Author: Jagharian Tania

COMPLEMENTARISM: NEXT STOPOVER IN ECUATORIAL GUINEA
James Badalyan
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 20 2006
While the Armenian government has remembered about the Strategy of
National Security and is hopeful to have this bill adopted in the
pre-election fuss, events are underway in the world which can make any
document redundant for Armenia, for the simple reason that they can
make Armenia generally redundant. This opinion may sound exaggerated,
but now even the smallest geopolitical event threatens Armenia,
and disappointment is becoming a usual thing.
The U.S. Senate adopted a bill on November 17, which supports the
membership of Georgia, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia to NATO. It is
interesting that support is not words but finance. The four countries
will get 20 million dollars for the development of security in the
process of membership to the NATO, and the greater share, 10 million
goes to Georgia.
It is so unfair. One guarantees the victory of the Democrats in the
Senate and others adopt a bill. Instead of adopting the first bill
on the Genocide of the Armenians who made so much effort durig the
election, the U.S. Senate again went in for defending the interests
of their country.
Ingratutude is striking. But it would be too good if we sustained a
moral defeat only. The problem is that the bill adopted by the Senate
disappoints not only the Armenian lobby in the United States but
also the entire political establishment of Armenia. This expression
is, of course, a complement for the community who sustain their
families rather than the state. But the problem is that in forgetting
about their own state, they were energetically teaching a lesson to
Sahakashvili saying that the United States would not support them in
the conflict with Russia.
Meanwhile, the bill adopted by the Senate is evidence to the
opposite. Of course, it does not mean that Georgia will be accepted
to NATO in the assembly of NATO on November 28 and 29. On the other
hand, however, the bill of the U.S. Senate will evidently support
Sahakashvili, both morally and financially, even if the Senate meant
to harm the Russians rather than to support Georgia, who were much
happier about the reelection of Kokoyti and the outcome of the
referendum on independence than the Ossetians.
However, it was a bad surprise for Armenia, which keeps saying that the
separate membership of the South Caucasus to NATO could be a serious
threat for the stable and peaceful development of the region, because
the presence of two security systems, NATO and the Organization of the
Collective Security Pact in the same region is impossible. It becomes
clear from the decision of the Senate that the vision of Armenia again
does not overlap with the logic of the geopolitical developments. And
this is threatened by an essential consequence. The point is that the
more the prospect of Georgia’s membership is becoming real, the more
independent and unrestrained this country’s relations with Russia will
be. In that case, they will start thinking in Russia that chauvinism
will no longer be instrumental in the relations with Georgia. In
that case, either Russia has to have no relations with Georgia or
should build a horizontal rather than vertical relation. The second
option is possible, because the first means for Russia to leave the
Caucasus, even if the Russian dominance is sustained in Abkhazia and
South Ossetia.
Russia does not need these territories as such, and Putin has announced
about this. These are attractive with their present status, as a tool
in the relations with Georgia. In other words, Russia, nevertheless,
needs the relation with Georgia, even more than Georgia needs this
relation. The problem is that Russia cannot turn its economic
dominance in Armenia into a real factor if it is not present in
Georgia. Consequently, the Kremlin will eventually agree to this
proposal to have at least economic presence in Georgia. And the
quality of the Russian-Georgian relation actually deprives Armenia
of the last chance of Armenia to be useful, or at least handy in any
matter in the region.

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT’S FIRST VISIT TO CYPRUS
AZG Armenian Daily
17/11/2006
Next week on November 22 a big Armenian delegation headed by president
Robert Kocharian will leave for Cyprus. This will be the first visit
of the Armenian president to Cyprus since Armenia’s independence.
Robert Kocharian will meet his Cypriot counterpart, parliament speaker
and head of the Cypriot church, Azg daily’s correspondent George Der
Partogh reports from the island. Mayor of Nicosia will present Robert
Kocharian with the golden key of the city. Within the framework of
the visit the president will meet members of the small but intense
Armenian community, it’s cleric and political representatives as well
as will visit Narek Armenian school.
As a closing accord, president Kocharian will take part in erection
of a monument to the memory of Genocide survivors who first reached
Larnaca.

