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Bethlehem wall is 'deeply wrong' says Archbishop
Last updated at 19:07pm on 22.12.06
Archbishop Rowan Williams in Bethlehem
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has said the Israeli-built wall around Bethlehem symbolised what was "deeply wrong in the human heart".
Dr Williams was speaking during a visit by UK church leaders to the town believed to be the place of Christ's birth.
Bethlehem's mayor told them it had been "transformed into an open prison" by the security barrier.
The Archbishop said: "We are here to say, in this so troubled, complex land, that justice and security is never something which one person claims at the expense of another or one community at the expense of another.
"We are here to say that security for one is security for all. For one to live under threat, whether of occupation, or of terror, is a problem for all, and a pain for all."
Accompanied by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor and other Christian leaders from Britain and Jerusalem, he had earlier made his way through a checkpoint in the wall to reach Bethlehem.
The mayor, Dr Victor Batarsheh, said the construction had caused families to leave and brought economic hardship.
He told the Christian leaders: "Your presence is challenging this ugly wall."
Dr Williams said: "The wall which we walked through a little while ago is a sign not simply of a sign of a passing problem in the politics of one region; it is sign of some of the things that are most deeply wrong in the human heart itself.
"That terrible fear of the other and the stranger which keeps all of us in one another kind of prison.
"In one of the hymns which we sing in English during the Advent season we sing about Jesus Christ as the One who comes the prison bars to break.
"And it is our prayer, and our hope for all of you, that the prison of poverty and disadvantage, and the prison of fear and anxiety will alike be broken."
