NOTES FOR AN ADDRESS BY FATHER ANTONY GABRIEL, ARCHPRIEST ST. GEORGE ORTHODOX CHURCH, MONTREAL, QUEBEC TO THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON CANADA-ARAB RELATIONS

ON THE OCCASION OF NCCAR'S 20^TH ANNIVERSARY

January 31, 2006
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Proud to be Canadian /Arab

We live in one of the greatest countries on earth!

Distinguished guests, our political friends, parliamentarians and the governing body of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations. Ladies and gentlemen.

The National Council was born in the crucible of the fire of the uncivil war in the Lebanon and the on-going struggle of the Palestinians who were martyred during Sabra-Shatilla and dispossessed by the world at large, as well as uprooted from their ancient homeland. The plight of the Palestinians continues to be a blight on the conscience of the Western world.

It is quite incredible that certain nations were to abide by the United Nations resolutions, while Israel was/is free to violate and ignore all sanctions against their treatment of the Palestinians.

The National Council was born in the basement of St. George Church by a few of us who felt that the Canadian Government and public needed needed to hear the plea for the helpless and hopeless refugees who felt abandoned by the West.

forgive me for not naming names - God and history will etch forever in history's memory of your honourable deeds. You left your comfortable lives in pursuit of a higher ideal - You screamed against "Man's inhumanity to Man!" (I would be remise if I neglected the honourable Ian Watson and Senator Marcel Prud'homme as parliamentarians who were steadfast throughout their careers).

Today, the entire Middle East is on the brink or one might say is a tinderbox just waiting to explode; and it is not accidental no one mentioned the Middle East in the current political debates.

The tragedy of the policies of our nearest neighbour should and must not affect Canadian polity. It is amazing when encouraging free elections that happened, the same government wishes to ostracize the emerging political parties - which they have unleashed.

Furthermore, Western democracies cannot just be transplanted on Arab soil. There is another myth - that there are no Arab Christians in that region of the world. I am shocked as a student of Syriac to have seen all the ancient monasteries destroyed in Iraq.

Furthermore, Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi and Lebanese Christians are being marginalized. Jerusalem has become an archaeological Disneyland for the curious, digging in the tombs of yesteryear. There is an indigenous vigilant populations, lest we forget.

In times past, Arab Christians and Muslims and Jewish faithful co-existed in peace and harmony side by side as Semitic brothers and sisters. It is in their blood to love and to share hospitality.

Unfortunately, forces from outside have wedged themselves between the "Peoples of the Book. We are suffering the consequences of the incursions from the Western powers.

What is our task twenty years later?

To keep the heat on our political leaders to sensitize them for a more balanced policy - and to listen, to listen to us as to the urgent concerns of the 21st century if we all wish to survive-

We need to inform the public.

We need to dialogue with religious leaders.

We need to penetrate the hearts and minds with the "truth" that will transform us.

This is our hope and our task for future generations.

Thank you.