RichM, the historic Catholic ecclesiastical right of sanctuary allowed for criminals to receive sanctuary from the church.

And I would add, there is absolutely no proof in anyone's possession that the Palestinians currently under siege in Bethlehem's Christian churches have any connections to the suicide bombers whatsoever. You are merely mimicking the Israeli/US propaganda line.

If the Israelis can't get into these churches, how the hell do they know who is in them? These people fled into the churches while being fired upon by Israeli tanks, machine guns, and sniper fire.

BTW, Arafat has always denounced the suicide bombers, in Arabic, on Al Jazeera television. Just because Bush keeps saying that is a "precondition" of a ceasefire, doesn't mean it hasn't already been done by Arafat.

The other propaganda line getting a lot of emotional response from Americans is the "Sadam Hussein is paying suicide bombers' families" thing.

Both Iraq and Iran, through social service organizations like Hamas (yes, they have social service Hamas agencies, they aren't just "terrorists"), have been compensating the Palestinian victims of Israeli violence for many, many years--not just the families of suicide bombers.

Just like we have compensated the victims of 9/11.

The Palestinian people are not accomplices to murder, and to make such hysterical statements merely demonstrates the person making such a statement inability to think for themselves.

RichM, by making statements like that, you are simply regurgitating the vile anti-Arab hatred being spewed on the right wing American media talk shows.