Madam, - The Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor have drawn attention to the plight of Christians in Bethlehem, during their recent visit to the Holy Land. As we move towards the New Year, many Irish Christians will be looking for evidence that our Government is putting pressure on the state of Israel to ease restrictions on the people of our Saviour's birthplace.
Israel has turned Bethlehem into a walled-in ghetto and has made it excessively difficult for people to enter and leave. People are suffering, healthwise and economically. A state that poses as democratic and Western is visiting terrible oppression on a subject people.
If the Government has neither the concern or courage needed to challenge the state of Israel, it might be appropriate for our religious leaders to ask the Israeli ambassador to meet them. Someone has to call Israel to account for its behaviour and ask it to think again. Repentance and reparation are required from the Israeli state. Palestinian Christians and Muslims need to be let out of the prison that Israel's Great Wall project has put them in.
The Prince of Peace was born in Bethlehem and it is important that renewed efforts are made in 2007 to bring a true, just and lasting peace to the Holy Land. - yours, etc,
Rev DAVID FRAZER, Inse Bay, Laytown, Co Meath.