OVER 16 TRUCKS OF “BELAZ” TO ARRIVE IN ARMENIA
A1+
[12:24 pm] 16 November, 2006
“AGRC” IS AWARE OF DIGGING AND “BELAZ”-OF TRANSPOSTING
Over 16 lorries are to be transported to Armenia by the end of 2007
under the agreement signed between “AGRC”, Ararat gold extracting
plant, and Belarusian “BelAZ”, one of the leading world’s manufacturer
of haul trucks and specialized equipment.
The first four trucks will be transported at the end of
November. 130-ton vehicles will replace 45-55-ton trucks used in the
gold mines of Vardenis for already 20 years.
Trucks of “BelAZ” will be transported to Armenia for the first time.
To note: “BelAZ” supplies dump trucks, graders, automotive spare
parts and tires to a lot of companies all over the world.
The treaty between “AGRC” and “BelAZ” cost over 30 million
USD. Mr. Sharman, executive director of “AGRC”, informed “A1+” that
“BelAZ” will also provide the gold mines of Ararat with all necessary
spares.
He also assured that 30 million USD allotted to “AGRC” is only
the first investment in the company and they intend to reach it to
100 million USD. “AGRC” is to pay 12 million USD according to the
preliminary arrangement. “Thus, we initiate our technical armament”,
said Mr. Sharman.
The representatives of “BelAZ” also attached great significance to the
treaty. “We have worked fruitfully with three countries; Armenia, India
and Belarus. The treaty will contribute to the further co-operation. I
assume that our trucks are of great demand all over the world. “AGRC”
is well aware of digging and we are well aware of transporting”,
announced Vladimir Loyken, executive director of “BelAZ.”
“BelAZ” also co-operates with other Armenian enterprises, namely with
the Kajaran, Zangezour and Agarak copper molybdenum enterprises.
By the way, Mr. Sharman says that the rumors that Indians are going
to sell “AGRC” do not correspond to the reality.
“We have great projects to implement in Armenia”, says Mr. Sharman. We
work in Armenia and we are obliged to meet the country’s laws. A
new plant will be built in Ararat. We are currently working on the
project. After the project is affirmed, we shall start construction
works. “AGRC” employs over 964 people. Provided the new plant works,
their number will be added by 300″, added Mr. Sharman.
He also assured that soon all the employees of “AGRC” will get
equal wages.

MEETINGS ARE BASIS FOR FUTURE COOPERATION
Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh
Nov 16 2006
The NKR minister of education, culture and sport Kamo Atayan and the
rector of Artsakh State University Hamlet Grogorian visited France
and Moscow from October 24 to November 4. They were invited to France
to take part in the conference devoted to the 15th anniversary of the
Independence of NKR. Before the conference the NKR delegation visited
the city of Meudon where they met with the mayor. The minister of
education said they discussed questions of mutual interest with the
mayor. The city has a college which trains specialists for services.
The mayor of Meudon advised to visit the college and discuss
possibilities of cooperation. Kamo Atayan said the college combines
theory and practice, and on graduation the alumni are ready to work.
The minister said they will use this practice in the new vocational
college in Stepanakert. And the first step will be starting to teach
French at the college to communicate with the invited specialists.
For the equipment, this is the most complicated problem because it
requires immense costs. Kamo Atayan raised this issue in a meeting
with a group of Armenian businessmen in France, organized by Hovik
Gevorgian, the NKR representative to France. Kamo Atayan says they
were interested in everything, from premises to the teaching staff
and placement of students. They proposed supporting the construction
of the new compound for the vocational college. The project of the
compound will be sent to France as soon as it is ready. In Paris,
the NKR delegation visited the Armenian Lyceum, met with the teachers
and students. The number of students tends to grow. The fact that
children come to this school from as far as 350 km shows that the
Armenian families want their children to get Armenian education.
After staying in Paris for two days the delegation left for the
city of Lille to participate in the conference devoted to the 15th
anniversary of the Independence of NKR held at University Charles
de Gaulle. The participants represented different universities and
nationalities. There were also Turkish professors. Hamlet Grigorian,
the rector of Artsakh State University made a report entitled
“Reflections and Forecast on the Settlement of the NKR Issue”
and Kamo Atayan reported on the achievements and problems of the
NKR system of education. The fate of the unrecognized countries of
the South Caucasus and in the world sparked a debate. The members
of our delegation say the debate came to the conclusion that the
self-determination of nations is superior to territorial integrity.
