By IRNA,
London : A Christmas church service has been held in central London featuring carols re-written to highlight Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians.
The event, titled “Bethlehem Now: Nine Alternative Lessons and Carols”, was held last week at St James’s Anglican Church, organised by Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and Open Bethlehem, a Christian campaign group.
The traditional carols are “with untraditional lyrics, interspersed with poetry and prose readings, to highlight the current reality in the Holy Land,” the organisers said.
“Join us for a festival of carols with a difference this Christmas and help the Palestinian people of Bethlehem. The “Little Town” desperately needs its share of peace and goodwill,” they said.
“Its economy is destroyed and the population confined behind a 10-metre high concrete wall, built by the Israeli government in contravention of international law.”
Lyrics of carols included ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ sung as:
“Once in Royal David’s City, Stood a big apartheid wall, People entering and leaving, Had to pass a checkpoint hall, Bethlehem was strangulated, And her children segregated.”
The Twelve Days of Christmas was also rewritten as “Twelve assassinations, Eleven homes demolished, Ten wells obstructed, Nine sniper towers, Eight gunships firing, Seven checkpoints blocking, Six tanks a-rolling, Five settlement rings, Four falling bombs, Three trench guns, Two trampled doves, And an uprooted olive tree.” But according to the Times newspaper Tuesday, the service was criticised by some members of Britain’s Jewish and Christian communities, including the offices of both the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and his predecessor Lord Carey.
The Rector of St James’s, the Rev Charles Hedley, was also quoted saying now that he would have to “think twice” before allowing a repeat of the service in his church.
Among the congregation attending the service was Liberal Democrat peer, Baroness Tonge, who was sacked from the party’s front bench in 2004 after saying she “understood” why Palestinians became suicide bombers.