Jerusalem Bishops trade charges over fraud claims: CEN 2.15.08 p 6. February 16, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Corruption, Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East.trackback
The former Bishop in Jerusalem has denied accusations of fraud and theft brought by his successor. In a Feb 6 statement the Rt. Rev. Riah Abu al-Assal disputed the financial misconduct charges leveled by the Rt. Rev. Suheil Dawani, hitting back with his own charges of conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy.
In a Jan 29 statement given to The Church of England Newspaper Bishop Dawani alleged that shortly before Bishop Riah’s retirement in 2007, Bishop Riah transfered the assets of the diocesan school to a charitable trust.
“Members of the charity include Bishop Riah’s wife and nephew. Through this charity, Bishop Riah, is collecting the tuition from the students and is not depositing the monies in the school’s official bank account, whilst, all the employees at the school are official Diocesan institution employees and receive their salaries from the Diocese,” he said.
The issue was brought to a head, Bishop Suheil said, when Bishop Riah refused to vacate the diocese’s Nazareth offices, claiming they were his own property.
Bishop Suhiel brought suit and on Jan 22 a Nazareth court issued an injunction against Bishop Riah and his family, ordering them to give an accounting and banning them from the property.
Bishop Riah has denied the charges and told CEN there never was a diocesan office in Nazareth. He further stated the school’s finances were separate from the diocese.
“Supported by the parents of the students and the many friends through out the world, by the grace of God, I managed to raise the necessary funds to build the Campus. I - personally, and not as a Bishop or a priest, often guaranteed the school account when it went in the red by hundreds of thousands of shekels,” he said.
The decision to form the charity was taken at the request of the Israeli Ministry of Education, he said, noting that all funds collected by the charity were under the “direct supervision” of the registrar “as well as the State Comptroller. Not a single penny was used to benefit any except the school children and their teachers.”
“To build takes years. To destroy takes minutes. That is how Bishop Suheil starts his ministry” Bishop Riah charged. “The Court case is still in the beginning. This negative energy will serve neither the Diocese nor our Palestinian people and certainly not the family of the Campus,” he said.
Bishop Suheil was not being entirely straight forward in his account, Bishop Riah said. In Feb 2007 the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams “having become aware of difficulties in relationships, named Bishop Michael Langrish of Exeter as an Honest Broker to bridge the gap” between the two factions”
“I thankfully accepted and made the necessary booking to fly to England while bishop Suheil bluntly declined,” he said. Bishop Suheil’s office declined comment on the latest round of charges.
NO PALESTINIAN STATE – No land concessions R3.
Imagine that the various people who settled in the United States for the past 300 years decided one day that they one to parcel the United States into an independent State just for them, would the American public go for it. The Answer is absolutely NO.
The situation in Israel today is no different. The Arabs there are not Palestinians, there is no such Arab nation as Palestine or Palestinian people.
Europeans countries today are consisting of numerous people from other countries. Would the Europeans people cede part of their country to set up another State in their midst. The answer is absolutely NO.
All the Arabs in Israel and surrounding areas are from the various Arab nations, such as Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and other Arab nations.
Prominent PLO Arab says there are no ‘Palestinians’ and no “Palestine”
PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein admitted in a March 31, 1977 interview with a Dutch newspaper Trouw.
“The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism. ”
The Qur’an 17:104 - states the land belongs to the Jewish people
If the historic documents, comments written by eyewitnesses and declarations by the most authoritative Arab scholars are still not enough, let us quote the most important source for Muslim Arabs:
“And thereafter we [Allah] said to the Children of Israel: ‘Dwell securely in the Promised Land. And when the last warning will come to pass, we will gather you together in a mingled crowd’.”.
017.104
YUSUFALI: And We said thereafter to the Children of Israel, “Dwell securely in the land (of promise)”: but when the second of the warnings came to pass, We gathered you together in a mingled crowd.
PICKTHAL: And We said unto the Children of Israel after him: Dwell in the land; but when the promise of the Hereafter cometh to pass We shall bring you as a crowd gathered out of various nations.
SHAKIR: And We said to the Israelites after him: Dwell in the land: and when the promise of the next life shall come to pass, we will bring you both together in judgment.
- Qur’an 17:104 -
Any sincere Muslim must recognize the Land they call “Palestine” as the Jewish Homeland, according to the book considered by Muslims to be the most sacred word and Allah’s ultimate revelation.
Sequence of historical events, agreements and a non-broken series of treaties and resolutions, as laid out by the San Remo Resolution, the League of Nations and the United Nations, gives the Jewish People title to the city of Jerusalem and the rest of Israel totaling approximately 45,000 square miles, as mandated by the League of Nations in July of 1922. The process began at San Remo, Italy, when the four Principal Allied Powers of World War I - Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan - agreed to create a Jewish national home in what is now the Land of Israel. (You might as well break apart Syria which was mandated at the same time).
Yehuda Draiman.
PS
20 Years of Research Reveals Jerusalem Belongs to Jews
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) Jacques Gauthier, a non-Jewish Canadian lawyer who spent 20 years researching the legal status of Jerusalem, has concluded: “Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, by international law.”.
Gauthier has written a doctoral dissertation on the topic of Jerusalem and its legal history, based on international treaties and resolutions of the past 90 years. The dissertation runs some 1,300 pages, with 3,000 footnotes. Gauthier had to present his thesis to a world-famous Jewish historian and two leading international lawyers - the Jewish one of whom has represented the Palestinian Authority on numerous occasions.
Gauthier’s main point, as summarized by Israpundit editor Ted Belman, is that a non-broken series of treaties and resolutions, as laid out by the San Remo Resolution, the League of Nations and the United Nations, gives the Jewish People title to the city of Jerusalem. The process began at San Remo, Italy, when the four Principal Allied Powers of World War I - Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan - agreed to create a Jewish national home in what is now the Land of Israel.