In Moscow, the NKR delegation met with the staff of Lomonosov
University and discussed possibilities of cooperation. They had a
productive meeting with the directors of the institutes of the Russian
Academy of Education. At the Public Chamber of Russia Kamo Atayan and
Hamlet Grigorian were awarded the medal of peace and humanism in the
Caucasus. They also met with the leadership of the Union of Armenians
of Russia. Two months ago the leadership of the Union had visited NKR
and made an arrangement on supporting Artsakh State University with
equipment, construction of a gym and financial aid to students. The
Union of Armenians of Russia transferred some money to ASU for grants
to talented students who cannot afford to pay for their education,
thereby implementing part of their project. The minister of education
says the meetings in Moscow and France provided certain basis for
further cooperation, and there are great expectations.

US APPROACH TOWARD NKR DIFFERS FROM THAT TOWARD OTHER UNRECOGNIZED REPUBLICS
Public Radio, Armenia
Nov 16 2006
US position on the referendum in NKR varies from that on the possible
referendum in South Ossetia. Head of the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (ARF) Bureau’s Hay Dat and Political Affairs Office Kiro
Manoyan noted in a press conference today that the US policy on other
post-Soviet conflicts does not apply to Nagorno Karabakh. “It does
not mean that the White House cannot have a denialist position,
but the fact is that Nagorno Karabakh is the only conflict zone,
the only unrecognized republic, which annually receives filve million
USD from the United States,” he added.

EXCLUSIVE: HOW WAHHABI SPIN CONQUERS THE WEST
Stephen Schwartz
Family Security Matters, NJ
Nov 15 2006
“The growing middle class of Saudi Arabia, as well as their aspiring
but impoverished peers in Egypt and Pakistan, are drawn to radical,
violent, paranoid, irrational politics in the same way the ruined
middle class in Germany, after the first world war, was lured into
Nazism.” FSM Contributing Editor Stephen Schwartz is an expert on
the threat Islamofascism poses to the free world. Read his response
after his attempts to warn the American people were blasted by the
“Wahhabi lobby” and American Muslim groups.
Last week, I published an FSM column titled “How the Wahhabi Lobby
Spins Islam.” There I described a media assault on me by Hadia Mubarak,
a former leader of the Saudi-founded Muslim Students Association
of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), present board member, i.e. top-level
representative, of the Saudi-financed Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR), and associate of Georgetown University’s
Saudi-supported Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (CMCU).
I protested against Ms. Mubarak’s libelous accusation that I have
“a deep hatred of Islam,” since I have been Muslim myself since
1997. I sought to demonstrate how a powerful lobby in the West
aligns with the radical Wahhabi sect that is the state religion in
the Saudi kingdom. The Wahhabi lobby targets as “enemies of Islam”
all Muslims, as well as non-Muslims, who criticize fundamentalism
and other extremist trends in the faith of Muhammad.
In that column I pointed out that from the campus agitation of MSA
to the Wahhabi advocacy of CAIR and thence to respectability at
Georgetown-CMCU is a path worn smooth by young American Islamists.
Such career progress also illustrates why Western mainstream media,
academia, and government “experts” have been so vulnerable to the
argument that Saudi radicalism represents the sole legitimate form of
Sunni Islam. The Wahhabis and their allies have gained a monopoly
on Sunni opinion in the West, and it is natural but abominable
that non-Muslim media, academia, and even government turn to them
for guidance.
But while it is legitimate to question the role of the Saudis in
Western perceptions of Islam, as well as to reply critically to
such questioning, the Wahhabi lobby exposes its totalitarian nature
when it shuns debate and immediately turns to personal abuse. Hadia
Mubarak clearly had no idea that open controversy is a major feature
of Islamic intellectual history – in the classic manner of a Hitlerite
or Stalinist, she interpreted any challenge as an enemy attack.
Yet little did I know how brief a time I had to wait before receiving
fresh and dramatic evidence of the success the Wahhabi lobby has
enjoyed in spinning Islam globally as well as in the U.S. I have
now been honored with a similarly libelous blast from the Parisian
monthly Le Monde Diplomatique, a periodical stratospherically higher
than the internet media and low-circulation Muslim community journals
to which Ms. Mubarak and CAIR most often have recourse.
