 Hi, this is Daniel Rosal again and welcome back to my YouTube channel. I posted a detailed video last week explaining how Israel managed to come under allegations that it was restricting Christian worship in Jerusalem this Easter. Specifically, Israel decided to limit attendance at the annual Holy Fire ceremony celebrated in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to only 1800 participants. As explained in that video, Israel stated very clearly that it was imposing the restrictions for crowd safety reasons. The worst civil disaster in Israel's history, the Meron Crite Crush, happened only a couple of years ago. Bear in mind also that the Holy Fire ceremony involves participants passing naked flames between themselves. Is it fair to say that it might be an accident waiting to happen? This detail was omitted by many news sources who instead simply chose to copy and paste what the Greek Orthodox Church put out in a statement. That statement was posted to the website of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate on April 12th. It claimed that, this year and after many attempts made in good will, we are not able to coordinate with the Israeli authorities as they are enforcing unreasonable and unprecedented restrictions on access to the Holy Sepulchre. Police are unfairly and inappropriately placing the burden on the churches to issue invitations, all while tying the church's hands with unreasonable demands. The statement was made in the name of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the custody of the Holy Land and the Armenian Patriarchate. The custody of the Holy Land is better known by its Latin name, Custodia Teresante. The Custodia is a Custodian Priory of the Order of Friars Minor in Jerusalem and is associated with the Franciscan Order. The Holy Fire Ceremony is a rite of the Eastern Orthodox Church. So at least the Vatican this time didn't choose to get involved in the squabble. Predictably the statement was seized upon by news sources like Al Jazeera and the like to prove that those bold Israelis were once more making life difficult for Christians in the city. The actual rationale for the entry restrictions of course were either glossed over or omitted entirely. Instead, headlines tended to just repeat that Israel was enforcing heavy handed restrictions on the forthcoming ceremony. However, this wasn't to be the final twist in the story of 2023's Holy Fire Ceremony for Orthodox Easter in Jerusalem. Which by the way happened yesterday and by all accounts, at least inside the church, went off without a hitch. Two days before the ceremony, a letter surfaced from a certain doctor, engineer, Tio Metropolis whose job title, according to the letter, is the Architect of the Common Technical Office, Holy Sepulchre Church. According to the letter head, Metropolis works at the Common Technical Bureau of the Holy Sepulcher Church in Jerusalem. Nobody seems to have gotten to the bottom of how this letter had made it into the public domain. It seems unlikely to me that the engineer himself would willingly put himself in the firing line of the church he represents and all the pilgrims he couldn't attend. So my best bet is that it was leaked from a source within the Israeli police who have been trying to set the record straight about this since it began. But that of course is just a theory. However it was made public, the letter appears to confirm what the Israeli police have been claiming since the start. Which is that the controversial 1800 figure, that is on how many pilgrims would be allowed to attend the Holy Fire Ceremony, was made at the behest of the church itself. In other words, the Israeli police may have made the ultimate order to cap attendance at that level. They were merely doing so at the request of a church engineer who offered his professional opinion that that was the maximum safe attendance. The letter is written in somewhat broken English but is still clearly intelligible. It reads, The number of the visitors inside to the Holy Sepulchre Church can be safely entered is 1800 persons. What hasn't been reported in the news yet is a follow up statement from the Greek Church, which was posted to their official website on April 14th, which was last Friday and the day before the ceremony was due to take place. In response to the leaking of the letter, the church seems to have decided to distance itself from the engineer who signed on that paper, appearing to claim that he was the charlatan who didn't have authority to ask for the restriction. Given that the letter was issued on the letterhead of a real organization associated with coordinating remedial work in the church, this seems remarkably farfetched. I'll read the statement anyway. It seems, The engineer, referring to Metropolis, was not commissioned or authorized to produce any report on this matter. Furthermore, it quickly transpired that this engineer previously stated very different figures regarding safe worship at the Holy Fire ceremony, but he then changed his report upon request from the Israel police. Notice that the church doesn't deny the authenticity of the letter, nor does it claim that the safety engineer just doesn't exist. Instead it's chosen to sort of push him under the bus, saying that he was a loose canon of sorts who just randomly chose to write this report, or that the Israelis put him up to the job. You can probably guess what my opinion is on this one. The church was caught red-handed trying to stir up agitation against Israel, and is now sacrificing a lowly functionary to try cover their backsides. But what perhaps matters more, which is less open to interpretation, is this. In its management of the Holy Fire ceremony in Jerusalem, Israel faced a calculus that nobody could win. If the Holy Fire ceremony went ahead successfully as it did, nobody will thank Israel for preserving freedom of religion in Jerusalem and for ensuring the safety of those very same clerics who were storing up hatred against Israel in the international Christian community through their dubious claims. If Israel didn't level any entry restrictions and a deadly crowd-crush developed, you can rest assured that everyone, including the churches, will blame Israel for their lack of policing. And if Israel did choose to restrict entry to ensure the safety of pilgrims at the site, it will be decried internationally for preventing Orthodox Christians from accessing their ceremony. In fact, this has already actually happened. Despite the ceremony taking place safely yesterday, the Representative Office of Ireland to Palestine tweeted last night that, quote, Ireland was privileged to attend the Holy Fire ceremony in Jerusalem's old city today, but was concerned at restrictions, which prevented access to thousands of Christian worshipers. I'm not sure they saw the letter before they wrote that. Sometimes it feels like when it comes to diplomacy and politics, Israel is kind of like a public toilet of the international community. Everybody takes a crap on it whenever they feel the urge, but especially Ireland.