Assorted Bishops have been visiting the Holy Land and think it is just like it was when the Romans were there.

Archbishop Kelly, heading a delegation from the Bishops Conference of England and Wales, said his visit was part of an ongoing programme to support Christians in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, reminding the congregation that: "The first Christmas began here in extraordinary political circumstances under Roman occupation, yet the light shone through.

Ah yes. The Romans. Persecuted and almost destroyed in a Holocaust, needing a country of their own, they returned to the land which had been theirs until it was taken from them by – oh, wait a minute.

Could it be that the Archbishop needs a history lesson? The new Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham, William Kenney, certainly does.

Bishop Kenney said: "Peace begins with children. They are the future. Today Bethlehem feels exactly as it was 2000 years ago.

He’s old enough to remember?

The city was under occupation and Christ was born here because of the occupation.

Apart from the fact that there may have been other reasons why Christ was born there (and some say he was born in another Bethlehem near Nazareth), it is obvious the Bishops were never introduced to anyone like good Fuaz the carpenter, who lives near Haifa.

Just had a lovely cupboard made by Fuaz, a Muslim carpenter who lives in a villa in a Druze village very near here. We had a nice chat as he talked about this and that. It appears that he might have to go into hospital and I asked him if he was satisfied with the Israel medical service. He is He said that he felt that Arabs were treated even better than the Jewish community by the various Israeli health funds: he himself is in Leumit http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/brief/Health.html and he also asked me why there was antisemitism in Britain. I told him it was largely to do with the perceived suffering of the Palestinians and he retorted that the British must be mad to blame the Jewish community or Israel for that.

Mad – and ignorant of history.

The Romans had no right to be there, and the Jews have every right to be there, but maybe it's time to revisit the question asked in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” What have the Romans ever done for us?