In its November issue, LMD, as it prefers to be called – perhaps in
imitation of WMD, perhaps out of nostalgia for the drug LSD, which
produced similarly hallucinatory effects – published a long article by
someone named Stefan Durand, identified in the paper as nothing other
than a “researcher.” The topic was the concept of “Islamofascism,”
on which I have published extensively. I first used the term in
print only 11 days after September 11, 2001, in referring to the
Saudi-Wahhabi cult that inspires al-Qaida. While a historian of the
Arab world and Islam, Malise Ruthven, had previously employed it 1990,
to describe the dictatorships prevalent from Morocco to Pakistan,
I developed it much further, in my book The Two Faces of Islam.
In my view, “Islamofascism” implies an extensive and serious
sociological and historical theory, concentrating on the political
role of frustrated elites in the Muslim world. The growing middle
class of Saudi Arabia, as well as their aspiring but impoverished
peers in Egypt and Pakistan, are drawn to radical, violent, paranoid,
irrational politics in the same way the ruined middle class in Germany,
after the first world war, was lured into Nazism.
“Islamofascism” is, then, neither one of the many “sound-bite” comments
on the conflict over the future of Islam, nor a political slogan.
French “researcher” Stefan Durand, however, had a different approach
to the matter. The Durand essay was advertised with a garish
red headline on the paper’s front page, “Is Islamism Fascism?” A
mutilated translation was posted on LMD’s English-language website
(but on some servers is only available to the paper’s subscribers.)
In the English version, Stefan Durand’s punch-line appeared at the
top of the long, laborious piece. First, he was mainly exercised at
the use of the term, or a variant thereof, by President George W.
Bush. Second, he claimed to have traced a connection to the White
House, which he painted as sinister.
According to the French researcher, my argument about Islamofascism was
communicated to the chief executive of our country by Bernard Lewis,
the Princeton historian of Islam. In the world of LMD, Lewis is an
“orientalist” – a term employed as an insult in the impenetrable
and contemptible scratchings in ink by the late Arab author Edward
Said. And LMD reveals that Professor Lewis is an “advisor to the White
House.” Further, our intrepid Frenchman reports, I, Stephen Schwartz,
consider myself a disciple of Lewis. In the words of the ridiculous
Durand, Bernard Lewis and I share “great hostility toward Islam.”
Whoops, there it is… again! An analyst of “Islamofascism” must be
hostile to Islam, according to the prestigious LMD! The content of
the theory of Islamofascism is ignored; neither Durand nor any of
the other drive-by polemicists who have assailed it (in such leftist
tabloids and pulp magazines as In These Times and The Nation) have
pretended to address it..
Stefan Durand is not, one must admit, much of a researcher. His
research did not disclose to him that I am a Muslim, and therefore
should not be accused of hostility to my faith. Nor did it impart
to him that Bernard Lewis is controversial in France because of his
defense of the Turkish authorities against a charge of deliberate
genocide in the massacres of Armenians at the end of the first
world war. Lewis’s view of the Turkish-Armenian tragedy is hardly
a position characteristic of those hostile to Islam. I cannot blame
researcher Durand for not anticipating that I would have published
an article in The Weekly Standard (issue dated November 20, 2006)
criticizing the record of Turkey in dealing with Muslim as well as
non-Muslim minorities, which might be construed as opposed to the
stance of Bernard Lewis. For the French researcher, it suffices to
condemn The Weekly Standard because it is edited by William Kristol.
I do not deny, however, being a disciple of Bernard Lewis, as well as
of William Kristol. Professor Lewis is the dean of historians of Islam
in the West, and notwithstanding the cheap insults directed against him
in the past by Edward Said, all who write on Islamic history today owe
him a debt. Professor Lewis is even quoted by intellectuals in Iran,
although they disagree with him on numerous issues.
All that counts to the protectors and apologists for Islamofascism
is that Schwartz be personally discredited, and the line of attack
is automatic and obvious: I am yet another foe of Islam. And thus it
is that the schoolyard tactics of Hadia Mubarak, MSA, CAIR, and the
Georgetown pro-Wahhabi crowd ascend to the journalistic heights of Le
Monde Diplomatique! The success of the Wahhabi lobby in misrepresenting
Islam to the West has seldom been better illustrated.
