The
Telegraph reports on efforts of anti-Israel activists in London to protest the country’s Palestinian policies. Their Nov. 26 protest service will include this parody:
Once in royal David's city
Stood a big apartheid wall;
People entering and leaving
Had to pass a checkpoint hall.
Bethlehem was strangulated,
And her children segregated.
Telegraph correspondent Damien Thompson asks
I wonder if the Bishop of London, Dr Richard Chartres, has given his permission for it and, if not, whether he will do anything to stop it. If the gay wedding fiasco at St Bartholemew's is anything to go by, his grip on his diocese is rather shaky these days.
This “carol” is not terribly subtle and is unlikely to gain widespread adoption. But it’s yet another reminder than words have consequences in shaping the views of the faithful and faithless alike.
1 comment:
Ruth Gledhill reports that Israeli ambassador protested the service:
“For 2000 years, the Jewish people suffered persecution because of the accusation of responsibility for the death of Jesus Christ. The carol service deliberately attempted to make a linkage between this notion of deicide and Israel’s relations with the Palestinians. It thus perpetuated an anti-Semitic canard that has no place in modern Britain.”
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