Haig is an Armenian Christian from Jerusalem, a city that is six miles and twenty minutes north of Bethlehem. Haig also happens to be my younger brother, and our family have lived in Jerusalem ever since 1915 when my grandparents fled Ottoman Turkey to Palestine during the Armenian genocide. Indeed, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the fulcra of the Nativity and Resurrection of our Christian faith, were once bustling with local Christians. In Jerusalem, two of the four quarters of the Old City (the Christian and Armenian ones) are a living testimony to their centuries-old presence. Yet, today, although my brother and his family have steadfastly chosen to remain in Jerusalem, scores of Christians have left in search of more dignified, politically stable and economically viable alternatives.

So what do Christians witness in this land of frequent pilgrimages but also of infrequent visions?

Some sixty short years ago, Christians constituted roughly 25% of the overall Palestinian population in the Holy Land, and around 80% of Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Beit Jala. Today, those numbers have dwindled drastically - in Bethlehem, for instance, they are just over 15% of the overall population - largely because of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. No matter how people choose to interpret facts or massage realities, the political situation has been - and remains to be - the primary cause for the alarming reduction in the number of indigenous Christians in this biblical land. Christians have almost lost hope in a land that witnessed the incarnation of our hope. Dr Bernard Sabella, a sociologist who is also Executive Secretary of the Department on Service to Palestinian Refugees and Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, has published numerous statistical studies on the haemorrhaging outflow of local Christians. In one study as far back as 2004, he estimated that local Christians now stood at far less than 2% of the overall population, suggesting that this decline reflected a dearth in socio-economic and political visions for Palestine.

Over the past forty-three years, since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land in June 1967, Israeli rapacious settlers have colonised Palestinian land - often aided, and frequently abetted, by successive Israeli governments. The physical, demographic and economic integrity of the land - and thereby of the people living on it - has been eroded by deliberate Israeli policies that are not only contrary to International law and UN Resolutions but that also strive to get rid of Palestinian demography (the people) whilst retaining Palestinian geography (the land). In Bethlehem as in many other parts of the West Bank, an ugly separation wall encircles relentlessly the Palestinian areas, dividing one Palestinian from another, one institution from another. With secondary and smaller cement walls buttressing this wall, and with Israeli Jews-only settlements on Palestinian land, along with four-hundred checkpoints severing towns and villages from each other, Palestinian resources are being snuffed out and have resulted in the creation of small gaols within those territories. The concomitant consequences have been unemployment, poverty, socio-economic meltdown, despair and violence. Is it still any wonder that Palestinian Christians are leaving in droves?

In a speech on 29th April, Professor John J Mearsheimer, R Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, described some Israelis as the New Afrikaners. Indeed, such corrosive apartheid (separateness in Afrikaans) policies are being exercised by Israel in many Palestinian territories (where Christians live in small numbers amongst Palestinian Muslims). Is it also any wonder that some prominent Christian church and lay leaders issued the Kairos Palestine Document: A Moment of Truth in December 2009 in which they spoke out in liberation theology native terms about faith, hope and love in the heart of Palestinian suffering and against those practices that have condemned their communities to this downward spiral? Can such weakened communities resist any longer?

However, in focusing upon the sinister effects of Israeli occupation, it is equally scrupulous to look at other concerns befalling Palestinian Christians in this once-golden land (as the prophet Zechariah described it). Two contributory strains, I would opine, are Christian-Muslim relations and Western Christianity.

When I was Ecumenical Consultant for the Churches of Jerusalem during the unlucky Oslo years, I recall how church leaders or their representatives would help nip in the bud any potential strife between Christians and Muslims by calling the late Chairman Yasser Arafat's representatives to seek their prompt mediation. Today, those conduits of conflict resolution are far more complex and much less discernible, and the tensions between Palestinian Christians and Muslims are perceptibly more frequent even if most Palestinians would deny them vehemently due to an overall - anxious - sense of nationalism. I believe this is due in part to a growing political Islamisation within specific cross-sections of Palestinian society in the West Bank (and certainly in Gaza, with its tiny pocket of Christians and their public institutions today). Some Muslims have become less inclusive, spurn diversity and openly or secretly consider non-Muslims as heretics who do not belong to the land. Such attitudes are due to an ill-considered, even blinkered, belief that the links those Christians have with the larger Universal Church in the West (Greece, Rome or London) could turn them into politically potential fifth columns! I have heard Palestinians speaking out - often discreetly - about some practices of physical and structural violence whereby Christian shops are the last ones to be frequented for business and where Palestinian Christians are the last to receive financial aid from local authorities. Engage a Christian deacon, ironmonger, butcher, secretary, verger, or physician, and one detects those worries simmering under the chipped veneer of pan-Palestinian solidarity.

This is an unfortunate development that is neither Islamic nor provides proper ijtihad or jurisprudence. But it is occasionally detracting from the collective effort necessary to focus on the central objective of Israeli occupation and is alas a reality that increasingly blights the lives of everyday Christians.

But is the radicalisation of some pockets of Islam the sole reason why a small but important number of Palestinian Muslims are looking charily at Palestinian Christians? Has Palestine become an almost Lebanese clone where confessional politics are taking hold of what has for long decades been a fiercely secular and inclusive society? I for one remember growing up in a neighbourhood of northern Jerusalem that had many Muslims who were not only ‘neighbours’ but also friends. I am sure that Haig could tell stories about his own experiences of friendships and respectful coexistence. After all, Palestinians had almost always been united by their political aims, not divided by their religious affiliations. One cannot also forget that some of the incipient Palestinian liberation leaders were Christian, as are politicians, parliamentarians and ambassadors today. It is not always helpful to turn into an ostrich in the midst of a sand dune either.

I suggest that the tensions fomented by Islamist radicalism, over and above the Israeli rampant occupation of land, are also exacerbated by fundamentalist evangelical Christian constituencies in the West (largely in the USA) who purport that the Christian faith equates itself with an unquestioning support for Israel. They claim this is because God chose the Israelites as His people and entered into a Covenant with them. It is therefore the duty of Christians, those groups claim, to defend Israel (a political entity) and Israelis (a demographic entity) over the whole of biblical land of Israel (a geographic entity).

In my opinion, such Christians are not only limited in their faith-based periscope but are also ostracising ‘other’ Christians by adhering rigidly to the tenets of the Old Testament, ignoring the transformative message of the New Testament, being selective in their scriptural and prophetic quotations, and releasing Israelis from their obligations in relation to their covenant with God let alone toward Palestinians. Surely, to be hemmed in by a faith perception that is literalist or exclusivist is not how our Lord and Saviour will have acted today. But such Christians also believe the only way for the Messiah to return to earth (and therefore fulfil prophesies in the Book of Revelation) is through the in-gathering of Jews (in modern-day Israel) so they could be converted to Christianity and pave the way for the Second Coming of Christ.

I cannot frankly see many Jews getting terribly excited by this Christian plan! But there exists today a finite tactical alliance whereby Jews overlook the underlying eschatological motivations of some Western Christians in return for their unstinting financial and political support of Israel. The Old Testament has become the organic nexus between [some] Christians and [some] Jews, at the expense of the New Testament and the indigenous followers of Christ region-wide.

So where do we Christians of the Holy Land stand today as pilgrims of faith on our journeys of faith?

I believe that the three existential challenges I highlighted are together leading some Palestinian Christians to re-calculate constantly their options. HB Michel Sabbah, emeritus patriarch of Jerusalem, delivered a lecture entitled The Theological, Spiritual and Pastoral Christian Presence in the Middle East at CEDRAC in Beirut on 5th May in which he affirmed that Palestinian Christians are cross-bearing witnesses, whose commandment is one of love, of showing how to build a healthy and inclusive society, and of being true bridges with the outside world. I suppose one could add that Jews, Christians and Muslims are united through Abraham and Sarah, hewn from the same rock (Is 51:1), and so it becomes quintessential to find ways for co-existence in this land between the three monotheistic faiths.

But how does one affirm the Christian presence in the Holy Land? In Bethlehem, for instance, in order to dissuade young Palestinian families from leaving the Holy Land, the Franciscan Order is building new flats and offering them to young Palestinian couples in return for low-rent tenancies. This is a practical - and critical - tool to help counter emigration. But if we mean to tackle the root causes of the problems facing Christians in the Holy Land today rather than paper over the symptoms alone, the first station should be an end to Israeli occupation and its illegal practices. Palestinians must be set free from captivity, imprisonment, separation walls, settlements, ID confiscations and allowed instead to pursue their own destinies and hopes - and to make their own mistakes. Only then could they be expected to put their own house in order - presently in shambles - and become accountable as they edify at long last their independent state.

To those friends world-wide worried about the Christian life, presence and witness across the whole Middle East, I remind them of St Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386) - a contemporary of Epiphanius, Jerome and Rufinus - who stated, Do not rejoice in the cross in time of peace only, but hold fast to the same faith in time of persecution also. Do not be a friend of Jesus in time of peace only but also in time of persecution. Perhaps we should all learn - I before you - to be less à la carte Christians with anaemic faiths and to show instead resoluteness, fortitude and solidarity in our outreach to our neighbours during times of adversity.

This is why I am also cautiously hopeful that the forthcoming Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East called for by HH Pope Benedict XVI that will take place in Rome from 10-24 October 2010 will manage to discuss carefully, but also openly and judiciously, those three existential issues. The theme of the Synod is The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness and is underscored by the scriptural verse 'Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul' (Acts 4:32). In this respect, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in London, supported by its counterparts in Germany and the USA, will provide support and exposure to this event that will unite all the Catholic Church leadership of the Middle East under one roof in the Vatican.

So today, I invite my readers to spare no effort in reaching out with love, prayer but also action to those quarantined Living Stones (1 P 2:5) who face the daily vagaries of life in the midst of human pain and unholy conflicts. Our Christocentric faith does not call for apathy, nor should it pander to hyper-inflated political correctness or jaundiced cynicism. What it exacts from us can perhaps be summed up for me by St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians to seek the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:3). Can we all “do our small bit” and pursue our mission and help ensure that those Living Stones do not inevitably become the deadened sites of the Holy Land let alone of the wider Middle East?

I had just defied the tantalising challenges of the volcanic ash from Iceland and flown into Frankfurt airport on my way to Erfurt University in what was formerly East Germany. Aware not only of my ignorance of Germany and its language, but also of my enduring lack of any sense of direction, the programme organisers had assured me that a fast ICE train would take me directly from the airport terminal to my destination. Even for my internal compass, this was plain sailing.