I have no need of insisting that I am no enemy of Islam. I
have just returned from the Balkans, where I work closely with
anti-radical Sunni Muslims targeted (literally) by gunfire from
Wahhabi infiltrators. Recently a Bosnian Muslim cleric, Mustafa
Susic, protested that nobody invited the Wahhabis to the Balkans,
and the same may be said of Saudi-Islamist agents in Western Europe
and North America. No Muslims asked these Saudi religious colonialists
to subvert American Islam. Mustafa Susic had simple advice for young
Muslims anxious to improve their study of religion: “do not go to
Saudi Arabia!” Susic went on forthrightly, “Al-Qaida started from the
[Wahhabi] movement – I do not see any other movement in the Islamic
world that could produce such a thing.”
I know for certain that neither Wahhabi lobby functionaries like
Hadia Mubarak nor French researchers like Stefan Durand – neither
the lurkers in the abyss nor the imagined astronauts of journalism –
will pay attention, as I do, to the anti-extremist struggle of a Muslim
cleric in a distant, poor, and tormented land, like Mustafa Susic. I am
a friend and peer of those Muslims, who, to apply in a new context the
words of a California ethnic journalist of the past century, Katayama
Sen, are “mute… silent from despair… stammering… grumbling,
murmuring… so degraded by suffering and ignorance that they have
no strength to speak out.”
I will be a voice for those Muslims. To further paraphrase, I will
be the bleeding mouth from which the Wahhabi gag has been snatched. I
will say everything.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Stephen Schwartz is
Executive Director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism.
© 2003-2006 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
If you are a reporter or producer who is interested in receiving
more information about this writer or this article, please email your
request to [email protected].
Note — The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy
of Family Security Matters.
bal.php?id=416756
–Boundary_(ID_sMQ/vGBqDtRC0Yjd 8IPdYw)–

Press Release
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Father Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon
Armenian version:
ARMEN IAN YOUTH MEET WITH THE MIDDLE EAST-ASIA DIALOGUE PARTICIPANTS
In the evening of Monday 13th November, participants of the Middle East-Asia
Dialogue met with a group of Armenian youth members of Armenian Church
University Students’ Association (ACUSA).
The gathering was opened with a welcome speech by Ms. Carla Khijoyan who
presented ACUSA, focusing on the importance of Inter-church and Inter-faith
dialogue in order to have a peaceful world. Ms. Teny Simonian presented the
guests and explained the aims of this Inter-faith conference, gathering for
the first time in the Middle East different religions from the far East.
Mrs. Dima Myriam spoke about the importance of dialogue with youth and
shared some of the Global Peace Institute Programmes.
The panel was followed by a discussion and sharing experiences between the
youth and the religious leaders, overcoming all generational, cultural and
religious differences.
The evening was closed by a will of recommitment in making the world a
better place for living.
##
View the photos here:
*****
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the Youth
activities of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

PILGRIMAGE TO CONSTANTINOPLE
Catholic Online, CA
America ()
Nov 14 2006
With the exception of his appearance before his old faculty at the
University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI’s travels have been
quiet affairs. Even a trip to Spain last July, which threatened to
erupt into controversy over policy differences with that country’s
Socialist government, transpired so uneventfully that some Vatican
officials were surprised. The pope’s upcoming trip to Turkey,
Nov. 28-30, may be a different matter. It will be his first visit to
a Muslim country, where hostility toward Christianity has been growing.
In the last year, one priest has been killed in Turkey and at least
two others attacked. Various individuals have threatened the pope’s
life if he persists in his mission. Earlier this month a gunman was
arrested for firing at the Italian consulate in protest of the visit.
Memories of the pope’s public opposition, when he was a cardinal,
to Turkey’s admission to the European Union on the grounds that
it does not share Europe’s culture are still raw; and his use of
a controversial quote about irrational violence in Islam in his
Regensburg lecture has unfortunately further inflamed those who oppose
the visit. Still, the Turkish government has continued to extend its
invitation, and the pope has bravely held to his commitment.
A principal purpose of the trip is to strengthen relations with the
Orthodox Church and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I by attending the
celebration of the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle (Nov. 30), patron
of the see of Constantinople. How fraught with difficulty the journey
may be is evident from the tensions between the Turkish government and
the patriarchate over constraints Turkey has imposed on the religious
freedom of the Greek Orthodox Church. Following a recent meeting, the
North American Orthodox Catholic Theological Consultation identified
several of the difficulties faced by the ecumenical patriarchate.
