minority – just what religion is he?

Irene Lancaster’s blog provides this interesting bit of information:

Revd Lisa Battye writes: Please will you post the following comment on your weblog in respect of Bishop Riah's recent 'Hardtalk' performance: The Broadcast shows Bishop Riah caring only about the establishment of a Palestinian state for his own people. I am concerned that he is laying the blame for the exodus of many of them from the land at the door of Israel, when my information is that they are leaving to avoid having to live as a minority under Shariah law. He has recently issued an impassioned plea to the Christian world to support his Diocese financially (Church Times 4th August p3) saying that his diocese is going through a 'severe financial crisis' through drawing on its reserves to support St Luke's Hospital on the West Bank. The problem seems to be that 'since the death of Yasser Arafat the hospital has not received any of the money promised it by the Palestinian Authority'. It is obviously not a priority of theirs.

Is he like a performing monkey, hoping the Palestinian Authority will give him some bananas to eat if he jumps and gibbers enough to please them? Or does genuine hatred drive his frantic dance?