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Showing posts from January, 2015

The Arab awakening of the Orthodox patriarchate of Jerusalem reloaded

As it was mentioned here before, the Greek Orthodox - more correctly called the Rum Orthodox - patriarchate of Jerusalem has a legitimation problem (watch some footage here ). The patriarchate, which covers Jordan (with a sizable Orthodox population) Palestine and Israel, has an almost entirely Arab congregation but the highest ranking clergy including the patriarch is from Greece. It's a long ongoing struggle of emancipation from the Greeks which dates back way to the mandatory period, when the Orthodox community had its own Arab awakening. But the struggle against Greek domination is also deeply connected to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, mainly because the patriarchate is often accused of being to soft to Israeli demands, foremost selling church owned land to the Jewish state. Also the measures against the lately increasing efforts towards the conscription of Christians to the IDF , which is propagated by an Orthodox priest, are lukewarm if any. Remember,  Irenai...

Short documentary about Druze in Israel

Israel Social TV , an independent leftist media NGO platform, produced a short documentary about the Druze in Israel and their relationship with the state. Unsurprisingly the token perspective is that of the Arabist camp but also one of the most outspoken Zionist activists is featured. The latter is Amal Nasr ad-Din, the first Druze Likud MK (1977-1988) and founder of the Druze Zionist Circle . Both narratives are at some point disputable but it is interesting to observe that they agree to a certain level about the negligence by the state.   Don't see it as an objective documentary about Druze in Israel, consider it rather as a presentation of two opposing narratives.