However, standing in front of the travel agent at the airport, I was told - and not without a modicum of glee - that my timetable and information were inaccurate. I could not take the fast / direct / white ICE from the airport since such trains did not run from the airport terminal regularly at weekends. In fact, I had to change three trains in different parts of the city before I reached Erfurt. Now, it will have been pointless to start quibbling with him as we all know how bureaucrats love to rub “it” in! There was no point in resorting to cabs either since my €-budget will not have allowed it.

So it was crunch time! And the only decision was to buy the ticket and … well, I suppose pray for the best!

As I was heading out of the travel agency and seeking with some trepidation the first of my three stations, I spotted a man in his mid-thirties standing in front of the screen for train departures and looking at his watch. He did not appear particularly Teutonic - whatever that really means today - but I thought it was worth approaching him for some practical assistance with directions since he seemed to blend in well with the hustle-bustle of the environment!

The young man, Ajlan was his name as I later found out, hailed from Turkey and worked for a well-known security firm in Frankfurt. When he asked me where I came from, I told him that I lived in England and that I was ethnically Armenian. He looked at me for a fleeting moment longer than necessary and then wondered out loud whether I as an Armenian would still trust him, a Turk, with directions. I smilingly confirmed to him that I could manage quite well, and he suddenly suggested that he would accompany me personally rather than try to explain to me the intricacies of station-hopping and train-spotting since he was travelling in the same direction too!

Being in an alien country, faced with a delicate ethno-political situation to boot, there is always a frisson of anxiety when someone goes out of his / her way with unexpected kindness. After all, this is the 21st century and one can exaggerate about ‘freak accidents’! But I somehow felt easy with Ajlan as we set out on our fifty-minute travelling adventure.

Yet, what do you say to a young Turk once he has identified you as an Armenian? Do you talk about the unattainable spiritual draw of Mount Ararat? Do you discuss the Turkey-Armenia frozen protocols or even the history of the two peoples in the context of a heinous genocide? Do you mention Azerbaijan and Nagorny-Karabakh? Or do you exhibit liberal open-mindedness and discuss the beauty of Istanbul or even the results at the Eurovision song festival in Oslo?!

It was quite clear to me that Ajlan was harbouring those same thoughts. So funnily enough, once we had covered the Turkish hamams, as well as our respective cuisines and his rather large family in Turkey (whereby his stories about his grandfather singularly reminded me of mine!), our conversation drifted toward politics. He started by commenting about his disapproval of the present AKP government and his admiration for Atatürk, and I returned the favour by talking about the post-independence realities of our Armenian republic and my last visit there. Then, he referred to the recent Turkish government decree allowing for better protection of the rights of non-Muslim religious minorities in Turkey, and I thought that this is when the tension would creep in about the G-word. So I was mentally urging the train to go faster, when he looked at me and said that he knew full well we had disagreements about the genocide, but that they are not as radical as we might both think them to be, and so could we shelve this topic and enjoy a light banter in the last fifteen minutes before we parted ways? I was happy to oblige and the rest of the time flew away with uneventful nimbleness.

So what is my point in this blog-like reflection? Is Ajlan a righteous Turk, as Robert Fisk writes at times in his articles? Is he a genocide denialist, or pretty much ignorant of his own history? Was he too clever by far or imperceptive? In the final analysis, did it matter that much when an Armenian and a Turk met awhile in Germany and had a chat despite their sensitivities over real history? Germany was a compass point for me, where our deeper humanity - with its redeeming points - overtook our separate fears, angers and doubts. We were just two men in a train - one helpful, the other grateful.

A fluke encounter? Most Armenians or Turks would hold mottled opinions, but does it still not carry a message?

When will the moment arrive that the crime of the annihilation of the Armenians in 1915-1916 will be recognized as fact?
Günter Grass, German Nobel Prize winning author in Istanbul, on 14 April 2010

Two weeks ago, a tragedy struck Poland when a Tupolev Tu-154 ploughed into trees while attempting to land in fog on Smolensk’s military runaway. The deaths included President Lech Kaczynski, as well as Poland’s former president-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski, a hero of the Solidarity movement Anna Walentynowicz and a host of political, financial and ecumenical dignitaries and office-holders. The large 96-person delegation were flying to Russia to attend the 70th anniversary commemorations of the massacre in April 1940 of 22,000 interned Polish officers by the Soviet secret police, the Narodny Kommisariat Vnutrennikh Del ((NKVD), a fifth of whom were shot and dumped into pits in Katyn Forest. I would guesstimate that at least a million Poles today can claim a link via lost relatives to this horrible massacre.

So traumatic was the Katyn chapter for Poles that General Wladyslaw Sikorski broke off relations with Moscow when it came to light shortly before his death in July 1943, and it was not until 1990 when the then USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev admitted some responsibility for this massacre. And it seemed that after years of denials and half-truths, much headway was made in recent months to overcome tensions and resentments over the Katyn killings - including Vladimir Putin's Letter to Poles in which he set out Russia’s position on this and other “blank spots” and called for mutual understanding - though without apologising explicitly or admitting legal culpability.

But why am I mentioning the Katyn massacre in the context of this horrific air-crash when my piece focuses on the 95th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and its ongoing denial by Turkey and some other countries? It is for no other reason than to highlight the stark contrast between recognition, even half-heartedly, of the Katyn massacre by Russia and denial, almost whole-heartedly, by modern-day Turkey of the Armenian Genocide.

On 29th March, a short debate took place in the House of Lords on a motion by Baroness Cox asking HM’s Government whether they will re-consider their official position and recognise as genocide the events that occurred in Ottoman Turkey during WWI - particularly in view of Geoffrey Robinson QC’s Legal Opinion of 9 October 2009. The debate challenged the standard - and consistently impassive - UK Government response to every single query about this genocide with a ready-made answer that the Government recognises “the tragic suffering of the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th Century”, and that its position is “to continue to work for rapprochement and reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia.” In other words, there is no indication that the mounting evidence and scholarly opinion have anything to do with a changing of minds or a re-appraisal of the views by those mandarins at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

However, as the ever-challenging Christopher Hitchens opined in the Calgary Herald earlier this month, “April is the cruellest month for the people of Armenia, who every year at this season suffer a continuing tragedy and a humiliation. The tragedy is that of commemorating the huge number of their ancestors who were exterminated by the Ottoman Muslim caliphate in a campaign of state-planned mass murder that began in April 1915. The humiliation is of hearing that the Turkish authorities deny that these appalling events ever occurred or that the killings constituted genocide.”

It seems that the Turkish institutional mindset refuses to shift gears on denial despite ample facts and figures. For instance, in an interview last week with Christiane Amanpour, the CNN anchor and chief international correspondent, the Turkish prime minister maintained the line that Turkey will re-consider its denial only if there is a judgment by a commission that validates the charge of genocide. Yet, what more does the prime minister wish to see when the majority of respectable historians and reputable genocide and holocaust scholars or organisations world-wide have affirmed time and again that the Armenian experience was genocide by name and deed? Or is he clinging to denial, applying the policy of the ostrich by wheeling out predictably the same - rather few - historians who peddle the official Turkish refutation and then coercing or cajoling other countries - namely the USA, the UK and Israel - to be complicit in denial or else face Turkish ire and retribution?

However, such denialist positions often resemble political truculence. After all, whether in Scotland, Wales, Europe or many other continents, executive or legislative bodies have already recognised the genocide and even passed laws against denial. But it seems that some politicians at times tend to forget or overlook - conveniently in the case of PM Reçep Tayyip Erdogan during his CNN interview - that President Ronald Reagan had also recognised this genocide in Proclamation # 4838 (1981), as did the House which also passed Resolutions acknowledging the Armenian experience as ‘genocide’ in 1975 and 1984 too. Moreover, in a brief filed with the International Court of Justice at The Hague in 1951, the US government cited just two genocides in modern times: the one committed by Turkey against Armenians and that committed by Nazi Germany.

Indeed, an ever-growing number of Turkish academics, thinkers, writers and activists, the likes of Taner Akçam, Ragip Zarakolu or Erol Özkoray, as well as genocide scholars, historians and sociologists worldwide, have been challenging such denial. In fact, only today, the Istanbul branch of the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) are holding a gathering at the entrance of Haydarpaşa Station “to commemorate the victims of the 24th April arrests and to say NEVER AGAIN.” But if so, why is there such strident denial by Turkey - and its allies - in the face of overwhelming evidence and some consensus?

There are three sets of reasons why Turkey refuses to admit its guilt. The first is a sense of overweening pride and nationalistic dignity within Turkish officialdom and across some of its grassroots which refuse to accept that the Ottoman Empire could have committed acts that are synonymous with genocide and are similar to the evils of the holocaust. The second is that Turkey also seems quite worried that recognition will ipso facto expose it to legal remedies and demands for reparation and even restitution - something a number of Armenian organisations or individuals are already claiming as a natural progression of the campaign for recognition. But the third and final reason is even more profound in that it has to do with the continuity of the policies pursued by the Ottomans and the Republic - in other words one of state responsibility.

So let me touch briefly upon Özkoray’s three-pronged thesis of this causal nexus. [1] Mustapha Kamal based his Republican regime on the nationalist ideology of a Turkic race whereby Anatolia had to be ‘cleansed’ of all ‘foreign’ elements. Policies of ethnic, cultural, economic and social cleansing eliminated much of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek groups albeit failed to do so with the Kurds - hence the Kurdish problem today. [2] The monies or goods confiscated from the Armenians helped finance the War of Independence (Kurtuluş Savaşı or İstiklâl Harbi, 19 May 1919 - 29 October 1923) and formed a new social class that owed its wealth to Armenian property also (for instance, the porter Haci Ömer Sabanci is the ancestor of today's Sabanci family, and grocer Vehbi Koç the progenitor of today's Koç family). [3], some of the perpetrators of the genocide became the political and administrative elites of the new Republican regime, such as Şükrü Kaya (Minister of the Interior, Secretary General of the People's Republican Party), Mustafa Abdülhalik Renda (President of the Turkish Grand National Assembly), Arif Fevzi (Minister), Ali Cenani Bey (Minister of Industry), Rüştü Aras (Foreign Minister). Mustapha Kamal feigned ignorance of such facts but he benefited from these people by offering them prominent positions within the Republic.

