Archbishop Hanna: antigovernment forces serving Israel

Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia, Archbishop Atallah Hanna, said those who have taken up arms against the Syrian people and the Syrian Army – regardless of their names and affiliations – are mere pawns that serve Israel and its project to divide and control the Arab region. In an interview broadcast on al-Mayadin TV on Friday, Archbishop Hanna said that the people who abduct, murder and slaughter in Syria are the enemies of the Arab nation, just like Israel with which they share goals and criminal nature. He stressed that the violence and murder against the people and state in Syria has nothing to do with any just demands, rather it merely seeks to destroy the Syrian state. Archbishop Hanna warned any attack on Syria is an attack on the Arab nation, and that the true national opposition is the one that commits to its country\'s principles and flies its flag, not the flag of the French mandate, and that doesn\'t receive orders from abroad. He warned that some western countries\' granting of visas to displaced Syrian Christians in Lebanon under humanitarian pretexts is part of an Israeli plan to drive Christians out of the Arab region, calling on Arab Christians – whether in Syria or in other Arab countries – to remain in their countries and defend them alongside their Muslim brethren.