Media reports have featured Palestinians dancing and rejoicing that harm has come to our nation. An NPR report mentioned that Palestinian Arabs were "thanking God" and referring to America as a "snake" because we always side with Israel.

While it is obviously true that there are Palestinians with these sentiments, do not forget that there are devout Arab Christians in Palestine and America.

In fact, I am such a Christian. My skin is white, I have been born and raised by a long-American family, but I belong to the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church, and my leaders are Palestinian Arabs. ("...And the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch." -- Acts 11:26)

Every Sunday we pray for the President of the United States, for all our civil authorities, and all our armed forces. We consider it a Christian principle to honor our country. We are certainly not aligned in any way with terrorists -- violence is a horror to us as well!

Visit http://antiochian.org to read the plea of the Antiochian hierarch over all America, Metropolitan PHILIP, for prayers for the victims of today's violence.

But if Americans decide to pin the blame for this morning's attacks on Arabs, Arab Christians here and worldwide will be in a very dangerous position.

What you do now matters. I beg you not to participate in the slamming of the Arab people as a whole that is occurring in news reports. Do pray for all Arab Christians, in Palestine, Israel, and America, and ask others to pray with you for us.

There was a time of prayer and fasting at lunchtime at Taylor University - Fort Wayne today. My father is a professor there, and he reports that there were repeated admonishments not to have a knee-jerk reaction to this morning's attacks, not to point the accusing finger at Arab people. They also prayed for all Christians and for those of Arab descent. Please do the same.