After employment minister Jason Kenney, and our Conservative MP John Weston were in town last week, I want to invite them to come with me on a Christian pilgrimage to Gaza.
I know they must be busy squaring the circle on how to allow poor temporary foreign workers into our tourism economy while executing their new immigration policy that favours educated, rich professionals from countries the government likes.
As an Anglican priest who was in Gaza last November for meetings with senior management at the Al Ahli Anglican Hospital, I will pay all their expenses to go for the love of Jesus to Gaza City today. Jesus as we know always went to the places where people are hungry, naked or in prison.
I know how to get the permit and will drive to the Eretz Crossing. After security at the prison gates we go on foot for more than a kilometre through a wired walkway. On the other side, a Greek Orthodox driver with the hospital van will pick us up. I will first confirm that it is not out picking up wounded civilians.
It is a 20-minute drive to the hospital where we will see first-hand the enormous density and desperation of the 1.8 million refugees and displaced Palestinians eeking out a living. But I am sure you have seen third world poverty before.
At the hospital they have backup generators so hopefully the power will be on. Suheila and the head of the medical staff will show us the trauma, cancer and other wards crammed into 75 beds. We have seen the pictures on CTV of the dead, dying and wounded. As a priest and as Christians we with our Lord are acquainted with grief. With Him we may also weep.
There are many other places and people in Gaza I will introduce you to and little children at UN-run schools to whom we can hold out a Canadian Christian hand of hope and compassion.
That’s what Canada is really all about isn’t it?
I recommend staying at the Marna House Hotel. It is fairly safe and only $80 a night. Hopefully there are not drones flying overhead or bombs blasting nearby. We meet fear with faith.
Over dinner can we discuss Canada’s role after Hamas is destroyed, Fatah is flattened and Israel fully inherits all the land and the responsibility for more than four million Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank. What is the cost of reconstruction? Israel’s economy is already strained. I read that more than $3 billion is spent on this operation alone.
The rising inequality among Israelis is a major headache for Likud. The UN is broke. Egypt is broke and as we know, even throws a Canadian journalist in jail on trumped up charges. By default it all falls to Jerusalem.
Israel is on the way to bankruptcy. As good Canadian friends, and your constituents in Squamish and the Sea to Sky, what will we do? Please accept my invitation to go as Jesus went into the pain and suffering, and find new After employment minister Jason Kenney, and our Conservative MP John Weston were in town last week, I want to invite them to come with me on a Christian pilgrimage to Gaza.
I know they must be busy squaring the circle on how to allow poor temporary foreign workers into our tourism economy while executing their new immigration policy that favours educated, rich professionals from countries the government likes.
As an Anglican priest who was in Gaza last November for meetings with senior management at the Al Ahli Anglican Hospital, I will pay all their expenses to go for the love of Jesus to Gaza City today. Jesus as we know always went to the places where people are hungry, naked or in prison.
I know how to get the permit and will drive to the Eretz Crossing. After security at the prison gates we go on foot for more than a kilometre through a wired walkway. On the other side, a Greek Orthodox driver with the hospital van will pick us up. I will first confirm that it is not out picking up wounded civilians.
The Reverend William Roberts
St. John’s Anglican Church, Squamish