The group’s statement declared: “By decisions reached in 1923 and 1970,
the government imposed significant limitations on the election of the
Ecumenical Patriarch. Even today, the Turkish state does not recognize
the historic role that the patriarch plays among Orthodox Christians
outside Turkey. The Turkish government closed the patriarchate’s
theological school on the island of Halki in 1971 and, in spite of
numerous appeals from governmental and religious authorities, still
does not allow it to reopen, severely limiting the patriarchate’s
ability to train candidates for the ministry.”
Pope Benedict’s pilgrimage offers an opportunity not only to express
solidarity with the Orthodox in their straitened circumstances,
but for all sides to find ways out of these historic difficulties.
The Turkish situation is not, as some wrongly imagine, a
straightforward Islam-versus-the-West scenario. Turkey is a bridge
between Europe and the Middle East – and not just geographically. It
is an Islamic country with a moderate Muslim party now leading the
government, but its constitution, vigorously upheld by the military,
involves an especially stringent form of Turkish secularism that
struggles to hold down religious fundamentalism among the population.
Since the time of Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founder and first
president (1923-38), the country has struggled to modernize – that
is to say, Westernize – by adopting European fashions, technology
and economics as well as the forms of parliamentary government; but
it has often fallen short of adopting the deeper Western values of
respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Among Turkey’s elites there is profound fear of political and
cultural fragmentation, particularly of secession on the part of the
sizable Kurdish population. Intellectual dissent from the standards
of official Turkish identity – by acknowledging, for example, the
Armenian genocide-remains a criminal offense. Though members of the
Greek Orthodox Church make up only a minuscule group, Turkey, as heir
to the Ottoman Empire, clings to a centuries-old enmity toward Greece
and in particular the Greek Orthodox Church, as the custodian of the
Hellenic soul.
The pope deserves credit for supporting the Orthodox Church on such
hostile terrain. In choosing to visit Turkey, he has taken on a
Herculean challenge that combines Turkish-European, Muslim-Christian
and Orthodox-Catholic relations. At the heart of each problematic
relationship lie questions about the status of human rights and
religious liberty.
God willing, even if the trip provides no immediate breakthroughs,
the pope’s journey will prepare the way for peaceful progress on
these issues in the future.
– – –
See also this week’s America book reviews “Everyday Renewals,” on the
book District and Circle: Poems, by Seamus Heaney, “The Maturation
of Medical Ethics,” on the book Health Care Ethics: A Catholic
Theological Analysis, by Benedict M. Ashley, OP, Jean deBlois, CSJ,
and Kevin D. O’Rourke, OP.
id=21982

CHARITABLE RELIGIOUS SEMINARY OF CALCUTTA (INDIA) ANNOUNCES ADMISSION OF CHILDREN
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Nov 13 2006
The Charitable Religious Seminary of the Armenian Apostolic Church
in Calcutta (India) announces admission of children at the age of 7-11.
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin Chancellery Department for
Inter-confessional Ties told ArmInfo, the seminary is a ten-year
educational establishment meeting the demands of an English secondary
education school. The graduated students of the seminary are to pass
examinations. The graduated students having excellent and satisfactory
marks will get an opportunity to continue their education in the
11-12th forms at schools in Calcutta or abroad, particularly, in
Australia, England and the USA. The Armenian Apostolic Church covers
the education expenses. Applications can be made to the Mother See
of Holy Etchmiadzin Chancellery Department for Inter-confessional
Ties. The deadline for applications is December 10.

THE PALESTINIAN CHRISTIAN: BETRAYED, PERSECUTED, SACRIFICED
Abe W. Ata
American Chronicle, CA
Nov 13 2006
The Palestinian Christian is an endangered species.
When the modern state of Israel was established there were about
400,000 of us. Two years ago the number was down to 80,000. Now it’s
down to 60,000. At that rate, in a few years there will be none of
us left. When this happens non-Christian groups will move into our
churches and claim them forever.
Palestinian Christians within Israel fare little better. On the
face of it, their number has grown by 20,000 since 1991. But this is
misleading, for the census classification “Christian” includes some
20,000 recent non-Arab migrants from the former Soviet Union.
So why are Palestinian Christians abandoning their homeland?
We have lost hope, that’s why. We are treated as non-people. Few
outside the Middle East even know we exist, and those who do,
conveniently forget.
