The Pope of Hope: Egypt’s Tawadros II on status of Copts, regional politics and Saudi reforms

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Pope Tawadros II talks regional politics, status of Copts and his views on reforms in Saudi Arabia. (Photo: Ziyad Alarfaj)
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The pope, below right, in a file photo with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his previous visit to Cairo in March. (AN photo by Ziyad Alarfaj)
Updated 06 December 2018
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The Pope of Hope: Egypt’s Tawadros II on status of Copts, regional politics and Saudi reforms

  • Tawadros spoke about the damage inflicted on the Copts in Egypt during the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule from 2012 to 2013
  • Tawadros is looking forward to visiting Saudi Arabia soon at the invitation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

CAIRO: It was July 21, 1969, and Neil Armstrong had just taken mankind’s first steps on the moon. In Egypt, 16-year-old Wagih Subhi Baqi Sulayman was transfixed by the achievement. More in hope than in any expectation of a reply, he wrote to the US astronaut asking for an autograph.

A few weeks later, to the young man’s surprise, an envelope arrived containing a signed, color photo of the moon landing.

Nearly 50 years later, while the hair is a little more gray, Wagih’s eyes remain very much on celestial matters. Of course, nobody refers to him by his birth name these days. For more than 100 million Egyptians, and to the rest of the world, he is now known as Tawadros II, the 118th Pope of Alexandria, Patriarch of the See of St. Mark and leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.

He has, sadly, lost the moon landing photo — but never the memory of those days. With a soft voice and a gentle smile that lasted throughout our interview at St Mark’s Cathedral in the Abbassia district of Cairo, he recalled obtaining Armstrong’s address from a radio program on Voice of America that encouraged pen pals to write to him.




Pope Tawadros receives an Arab News cartoon commissioned in solidarity with Egyptians after a December 2016 attack on a church. The cartoon, by Mohammed Rayes, shows the word Cairo written using the C from a mosque’s crescent and a cross from a church. In picture: Editor in Chief Faisal Abbas and Noor Nuqali, Riyadh correspondent (AN photo)

“I sent him a letter, telling him I would love to see a color photo of him on the moon, because the newspapers used to publish his photo in black and white. I was surprised when I received the envelope.”

The teenager had assumed that Armstrong was named after the Nile River. “I was obsessed with his name. In the West, they are used to the name Neil. But here in Egypt no one would call his child Nile, although it is a beautiful name.”

The selection of Tawadros II as pope, a complex ritual, concluded in November 2012 and came at a difficult time for Egyptian Christians and the country in general. It was shortly after the collapse of the Mubarak presidency and coincided with the short-lived rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and the rise of Daesh. 

Our regions have been established with the existence of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. The meetings that the crown prince and Saudi officials are holding are very beneficial to the nation and the Kingdom. 

Pope Tawadros II

Tawadros leads nearly 15 million Copts in Egypt and a further 2 million abroad, according to the church’s registry. They practice a form of Christianity established 2,000 years ago by St. Mark, and, like most Christians and minorities in the region, have endured persecution at various times in their history. 

Recently, however, the persecution has become so widespread that the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for an effort to protect Christians in the Middle East. Pope Tawadros agrees the situation is alarming. “Emptying the Middle East of Christians poses a great danger to stability and peace,” he says. “Christianity is deeply rooted in the Middle East.When all our countries were established, Christians and Muslims were there, as well as Jews in ancient history.” 

The pope describes events in Syria and Iraq, with the rise of Daesh, as “very painful,” and points out that Christians who had to flee and seek asylum abroad were among the most affected. However, his concerns extend beyond the plight of Christians alone, and he argues that a “weakening of Arab countries” means “the weakening of Arabs as a whole … Christians and Muslims alike.” 

Nevertheless, when it comes to his home country of Egypt, Tawadros is slightly more optimistic. “If you read through history, you will find that the Lebanese emigrated three centuries ago. However, the Christians in Egypt only started to emigrate 50 years ago, and that was due to the conditions that existed then.”

Under Muslim Brotherhood rule in 2012-2013, Tawadros says, “Christians feared for their lives and fled the country. When the country regained its stability, a lot of them returned to Egypt. Christian emigration rates have dropped significantly.” 

Despite the pope’s reassurances, many Copts are increasingly alarmed, their fear fueled by a surge in attacks on both them and their places of worship. Indeed, Egypt was highlighted as a country of concern in a report published this year by Open Doors, a US charity that supports persecuted Christians worldwide. 

Tawadros says that these attacks are painful, but insists that their target is not Copts themselves or their churches, but “Egyptian unity.” 