Unlike differing ‘official’ historical theses, I too would infer that the Armenian genocide was one of the foundations of the Turkish Republic. This explains the diplomatic traumas or political tantrums every time someone utters the phrase ‘Armenian genocide’, since any discussion of this genocide or its recognition would be tantamount to questioning the constituents of the whole Kamalist republic. But to counter this drawback, and to overcome its gangrenous failings, Turkey needs to couple a large-scale educational campaign with a culture of democracy that freely informs and as such also liberates public opinion.

Yet, in the midst of this maelstrom of Turkish paradoxes, what should be the attitude of Armenians world-wide today? Should they for example simply applaud the Proclamation signed by the Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger on 8th April dedicating the week of 19th - 26th April as “Days of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide” and then up the ante even more vocally toward recognition? Or should they throw up their hands and agree with, say, Bashir Abdul Fattah’s piece in Dar Al-Hayat on 17th April that global realpolitik issues would explain American recalcitrance toward challenging Turkish denial? Should they resign themselves to the thesis put forward by Dr Katerina Dalacoura, lecturer in International Relations at the LSE, on the Q&A session of the CNN web-site, that the real reason for US reluctance to proceed with recognition lies in its national interests whereby the military base at Inçirlik is militarily important for America, and so it cannot jeopardise its security at a time when it is involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and possibly in an impeding showdown with Iran?

Armenians are not naïve and are quite aware of the acrid political realities facing them. But we - and our supporters - should nonetheless persevere relentlessly with our concerted campaigns that challenge denial. After all, we also know that the Ottoman intent was to eliminate every single Armenian citizen in Turkey bar one (who was meant to be exhibited at a museum). Yet, Turkey failed miserably in this quest as the Armenian demographic numbers prove today, and so I would contend that our strategic choice for recognition should now match our celebration of the future by nurturing more creative new generations. After all, what is the best obituary for death than fresh life? Instead of being singly focused on the doleful hokehankisds / requiem services that warm up cold deaths, we should also undergird with faithful gusto the newness of life. As some Armenians already do, we should not only grieve for our fallen martyrs, but also stand vocally in solidarity with all victims of genocide world-wide. Whilst recognising that we have been victims of a dreadful experience, we should underline that we are also victors who have vanquished death with life. Let our present define our past: the genocide was indisputably homicidal, and well over one million victims the likes of Gomidas Vartabed are its perpetual reminder in Armenian psyches, but would our strength not be even greater if we also pour more of our energies into our living and thriving children, women and men? I know this is a hard choice for any people that have suffered near-annihilation, but I am confident we Armenians have the forward-looking stamina to achieve this renewal by choosing living unity over deathly disunity. I submit that this would be the sharpest riposte to Turkish spin and denial, much more pungent than solely lobbying countries for recognition, a source of backing for Turkish or foreign supporters and a healthier commemoration of collective Armenian memory.

This morning, I watched a BBC One programme where Fern Britton discussed with Tony Blair the importance of his Christian faith and its influence upon his decade-long political life as prime minister. She also explored with him the vision for his London-based Faith Foundation and the way in which faith and reason could co-habit by occupying a public space that is beneficial for all humankind. I shall return to Mr Blair’s policies later in this article, but one sentence that seized me in this sotto voce conversation was when he told Fern Britton that Christmas is a return to the essence of our faith.

Indeed, as an awkward Christian myself, I think I understand the statement quite well, particularly now as we find ourselves in the second half of the Advent season. But I also think that ‘returning’ to the essence of one’s faith is in itself a constant struggle requiring prayer, discernment, contemplation and honesty coupled with an ability to separate the chaff from the wheat and to question one’s own overarching priorities in life in such a way that it favours life over death, compassion over coldness and success over failure. This occurs in our personal and family lives, as much as with our friends and colleagues, all the time. But my experience has taught me that it could also happen in the political field, and I would like to tease out those few thoughts today by reflecting upon the political conflicts of the Middle East and by sharing with my readers my short “wish-list” of how things could ‘return to their essence’ in the lives of some of the inhabitants in this troubled region. And today, I would largely confine myself to Israel-Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq - with an obiter dictum on Yemen.

Let me start off with Israel-Palestine. Having written substantively about this conflict over the past decade, I would like to summarise it today in a rather elemental way by referring solely to a theological call in the Kairos Palestine Document issued two days ago by a group of Palestinian Christians representing a variety of churches and church-related organisations.

This document essentially demanded an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and echoed a clarion call that was made by South African churches in the 1980’s during the height of the apartheid regime. Whilst admitting that Palestinians had reached a political ‘dead end’, the signatories of this document challenged the international community - including church leaders and politicians worldwide - on their questionable support of, and contribution to, the Palestinian struggle for freedom. The signatories claimed the call was made in a spirit of faith, hope and love, although their language was rather animated at times and their names - with notable exceptions - did not carry much political weight. But the document itself [a kairos or an opportunity] was spot-on when it stated that the current efforts in the Middle East are confined to managing the crisis rather than finding pertinent and long-term solutions - or as I have often articulated in conflict resolution terms, they paper over the cracks but do not address the cracks themselves. And as the UK-based Ekklesia think-tank reported in its own piece, the document decried the emptiness of the promises and pronouncements about peace in the region, reminding the world community of the separation wall built on Palestinian land, the blockade of Gaza, the issue of settlements, the sense of humiliation felt by Palestinians in the face of Israeli military might and political arrogance, the plight of refugees awaiting their right of return, of prisoners in Israeli gaols, as well as the lack of fundamental freedoms for the Palestinian people - including the freedom of worship. Underlying this litany of grievances was clearly the indictment that International law was being flouted by a world comity that had paralysed itself in the face of an unfolding Palestinian drama.

The document also adopted the familiar language of liberation theology when it affirmed that the Palestinian [and Christian] connection to this land is a natural right, not merely an ideological or theological question, and it rejected any use of the Bible to legitimise or support political options and positions that are based upon injustice. Moreover, it added that the logic of peaceful resistance is seen to be as much a right as a duty, with the potential to hasten the time of reconciliation, and then segued on - and here I felt much less comfortable about the frail moral absolute and inherent political canon of the assertion - that if there were no occupation, “there would be no resistance, no fear and no insecurity.”

So my wish for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that this document would become a credible roadmap for peace amongst Palestinians and Israelis by focusing on justice and security in equal measure for both parties. No more land-grabs or gratuitous violence as evidenced only yesterday with the burning by settlers of the central mosque in the village of Kafr Yasuf in the northern West Bank region of Salfit. No more mutual killing and terrorism that denigrate the sanctity of all life. Rather, a genuine attempt to establish harmony amongst the two peoples and three faiths, although that could only be achieved with goodwill and good faith amongst the key protagonists as well as international key players - which would include the Quartet and the Arab League. In fact, in the words of a traditional song of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights which is being celebrated this week, is it not time to banish the darkness at long last with less dubious moratoriums, political spins or worse still with crocodile tears?

Now, what about Lebanon with all its confessional permutations, political intrigues and foreign agendas?
Over the past year, this small country has witnessed decisive parliamentary elections that yielded less-than-decisive results with the formation of a national consensus government bringing maladroitly together the majority and minority camps. Parliament also approved earlier this week a ministerial statement that defines the direction and parameters of the new government. Mind you, there are many people who are still diffident that Lebanon can ‘get its act together’ since so much that is at stake is controlled by outside actors. Lebanon continues to be willy-nilly a terrain for proxy wars - be they inter-Lebanese, Palestinian, American or French, Israeli, Syrian or Iranian, Saudi or Egyptian - and it is crucial for survival to ensure that the cedars regain their independence by re-acquiring their Lebanese identity, viability and purpose. Moreover, a further cursory look would also indicate that the Christians who once made up at least half the country have seen their numbers and political clout dwindle considerably through divisions, one-upmanship manoeuvres and gradual emigration.

In order to avoid dissensions, I would suggest that the cabinet under the premiership of Sheikh Sa’ad Al-Hariri should focus on two focal goals. The first one relates to the various UN Security Council Resolutions on Lebanon. After all, those international resolutions were accepted by all Lebanese political parties as they stress the right of the Lebanese state to control its whole territory and for the Lebanese army alone to bear arms. Therefore, the new cabinet faces a duty to ensure the protection of Lebanese independence and the strengthening of its state institutions. But before readers interject with an “we-know-where-he-is-going”, let me add that this does not necessarily entail falling out with Syria, removing article 6 on the issue of arms from the ministerial statement or waging a war against Hizbullah. After all, the political inter-state contacts between Lebanon and Syria are steadily growing, and a realist would add that national resistance is still a component that not only deters Israel but also helps keep the peace by avoiding confrontation. It is equally necessary to allow the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to reach its impartial judgment (albeit the judges will be hard-pressed in their decision), and for the national dialogue under the aegis of the president of the republic to continue tackling inter alia the issue of arms.

The second challenge that the government should take on board is the Palestinian issue. It is quite clear that a majority of the Lebanese do not want the Palestinians to be permanently settled or naturalised as this would upset the demographic balance of the country. Nor do they wish them to take over chunks of the economy, remain a security problem (as has been the case in some camps where armed groups have operated beyond the reach of the government), or impinge upon Lebanese sovereignty. This is explicable, but the Palestinians also need to be treated like human beings with civil and human rights (including work opportunities, home ownership, access to basic education and health services) so that they are not merely viewed as a security threat to be disarmed, but rather as a community entitled to live a dignified life until their national trauma of exile is resolved and they can exercise their right of return. In fact, this is what Ahmad Jibril, from the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), alluded to yesterday in an interview with Ghassan bin Jeddo on Hiwar Maftouh (Open Debate) on Al-Jazeera TV. He stipulated that only a convergence of the security, humanitarian and political issues would ensure an agreement between the Lebanese authorities and Palestinians in Lebanon. Given that many of the armed Palestinians outside the camps are located in Beirut’s suburbs in the Nehmeh Hills as well as the Beka’a Valley, and in the training camps of Sultan Yaqoub, Kfar Zabad and Qusaya, his words should be studied by all politicians. In fact, what counts now in Palestinian terms in Lebanon is the re-building of the Nahr el Bared camp as well as the development of a new governance system so that the camps can be managed by the Palestinians themselves through popular committees, but with security (and therefore sovereignty) primarily in the hands of the Lebanese authorities. As a new relationship is forged between the Lebanese and Palestinians that oversteps the painful fault-lines of history, the continued efforts of the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee (LPDC) to address and improve tangible problems related to Palestinian living conditions, personal legal status, and work opportunities becomes invaluable in the medium term.

