George Deek on Israel's Relationship with the Christian World
About this episode
The episode discusses Israel's newly appointed special envoy to the Christian world, George Deek, and the challenges in Israel's relationship with Christian communities.
In April of this year, Israel's Foreign Ministry created a position that had never before existed: special envoy to the Christian world. The appointment came after a string of incidents that have strained Israel's standing with Christian communities: an IDF soldier destroyed a statue of Jesus in Lebanon; during the war with Iran, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pizzaballa, was barred for safety reasons from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; a nun was assaulted in Jerusalem; and videos of Jewish Israelis despicably spitting on Christians have gone viral on social media. There are not very many of these incidents, thankfully, but each and every one does enormous damage to Israel's standing and contradicts all of the good work that Israel does to keep its Christian minority safe. Aside from the publicity problems that they create, these incidents (with the exception of the protective measures that kept worshippers from Jerusalem's holy places during a ballistic-missile attack) are in and of themselves wrong. That's why they've been so roundly condemned by the highest levels of Israeli government, including by Prime Minister Netanyahu. In response, the foreign minister…
People in this episode
Guest: George Deek
Topics covered
- Israel
- Christian relations
- diplomacy
- politics
- religion
- minority rights
Keywords
- Israel
- Christian world
- George Deek
- diplomacy
- religion
- IDF
- minority rights
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Israel's Foreign Ministry
Books & works: Church of the Holy Sepulcher
Places: Jaffa, Jerusalem, Lebanon
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