Gatestone Institute..
25 May '12..
A few weeks ago, veteran CBS News correspondent Bob Simon reported on the plight of Christians of the Holy Land who have been leaving the region for many years.
In large part, Simon blamed the Christian exodus on Israel.
But had Simon visited the Christian village of Taybeh in the West Bank, he would have heard "the other side to the story."
This is a village whose population is 100% Christian. It is surrounded by a number of Muslim villages, some of which are extremely hostile.
The number of Christians living in Taybeh is estimated at less than 2,000. Residents say that another 15,000 Taybeh villagers live in the US, Canada and Europe, as well as South America.
Over the past few years, the Christian residents of Taybeh have been living in constant fear of being attacked by their Muslim neighbors.
Such attacks, residents say, are not uncommon. They are more worried about intimidation and violence by Muslims than by Israel's security barrier or a checkpoint. And the reason why many of them are leaving is because they no longer feel safe in a village that is surrounded by thousands of hostile Muslims who relate to Christians as infidels and traitors.
Just last week, scores of Muslim men from surrounding villages, some of the men armed with pistols and clubs, attacked Taybeh.
Fortunately, no one was harmed and no damage was caused to property.
Palestinian Authority policemen who rushed to the village had to shoot into the air to drive back the Muslim attackers and prevent a slaughter.
The attack, residents said, came after a Muslim man tried to force his way into a graduation ceremony at a girls' school in Taybeh.
The man, who had not been invited to the ceremony, complained that Christians had assaulted him. Later that day, he and dozens of other Muslims stormed the village with the purpose of seeking revenge for the "humiliation."
Were it not for the quick intervention of the Palestinian security forces, the attackers would have set fire to a number of houses and vehicles and probably killed or wounded some Christians.
Palestinian government and police officials later demanded that the Christians dispatch a delegation to the nearby Muslim villages to apologize for "insulting" the Muslim man. To avoid further escalation, the heads of Taybeh complied.
Also at the request of the Palestinian government, residents of the village were requested not to talk to the media about the incident.
Even some of the leaders of the Christian community in the West Bank urged the Taybeh residents not to make a big fuss about the incident.
This was not the first time that Taybeh had come under attack. In September 2005, hundreds of Muslim men went on rampage in the village, torching homes and cars, and destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary, after learning that a Muslim woman had been romantically involved with a Christian businessman from the village.
The 30-year-old woman had been killed by her family.
Western journalists based in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have refused to report about the most recent attack on Taybeh, most probably because the story does not have an "anti-Israel angle."
Like Bob Simon, most Western journalists prefer to see only one side of the story. All they want is to find stories that shed a negative light on Israel.
Simon, by the way, has probably never heard of Taybeh.
The next time anyone wants to learn about the true problems facing the Christians of the Holy Land, he or she should head to Taybeh and conduct off the record and private interviews with the villagers.
Link: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3078/cbs-christians-israel
Hisham Jarallah is a journalist based in the West Bank.
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand
.
I still don't understand. Why does it seem as if people from the media (like CBS), talk trash about Israel & Christians because; why do they again? I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. However, that's not what the inhabitants of Taybeh say about their village.
ReplyDeleteTaybeh has a municipal website. It mentions none of that. http://www.taybehmunicipality.org/pages/history.html
Maria Khoury, a Taybeh resident, has a website that describes life there:
We are identified as area C and have technically remained under Israeli military occupation even throughout the Oslo Peace Agreement. The settlements are a big obstacle to peace because Palestinians suffer trying to get between ABC areas for work, school and hospitals. It is impossible to get anywhere when the Israelis control all the roads and they just gave the Palestinians the center of towns to control. Our area was never turned over to the Palestinian Authority because we have hundreds of illegal settlements all around us. The largest settlement in the West Bank "Ofra" is next to our village. Ofra is the Hebrew name for the village of Ephraim.
Taybeh has good relationships with its neighboring Muslim villages. The village of Reimon is on one side and the village of Deir Ejrear on the other side. Taybeh village has no communication with the neighboring Israeli settlements that are constantly depriving the village of water and stealing more and more Palestinian land to build illegal Israeli settlements. The residents of Taybeh share the same language, food, music and cultural values with the neighboring Muslim villages thus an exchange of invitations for weddings can often be found. However, there is no intermarriage among Muslims and Christians and it is almost forbidden. The few times that such marriages might take place their families disown the married couple. Muslims and Christians are somehow united by their Palestinian identity and their fight for independence and freedom but are obviously very different in their ways of worship and how they celebrate their holy days.
http://middleeastwindow.com/node/353
Even their tourism site mentions the Israeli occupation. http://www.toursinenglish.com/2007/11/taybeh-brewery.html
I read some other websites about Taybeh, too, some in Arabic. They're very proud of their olive fields and their brewing company. Not so crazy about the occupation, though.
Those who are a bit less gullible and can read between the lines might want to also take a look at "Taybeh in Flames" by the same Maria C. Khoury, Ed. D. which can be found at http://www.saintgeorgetaybeh.org/maria_khourys_page/maria_khourys_archive/mk_article_sep05.html One can see from her piece that this community is really not in much of a position to say anything and does have to toe an understood line if they want to survive, as we see in her conclusion "The violent aggression against our village should be condemned to help Taybeh maintain its unique character and identity as one of the most ancient places in Palestine and the only 100% Christian village left."
ReplyDelete