Moncton Forum

PHOTO1: Palestinians check the damage to the wall of a Greek Orthodox church hit by a firebomb in the West Bank city of Nablus, Saturday Sept. 16, 2006.

PHOTO 2: Palestinian Hamas supporters wave party flags as they shout slogans against Pope Benedict XVI during a demonstration in Gaza City, Friday.

A hitherto unknown group calling itself the Swords of Islamic Right on Saturday threatened to blow up all churches and Christian institutions in the Gaza Strip in protest against remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI about Islam and Prophet Muhammed.

The group, which claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on a church in Zaituon neighborhood in Gaza City on wounded in the attack.

"What the Pope said is unforgivable," the group said in a statement. "We will continue to target churches."

Christians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip make up less than 10% of the population. Most of them are located in Bethlehem and its surrounding villages and towns. Fewer than 2,000 Christians are reportedly living in the Gaza Strip, which is a stronghold for radical Islamic groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

On Saturday two more churches - neither of them Catholic - were attacked with firebombs in Nablus. As in Friday's attacks, no one was hurt.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and other PA leaders condemned the Pope's statements and called on him to apologize to the Muslim world.

Preachers in several mosques also seized Friday prayers to launch a scathing attack on the Pope and to call on all Arab and Islamic countries to boycott him until he apologizes.

On Friday night, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza City, chanting slogans against the Pope and accusing him of leading a new Crusade against the Muslim world.

Meanwhile, he head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church on Saturday became the first top Christian leader to join the Muslim world in denouncing comments made by Pope Benedict XVI's about Islam and jihad, as religious and political leaders warned of impending sectarian violence despite the Vatican's insistence that the Roman Catholic leader's words were misinterpreted and he didn't intend to be offensive.

Coptic Pope Shenouda III said in published remarks that he didn't hear Benedict's exact words but that "any remarks which offend Islam and Muslims are against the teachings of Christ."

Benedict on Tuesday in Germany cited an obscure Medieval text that characterizes some of the teachings of Islam's founder as "evil and inhuman" - comments some experts took as a signal that the Vatican was staking a more demanding stance for its dealings with the Muslim world.

The Vatican on Saturday said the pope "sincerely regrets" that Muslims have been offended by some of his comments. But a statement by Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, stopped short of any apology for what the pope said.

A senior Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood member said the Vatican's comments were not enough to quell the anger over his words.

"What was issued by the Vatican was considered as an attempt to give an excuse for what the pope has been quoted saying, and what we demand is a sincere acknowledgment that there was a mistake, not allegations that we misunderstood the pope," said Brotherhood member Mohammed Bishr.

"We need the pope to admit the big mistake he has committed and then agree on apologizing, because we will not accept others to apologize on his behalf," he said.

Other Muslim leaders said outreach efforts by papal emissaries were not enough and they also demanded the pope personally apologize. Morocco recalled its ambassador to the Holy See, the Moroccan Foreign Ministry announced Saturday, and Turkey's ruling party likened the pope to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of reviving the mentality of the Crusades.

The grand sheik of Al-Azhar Mosque, the Sunni Arab world's most powerful institution, on Saturday condemned the pope's remarks as "reflecting ignorance."

Mohammed Sayed Tantawi made the comment in a brief interview with the pro-government Akhbar al-Youm newspaper, rather than issuing an official statement.
Some 100 Muslims demonstrated against the pope at Al-Azhar in Cairo after prayers Friday, with some protesters calling Christian "infidels."

In Lebanon, a county where roughly 40 percent of the population is Christian, the militant Shi'ite Muslim group Hizbullah and the country's top Sunni Muslim religious authority denounced Benedict's comments.

Iraq's biggest political parties on Saturday also condemned Benedict's comments, with the main Sunni party warning that the pope "should not be lured into returning to the Crusades."