“To be fair, these attacks also targeted the armed forces, the police, and our brothers and sisters in mosques. One year ago, a mosque in Al-Arish region in North Sinai was a target for a terrorist attack where many Egyptians died.”

Nevertheless, one attack in particular this year was unprecedented. The body of Bishop Anba Epiphanius, abbot of the Monastery of St. Macarius, 100 km northwest of Cairo, was found with a crushed skull in his monastic cell in July. Those accused of the murder are traditionalists of his own faith, and they await trial. The crime appears to be directed at Pope Tawadros’ reformist, outward-looking and ecumenical policies. 

The pope denies the existence of a split in the church and says life as normal carries on in all monasteries. Such a one-off crime may happen “at any time and place,” he says. “Even between the disciples of Jesus, there was a disciple called Judas who sold his soul to evil. The authorities are now investigating this crime and we are waiting for the findings.”

As for Pope Tawadros’ own political views, at first he resists my attempts to persuade him to reveal them. “Religion should not interfere with politics,” he insists. But this is the Middle East, and “even if religion doesn’t want to interfere in politics, politics will interfere with religion,” I persevere. 

“The cause of crises in the world is this interference,” he replies with a sigh.

However, it would be a mistake to think that because the pope is reluctant to express his opinions, he does not have them. A year ago, he cancelled a meeting with US Vice President Mike Pence in protest at Washington’s decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The church said that the US decision had failed to “take into consideration the feelings of millions of Arab people.”

Tawadros views Palestine as an “occupied country,” and hopes a “spirit of understanding prevails” between Israelis and Palestinians so that Jerusalem can be a capital for both states “and peace reigns in the region.”

Leading a minority in a highly politicized part of the world, Coptic popes have always been careful with their positions. For instance, Cyril VI, pope from 1959 until his death in 1971, banned Copts from going to Jerusalem for pilgrimage after the Israeli occupation of 1967. The ban remained even after Egypt and Israel signed their peace treaty in 1979, and officially still does.

“The normalization … was between the Egyptian government and the Israeli government, but not between the two peoples,” explains Tawadros. However, he argues that the ban has ended up harming the Coptic presence in the Holy Land, and the rules have been slightly relaxed to allow elders who have children living abroad to travel to Jerusalem.

Tawadros himself made a rare visit there in 2015, to lead the funeral prayers for Bishop Abraham, the Coptic Metropolitan Archbishop of Jerusalem and the Near East. He also visited the Vatican in 2013, the first visit of a Coptic pope in 40 years, and his last trip was in July this year. “It is a good relationship based on friendship and love with Pope Francis,” he says. “There is a dialogue committee between us and the Vatican that meets annually.”

Meanwhile, on a state visit to Egypt this year, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman invited Tawadros to the Kingdom, and all eyes are on when that visit might take place.

Tawadros found the crown prince “an open-minded person who has a modern vision to life, and this pleases us a lot. I personally follow all the positive developments that took place under the directives of King Salman, his crown prince and all Saudi officials, especially since Saudi Arabia is a main pillar of the Arab and the Islamic world, and on the international level as well.

“The meetings that the crown prince and Saudi officials are holding on all levels, whether religious, political or cultural, are very beneficial to the nation and the Kingdom and contribute to human development. We hail and appreciate these efforts that encompass a lot of hope for our brothers in Saudi Arabia.

So when will Pope Tawadros visit the Kingdom? “There is no specific time for the visit, but it will take place when God wishes,” he says.


Hezbollah says launched drones at ‘sensitive military targets’ in Tel Aviv

Updated 27 November 2024
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Hezbollah says launched drones at ‘sensitive military targets’ in Tel Aviv

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it launched drones at “sensitive military targets” in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening, after deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut and as news of a ceasefire deal was announced.
“In response to the targeting of the capital Beirut and the massacres committed by the Israeli enemy against civilians,” Hezbollah launched “drones at a group of sensitive military targets in the city of Tel Aviv and its suburbs,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement.
 

 


What does the US-brokered truce ending Israel-Hezbollah fighting include?

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. (AP)
Updated 27 November 2024
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What does the US-brokered truce ending Israel-Hezbollah fighting include?

  • The Lebanese army would deploy troops to south of the Litani to have around 5,000 soldiers there, including at 33 posts along the border with Israel, a Lebanese security source told Reuters

BEIRUT: Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah are set to implement a ceasefire early on Wednesday as part of a US-proposed deal for a 60-day truce to end more than a year of hostilities.
The text of the deal has not been published and Reuters has not seen a draft.
US President Joe Biden announced the deal, saying it was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities. Israel’s security cabinet has approved it and it will be put to the whole cabinet for review. Lebanon Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the deal, which Hezbollah approved last week.
The agreement, negotiated by US mediator Amos Hochstein, is five pages long and includes 13 sections, according to a senior Lebanese political source with direct knowledge of the matter.
Here is a summary of its key provisions.