I refer, of course, to the American Religious Right. They see modern
Israel as a harbinger of the Second Coming, at which time Christians
will go to paradise, and all others (presumably including Jews)
to hell. To this end they lend military and moral support to Israel.
Even by the double-dealing standards of international diplomacy
this is a breathtakingly cynical bargain. It is hard to know who is
using whom more: the Christian Right for offering secular power in
the expectation that the Jewish state will be destroyed by a greater
spiritual one; or the Israeli Right for accepting their offer. What
we do know is that both sides are abusing the Palestinians.
Apparently we don’t enter into anyone’s calculations.
The views of the Israeli Right are well known: they want us gone.
Less well known are the views of the American Religious Right.
Strangely, they find the liberation of Iraqis from a vile dictator
just, but do not find it unjust for us to be under military occupation
for 38 long years.
Said Senator James Inhofe (Rep.,Oklahoma): “God Appeared to Abraham
and said: ‘I am giving you this land’, the West Bank. This is not
a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the
word of God is true.”
Inhofe must have got it wrong. Promises are being made to earthly
Jerusalem that God did not make. The Holy Land was promised to Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob and their descendants, as stated in the Bible.
These are the Palestinian Muslims, Christians and Jews, who have
been living in the land for thousands of years. The Bible never
mentioned that God promised it solely to Jews. Anyone can be a Jew,
but not anyone can be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and
their descendants. James Inhofe and followers are unable to tell the
difference between Jew, Israelite and Israel.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey (Rep.,Texas) was even more forthright:
“I’m content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank … I happen
to believe that the Palestinians should leave.”
There is a phrase for this. Ethnic cleansing.
Silencing us, from seeking your support and enlightening you about
our suffering, goes counter to what Jesus has mandated us to do. We
all know that Muslims and Jews get ceaseless support (political,
spiritual and financial) from Saudi Arabia and America respectively,
while Palestinian Christians get nothing from Australian and other
Western “Christian” governments. (The Pope has been an exception.)
Prior to the 1967 war, the Christian youth at the Lutheran, Baptist,
Methodist and other churches in Bethlehem used to pray and rejoice
and have a good chat with hundreds of American Christian pilgrims. In
particular Texas and California were two places from where many came
to visit the Holy Land. Today only fading memories prevail. Bethlehem
has been vacated by Christian families. The remaining Christians are
paying the price by experiencing curfews which last for weeks. They
remain sandwiched between Muslims and Jews without drawing the
slightest concern from the many so-called Western Christians.
So why do American Christians stand by while their leaders advocate
the expulsion of fellow Christians? Could it be that they do not
know that the Holy Land has been a home to Christians since, well
… since Christ?
Do not think I am asking for special treatment for Christians. Ethnic
cleansing is evil whoever does it and to whomever it is done.
Palestinian Christians – Anglican, Maronite Catholics, Orthodox,
Lutherans, Armenians, Baptists, Copts and Assyrians – have been rubbing
shoulders with each other and with other religions – Muslims, Jews,
Druze and (most recently) Baha’is – for centuries. And we want to do
so for centuries more. But we can’t if we are driven out by despair.
We are equally frightened by those who commit suicide bombings. None
of us Christians have condoned it or even contemplated the idea. Our
commitment to Jesus’ teachings will never shake our resolve in
this matter.
American journalist Anders Strindberg makes a clearer conclusion. He
says Palestinians are equated with Islamists, Islamists with
terrorists. And presumably because all organised Christian activity
among Palestinians is non-political and non-violent, the community
hardly ever hits western headlines. Suicide bombers sell more copy
than people who congregate for Bible study.
What we seek is support: material, moral, political and spiritual. As
Palestinians we grieve for what we have lost, and few people have lost
more than us (the Ashkenazi Jews are one). But grief can be assuaged
by the fellowship of friends.
Abe W. Ata
Abe W. Ata was born in Bethlehem and is a descendant of a
nine-genration Palestinian Christian family. He was a temporary
delegate to the United Nations in 1970 and has lived and worked in
the Middle East, America and Australia. He founded the Victorians for
Racial Equality and is currently a Senior Fellow/Associate Professor
at the Institute for the Advancement of Research at the Australian
Catholic University. He has authored 86 journal articles and 11
books including Christian and Muslim Intermarriage in Australia:
social cohesion or cultural fragmentation (2003).
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