Kill the Christians

Jane Corbin was in super-superficial mode in last night’s programme Kill the Christians.

Corbin’s thrust appeared to be that the Christians are being persecuted and murdered by Islamic State, alongside the wrong kind of Muslims whom I.S. lunatics are presently slaughtering in droves. It made copious use of ‘old’ footage of Islamic State parading its victims, pre-beheading, in their orange jumpsuits.

The programme espoused the increasingly prevalent theory that Islamic countries were, after all, better off under the stabilising influence of tyrannical despotic leaders like Saddam and Assad. This is a distinctly credible theory, but as far as the current crisis concerning Christians in the Middle East is concerned it’s a distraction.

Jane Corbin was filmed striding hither and thither on mountain paths. She and her replenished hair were standing a mere stone’s throw from an Islamic State stronghold, she announced, pointing to smoke plumes billowing in the distance. 

Corbin visited beleaguered Christians sheltering in monasteries and spoke to Christian priests. All the while one of Corbin’s gravity-defying scarves was draped over her shoulders; never out of place, in sharp symbolic contrast to the displaced Christian families stripped of their churches, homes and livelihoods whose tales she was recounting. 

I don’t claim to be an expert on the topic of the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, but it was my understanding that this process began long before the comparatively recent rise of the IS.

Canon Andrew White, aka The Vicar of Baghdad,  was conspicuous by his absence in this programme. He is the real expert on the exodus of Christians from Iraq, and he has long been trying to tell the world of their plight. Corbin didn’t even mention his name.

Another glaring flaw in this hour-long un-investigative piece of journalism was the Bethlehem section. I didn’t hear Corbin explain that Bethlehem is run by the PA, or that the persecution of Christians is not really the fault of the IP conflict - it’s my understanding that it’s more a case of the Muslim Palestinians‘  long standing antipathy to Christians or any religious group that differs from their own. Corbin’s narrative gave the opposite impression. So what’s the truth?

I’d better leave that matter to the specialists, and I hope BBC Watch will elucidate in due course, but if Corbin intended to imply that Israel was guilty of something here, she was treading on dangerous ground. Remember Sarah Montague and Baroness Warsi?

Jane Corbin was off form this time.  Her hair seems to have purloined all her mojo; but is she worth it?  

Update: BBC Watch

Morally indefensible

Israel won’t talk while rockets are being fired from Gaza! Also, Hamas won’t accept preconditions.

So hang on.  Hamas won’t accept preconditions; it will send rockets, deal or no deal.  

The BBC recounts this demand with scrupulous impassivity lest they commit a value judgment. 

Later the BBC passes on the news that Hamas will contemplate a ceasefire, but only if Israel meets its demands.  This looks like a precondition, smells like a precondition and walks like a precondition. 

Hamas’s demands are: 1.) Israel lifts the blockade.  2.) Israel ends the occupation. Hamas reserves the right to send rockets, or (should Israel accede to demands 1 or 2) bring rockets in person. 

Stalemate. Unless Hamas decides that there is no longer any need to kill Jews. This could happen if God comes along and says ‘Lo! it would be nicer if everyone would live happily ever after” 

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Sayeeda Warsi was on the Today programme last year warning us about the persecution of Christians. 

Sarah Montague managed to give the erroneous impression that Israel was amongst those doing the persecuting, and Warsi didn’t clarify. It was the subject of a complaint to the BBC and upheld, for what it’s worth, by the Editorial Complaints Unit. 

So Sayeeda isn’t just concerned about the Palestinians. She is aware of the plight of Christians.  If she doesn’t make a fuss over what is happening in Iraq now, but still obsesses about Gaza it will look pretty bad. Her position will be morally indefensible.

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Canon Andrew White has a very sad tale to tell, which you can read here.  

He used to say Christians should stand firm and stay put, but now he’s seen the depth of the brutality he no longer can.

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I can’t see what the Conservatives are making all that fuss about. Their piddling ethnic minority vote was neither here nor there. It’s the UKIP vote they should be trying to  steal. If they stood firmly behind Israel they might just stand a chance, especially now that Hitler is being bandied about as a role model for prospective UKIP orators.

About vicars

"Male vicars (as opposed to women vicars whose gender predisposes them to ‘listen to people’) are frequently waiting to fill the first moment of silence with their own intellectual offerings” said the father of a female vicar on Sunday Live. (roughly) It was a negative comment about the latter, but still, in the absence of debate all we can do here on this blog is fill space with offerings. We’re not even vicars.

Anyway that made me think of a vicar I admire, Canon Andrew White “The Vicar of Baghdad” and I wonder how he’s doing now.