HALT TO HOSTILITIES
The halt to hostilities is set to begin at 4 a.m local time (0200 GMT) on Wednesday, Biden announced, with both sides expected to cease fire by Wednesday morning.
The senior Lebanese source said Israel was expected to “stop carrying out any military operations against Lebanese territory, including against civilian and military targets, and Lebanese state institutions, through land, sea and air.”
All armed groups in Lebanon — meaning Hezbollah and its allies — would halt operations against Israel, the source said.

ISRAELI TROOPS WITHDRAW
Two Israeli officials said the Israeli military would withdraw from southern Lebanon within 60 days. Biden said the troops would gradually pull out and civilians on both sides would be able to return home.
Lebanon had earlier pushed for Israeli troops to withdraw as quickly as possible within the truce period, Lebanese officials told Reuters. They now expect Israeli troops to withdraw within the first month, the senior Lebanese political source said.
A Lebanese official told Reuters the deal included language that preserved both Lebanon’s and Israel’s rights to self-defense.

HEZBOLLAH PULLS NORTH, LEBANESE ARMY DEPLOYS
Hezbollah fighters will leave their positions in southern Lebanon to move north of the Litani River, which runs about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border with Israel.
Their withdrawal will not be public, the senior Lebanese political source said. He said the group’s military facilities “will be dismantled” but it was not immediately clear whether the group would take them apart itself, or whether the fighters would take their weapons with them as they withdrew.
The Lebanese army would deploy troops to south of the Litani to have around 5,000 soldiers there, including at 33 posts along the border with Israel, a Lebanese security source told Reuters.
“The deployment is the first challenge — then how to deal with the locals that want to return home,” given the risks of unexploded ordnance, the source said.
More than 1.2 million people have been displaced by Israeli strikes on Lebanon, many of them from south Lebanon. Hezbollah sees the return of the displaced to their homes as a priority, Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters.
Tens of thousands displaced from northern Israel are also expected to return home.

MONITORING MECHANISM
One of the sticking points in the final days leading to the ceasefire’s conclusion was how it would be monitored, Lebanon’s deputy speaker of parliament Elias Bou Saab told Reuters.
A pre-existing tripartite mechanism between the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL), the Lebanese army and the Israeli army would be expanded to include the US and France, with the US chairing the group, Bou Saab said.
Israel would be expected to flag possible breaches to the monitoring mechanism, and France and the US together would determine whether a violation had taken place, an Israeli official and a Western diplomat told Reuters.
A joint statement by Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron said France and the US would work together to ensure the deal is applied fully.

UNILATERAL ISRAELI STRIKES
Israeli officials have insisted that the Israeli army would continue to strike Hezbollah if it identified threats to its security, including transfers of weapons and military equipment to the group.
An Israeli official told Reuters that US envoy Amos Hochstein, who negotiated the agreement, had given assurances directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel could carry out such strikes on Lebanon.
Netanyahu said in a televised address after the security cabinet met that Israel would strike Hezbollah if it violated the deal.
The official said Israel would use drones to monitor movements on the ground in Lebanon.
Lebanese officials say that provision is not in the deal that it agreed, and that it would oppose any violations of its sovereignty.

 


3 dead in Israel strikes on Syria border crossings with Lebanon: monitor, authorities

Updated 27 November 2024
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3 dead in Israel strikes on Syria border crossings with Lebanon: monitor, authorities

BEIRUT, Lebanon: A Syria war monitor said Israeli strikes on the Lebanon-Syria border late Tuesday killed two soldiers as Lebanon also reported one dead, the latest frontier raids amid news of a Hezbollah and Israel truce.
“Israeli warplanes targeted the Al-Arida crossing in Tartus province for the first time, and the Dabussiyeh and Jussiyeh crossings in Homs province,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reporting “two regime forces killed” at Dabussiyeh.
Lebanon’s health ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike” on the Al-Arida crossing killed “one person,” adding that the toll was provisional.
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, also reported other strikes on unofficial crossings and bridges between the two countries.
State news agency SANA reported “Israeli aggression that targeted the Al-Arida and Dabussiyeh border crossings with Lebanon,” without reporting casualties.
On Monday, Israel also struck a crossing on the Syria-Lebanon border, the latest in a wave of attacks targeting such routes since September.
Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the border.
Israel’s military said strikes that day targeted “smuggling routes to transfer weapons” to Hezbollah, and followed other operations against “Syrian regime smuggling routes” in recent weeks.
Israel intensified its strikes against Syria from September 26, days after launching an intense bombing campaign mainly targeting Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, after almost a year of clashes with the group across the Lebanon border.
Since Syria’s war broke out in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting the army and groups including Hezbollah.
 

