Meeting with Bishop Suheil Dawani

In the evening of Sunday 9 Dec 2007, our Australian delegation met with Episcopal Bishop Suheil Dawani in a meeting room at St George's Cathedral in West Jerusalem.

Bishop Dawini told us, as many other Palestinian Christians have pointed out, that it is critically important to keep the "living stones" as well as the "historical stones" in Jerusalem. While many thousands of people visit the great holy sites of the Holy Land every year, the long exodus of wealthy and well educated Palestinians from the land continues. Today only about two per cent of the population is Palestinian - because of Palestinians leaving, Jews arriving throughout the past century, and Arabs tending to have large families (in refugee camps it is not unusual for parents to have 10-15 children).

More alarming still, Bishop Dawani said, is that "Our young people have lost hope for the future. Those who can, they leave Palestine for education, and they do not come back to this desperate situation."

Although the Cathedral has a small regular congregation, it supports 37 benevolent and educational institutions. For more information see http://www.j-diocese.org/.

Picture (L-R): Mr Yusef Daher, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall and Bishop Suheil Dawani, at St George's Cathedral, West Jerusalem.