My wish for Lebanon is that its politicians labour to represent the wishes of their constituencies, and that their schisms do not lead to political initiatives that only serve to weaken the country whilst purportedly strengthening personal fiefdoms or sowing discord and violence. This applies essentially to the Christians as they are the weaker side with the more critical divisions when compared with the Shi’i, Sunni or Druze communities. Moreover, I also wish the different countries involved in the Lebanese geo-political tug-of-war to stop using Lebanon as a training ground for their confrontations. After all, would they be happy if the wars they have been waging on Lebanese soil were transported onto their own soils?

A Lebanon concerned with national sovereignty must also think creatively of turning to its advantage the regional and international yearning to preserve a peaceful country. So I hope that the new Hezbollah political document, unveiled on 30th November by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, will be a fresh departure in defining relations with other parties. I am keenly aware that there are political pundits who believe that this new document - succeeding the one from 1985 - is defending Hizbullah’s parallel state without abandoning its ideological principles or strategic objectives whilst simultaneously forcing its priorities on Lebanon’s state and society. Yet, it would be counter-intuitive if the Lebanonisation of this significant movement would buttress the notion of resistance as its sole guiding principle on the Lebanese arena. Devoid of collective responsibility, this would eventually freeze the whole country and wreak further havoc without exception upon all eighteen confessions.
Finally, let me focus on Iraq as it struggles between modernity and democracy on the one hand, and factionalism tinged with large doses of bloody violence on the other. What is my wish for this particular country?

I would like to start off by ushering into my article once more the interview Tony Blair gave to Fern Britton today. I do this because we in Britain are now witnessing the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war as the latest attempt to get to the truth of the war that was waged in Iraq. The former prime minister is expected to appear before this committee early next year in order to give [public] evidence to this august body and explain why he used the WMD as a causus belli for his war with Iraq.

As a former supporter of Tony Blair who was let down by his myriad subterfuges let alone by his sycophancy toward the Bush Administration and his gross political misjudgements, I re-discovered a new face to this complex barrister turned politician - one that is perhaps a tad more thoughtful and introspective, less arrogant or certain about his own being, and even admitting in a rather roundabout way that he had erred in using vainly the WMD in the case against Iraq. Only today, Sir Ken Macdonald, former director of Public Prosecutions and barrister in the London Chambers, mounted a swingeing attack against Blair by adding that our British troops are warriors who were “cast carelessly into death’s way by a Prime Minister lost in self-aggrandisement and a governing class too closed to speak truth to power”. Perhaps I wouldn’t presume to go so far and would state instead that I too am against appeasement and procrastination so long as it is not a pick-and-choose commodity, and that Blair might have sold us the wrong line but thought that he was doing the right thing albeit for entirely the wrong reasons. Yet, even this line of reasoning cannot exonerate him as there is thin line in politics between mendacity and narcissism, and his overall Middle East record disallows me to trust his motivations let alone endorse his judgments.

But having stated my case, let me also add that a few things catch my attention in Iraq today. Starting with the obvious one, I would refer to the horrific bombings that have plagued parts of the country after a two-year lull. They have further shaken the security of the country and led toward more instability. But the bombings mask the sobering fact that politics and governance remain dysfunctional. For instance, politicians have made little progress on the principal constitutional issues cleaving them - particularly on how to share or divide power and oil wealth, or how to settle territorial disputes - particularly in Kirkuk which remains the real prize for Arabs and Kurds where emotions run highest and oil reserves are richest.

The same is also true of the Ninewa province and its capital Mosul. Caught largely between Arabs and Kurds, one comes across ethnic and religious minorities in whom the central government has invested little interest. While true that Ninewa is majority Arab with a strong Kurdish minority, it also counts a number of smaller groups - Christians, Yazidis, Turkomans, Shabaks, Akai - that admittedly comprise a mere 10% of the population but are nonetheless concentrated in disputed borderlands between Kurdistan and Arab Iraq. They have suffered a disproportionate share of ethnic attacks, as well as the hardship caused by war, occupation and inter-communal violence. At times co-opted, at others threatened by one political camp or another, they fight for sheer survival today and have become vulnerable pawns in a contest that often sees them as little more than cannon fodder. The recent initiative to re-build St Elijah’s Assyrian Monastery just south of Mosul - destroyed in 2003 at the outset of the invasion - is one small step toward helping bolster those smaller communities.

But in the midst of those weighty issues, my most urgent wish list for Iraq is that the latest compromise on the electoral law that required many rounds of voting in parliament let alone much horse-trading would herald new parliamentary elections in March 2010 so they would help stabilise the political topography of Iraq and encourage the drawdown of US troops.

In the midst of those three important axes of conflict, I would also briefly like to draw the attention of readers to two simultaneous wars raging in Yemen. One is pitting the central government in Sana’a against the Houthi rebels of Zaydi Shi’i background in the northern Yemeni provinces of Sa’ada and Hajjah - resulting in a huge humanitarian disaster (as evidenced by the refugees in the al-Mazraq camp). The other is between the central government and separatists in southern provinces such as Shabwa or the Radfan region who are opposed to the unity deal of 1990 that incorporated the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and the southern port of Aden into the present unitary state. But roughly speaking, this is almost a proxy war between Iran and Arab countries: Yemen is the latest card to try and manage the emerging Shi’i-Sunni tensions and reflects Saudi Arabian and other Arab fears that Yemen could also turn into a haven for al-Qa’eda terrorists.

So what will it be then? A Middle East that helps recapture the essence of our faith and undergirds the fundamentals of truth and honesty at a time when the three Abrahamic faiths are celebrating their feasts? Or a hoax that will lead nowhere so that 2010 will start and end with the same recycled arguments, pretexts, impasses, spins, mendacities and perils of 2009?

A Chinese proverb claims that “the finger that points at the moon is not the moon”. My overall wish today is that politicians of all colours stop staring helplessly at their political fingers and focus instead on looking at the moon itself. But would they?

As you will have already noted from the letterhead of this Open Letter, I do not represent any Armenian organisation, institute or political group. On the contrary, I write to you in my private capacity as an Armenian who also happens to be an EU citizen and who has visited Armenia - the symbolic heartland for all Armenians - only twice in his life.

In other words, I do not give myself the right to lecture you, advise and admonish you or even berate and heckle you over the decisions you are adopting in relation to the two protocols mooted for signature in Zürich on 10th or 13th October between the Armenian and Turkish foreign ministers in the presence of the Swiss foreign minister. After all, much as my ethnicity and genes are irrevocably Armenian, I am neither a citizen of the Republic of Armenia nor one if its tax-paying residents.

So why do I grant myself the right to address this letter to you, with copy to HE Ambassador Dr Vahé Gabrielyan in London, as well as publish it EU-wide, when I turned down the opportunity to travel to Paris to meet with you in a public forum?

I respectfully submit that my reasons emanate from a deep-seated concern as to whether this agreement is indeed helpful let alone beneficial for the republic of Armenia - and by osmosis for Armenians in the Diaspora. But let me start off, as did Vartan Oskanian, former Armenian Foreign Minister and now Director of Civilitas Foundation in Yerevan, by stating that I too support unequivocally the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey, the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border and the resolution of all outstanding disputes between the two countries. I also support your constitutional right, even your presidential prerogative, to proceed with those protocols. After all, I am not willing to act out the role of an Armenian who exhibits visceral emotions, but rather one who struggles to uphold visceral convictions.

So allow me to posit in this Open Letter a few Open Questions to Your Excellency as you ponder over the status of your future relations with Turkey within the wider Caucasus region. And here, I do not wish of necessity to go over the issues that have been dealt with in a veritable plethora of analyses and articles pointing out to the three fundamental drawbacks of those two protocols, namely, the judicial overlap between territorial integrity and actual borders as distinct de jure and de facto issues, a relinquishment from recognising the Armenian genocide and the isolation of Artsakh (Nagorny-Karabagh) from the Armenian political mainland. More learned minds have nitpicked those lacunae in great depth and have argued that they are inimical with Armenian overall interests as they impact upon a whole range of issues from historicity to oil or gas pipelines.

