Thursday, April 5, 2012

Arab Christians from Jordan risk all for Easter Sunday pilgrimage to Israel

William Shomali auxiliary bishop of the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem: “Our dream is for all Arab Christians and Muslims to come and pray in the holy city,” he said, acknowledging the current situation has been “difficult” for Arab Christians across the region.

“They should come regardless of the political situation,” he said. “We should separate politics from religion, even if certain parties want to join them together; all have the right to pray in the holy sites.”

Worshippers in the Christian town of Fuheis in Jordan on Saturday. Many Christian Arabs from Jordan make the Easter Sunday pilgrimage to Israel and risk their reputation by committing such 'treason' to the Arab cause. Mohammad Abu Ghosh/AP

Hundreds of Arab Christians from Jordan are risking their careers and reputation to complete an Easter Sunday pilgrimage to holy sites in Israel.
[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]
By Taylor Luck, Contributor / April 4, 2010 
Jerusalem; and Amman, Jordan

Many of the Arab Christians flocking to holy sites in Israel this Easter Sunday come from neighboring Jordan.

But they do so at a price. 

Those who make the trek – and, as part of a broader rise in religious tourism, more are making it every year – risk their professional reputation and their family’s disapproval. 

For a country whose 1994 peace treaty with Israel was never accepted at the popular level, receiving an entry stamp, let alone a visa from Israel, is considered “treason” to the Arab cause.

But despite a growing movement to discredit those involved with the “Zionist enemy,” hundreds of Jordanians risk their careers and reputation to complete a pilgrimage to holy sites in Israel’s occupied territories.

“I cannot help it,” says Daoud Yazeed, a Jordanian Christian who disguises his pilgrimages as business trips. “Jerusalem is calling.”....READ MORE


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