Posted on 01/11/2003 6:44:29 AM PST by knighthawk
JERUSALEM, January 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) Spokesman for the Orthodox Church in occupied Jerusalem Archimandrite Attallah Hanna praised Saturday, January 11, the martyrdom operations, calling on Palestinian Christians and Arabs to do everything in their power to resist the Israeli occupation with every possible means.
Receiving a formal delegation from the occupied city of Haifa, Atallah said "those martyrs are the heroes of the nation. We are proud of them and vehemently reject any malicious attempts trying to cast doubt on their work," Al-Quds Press News Agency quoted him as saying.
"They are not suicide bombers as some claim and they are not terrorists, rather, they resist occupation and we support martyrdom operations without any kind of reservations no matter what objectors and doubt-casters say about such a heroic kinds of resistance," he said.
The Archimandrite, in addition, called for a joint Islamic-Christian action in order to throw a "spanner in war against Iraq," and to liberate all Palestinian territories, pointing out that if the Israeli authorities lifted the house arrest imposed on him and gave him back his passports, he would form a Christian delegation to go to Iraq to form a human shield against the potential U.S.-led military action on Baghdad.
In an exclusive interview with IslamOnline, Attallah asserted his support for the operations, averring that "if the struggle for freedom of peoples is regarded as terrorism, then I am a terrorist."
"The real reform needed is to answer the following question: how can we boost all kinds of resistance to achieve our national goals?" He added.
In the meantime, the Israeli foreign ministry formally protested to the Church of the Orthodox Romans in Occupied Jerusalem at the statements made by Attallah, accusing him of supporting "terrorist operations" and dismissing his stances as a danger on Israeli security.
Palestinian Authority TV portrays Palestinian Martyrdom as a Christian Ideal
Palestinian Authority: Israelis are like the Christian infidels of the Koran
I wish they would just go ahead and excommunicate him or impose some other appropriate public disciplinary move -- IF he really is an "Orthodox priest".
Palestine, Politics, 7/13/2002
The Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem Arinous 1st on Thursday fired Archamandrite Attallah Hanna from his post as an official spokesman for the Orthodox church in Jerusalem and the holy lands. In a statement he made following a meeting he held on Thursday with an Israeli official at the headquarters of the Orthodox patriarchy in Jerusalem, the patriarch accused Hanna of "supporting the Palestinian terrorism," noting Hanna's rejection to sign a document condemning the Palestinian operations. Arinos stressed that his church can not ignore any side that practices violence, noting that Hanna supports the "Palestinian violence."
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