"if the struggle for freedom of peoples is regarded as terrorism, then I am a terrorist," Attallah says.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, January 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Spokesman for the Orthodox Church in occupied Jerusalem Archimandrite Attallah Hanna praised Saturday, January 11, the “martyrdom operations”, calling on Palestinian Christians and Arabs to do everything in their power to resist the Israeli occupation with every possible means.

Receiving a formal delegation from the occupied city of Haifa, Atallah said "those martyrs are the heroes of the nation. We are proud of them and vehemently reject any malicious attempts trying to cast doubt on their work," Al-Quds Press News Agency quoted him as saying.

"They are not suicide bombers as some claim and they are not terrorists, rather, they resist occupation and we support martyrdom operations without any kind of reservations no matter what objectors and doubt-casters say about such a heroic kinds of resistance," he said.

The Archimandrite, in addition, called for a joint Islamic-Christian action in order to throw a "spanner in war against Iraq," and to liberate all Palestinian territories, pointing out that if the Israeli authorities lifted the house arrest imposed on him and gave him back his passports, he would form a Christian delegation to go to Iraq to form a human shield against the potential U.S.-led military action on Baghdad.

In an exclusive interview with IslamOnline, Attallah asserted his support for the operations, averring that "if the struggle for freedom of peoples is regarded as terrorism, then I am a terrorist."

"The real reform needed is to answer the following question: how can we boost all kinds of resistance to achieve our national goals?" He added.

In the meantime, the Israeli foreign ministry formally protested to  the Church of the Orthodox Romans in Occupied Jerusalem at the statements made by  Attallah, accusing him of supporting "terrorist operations" and dismissing his stances as a danger on Israeli security.