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Peace Process

Rice in Bethlehem: `Prince of Peace still with us`


By Stan Goodenough
October 17, 2007

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice apparently believes she has God's blessing to push Israel into giving up land for promises of peace from the "Palestinians."

Wednesday, the fourth day of her visit to the Middle East where she is trying to cobble together a US-hosted peace conference between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs next month, Rice visited the PA-controlled town of Bethlehem and stopped at the Church of the Nativity.

One of the oldest church structures in the region, the Church of the Nativity is administered by Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Apostolic authorities as a traditional site of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Christmas visitors to the once-Christian but today almost wholly Muslim town have in recent years seen Manger Square festooned by banners of the late arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat posters describing Jesus as "the first freedom fighter."

"Being here, at the birthplace of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has been a very special and moving experience," Rice said afterwards.

"The Prince of Peace is still with us," she was also quoted as saying.

Rice, the daughter and granddaughter of Presbyterian ministers, describes herself as "deeply religious."

The position she holds on the Arab effort to steal Jewish lands identifies her as an adherent of Replacement Theology - the broad stream in Christendom which holds that the "Old Testament" promises of the Land of Israel as the exclusive inheritance of the Jewish people no longer apply.

Like President George W. Bush - also a professing Christian - Rice insists on dealing with the "Palestinian"- Israeli conflict as a purely political situation for which there can be only political solutions.

Furthermore, the African-American Rice has also revealed on a number of occasions that she sees parallels between the condition of the Palestinian Arabs and that of black Americans in segregated Alabama where she grew up.

What the Bush administration and most leaders of traditionally Judeo-Christian countries will not acknowledge, is that the Muslim Arab side views the political battle as inseparable from the spiritual one: According to their beliefs, both have to be won, and the "greater" god they serve has promised them victory.

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