The two painfully practical queries I import into this debate are simply the following:
(1) Those protocols might well be signed in Switzerland, but I understand they need to be ratified by both the Turkish and Armenian parliaments within six weeks. In my opinion, such ratification is not a foregone conclusion, and it might well be that Turkey could use its considerable diplomatic skills to prevaricate upon such ratification as a source of pressure upon Armenia to resolve the Karabagh issue in Azerbaijan’s interest. This political truism becomes even more self-evident when one wonders how Turkey could reconcile its willingness to forge ahead with this agreement and open its border with Armenia with its promise to Azerbaijan that it will not do so until the Karabagh issue has been resolved (in its favour). In one flourish, Turkey will have pleased the Americans, satisfied some EU member-states about its seriousness to join our European club, spread its Turkic influence in the whole region (Russia notwithstanding) and left Armenia even more vulnerable than it truly is now.
(2) On the historical sub-commission dealing with genocide, and assuming I delete all my personal memory banks let alone forfeit my amazement that Armenia seems to have regressed from all achievements to date for international recognition, I would enquire how Turkey could even allow the mechanism for such discussion to proceed when its own Penal Code (under Art 301 et al) renders it a criminal offence to mention the word “genocide” in public fora. Have previous Commissions, the likes of the ICTJ and TARC, not ended in abject failure because Turkey and its array of apologists did not accept the outcome of their recommendations? Is it any wonder that international genocide scholars are now flummoxed that a sub-commission will knowingly unravel all the recognitions of the past decades and allow Turkey to claim to all and sundry that Armenia itself is still perusing the ‘scientific’ data on whether genocide was committed under cover of WWI? Do you not think there has been ample forensic examination of archives by independent genocide scholars such as the IAGS that we are now re-booting ab initio the whole chapter of recognition with this retreat? I personally agree that it is high time we Armenians, as well as Turkey, learn to address the issue of genocide with soul-searching probity, but surely not at any cost and in this way.
Mr President, you are certainly no traitor or quisling as some people have defamed you on the basis of those controversial protocols. After all, if I were to exercise good faith, I would even affirm that you are endeavouring to protect the global interests of a landlocked Armenia at a time of changing realities in the Caucasus and of ominous economic difficulties facing Armenia. But in so doing, are you not repeating the Palestinian syndrome of “cosying up” to Israel - their erstwhile foe - in the hope that they might derive some responsive benefit from this rapprochement whilst all they get are more political rejections or dangerous deceptions? Should you not have been much more transparent and forthcoming with the Diasporan Armenians and listened to them before the announcement was made on 31st August (rather than now during your tour when the gap is so wide and the mistrust so palpable)? And going back to Israel, a country many Armenians are fond to use as comparison, does Israel not listen to its Jewish lobbies worldwide and even uses them to enhance its own national interests?
As an Armenian whose grandparents were survivors of the genocide, but who wishes to let bygones be bygones on the basis of mutual confidence-building and equitable grounds, I regret you have not won me over with your arguments or documents. Whilst I agree wholeheartedly with [Sir] Winston Churchill that it is much wiser to jaw-jaw than to war-war, is it not even wiser for a small and beleaguered Armenian nation to ensure that its jaw is not broken as a consequence of this agreement? The protocols have created fissures within Armenia itself, and certainly with the Diaspora, and true statesmanship will never have allowed this issue to become one of us versus them. Perhaps your mandarins at the Foreign or Diaspora Ministries accompanying you could find a diplomatic démarche to re-visit the discussions with Turkey - perhaps assisted by Diasporan Armenian leaders and in the presence of the USA, Russia and the EU - to correct the flaws in the agreement before a signature date becomes incumbent and the return football match sets the ball rolling again. If this were an option, albeit quite remote, I will be the first person queuing up to defend your agreement for a fresh page with Turkey and its peoples.
Mr President, like countless other Armenians with open minds, big hearts and democratic cultures, might I respectfully remind you that you will not necessarily ensure the security of Armenia with those protocols. Rather, instead of a political catharsis that would transform the region and lift up the interests of Armenia within it, you might in fact end up in complicity with a grave error. That is something neither wisdom nor time would succeed in hindsight to expunge from all our lives - irrespective of whether we live in Yerevan, in Paris, Los Angeles and Beirut, or in Stepanakert.
Much as I appreciate the heavy burden you carry on your shoulders - almost unfathomable for an ordinary person like me who does not hold political office in Armenia - I also pray that the wisdom of 3000 years of Armenian collective history let alone numerous experiences in the face of adversity will guide you in your tough choices between today and 10th October.
Very Truly Yours,
Harry Hagopian
International Lawyer & EU Political Consultant
London W8

On 4th June, at Cairo University in Egypt, President Obama unfurled a roadmap that sought to drive his vision for helping reverse the cumulative tensions and stereotypes clouding Muslim and Arab popular relations with America. His much-touted address tried to brake the alarming tumescence that had set in those relations during the past eight years of the Bush Administration. As Roger Cohen opined in an editorial in the New York Times entitled Dreams aside, Obama is moving methodically to dismantle the Manichean Bush paradigm - with us or against us in a global battle of good against evil labelled the war on terror - in favour of a new realism that places improved relations with the Muslim world at its fulcrum.

Mind you, restoring American credibility is not as facile as a presidential address here, a statement or photo-opportunity there. Nor will it happen by over-investing in Obama’s middle name of Hussein as a sign of genuine empathy and ease with the Muslim faith and culture. It requires a whole host of US proactive future steps to prove to an open-minded but sceptical audience that US intent matches with action, or that suggestions go hand-in-hand with implementation. Mind you, it is equally clear that the whole onus of proof cannot be laid on American shoulders alone. Corrective measures also need to be taken by Arabs and Muslims to prove their own readiness to heed the Obama presidential message by improving the human rights and welfare of their own peoples who often suffer internally as much as externally in different ways.

President Obama dedicated a substantive portion of his address to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He underpinned his belief in a two-state solution as well as an end to illegal Israeli settlements - whether mere mobile outposts or more concrete edifices, whether new or existing and expanding ones - that are still being built on occupied Palestinian lands.

So, in a nutshell, what about Israel-Palestine?

President Obama has identified the resolution of this conflict as the touchstone for improved relations with the Muslim and Arab Worlds. This is why he has instructed George Mitchell, his special envoy (in the region again this week), to ensure that both sides apply themselves diligently toward midwiving the birth of a Palestinian state. But to succeed in this irenic quest, he must realise that Israel under Benyamin Netanyahu will need to concede to some self-evident realities that are based on International law. The first such concession is that a Palestinian state - were it to come into existence - cannot be a Bantustan but a sovereign, viable and contiguous entity. In other words, the settlements, separation walls, roadblocks, by-pass roads, blockades, evictions and gratuitous collective humiliation cannot remain ineradicable facets of Israeli political topography.

Yet, even such constituents alone are insufficient for a peacemaking partnership. Words have to be followed by deeds: after all, did the late Israeli prime minister Levy Eshkol not say once, “I promised, but I did not promise to keep my promises.”

One way of moving forward would be for Israel to accept the twice-rebooted Arab Initiative of 2002. It implies recognition of Israel by the entire fifty-seven Muslim states in return for its withdrawal from the territories it occupied in 1967. This in itself would largely counter the political angst, radicalisation, extremism and religious polarisation of societies - often with nefarious consequences - that foments the whole region. But what can no longer happen is for Israel or the USA to wring out more ‘concessions’ from the Arab countries under the guise of further ‘incentives’ for the sake of future Israeli corresponding ‘flexibility’. For instance, Arab states cannot be expected to allow the Israeli airline El Al to fly through their airspace, or open commercial and consular representations and grant visas for Israelis, without first assuring Israeli concrete and verifiable moves towards peacemaking. In a word, the Arab World should no longer churn out political freebies or new enticements without tangible and time-friendly political return. Otherwise, such a new list of unreciprocated quid pro quos would alienate the very popular base that the US Administration is endeavouring to win over with its outreach.

Indeed, anything less, I would argue, cannot move the momentum for peace forward, nor defuse the tensions that President Obama seems intent on harnessing during his term. So what happens will depend on Israel as the key player holding the trump card. But yesterday, PM Netanyahu’s half-hour policy speech at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv deflated any vision on how to move forward in the peace process with the Palestinians and with the larger Arab world. True, he crossed a personal ideological Rubicon by uttering the tricky words ‘Palestinian state’, with the US and EU even welcoming his speech, but here is my red flag! Mr Netanyahu, ever the slick salesman, attempted to divert attention from the land-for-peace territorial issues by focusing on economic, security and political relations. Furthermore, he removed the permanent status issues - including refugees and Jerusalem - off the table, emasculated the notion of Palestinian statehood and insisted upon recognition of Israel as a state for the Jews (with morbid implications for Palestinians under occupation as much as for Palestinian Arab Israelis within Israel). He talked of Palestinians almost as guests being allowed to live on “the land of his forefathers”, disembowelling in the process the corpus of past agreements - including the US-backed 2003 roadmap - and jeopardising future negotiations. Such a position, coupled with his emphasis on the Iranian nuclear issue, will lead to a standoff, and America will again face the ire of large numbers of Muslim and Arab grassroots who will see in the Netanyahu speech a defiant negation of President Obama’s overtures. Hence, the need for a robust and equitable US facilitation, and for a plausible pan-Arab reaction going hand-in-hand with a decision by the Palestinian Fateh and Hamas factions to stop their fratricidal brinksmanship, desist from killing each other (as in Qalqilya or Gaza) whilst proclaiming to be the handmaidens of the Palestinian dream, and put the Palestinian house in order again.

Anyone who has perused the editorials of the Lebanese constitutional thinker Michel Chiha about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - whether in Palestinian Chronicles or in his other writings - will have noted the clear distinction he often drew between Judaism and Zionism, and his dream for a land including Jews, Christians and Muslims living together in peace. In 1946, he wrote, “… The American interventions in Palestine are increasingly looking like they are dealing with a purely American question. It’s a pity that the people of the United States, today the most powerful in the world, would cover-up from their vantage point such an adventure; they are putting themselves in a definitive contradiction with their most sacred moral and political principles.” His formula, hauntingly ever-seasonal despite the passage of time, remains the moral agenda of many churches as well. For instance, the ‘World Week for Peace in Palestine-Israel’, organised last week by the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, brought together individuals, congregations and organisations from all continents to advocate those very steps necessary for peace with justice. Earlier last month, another conference entitled Towards a New Christian Consensus: Peace with Justice in the Holy Land also assembled Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders representing the US-based National Inter-religious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East and commended President Obama to make Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace “a high priority of his presidency.”

As I have repeated ad nauseum ever since the Oslo chapter of negotiations, the resolution of this conflict is achievable. After all, the parameters are quite clear, but what is lacking is the political will amongst the Western and Arab powers to move beyond short-term interests in order to impress upon Israel the need to stop its prevarications and “sign on the dotted line”.
But President Obama’s speech was not all about Israel and Palestine. In his broad address, he also referred inter alia to the Maronites in Lebanon. So what are the developments besetting Lebanon in the wake of the 7th June parliamentary elections?
I owe my readers a confession. I had thought that the outcome of those hard-fought and increasingly negative elections between the two competing 8th and 14th March coalition blocs will have been much narrower. With a resurgence of sectarian and confessional arguments, and with the decibels mounting steadily on all sides, some pundits were predicting a narrow victory for the bloc led by Sa’ad Hariri from Al Mustaqbal (The Future) movement, whilst others thought that the corresponding bloc led by the Shi’i Hizbullah movement would move into power. However, now that the immediate dust of the elections has settled somewhat, it is clear that the difference in parliamentary seats between the 14th March bloc with its 71 seats and the 8th March bloc with its 57 seats has put paid to the argument that the so-called Lebanese Intifada of 2005 was nothing more than a fictive flicker in the wind. In fact, Hariri himself is willy-nilly the undisputed winner, and he and his allies have re-defined in some modest measure the political landscape of the country. Hopefully, this outcome might also catalyse a metamorphosis of Lebanese politics. No more a system of clans, tribes let alone former or present warlords dictating their terms and seats upon a hapless society, nor of virtual governance with a parliament that closes its doors almost at whim, and with obstructing one-thirds veto or overlapping governmental projects that pander to foreign agendas and stymie any political initiative. Lebanon might hopefully turn into a democratic, constitutionally-based and well-managed republic that feeds the hopes of its long-suffering people and rids them of the straitjackets occupying their political space.
But am I a tad too naïve, and where are we in Lebanon today? I suppose the weeks and months ahead will be the best weathervane as to whether Lebanon will succeed in soldering a sense of coming together, or whether rivalries, interests and one-upmanships from all sides will reign supreme once more. In fact, trolling the Lebanese blogosphere, one comes across a plethora of comments on the elections, including on the collapse of any independent “centrist” bloc at the ballot boxes. Therefore, one pessimistic line of argument goes, there will be no serious political realignments, the two camps will remain irreconcilable, and the parliament and future government will both look shockingly similar to the past four years.
Yet, I believe there are hints of a collective willingness to improve the political system. After all, the global realignments matter a lot on the Lebanese political terrain, and I believe that all the main players - from Syria and Saudi Arabia to the United States and arguably even Iran following its elections - are keen to ensure a level of stability for the country. But this requires some deep self-criticism by both camps since they disappointed their constituencies during this electoral chapter, and many of the pledges that were made by both parties were discarded unceremoniously in the heat of the electoral battles.

