Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams shows off the muddled, morally blind thinking for which he is justly famous: World must not forget Middle East, says Anglican leader.

As if anyone in the world is about to “forget” the Middle East.

Here he tells us that nobody is any better or worse than anyone else, and making any sort of moral judgment is not only impossible but wrong.

“As soon as we try to sort out which we give the advantage to we shall be deciding to some extent who we’re against; and that will undoubtedly create another round of poverty and anger and bitterness...

”Both deserve the best. And the best we can give them in such circumstances is at least the assurance of friendship.

“Go and see, go and listen; let them know, Israelis and Palestinians alike, that they will be heard and not forgotten,” he told the congregation at Canterbury Cathedral in southeast England.

And here are more deep thoughts from the Anglican leader, as he explains that self-defense inevitably leads to self-destruction. Of course, he’s specifically talking about Israel’s defensive barrier, which (in combination with military action) has almost completely stopped Palestinian suicide bombers (who “deserve the best,” according to the Archbishop) from killing Jews.

“Every wall we build to defend ourselves and keep out what may destroy us is also a wall that keeps us in and that will change us in ways we did not choose or want.

“Every human solution to fears and threats generates a new set of fears and threats.”

Williams said whether it was Israel’s controversial security barrier in the West Bank, Britain’s planned renewal of its Trident missile nuclear deterrent system or tactics to protect oneself against harm, defences were destructive.

“Defences do something terrible to us as well as to our real and imagined enemies,” he said.

Williams’s sermon comes after a visit to the West Bank town of Bethlehem — a place of pilgrimage for Christians because of its significance as the birthplace of Jesus — to see at firsthand the lives of ordinary Palestinians.

During the trip, he described the Israeli-built security barrier that surrounds the town as symbolising what was “deeply wrong in the human heart”.