The dilemma of the Christian Arab remnants living under Palestinian rule - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Palestinian Christians denounce Israel in a vain effort to gain acceptance, even though it’s the best haven for their faith in the Middle East.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
15 October '18..

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the Christian Media Summit in Jerusalem on Sunday and uttered something that was incontrovertibly true: “Israel is the only country that protects the human rights of all. We protect the religious rights of all. We don’t just protect Christian sites—we protect Christian people. Christians should enjoy all freedoms to worship as they please in the Middle East and anywhere else. And the only place in the Middle East where they can do so is Israel. We have no better friends in the world than our Christian friends.”

As further proof, he cited the fact what has happened in Bethlehem, which was a city that Christians once dominated. The turning point was Israel’s 1995 handover of the area to the Palestinian Authority under the terms of the Oslo peace accords. Under Israeli rule, Bethlehem was 80 percent Christian. Only 23 years later, its population is now 80 percent Muslim.

But while participants at the event, which was organized by the Israeli government and is part of the Jewish state’s outreach efforts to Christian supporters, applauded his statement, it drew negative reviews from other Christians.

In particular, Bethlehem Mayor Anton Salman denounced the prime minister’s comments. He said the problem was entirely Israel’s fault, citing “50 years of occupation” that had negatively affected Arab life in the territories. In addition to complaining about Jewish settlements in the area, among which he numbered Jerusalem neighborhoods like Gilo, Salman complained about Israel’s security fence, parts of which lies close to his town.

This isn’t the first time that Salman has blamed Bethlehem’s problems on Israel. In a 2017 column published in Haaretz, he lamented the fact that most U.S. Christians support Israeli policies that he said “strangled Jesus’ birthplace.”

But, of course, Salman has no answer as to why the Christian population in Bethlehem and the entire West Bank should collapse under P.A. rule at the same time that we’re told that the overall Arab population continues to grow at astonishingly high rates.

(Continue to Full Column)

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 as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Temporarily Making Use of Christians to Fight Israel - by Shadi Khalloul

...Coexistence is not the issue for Christians here, but rather fear for their own existence -- based on the ruthless lack of freedom under the PA, as in all Arab states. The PA and other Arab Islamic regimes are smart enough to smell this weakness.

Rami Ayyad, a Christian bookseller in Gaza,
was murdered by Islamic extremists 
because he refused to close his bookshop.

Shadi Khalloul..
Gatestone Institute..
30 May '16..

Christians in Holy Land, Judea and Samaria -- what today is called the West Bank or the Palestinian Authority (PA) -- are, with the Jews and assorted Arabs, the indigenous people of the land. The region has been inhabited by Jews and then Christians for nearly three thousand years; until the seventh century, Muslims did not even exist.

After the conquest of Jerusalem by Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula in 637 AD, the Jews and early followers of Christianity were forced either to convert to Islam or accept the rule of sharia (Islamic religious law) under the Islamic Caliphate, with its dhimmi laws designed to remind you that you are inferior. In Islam, dhimmis are non-Muslims -- and therefore second-class, barely tolerated residents -- who live under separate, harsher, laws and have to pay protection money (a "tax" called the jizya) to safeguard their lives and property.

These laws are imposed by Muslim conquerors against all "infidels," both Christians and Jews, in all occupied areas, and are still valid under different guises today in Gaza and in the Palestinian Authority.

In Syria, ISIS recently sent out an Islamic decree ordering Christians in Al Raqqa to pay a tax of around half an ounce (14g) of pure gold as part of these dhimmi rules, the same as in the earlier Muslim conquest of the Middle East.

In Gaza, Christians are persecuted by Islamic groups and the Hamas government. Rami Ayyad, a local Christian who owned a bookshop, was assassinated for refusing to close it.

In Bethlehem, in the West Bank, the Saint Charbel Monastery was set ablaze on October 8, 2015 and the car of the Jerusalem Latin Patriarch was attacked by Palestinian Islamic extremists last Christmas Eve. Luckily, we have Israeli soldiers at Rachel's Tomb who intervened to stop the Palestinian attackers.

Now, what was the role of the Jews in all these attacks? The answer is: nothing.

(Continue Reading)

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 as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter.

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Like Bethlehem's annual parade, the standard holiday fare of lies

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
24 December '12..

Christmas in Bethlehem and video of the annual parade in the Palestinian city south of Jerusalem is standard holiday fare on television news. Since the days of Yasir Arafat the Palestinian Authority has made a big deal out of the Christmas celebration, and the media’s need for footage suitable for a day on which little news is made has always been a bonanza for Fatah. The result is that along with quaint pictures of Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity Western viewers are given the impression that Christianity is both protected and cherished by the PA. PA leaders also use the occasion to try and make the argument that the Palestinians, rather than the Israelis, are the true descendants of the Jewish nation that produced Jesus of Nazareth two thousand years ago.

