Archbishop of York ‘intimidated by Israeli militias’ during visit to Palestinian families
The Reverend Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York, revealed he felt “intimidated” by Israeli militias during his visit to the Holy Land this year.
He said he was stopped at checkpoints and told by these groups that he could not visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank.
In his Christmas Day sermon at York Minster, he said: “We have become – and I really can’t think of any other way of expressing this – afraid of each other, and especially afraid of strangers, or simply of people who are not very like us.
“We seem unable to see ourselves in these, and so we reject our common humanity.”
He said representatives of the YMCA charity in Bethlehem, which works with “persecuted Palestinian communities” in the West Bank, presented him with a carving of an olive wood nativity scene.
The work showed a “great gray wall” preventing the three kings from going to the stable to see Mary, Joseph and Jesus.
The Church of England archbishop added: “It was very sobering for me to actually see this wall on my visit to the Holy Land and we were stopped and intimidated at various checkpoints by Israeli militia who told us we could not visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank.
“But here in York this Christmas morning, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I also think about all the walls and barriers we have erected all over the world, and perhaps most worryingly, I think about the walls and barriers we have built around ourselves, built in our hearts and minds, and how we protect ourselves with fear from strangers – strangers we encounter in the homeless on our streets, refugees seeking asylum, young people growing up deprived of opportunities and without hope for the future. We are in danger of not being able to welcome the Messiah when he comes.”