 


Israeli NGO warns of “quiet annexation” of West Bank under cover of war

Updated 27 November 2024
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Israeli NGO warns of “quiet annexation” of West Bank under cover of war

  • ACRI accuses Netanyahu govt. of “excessive, unrestrained and illegal use of force” in occupied territory in a new report
  • Says govt. is “implementing profound changes to all aspects of control, most of which are flying under the radar”

LONDON: On Oct. 12 last year, a group of armed settlers and Israeli soldiers drove into the West Bank village of Wadi Al-Seeq, 10 kilometers east of the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

There, they seized and handcuffed three Palestinian men, subjecting them to hours of abuse and violence, later compared by one of the victims to the treatment meted out by rogue US soldiers to prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003.

The abuses in Wadi Al-Seeq were led by members of the IDF’s Sfar Hamidbar (Desert Frontier) unit, notorious for recruiting into its ranks violent “hilltop youth” from the illegal farming settlements that are proliferating in the West Bank with the blessing of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, which includes, and is dependent on the support of, far-right parties.

“For hours,” as an Israeli newspaper reported on Oct. 21, 2023, the Palestinians “were severely beaten, stripped to their underwear, and photographed handcuffed.

“Their captors urinated on two of them and extinguished burning cigarettes on them. There was even an attempt to penetrate one of them with an object.”

Palestinians bound and stripped after being apprehended by IDF soldiers and settlers in the central West Bank village of Wadi Al-Seeq on October 12, 2023. (The Times of Israel)

Israeli human rights activists who arrived at the scene were also arrested, cuffed, beaten, threatened with death and, like the Palestinians, robbed.

At the time, many in Israel were shocked to read the reports of the joint operation between the IDF and settlers, exposed by the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

But as a new report from an Israeli human rights group makes clear, such events have become commonplace as, under cover of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, the Israeli government and its agencies have been pursuing the ultimate goal of “realizing the vision of full Israeli sovereignty in the occupied territory.”

In the report, “One year of war: the collapse of human and civil rights in Israel and the West Bank,” the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) accuses the government of “excessive, unrestrained, and illegal use of force.”

Furthermore, it says, Netanyahu’s government is “demolishing the judicial system and the civil service with the aim of accumulating unlimited power; increasing the use of force in the West Bank and granting tacit permission for unrestrained settler violence; using force to limit freedom of expression and protest; and systematically violating the rights of detainees and prisoners.”

Israeli settlers march towards the outpost of Eviatar, near the Palestinian village of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on April 10, 2023. (AFP)

The list of charges levelled against the government is long, including institutionalized discrimination against Arab society, “unprecedented” infringement of the rights of suspects and prisoners, the “mass armament and creation of untrained forces” of settlers, the “destruction of democratic foundations,” attacks on freedom of expression and “normalization of citizen surveillance and disregard for privacy.”

Legislative steps are being taken with the aim of excluding certain parties from running for the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Last month a controversial bill was passed to change the rules for banning individuals or parties from membership of the Knesset if they have “supported terror,” a definition which now includes visiting the family of someone accused of an act of terrorism.

Likud, Netanyahu’s party, has even accused Arab members of the Knesset of supporting terror simply on the ground of their support for Palestinian statehood.

“Depriving a population of the right to protest politically and the right to political representation” is “a very slippery slope,” said Noa Sattath, the CEO of ACRI.

“When there’s no political representation of a minority, then there's a radicalization of that minority.”

IN NUMBERS

  • 733 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023.
  • 40 Israelis killed during the same period.
  • 3,340 Palestinians in administrative detention as of last June.
  • 11,800 Palestinians arrested since current conflict erupted.

What the ACRI report exposes on a grand scale, says Sattath, is “the excessive use of power. Of course, we see it in Gaza, and in Lebanon now, but we also see it in the West Bank.

“We also see it being used against Israeli protesters. We’re also seeing it in the treatment of prisoners. In all walks of life, basically, the Israeli government has moved to using excessive power against the different players, rather than making more complicated decisions.”

The headline scandal of the past year is what ACRI describes as “the quiet coup” in the West Bank.

“With public attention focused elsewhere,” says the report, “the government is implementing profound changes to all aspects of control in the West Bank, most of which are flying under the radar.