I believe the Christians are today the most vulnerable community in Lebanon. After all, one can still indulge in sweeping over-generalisations by stating that the Shi’i votes went to Hizbullah and Amal, the Sunni votes went to Al-Mustaqbal and the Druze votes went to the Progressive Socialist Party. But the Christian vote was fractured and dismembered, and there was nothing less than bitterness and rancour amongst the various parties. In one sense, the allegiance of the Al-Kata’eb Phalangist Party and the Lebanese Forces with the 14th March bloc, and the corresponding alliance of the Marada Party with the 8th March bloc, were not unexpected, but what let the angry cat out of the cage for a great many Lebanese was the role played by the controversial General Michel Aoun whose largest Christian party - the Free Patriotic Movement - chose to ally itself strategically with Hizbullah and in so doing splintered the Christian voice. Allying themselves with him were the largest Armenian political party in Lebanon - the Tashnaq - which in the past had maintained a neutrality in the Lebanese political jigsaw puzzle and had considered themselves as supporters of the incumbent president.

So will Lebanon break the glass ceiling, and will its politicians turn a crisis into an opportunity?

Let me start with the Christian communities per se. General Aoun is a political figure that is either adored or loathed in the country. One can either see his adulating followers carrying the orange emblems of his party in mass rallies, or else being reviled as an unstable leader whose shifting political stances are an indication that he is dangerously unpredictable and does not care one jot about the country but only about his own political future - namely that of becoming president. However, and although Aoun lost the election, his party nonetheless garnered the largest number of Christian seats in the new parliament [21 seats on his own, and 27 seats with his allies] through Shi’i as much as Christian support. So I hope that he will ponder over the lessons of this election and decide to play a judicious and constructive role that befits his political stature as leader of the largest Christian group. After all, the betterment of the beleaguered Christian community does not come through confrontation or vocalisation, but through collaboration and coordination. The other wild card, the Armenian Tashnaq party, only managed two parliamentary seats despite their huge numerical superiority in Lebanon [and region-wide]. So much so that the smaller Ramgavar and Henchak parties now enjoy parity in the number of Armenian deputies. This diminishes the impact that the Tashnaq party can wield in the new political configuration, and I believe that it too needs to ask some questions of itself, and then attempt to build bridges with its grassroots as it resumes its important political role.

An incoming new Council of Ministers headed in all likelihood by Sa’ad Hariri, and a new parliament whose Speaker will in all likelihood again be Nebih Berri, ought to prioritise the items that need to be addressed expeditiously. To begin with, and as the Minister of Interior Ziad Baroud indicated already, the government should investigate abusive electoral practices, from vote-buying to corruption and the lack of a standardised ballot. Perhaps it should also go further and examine the options available for empowering new generations of Lebanese men and women to become more involved in political life so that a new way of thinking, through new political faces and horizons, is teased out amidst the various constituencies.

But over and above procedural matters, I suggest three clear pressing priorities. They include the reform of the Elections law in order to move away from the current law agreed by most parties at Doha in May 2008 that perpetuates the status quo and bolsters communal loyalties and tribal politics, as well as the revival of the Constitutional Court, which both political blocs wish to enfeeble but which is a welcome need for the country, and a serious move forward in the on-off national dialogue.

Lebanese politics, although more democratic than other Middle Eastern countries, still cannot manage the government-versus-opposition formula that is followed in most countries. It opts for the consensual format, but even within consensus one has to acknowledge the reality of winners and losers. As such, and in an attempt to maintain a workable formula that does not paralyse the activities of the Council of Ministers, I suggest that the inevitable negotiations for the formation of a cabinet should also consider awarding the winners 50% of the ministerial portfolios, the losers 25% and the president would then nominate his share of 25% too - as such bolstering his presidential centrist credentials, but also acting as an arbiter between the two blocs when there are ineluctable deadlocks in policy-making or legislation within government.

The months ahead will be heady ones for both the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples - the former in their attempts to create a state from the ashes of occupation despite Israeli wilful recalcitrance, and the latter in their hopes to strengthen their state institutions and liberate them from inertia, interference and elitism. Both exercises will clearly have inevitable regional political and socio-economic consequences. But they will also have repercussions that go far beyond the region and will impact - either positively or negatively - President Obama’s vision and his unfurling roadmap for reconciliation.

So could it be done? I still believe so, despite numerous withering obstacles and dyslexic tactics, but only if it comes with the dogged determination of the parties themselves, the empowerment of allies, neighbours and friends and the tacit understanding that nobody should use excuses or justifications anymore to favour the personal over the national.

But will it be done? The answer to this Sisyphean question is by far the more challenging, critical and uncertain one for me!

I have not written for SOMA in a while, so the first thing I had to do when deciding to put pen to paper - or megabytes to hard disk - was to choose the theme for my current piece. After all, whilst it is true that some things tend to alter quite dramatically in Iraq, at least when viewed from our European end of the global periscope, it is equally true that the core issues I have opined about for some years now have remained petulantly resistant to change albeit in varying forms and intensity.

So would I choose to write about the small communities that are often mislabelled as minorities and which are at the receiving end of a large measure of discrimination and pressure? Or should I focus on the resurgence of violence that rears its ugly head in the country every time one talks about prospects and timelines of an American drawdown? Or should it be about the Sunni-Shi’i rivalries that often seem as deadly in their political ideology as they are unbridgeable in their theology? Or perhaps I should touch upon the sensitive matter of the over-10,000 Iraqis and a number of foreigners who have disappeared - many of them kidnapped - only to be released in return for unaffordable ransoms? Or should I re-centre on the Kurdish-Arab political one-upmanship that is making parts of the country teeter on the edge of another tense standoff in the Iraqi social mosaic?

Mind you, I suppose I could also play it “safe” and comment on the day-to-day developments in Iraq, with the wanton killings, arm-twisting, fear-mongering or deal-making, but we in Europe are thousands of miles away and are often less equipped - and less entitled - at assessing them. Besides, should we allow ourselves to be sucked into the minutiae of every-day politics, or ought we to offer our perceptions only in the hope that they could become helpful brushstrokes for those living in the country?

So my different political vignettes in this piece become relevant in underlining succinctly a set of stalemates that dog the whole country, so they might possibly focus the minds of politicians on the need to reform them or else suffer the consequences. To paraphrase Groucho Marx obversely, “This is my pretext. If you don’t like it, well, I have a lot of others.”

So to start with, let me encourage Iraqis preparing for their forthcoming parliamentary elections to establish a new national compact with a clear set of priorities. After all, despite a noticeable decrease of violence in the country, there are still outbreaks of fighting in Baghdad - for example, between the Sunni Sons of Iraq and the Iraqi Army - that keep politics dysfunctional and plant the allied army units squarely in the combustible mix. Fundamental conflicts over the division of power and the allocation of disputed [often oil-rich] territories and the management or sharing of those resources continue to simmer without much prospect for early progress. One danger I see from this political stasis is that if such pending matters are not addressed soon, they could well result in an enhanced struggle between Kurdish and Arab nationalism. This is why it is high time to conclude an agreement on a federal hydrocarbons law, as well as a settlement over Kirkuk and over the division of powers that would jointly pave the way for a consensus on introducing the necessary amendments into the Iraqi constitution.

But what could be done about Kirkuk? Last month, the UN handed the Iraqi government a report that might facilitate an end to decades of deadlock. It contained four options to help overcome disputes over control of Kirkuk and recommendations on fourteen other contested areas in northern Iraq. The options treated the province as a single unit, with each UN option put forward requiring a political agreement - admittedly a gargantuan task in itself - followed by a referendum.

And what is happening with Iraqi refugees? There are 3.8 million refugees who packed their belongings and fled to safety as a result of six years of sectarian killing. About 1.8 million were displaced internally, whilst the rest left the country - mostly to Syria or Jordan. According to the UN, only 195,000 internally displaced Iraqis came back to their own homes by end-2008, but officials hope that this figure could soon reach 400,000 in case of a possible improvement in the pulse of the country.

Finally, what about the marginalised smaller communities? Those disparate groups together share a commitment to the idea of a unified and multi-cultural country. Yet, the sustained pressures challenging them have resulted not only in multiple killings in Mosul or elsewhere in the country but in scores of them becoming refugees in the Kurdish provinces, with some groups even calling for an autonomous ‘safe zone’ centred on the Nineveh Plain as the optimal - although in my opinion decidedly rash and unhelpful - egress toward their physical security.

Iraq is a huge country, fertile, strategic and rich, that is caught up in a vortex of interests as much of its own making as that of other regional and global powers. If it wishes to extricate itself from its internecine struggles and move forward, its leaders should put the broader good ahead of narrower sectarian claims and then - vitally - educate their constituencies to do likewise.

My timorous query today is whether Iraqi sagacity and nous will help achieve this self-evident but mammoth task?

Let me take the reader for the space of a few short minutes to the heady and hopeful days of 2000 when our global village had ushered in a new millennium and had actually survived it without any major apocalyptic events despite all the pronouncements of impending gloom and doom. I was still living in Jerusalem then, heading both the Jerusalem Liaison Office of the Middle East Council of Churches as well as the Jerusalem Inter-Church Committee. The latter committee was the more hands-on instrument, a sort of an ecumenical task force, which dealt with existential issues impacting all four families of churches on a daily basis in the Holy Land.

One such issue of great import for the whole region was the process for peace (as distinct from a genuine peace process) between Israel and the Palestinians within the hopeful context of the Oslo negotiations. The churches were involved - and therefore I was involved - insofar as we strove to ensure that the Christian spiritual, moral, physical, financial and ultimately political interests of the Church of Jerusalem were not broadly squandered in the endless bargains between the negotiating sides under President Bill Clinton’s nerve-racking persistence. Together, we all left our fingerprints on policy-making by underlining our concerns - until the process collapsed under its own weight let alone the lack of good faith and good will. Again, the region was bereft of a timid opportunity for peace.

