Cynical about the Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury - who is the spiritual head of the Church of England - recently said:

'There is one thing that is always common to any sort of terrorist action, wherever it happens and whoever performs it. It aims at death * not the death of anyone in particular, just death. It does not matter to the killers if their victims are Christian or Muslim, Hindu or Humanist; what matters is that they show that they can kill where they please.'

People quickly asked "what about Jews," and the archbishop quickly responded by saying:

This [omission] was drawn to our attention immediately following the service and the Archbishop has been in touch with the Chief Rabbi's office to give his assurance that the omission was entirely inadvertent and he has expressed regret at any offence that might have resulted.

I expect that most people will now say this was an honest mistake, he apologized, let's lighten up, give the guy a break. There are those who are skeptical, who believe that the archbishop prepares his speeches with great care.

If I were to be really cynical, I might suspect the following:

The archbishop is following the lead of the many church leaders who are tacit apologists for the murder of Jews in Israel.  Yes, he deplores the deaths, but he either feels that the Palestinians have a right to be really angry (and lack of impulse control), or that it's simply too unpleasant to deal with their anger at people who call Hamas, Fatah, PIJ terrorists rather than activists or militants. 

In other words, it may just be that he's either short on moral distinction or moral courage.  Or both.

And then he might figure:

Well, if I include Jews, the left wing within my own church will moan and complain, the Palestinians might make vaguely threatening remarks, and the Jews won't thank me.  But if I omit them, the Jews will complain, and I only need to make an apology through the press spokesperson with a wink to the others.

You don't have to watch too many episodes of The West Wing to know this kind of stuff happens all the time.

It's worth noting that what you don't see is the archbishop using this as an opportunity to clarify his view on murders of Jews in Israel. 

Comments

[Joanne]

I think it was an honest mistake, but still disturbing. Jews simply aren't on his radar. It's not that he's unsympathetic to them, it's that they don't count for much.

[Joanne]

Hey, and what about the Buddhists? We Jews should unite with them and demand a retraction. :-)