Ministry of Tourism officials met with Rev. Nizar Shaheen and the 85 pastors and laymen joining him on a Church Leaders' Spiritual Tour from Canada.

Nizar Shaheen is founder and host of Light For All Nations. He was born in Nazareth and grew up in the nearby town of Cana of Galilee. Today he resides in Canada and works closely with many churches of different denominations in Israel and Canada.

Israel Ministry of Tourism Website, Aug 2007

The few reports emerging from Gaza regarding the area's tiny Christian minority indicate that Palestinian followers of Jesus are under increasing pressure to either become Muslims, submit to Islamic law or leave the Gaza Strip.

Hamas, an Islamic group that won last year's Palestinian parliamentary elections, completed a military takeover of the Gaza Strip in June, handily defeating its rivals in Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

By Ryan Jones, CNSNews.com, August 16, 2007

An American evangelical pastor who has been living in Israel with his family for nearly two decades has been ordered to leave the country with his wife within two weeks after their request for permanent residency was turned down, officials said Thursday.

Ron Cantrell, 59 ran a small Jerusalem-based ministry 'Shalom Shalom Jerusalem' for the past four years, while Cantrell previously worked for Bridges for Peace, an Ultra Pro-Israel evangelical organization, for 14 years. Two of the couple's children have married Israelis and have Israeli ID cards.

Etgar Lefkovits, THE JERUSALEM POST, Aug. 16, 2007

A week after being caught on camera cursing IDF Hebron brigade commander Colonel Yehuda Fox during the forcible eviction of settlers from the city's marketplace last week, Professor Hillel Weiss claims his true meaning was misunderstood and "twisted by the media."

"My words which were interpreted as curses were merely a quotation from Psalms 109," wrote Professor Hillel Weiss of the Bar Ilan University to Professor Yacov Ne'eman, who heads the university committee appointed to determine whether Weiss' actions merit a disciplinary hearing, even before the police investigation into the matter is concluded.

Ynet, Aug 15, 2007

The worldwide Foursquare denomination holds its annual conference in Jerusalem and bucks the trend of locally-based Christian ministries by openly embracing Messianic Jewish leaders.

Many Christian organizations in Israel tend to be overly cautious in their relationship with Messianic Jews to avoid offending their Israeli hosts, but Hayford said the Foursquare Church stands unashamed with Israel’s Jewish believers and featured several Messianic leaders as key speakers.

Sara Fischer, Israel Today, Aug 9, 2007

An obscure, Toronto-based Coptic Christian association has been thrust into the spotlight after three of its members were arrested in Cairo earlier this week, signalling another salvo in a long-running battle between Egyptian authorities and expatriate Christian groups.

Adel Fawzi, Peter Ezzat Mounir and Adeeb Ramses were arrested in Cairo on Wednesday, according to multiple sources. All three were working for the Cairo offices of the Middle East Christians Association, a Coptic Christian group founded by Nader Fawzy, an Egyptian-born Swedish citizen currently living in Toronto. Mr. Fawzy founded MECA four years ago after arriving in Canada, and says the group now has offices around the world and thousands of members.

Omar Al-Akkad, The Globe and Mail, Aug 10, 2007

Since 1993, Dr. Richard J. Mouw has been the President of Fuller Theological Seminary, one of the leading seminaries in the world. He has been one of the evangelical leaders who signed the letter sent to president George W. Bush supporting a two state solution for Israel/Palestine.

Dr. Mouw writes in his blog the reasons behind his support for this solution by asking this theological question: "How do you understand, theologically, the Palestinian Christians, and what are God’s promises to them?"

Mouw's Musings, The President's blog, Aug 7, 2007

This summer Christ has risen higher than ever before on the agendas of four Arab villages in the Galilee, after the council heads of Fassuta, Mi'ilya, Jesh and Ilabun recently decided to launch a new initiative aimed at attracting Christian pilgrims.

Despite their relative proximity to Nazareth, where Jesus spent most of his life, the four villages are not directly adjacent to the city, nor are they situated nearby any religious site.

Yoav Stern, Haaretz, July 30, 2007

In recent years, conservative evangelicals who claimed a biblical mandate to protect Israel have built a bulwark of support for the Jewish state - sending donations, denouncing its critics and urging it not to evacuate settlements or forfeit territory.

Now more than 30 evangelical leaders have stepped forward to say these efforts have given the wrong impression about the stance of many, if not most, U.S. Christians.

On Friday, these leaders sent a letter to President George W. Bush saying that both Israelis and Palestinians had "legitimate rights stretching back for millennia to the lands of Israel/Palestine," and that they supported the creation of a Palestinian state "that includes the vast majority of the West Bank."

By Laurie Goodstein, July 29, 2007, the International Herald Tribune