Word: easting
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Israel is a major stop on Pope Benedict's journey and a focal point of Western involvement in the Middle East. And while support for the modern revival of the ancient biblical nation runs deep among many Christians in America and Europe, the creation of Israel has been a disaster for Christians in the Middle East. Many of the Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes in 1948 - never to be allowed back - were Christians. The flood of Palestinian refugees into Lebanon helped spark a civil war between Muslims and Christians there. And the ongoing occupation...
Ironically, some of the best friends to Christians in the Middle East have been at odds with America and the West. The secular societies that formed in the 1950s and '60s in opposition to Israel - especially the Baathist regimes in Iraq and Syria, and Egypt under Nasser - were pretty good protectors of religious pluralism. About 5% or 6% of Iraq's population in the 1970s were Christian, and some of Saddam Hussein's most prominent officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, were Christians. But since the American invasion of Iraq, Christians have fled in droves, and constitute less than...
...from their traditionally pro-Western leadership, forming a political alliance with Hizballah, the Shi'a Muslim anti-Israeli militant group. The leader of these breakaway Christians, a populist former general named Michel Aoun, is betting that the only way to secure a Christian future in Lebanon is to look east toward the rising power of Shi'a Islam. It may seem far-fetched now, but there may come a day when Christians hit the Arab streets to welcome not a Pope from Rome, but an ayatullah from Iran...
...power of prayer might nudge along the Israeli security bureaucracy. Six weeks ago, 250 Christians applied for permission from the Israelis to exit the locked down Palestinian enclave of Gaza for a day to see Pope Benedict XVI as he visits in Israel on his tour of the Middle East. The Pontiff arrived in Tel Aviv Monday, but so far Gaza's Christians haven't heard if their permit applications - and prayers - have been answered. "The Pope is an inspiration for us, and we want to tell him how difficult it is for us Arab Christians living in Gaza," says...
...revert to being a Cinema Club when the Muslim students return to class. On the wall hangs a trinity of portraits that display the seemingly contradictory loyalties of Palestinian Christians: the Latin Patriarch, the Pope and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. (See pictures of heartbreak in the Middle East...