Sir: This is in response to Khalid Hasan’s article “End times and all that” (DT, July 30). Being a Pakistani Christian I feel it’s my moral duty to comment upon it. I too profess many of the same beliefs as the evangelical Christians in the US. But I strongly disagree with their stand for Israel. I don’t agree with the concept that for Christ to return, the state of Israel has to exist first. My views have been shaped by reading the same scriptures as the US evangelical Christians, while keeping in mind the national and cultural factors of Pakistan. What I see in Israel is the violation of many basic human rights. I see the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a civil war or a freedom struggle by the Palestinian people from Israeli occupation. When certain Christian sects support the Israeli government’s policies blindly they are in direct opposition to the teachings of Christ, whose arrival they are ironically trying to hasten. They tend to forget that the Israeli government is systematically cleansing the area of non-Jewish population, which consists of Arab Christians, Arab Muslims and other religious minorities, which are not found anywhere else in the world. The Israeli government is the classic example of the victim victimising.In the US they have the movement ‘Christians for Israel’. I think we the Christians living in Muslim countries around the world should start a counter movement ‘Christians for Palestine’. I know from personal experience that the average Muslim on the street is a good, moderate person, who denounces suicide attacks and terrorism. Christianity had its violent/terrorist movements too, for example the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the IRA. We should take off our religious shades and see the world in a more humane way and ponder the age-old Christian dilemma ‘What would Jesus do?’SHAMYL SURILahore