To say that 2014 has been a tumultuous year in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region would be to understate the situation considerably. It has been momentous.
To say that 2014 has been a tumultuous year in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region would be to understate the situation considerably. It has been momentous.
My most recent Middle East Analysis podcast, in the middle of Advent, deliberately steers away from the hard news angles of Iraq and Syria and instead looks to the Holy Land – where the ongoing lack of stability and peace reverberates around the whole region.
In this edition I converse with James Abbott from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW) for one final time in 2014 to look to Jerusalem – to Israel and Palestine – to the lands of Christ’s birth, ministry, Passion and Resurrection.
This podcast discusses Pope Francis and the visits he made to the Holy Land and Turkey in 2014; the Catholic Bishops’ Holy Land Co-ordination; the need for peace in Israel/Palestine; the General Election in Israel in 2015; the death of senior Palestinian Authority official Ziad Abu Ein; and of course Christmas in the Holy Land – or what should in fact be “the Land of the Holy One”, as an Anglican prelate appropriately put it.
* Listen to, and download the whole podcast here: http://www.catholicnews.org.uk/content/download/53615/414411/file/MEA-2014-14.mp3
* Premier Radio MENA broadcast from Harry hagopian: http://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Weekday/MENA
* More on Christmas from Ekklesia here: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/christmas
* More on Advent: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/advent
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© Harry Hagopian is an international lawyer, ecumenist and EU political consultant. He also acts as a Middle East and inter-faith advisor to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England & Wales and as Middle East consultant to ACEP (Christians in Politics) in Paris. He is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/HarryHagopian). Formerly an Executive Secretary of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Committee and Executive Director of the Middle East Council of Churches, he is now an international fellow, Sorbonne III University, Paris, consultant to the Campaign for Recognition of the Armenian Genocide (UK), Ecumenical consultant to the Primate of Armenian Church in UK & Ireland, and author of The Armenian Church in the Holy Land. Dr Hagopian’s own website is www.epektasis.net Follow him on Twitter here: @harryhagopian