Both assertions are equally false. Modern day Christians face harassment and exclusion throughout a region where the Arab Spring has brought Islamists to power, and nowhere is that more true than in the West Bank and Gaza. Moreover, the assertion that Jesus was a Palestinian, first aired by Arafat and often repeated by his successor Mahmoud Abbas as well as moderate Salam Fayyad, is nothing less than an attempt to delegitimize the Jewish people and to steal its history. Western news organizations should know better than to fall prey to these propaganda points.

As Britain’s Telegraph reports in a timely feature, Christianity is “close to extinction” in the Middle East. While the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt who face the prospect of life under the Muslim Brotherhood has garnered some attention in the past few months, Palestinian Christians have already been subjected to this sort of situation under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas and the result is the decimation of their community.

Every Year Around This Time, Squeezing a Story Out of Bethlehem

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
23 December '12..

Every year around this time, it’s the same tired old story. A journalist attempts to find a Christmas angle for Palestinian suffering, most often focusing on Bethlehem’s Palestinian Christian residents. This year is no different and Harriet Sherwood of The Guardian and sister Sunday paper The Observer is the journalist filling the seasonal role.

The Guardian regularly trashes or undermines Jewish historical claims to the land of Israel that go back to biblical times. Why is it, however, that the same paper has no problem promoting the claims of Palestinians using biblical imagery to buttress the case if those Palestinians happen to be Christian?

Sherwood’s Observer piece “Bethlehem Christians feel the squeeze as Israeli settlements spread” begins with the subhead:

Near a biblical landscape of donkeys and olive trees, homes are being built and Palestinian Christians fear for their future.

Referring to the Jerusalem suburbs of Gilo and Har Homa as “settlements”, Sherwood claims that “Both are largely built on Bethlehem land.” In reality, much of Gilo’s land was legally purchased by Jews in the 1930s while most of Har Homa’s land was Jewish owned dating back to the 1940s.

If Sherwood’s history is faulty, then so is her geography. According to her:

Under fire over desire to enlist in IDF

Danny Brenner..
Israel Hayom..
01 November '12..




The Arab media is waging an unrestrained and vicious campaign against a small group of Christian Arab youth who wish to serve in the Israel Defense Forces.

Two weeks ago, a conference was held at an Upper Nazareth community center for 121 Christian 11th and 12th grade high school students, all residents of Nazareth, Upper Nazareth, and Arab villages in the Lower Galilee region, who had expressed their desire to enlist in the IDF, even in combat units. Israel Hayom has learned that every year, some 50 youths from the Christian Israeli-Arab sector enlist for military duty.

However, after the recent conference, problems began for the youths. Photographs of some of them at the conference and at IDF preparatory meetings were published on various Facebook pages, and some Arabic print newspapers and online news sites began a smear campaign against them, including implied threats. Some of those in the media attacks were Arab members of Knesset.

The youngsters were depicted as traitors, and journalists wrote articles promising to "take care of them" and hunt them down. One writer said, "We will uproot you from the source. The mission that failed 50 years ago will fail now, too."

The Arab Knesset members who joined the chorus of incitement condemned the conference and enlistment to the IDF, and distorted and twisted what was said there by claiming that the conference’s goal had been to slander and attack Islam. In addition, the Arab Orthodox local council in Nazareth announced that priest Jobrail Nadaf, who took part in the event and supports IDF enlistment among Christian Arab-Israeli youth, had been suspended from his duties as priest and excommunicated from his church for what was called "cooperating with the enemy." Nadaf was also the target of extreme threats and quickly complained to the Nazareth police, who opened an investigation.

Jarallah - What CBS Does Not Want to Hear

Hisham Jarallah..
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.

"Squeezing Out Christians and Muslims" - Irish Times Blames Israel

Honest Reporting
Media Critiques
07 October '10

While West Bank Jewish settlements remains a contentious issue in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, the Irish Times is exploiting the issue to make unfounded claims that the settlements are to blame for Palestinian infighting. In an article titled, "Israeli Settlements Squeezing Out Christians and Muslims," the paper even goes so far as to claim that Israel's policies are specifically aimed at increasing hostilities between the two groups.

Quoting a Palestinian named George Rishmawi, an official at the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement, Irish Times reporter Michael Jansen writes:

“Christians are part of the Palestinian social fabric . . . and of Islamic culture. Palestinians do not differentiate between Muslims and Christians – who are less than 2 per cent of the population,” says Mr Rishmawi.

But Israel makes a key distinction designed to cause animosities.

“It grants West Bank Christians permits to travel to Jerusalem for Christian holidays . . . It is not the same for Muslims. For them it is difficult to get permits. This makes Muslims angry at Christians,” Mr Rishmawi adds.

It is absurd to suggest that Israel is deliberately sowing discord among the Palestinians by granting access to holy sites to Christians. Amazingly, it is Jansen, not his Palestinian source - whose words appear in quotes - who says the policies are "designed" to harm relations.

(Read full critique)

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