“In the last two years, the government has made giant strides in advancing policies aimed at accelerating the annexation process of the West Bank, while establishing Jewish supremacy and marginalizing the Palestinian population, all in pursuit of realizing the vision of full Israeli sovereignty in the occupied territory.”

A member of the Israeli security forces walks past a bulldozer demolishing a house belonging to Palestinians in the southern area of the occupied West Bank on November 6, 2024. (AFP)

The annexation of the West Bank has long been on the agenda, said Sattath, “but the war has given cover and enabled this to happen.

“Basically, they’re creating a new reality on the ground, behind the scenes, without a lot of public scrutiny, without a lot of international discourse on this new reality that they’re manufacturing.”

The Israeli government has, in certain instances, issued statements that aim to distance itself from the violent actions of settlers in the West Bank. Netanyahu has occasionally called for calm and condemned settler attacks on Palestinians, especially after high-profile incidents.

However, ACRI fears that under the incoming US administration of Donald Trump, whose election has been welcomed so enthusiastically by far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, things are only going to get worse.

A member of the Israeli security forces scuffles with a protestor as Palestinian and Israeli peace activists demonstrate at the entrance of Huwara in the occupied West Bank, on March 3, 2023. (AFP)

“I think that the next years are going to be very difficult,” said Sattath.

“The US government is one of the only checks and balances on the behavior of the Israeli government behavior and, even if we would have liked them to be more forceful in the way that they do it, we're very worried that the disappearance of that will have grave implications for the lives of Palestinians, both in Gaza, where the US is currently so involved in the humanitarian aid efforts there, and in the West Bank.”

Disturbingly, she says, Israel is manoeuvring behind the scenes to end the status of the West Bank as an occupied territory under military occupation, which is how it has been defined by international law since the occupation of the West Bank by Israel in 1967.

A picture shows burnt cars, which were set ablaze by Israeli settlers, in the area of in Al-Lubban Al-Sharqiya in the occupied West Bank on June 21, 2023. (AFP)

“It seems a little strange that an organization like ACRI would be advocating for military occupation,” she said. 

“But under international conventions military occupation gives the protected citizens of that area many different rights and gives the occupiers obligations. 

“Residents in occupied territories cannot be moved. You cannot build on their territory and the occupying force has all sorts of obligations toward them, in terms of humanitarian aid. 

“Now, what the settler movement, through its ministers in the government, is trying to do is erase the military occupation, replacing it with government agencies and officials to facilitate the settlement enterprise.” 

A Palestinian man walks at the village of Khallet Al-Daba, in the occupied West Bank on October 26, 2023, after it was attacked by Israeli settlers. (AFP)

The process began in February 2023 when, despite disquiet among some members of Netanyahu’s government, authority over many civilian issues in the West Bank was stripped from Defense Ministry agency COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) and transferred to Bezalel Smotrich, the religious Zionism leader and finance minister. 

According to a Times of Israel report, the agreement “appears to give the ultranationalist leader sweeping powers over the territory, and allows him to advance his goal of thwarting Palestinian aspirations for a state in the West Bank by enabling the Israeli population there to substantially expand.”

Anti-settlement organizations denounced the agreement, with one, Breaking the Silence, saying it amounted to “legal, de jure annexation,” of the West Bank.

The importance of ACRI’s report, says Sattath, lies in the sheer breadth of abuses by the Israeli government it exposes.

Israeli security forces fire tear gas at Palestinians demonstrating in the village of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on April 10, 2023. (AFP)

ACRI, founded in 1972 and the oldest civil and human rights organization in Israel, has been publishing reports on the state of human rights in Israel and the West Bank for decades. But, she says, “we have never published a report showing such a severe and comprehensive deterioration as we have seen over the past year.”

ACRI says it hopes its report “will deepen the public’s understanding of the damage being done to human rights and democratic institutions, and that it will stir the public to action and resistance.”

It added: “Monitoring human rights violation processes is also critical for there to be any hope of correction under a different government and reality.”

 


Sirens sound in central, northern Israel after ceasefire announcement: army

Updated 26 November 2024
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Sirens sound in central, northern Israel after ceasefire announcement: army

  • Sirens sounded in a number of areas in central and northern Israel following projectiles that crossed from Lebanon

JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said sirens sounded across central and northern Israel Tuesday, with three projectiles fired from Lebanon after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his cabinet would vote for a ceasefire.
“Sirens sounded in a number of areas in central and northern Israel following projectiles that crossed from Lebanon,” the military said in a statement. “Three projectiles that crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory were successfully intercepted by the IAF (Israeli air force).”