But another quite ambitious and admittedly exciting project that I was heading back in 2000 was the visit (it was euphemistically referred to as a pilgrimage to make it sound less political) of the hugely charismatic and media-savvy Pope John-Paul II to the Holy Land. I recall spending frantic hours upon hours organising the different dimensions of the pilgrimage with the Apostolic Delegate and the Latin Patriarch as well as with other ecumenical church leaders and members of my own Jerusalem Inter-Church Committee whose chair was the affable Anba Abraham from the Coptic Orthodox Church. I was also constantly liaising with Joaquim Navarro-Valls, the then official spokesperson of the Vatican, who was a consummate tactician and later became a helpful colleague and even friend.

I am peeling back the pages of my own little history by nine short years since the Holy Land is re-living in 2009 the last few exciting hours before another papal pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The euphemisms continue, as we refer again to a pilgrimage, not a state visit, and we call the land La Terra Sancta or the Holy Land rather than Jordan, Israel and Palestine or even the Occupied Palestinian Territories! Pope Benedict XVI arrives to Amman, in Jordan, on 8th May and it feels that some of the constants of 2000 have almost not changed over the past decade. There is no credible peace process, merely sound bites and tactical realignments, the Palestinians are far too divided in their own little dilapidated political house of cards to matter much at all at the moment as they ostensibly implement the orders of their political ‘allies’ in Iran, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia or the USA, whilst Israel has voted in a new hard-line government that spurns a two-state solution anyway and has chosen as foreign minister a man who incarnates [in the words of Uri Avnery, the erudite Jewish peace activist from Gush Shalom] the broader meaning of fascism in Israel today.

Circumstances in 2009 are unlike those in 2000, and I have very much less to do with it, but the week-long pilgrimage when the Pope prays for peace in the Middle East simply goes ahead. So what about it? Well, let me be candid.

Last month, I was chatting with a Catholic friend in Jerusalem and we were wondering together whether this was the most opportune moment for the visit to take place. After all, the invitation by the Israeli president Shimon Peres to the Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Antonio Franco was extended last November, although it was kept under wraps until Ha'aretz, a leading Israeli daily newspaper, published the news earlier this year. Yet, the circumstances were somewhat less pressing at the time. In November, the controversy clouding the Catholic-Jewish relationship surrounded the late Pope Pius XII, with many Jews protesting against his canonisation - and ultimate beatification - since they felt that he had not spoken out strongly enough against the holocaust of the Jews by Hitler. However, that inherent problem was diplomatically dealt with when it was decided that the pope could visit Yad Vashem, the holocaust memorial site, but side-step the museum that houses a contentious caption regarding this wartime pope.

Today, on the other hand, Palestinians and Israelis are bickering on both the political and community-based levels and many involved parties are voicing their deep-seated reservations about the visit. For instance, the location of the platform Pope Benedict XVI will stand on when he visits the Aida Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem on 13th May has become a bone of contention. Israel objects to the building of the platform and amphitheatre too close to the large cement wall that is part of the ugly separation wall. It claims that such proximity to the wall poses a security threat and that the Palestinians have not acquired the necessary permits to build those structures. Palestinians, on the other hand, wish to do exactly that in order to highlight the servile nature of their existence under occupation with a refugee camp, a wall and a watchtower of the Israeli army all pointing to the unresolved nature of the Israeli-Palestinian political conflict and the colonisation of one people by another.

There are other internecine discords too. There has been a lot of squabbling, for instance, as to whether the outdoor mass on 14th May should take place in Nazareth (at the Basilica of the Annunciation) or in Haifa - with Nazareth winning this round, as it did with John-Paul II in 2000. Or even whether the Pope should be driven around the venue in his glass-covered ‘pope-mobile’ due to perceived security threats against his person. Besides, the large Greek Catholic (Melkite) community in the Galilee whose Archbishop is the well-known and charismatic Fr Elias Chacour is not too happy at what it perceives as its marginalisation during this visit in favour of the smaller Latin-rite Catholics.

Not to be outdone when it comes to prevarications, the Israeli Jerusalem City Council have called upon the mayor not to attend any of the receptions in the capital as a protest over the participation by the Vatican last month in the UN human rights’ Durban 2 conference in Geneva that the Pope qualified as “an important initiative” but where Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a vitriolic keynote address against Israel. Moreover, residents of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem are also planning a sit-in protest at the Western Wall over the decision by the police to close the shrine for twelve hours during the papal visit.

Conversely, the Islamist Movement that consists of the largest Muslim group in Israel and is viewed by some as an advocate of Hamas announced that it too would boycott the papal visit due to the Pope’s Regensburg address in 2006 where they believe he impugned Islam and its holy prophet. Readers might well recall this was one of the so-called papal public “gaffes” and caused a huge hiccough in relations between the Catholic Church and Muslims at the time.

However, all this constitutes no more than an interesting background chatter to the mosaic of ecumenical, inter-faith and inter-religious issues in the Holy Land (and here I am re-using the same euphemism) that any reader of The Tablet or other magazines and web-sites could find out. I too lived them, breathed them and grappled with them for years when I was living in Jerusalem. Yet, in my view, they do not constitute serious objections to the pilgrimage. They are diplomatic headaches that could be glossed over with some wisdom and patience for the sake of a much greater good.

The least controversial part of the pilgrimage will be to Jordan. It is always good to start with this kingdom as a precursor for the more challenging stations and political minefields ahead. Christian and Muslim Jordanians get on quite well, and as HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal indicated recently in an interview, the papal visit provides an opportunity to improve relations between the monotheistic religions. But at the end of the day, the stop in Jordan is the safe option - a bit like Moses coming to the edge of a promised land, gazing at it, but not actually crossing into it.

Further onto Israel and the Palestinian territories, there are two clear difficulties with this pilgrimage. Is the Pope going to the region to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the indigenous Christian communities? If so, my first preoccupation centres on Gaza that witnessed in December 2008 a violent war violating many normative laws and I am left wondering about its moral subtext upon the Holy See. My second preoccupation centres on Benyamin Netanyahu’s prime-ministerial portfolio in Israel as it complicates manifold any concrete hope for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Yet, I suppose that even those two events could have been explained away with a postponement, but I would also concede that any such adjournment became virtually impossible when the Pope lifted the excommunication of the Lefebvrist bishops, including the Holocaust-denier Richard Williamson, on 21st January - four short days after the Gaza ceasefire. This decision - no matter how pastoral the Pope wished it to be in terms of healing intra-Catholic fissures - created such a storm that the cancellation of the journey to the Jewish state (for that is what the Israeli government thinks of the State of Israel) became simply unimaginable. Or else the repercussions would have been quite unhelpful.

So it is almost inevitable that political capital will be made from this pilgrimage. Israel would use it to the fullest extent to show the world its acceptable new-old face, whereas the Palestinian Authority which includes the Fateh faction of Mahmoud Abbas but excludes the Islamist Hamas movement will strive to bolster its legitimacy by hosting a prominent world shepherd par excellence who visits Bethlehem - the spiritual capital of a virtual Palestinian state.

All this being equal, and given the futility of my mooting for or against this pilgrimage, I would have suggested two principal amendments at the planning stages of this journey in order to make it even more powerful and meaningful.
My first pre-condition (for that is a word that applies here) would have been that Israel finally sign, seal and deliver without any additional prevarication the Fundamental Agreement that would manage the relationship between the State of Israel and the Catholic Church in the Holy Land. I know a thing or two about this non-agreement, as I was legal adviser at the initial stages, but it has been going on for so long that something needs to be done to have it finalised - and that includes endorsement by the Israeli Knesset [parliament] so the local churches could at long last have a legal frame of reference for their rights and responsibilities - such as work permits or property management - vis à vis Israel. This is quintessential for a local church establishment - be it Catholic, Orthodox or Reform - that feels overwhelmed, harried and tussled because no legal structures predicate the relationship inter partes. What better gift for the Pope to have brought with him to the Church of Jerusalem and therefore to the Christian living stones - his foremost and most important constituency during this visit after all. Or are they not the primary subjects of this pilgrimage?

My second pre-condition (and I still use of this word) would have been for the Pope to visit Gaza and meet with the miniscule Christian community and some church-related institutions or organisations as well as to witness the ravages that the strip has sustained as a result of the recent war or the unending economic and political boycott against its ordinary residents - though not necessarily its political cadres. After all, many EU delegates have been there already, as have the Secretary-General of the UN and US Senator John Kerry, so the presence of the Pope would not have been a political mishap but rather a welcome gesture of solidarity with an isolated and oft-forgotten Gaza whose story even figures in the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. In this respect, a petition organised by academics and students from the Postgraduate Theological Union at the University of San Francisco, as well as other irenic groups, was sent to the Vatican. The petition - www.petitiononline.com/popegaza/petition.html - asserted, inter alia, that ‘as in all times, the way of reconciliation exemplified by Jesus calls us to initiate social healing by visiting, eating with, listening to, and risking our safety in solidarity with the “least among us” - in this case the people of Gaza.’ This would have laid an emphasis upon our Christian ministry for reconciliation. Or is this not the theme of the pilgrimage either?

In my humble opinion, Pope Benedict XVI is a truly remarkable man with an ineradicably robust faith. However, he follows in the steps of a Polish star, and part of the problem with this cerebral pope (as one writer suggested) is that he has a track record of blurring his compelling arguments. Indeed, when he visited Auschwitz in May 2006, he offended some Jews by asserting that the Nazis tried to destroy Christianity too. Four months later, he set off a firestorm among Muslims with a lecture at the University of Regensburg by quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor in that the prophet Mohammed brought “things only evil and inhuman,” such as “his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” In Brazil last May, he incensed indigenous people in Latin America by suggesting that Christianity was not imposed on them, and in Cameroon he raised many heckles with his misconstrued comment about prophylactics.

Yet, as learned commentators have argued at some length, Pope Benedict was actually trying in each case to make a deeper point. In Auschwitz, his contention was that objective truth grounded in God is the only bulwark against the blind will to power. His Regensburg address was devoted to reason and faith, arguing that reason shorn of faith becomes nihilism, while faith without reason ends in fanaticism and violence. In Brazil, he argued that since Christ embraces all humanity, he cannot be foreign to anyone’s spiritual experience. And in Africa, he was suggesting that condoms are not - and in fact cannot be - the answer to a permissive lifestyle devoid of personal responsibility.

Only last week, I was driving through Jdeideh, north of Dora in Beirut, when I came across a huge poster encouraging Lebanese Christians to travel to Jordan to meet the Pope. Mind you, I do hope he visits Lebanon and Syria too, since the Christian tradition is quite fertile in these lands too, and St Paul has something to say about it! Besides, the multi-confessional population of both countries could do with some encouragement and cheer. But this poster also told me how effective and eloquent the papal message could become as it oversteps cultures and frontiers. This is why in the final analysis I wish the Holy Father - a holy father after all - ample serenity in his demanding pilgrimage. I also pray that his pilgrimage will not limit itself to smiles, speeches, meetings, political encounters and occasional mea culpas, but that it will truly liberate and lift up the life, presence and witness of the Christian communities in the Holy Land.

Pope Benedict XVI often alludes to his concerns about an anaemic European Christianity. I trust he will introduce a qualitative difference to the lives of Middle Eastern Christians too - in this case for those in Jordan, Israel and Palestine - and that he would help affirm the rightful sense of belonging of local Christians to the larger inter-faith and inter-religious jigsaw of the region. I hope - and pray - that this will indeed occur as I say happy pilgrimage, your holiness.

This is Mannig Dobajian-Kouyoumjian’s spine-tingling testimony of her own experience as a survivor of the Armenian genocide. Last year, she had asked her daughter Aïda Kouyoumjian from Seattle to write her story for the US Holocaust Centre. It is a moving witness, a powerful declaration and a sobering story of the pain and humiliation of one victim of this genocide-driven mass campaign. Yet, it is also a story of how our faith helps us when we are coerced to drink from the bitter cup, a reminder of how the tenacity of hope overcomes deep despair, and evidence of how the compassionate Arab and Muslim worlds helped Armenian victims and welcomed them into their families and hearths across the whole Middle East.

The Armenian Genocide: as historians have asserted on the basis of ample archival evidence, this first genocide of the 20th century was perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish government between 1915 and 1923 when it systematically and relentlessly targeted and killed Armenians within its Empire. Ultimately, well over one million ethnic Armenians, who incidentally were Ottoman and later Turkish citizens, lost their lives.

As an Armenian born after this grisly period of our history, I often wonder how our forbears managed to persevere in the face of such immense suffering and adversity. Not only did they, their families or friends undergo the most harrowing experiences, they also managed to pick themselves up and rebound from the devastation of their orphaned situations. It is their intrepid steadfastness and their belief in their collective identity as Armenians, that we - the younger generations - can now lead our lives more freely and with more confidence.

But what does this say about modern-day Turkey on the day when Armenians commemorate the 94th anniversary of the genocide? Equally importantly, what does it say of those across the world who still resist tooth and nail the idea of genocide - any acts of genocide, be they the Armenian one or other subsequent ones - with denial, and who debase human life and dignity for spurious political and economic considerations? How can we possibly claim to defend a political order based on human rights and common decency on the one hand only to stifle it on the other? Do denialists not recall George Santayana, a principal figure in classical American philosophy, asserting that “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (in The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905).
As the American NPR broadcaster Scott Simon wrote in ‘Genocide’ is a Matter of Opinion, there are times when one has to utter the word ‘genocide’ in order to be accurate about mass murder that tries to extinguish a whole group. That is why the slaughter of a million Tutsis in Rwanda is not called merely mass murder. This is also why any politician who goes to Germany, for instance, and describes the Holocaust of European Jews merely as ‘terrible killings’ would be reviled without mercy and even prosecuted without appeal.

After all, did President Obama not also assume the high moral ground during the US presidential primaries by stating clearly that the Armenian people deserved “a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides”? Mind you, despite the high expectations and an air of suspense in the USA, this American president prevaricated in his Armenian Remembrance Day on 24th April when his written statement from the White House referred twice to the Armenian genocide as medz yeghern - translated literally as “great catastrophe” rather than “genocide” - and thereby joined a host of former US presidents who have relented from using the ‘g-word’. Is there a sad moral in this unfortunate recurrence? Is it that in a showdown between realpolitik and the truth, in other words between contemporary political expediency and the burden of past atrocities, the former seems to win most times? And if so, does this not sadly alert us - believers and humanists alike - how the values of our global world today often obviate words such as truth, conscience and honour?

24 April 2009: six years shy of a century and denial - no matter whether individual, collective or institutional - still contaminates the truth. Is it therefore not high time to put the record straight? Is it not time for Turkish officials to put jingoism, let alone misplaced pride or fear aside by recognising this unfortunate chapter of their Ottoman history during WWI? Is it not time for the Turkish judicial system today to stop invoking Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code and charging reporters or writers, including the Nobel laureate Orthan Pamuk, with the risible crime of ‘insulting Turkish national identity’ simply because they refer to the massacres of Armenians as genocide? Is it not time also for Turkish President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to prove their EU-friendly credentials and reformist integrity by mustering the political fortitude let alone moral rectitude to acknowledge past aberrations? Moreover, is it not time for the world community to embark upon a veritable phase of genocide education by underlining the eight stages of genocide that culminate with denial - as elaborated by Dr Gregory H Stanton in his Eight Stages of Genocide in 1998 when he was president of Genocide Watch? Or as the chartered clinical psychologist Aida Alayarian elucidated in her book Consequences of Denial, does the denial of the Armenian genocide not deprive its victims the opportunity to make sense of their experience, as much as render Turkish society unable to come to terms with its past, and therefore with itself?

Such recognition is not solely for the sake of Armenians. After all, I consider this genocide a historically-recognised reality even if some governments dither, equivocate and refuse to admit to it for reasons that have more to do with political weakness than historical truthfulness. Rather, it is also for the memory of all those righteous Turks who assisted, harboured and supported Armenians during this wounded chapter of history. But as a firm believer in forgiveness and reconciliation, it is ultimately for the sake of both Armenians and Turks alike so they can begin the painful but ineluctable journey toward a just closure of this open sore.

I am busy multi-tasking this evening: I am sitting in front of my laptop listening to The Next Step, a weekly pod-cast with Fr Vazken as he leads his listeners into Holy Week and helps us overcome our crosses by understanding Jesus’ desire to walk in our shoes. I am also watching a Journey to Jerusalem, an imaginative Christian Aid project that accompanies thousands of men and women on a virtual journey through the Holy Land. With an input from people who have travelled in the region - and those that live and work there - we cyber-pilgrims have not only been visiting the biblical sites but have also been hearing what it means to live and witness in this broken part of the world and to toil for peace despite innumerable challenges. This virtual journey that culminates this week in Jerusalem began on the first day of Lent, 25th February, from the Mount of Temptation near Jericho and has already stopped in Bethlehem, Hebron, Gaza, Sderot, Jaffa, Tel Aviv and Nazareth amongst many stations. Along the way, there have been reflections on what Jesus’ example can teach us about making a difference in the world, and short You Tube blogs that have underscored the spiritual dimension of peace-building.

But why did Christian Aid undertake this journey? In a nutshell, it provides an opportunity to hear directly, from both Israelis and Palestinians, about their rich narratives of optimism and pessimism, of joy, fear, uncertainty, violence, suffering, frustration or ultimately hope. I suppose viewers would have their own special moments during this virtual pilgrimage. I was particularly gripped, for instance, by the virtual time I spent in Gaza and saw the devastation and discrimination suffered by ordinary Palestinians in this strip of land, or by the way one film-maker, Nour al-Halaby, challenged the stereotypes we bear in our minds of the peoples of this region. But I was equally inspired with hope when I watched a blog visit to Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as ordinary people laboured for understanding and reconciliation, or when I heard bereaved families who are part of the Parents Circle - Families Forum sharing their anxieties as Palestinians and Israelis who have lost kith and kin, and yet have come together to struggle for peace.

Let me paraphrase Simon Barrow, co-director of Ekklesia, a leading religion and society think-tank in England, who commented on this Journey to Jerusalem, by pointing out that it will contribute to the movement for hope and change in Israel-Palestine as well as open our eyes and hearts to what is going on in this land and its significance in human and spiritual terms. He also added, and here I quote, “This imaginative initiative captures the true spirit of Lent, which is not just about detaching ourselves from the selfish impulses which end up dividing human communities; it also positively unites us to the dream and struggle of ‘a new world coming’ in the midst of tension and fear.”

For me, Lent reflects multiple facets, but it is principally a period for meditation, mirroring the time Jesus spent in the desert, and on the Mount of Temptation, wrestling with the call on his life. So I see this virtual journey - with its comments, images, witnesses, and prayers from the likes of Revd Naim Ateek in different towns or villages - as another opportunity to introduce largely uninformed “pilgrims” to the faith-based truths and cutting realities in a Holy Land of two peoples and three faiths - Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Christians and Muslims. In the political hurly-burly of all the regional conflicts, some of us tend to forget that Christians - the Living Stones that St Peter refers to in his first epistle (1 Pet 2:5) - are indigenous to the land, with co-equal rights and obligations, and are an indissoluble part of the wider universal Christian fellowship. We need to wake up to this fact, recognise it, not tuck it away or ignore it, and act accordingly in our lives.

Two thoughts constantly criss-crossed my mind whenever watching this virtual journey. The first is a powerful statement by an Israeli Jewish woman in one blog who underlined the deep-rooted difficulties of peace-building between Israelis and Palestinians but added that we should not give up hope, even if progress is as slow and frustrating ‘as taking water out of the sea with a teaspoon’! The second evocative thought is attributed to St Augustine of Hippo, reminding us that hope has two children: anger and courage, anger at the way things are in the world, and the courage to do something to change it.

Today, my own Lenten faith journey forces me to pause first in front of the daunting shadows of death on Good Friday (or, appropriately enough, al-joum’a al-hazina / Sad Friday in Arabic) to recall, sense and also mourn the heavy significance of the crucifixion. Otherwise, how can I truly move on toward the glorious joy of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday? But even now, the journey does not end with the empty tomb. This perplexing space of nothingness so replete with meaning is a living witness to the reconciliation between God and humankind, and yet also highlights our abject collective failure to date to make peace with each other. No surprise then if I recall Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount as he blessed peacemakers (Mt 5:9) and wish all Palestinian and Arab Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere a real - not virtual - Easter.