It’s not something trivial to know Bethlehem isn’t in a non-existent nation - by Jonathan S.Tobin

The game show “Jeopardy!” courted controversy when giving a clue to which there can be no definitive answer as long as the Palestinians reject peace.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
14 January '20..

There’s no escaping controversy any time that Israel or the Palestinians are mentioned. That’s a lesson the producers, writers and star of the long-running “Jeopardy!” television game show learned to their detriment this past week when a clue involving the location of the Church of the Nativity was used in an episode that aired on Jan. 10, though it was taped last fall.

In a category titled “Where’s That Church?” contestants were asked to identify the location of the house of worship that Christians believe to be the birthplace of Jesus. Katie Needle, a retail supervisor from Brooklyn, N.Y., and the show’s defending champion at the time, answered (in the form of a question, as the game’s rules require), “What is Palestine?” But to her surprise, longtime host Alex Trebek told her she was wrong. Another contestant named Jack Maguire countered, “What is Israel?” and won $200 for answering correctly.

The show then went to commercial break, and reportedly, after the producers and chief writer Billy Wisse huddled with Trebek, the question about the Church of the Nativity was eliminated. A new one was substituted, and the show went on with Needle ultimately defending her title. But when the show eventually aired, the deleted sequence mentioning Bethlehem was the one that viewers saw in a mistake that the show says it regrets.

It led to an avalanche of criticism against the game show, Trebek and Wisse (who is the son of Ruth Wisse, the distinguished Jewish scholar and eloquent advocate for Zionism) on social media from critics of Israel who saw it as an example of Zionist propaganda that sought to erase Palestine from the map.

Adding to the storm over the segment is the fact that Needle is actually a supporter of the Palestinian cause and has defended the anti-Semitic Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), while also criticizing Israel and proclaiming “Palestine should be free” on Twitter.

But while Alex Trebek won’t decide the fate of the Middle East, the correct answer to the question he posed isn’t a matter of trivia.

(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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Can You Imagine? BBC Deceives on Bethlehem Again - by Ricki Hollander

The BBC, however, has no interest in exploring Palestinian responsibility for any problems in any sector of the Palestinian community– whether due to its leaders’ corruption and political ploys, or whether due to the terrorism and violence they encourage that impacts tourism and prompts Israeli security measures.

Ricki Hollander..
CAMERA..
27 December '19..

If anyone was in doubt about whether the BBC still engages in agenda-driven reporting, the recent broadcasts from Bethelehem would put any such doubt to rest.

Barbara Plett Usher, notorious for her tearful eulogy of arch-terrorist Yasir Arafat and her participation in BBC’s longtime campaign to delegtimize Israel, was sent to Bethlehem to report about Christmas there.

There is an inverse relationship between the extent of Palestinian violence and the amount of tourism in Bethlehem. In 2015-6, at the height of the so-called Palestinian knife intifada, tourism plummeted. In the years since, violent attacks have decreased and tourism has picked up tremendously. For the past few years, there has been a steady rise in the numbers of tourists visiting Bethlehem, with this year topping even last year’s record high. The city is bustling with tourists and good cheer.

Plett forces the story into an artificial one about Palestinian suffering under Israel.

This, however, was not the story the BBC wanted to convey. The media network instead delivered a fairy tale about a Bethlehem diminished by an evil Israeli occupation. Barbara Plett Usher attempted to fit her Bethlehem 2019 tale into a rigid template of Palestinians suffering under “occupation” – even when the interviewees did not provide the answers she sought.

(Continue to Full Post)

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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Correcting a self-proclaimed Bethlehem expert's fictional account in National Geographic - by Tamar Sternthal

..."Through the world’s best scientists, photographers, journalists, and filmmakers, National Geographic captivates and entertains a global community through television channels, magazines, children’s media, travel expeditions, books, maps," and more, boasts National Geographic. To this list of ostensible experts, National Geographic ought to add fiction writers, given that in this piece they favored a novelist over water experts on the very issue of water. So, while National Geographic may well be fulfilling in its mission to captivate and entertain, it is downright failing to deliver the facts.

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
15 January '18..

In time for Christmas, National Geographic published an interview with novelist Nicholas Blincoe which contains numerous factual errors about the holy city and surrounding area ("The Little Town of Bethlehem Has a Surprising History," Dec. 23). A note at the bottom of the piece indicates that the interview "was edited for length and clarity." Apparently, though, no effort was made to edit for accuracy. Over the last several weeks, CAMERA's Israel office prompted correction of some of the errors, resulting in an appended clarification, but other falsehoods remain, and the ongoing editing introduced new inaccuracies.

Blincoe, author of "Bethlehem: Biography of a Town," fancies himself an Bethlehem expert — "facts about Bethlehem a speciality" he boasts on Twitter, and in Christianity Today he presumptuously called himself Bethlehem's "biographer" — but in reality facts about Bethlehem are the author's undoing.

(Continue to Full Post)

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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The cynical Palestinian lighting of a Christmas tree in a city that Christians are fleeing - by Elder of Ziyon

...The tree lighting isn't to remind people of peace on earth and goodwill towards men. it is meant to bash Israel, the only nation in the region that Christians aren't fleeing.

Elder of Ziyon..
02 December '17..

Today was the annual Palestinian Christmas tree lighting ceremony, with plenty of prominent Palestinians attending.

This is always a cynical exercise. As happens every year, it is a ceremony meant to back Israel, and to pretend that Christians are equal to Muslims under Palestinian Arab rule.

The facts are that Bethlehem was a majority Christian city until it was under Palestinian rule, and Christians have been fleeing Bethlehem for years as Muslims harass and intimidate and force them out.

But PA prime minister Rami al Hamdallah said at the ceremony, "Despite the settlement activities carried out by Israel, the Palestinian people still believe in the culture of coexistence, brotherhood and peace that our Lord Jesus Christ has brought to them...

(Continue to Full Post)

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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The Bad Habit of Lying Repeatedly and Shamelessly About Israel and Bethlehem

...This lie, as easily exposed as it is, is unbelievably resilient. It has been repeatedly debunked. And yet people keep repeating it or refuse to retract it even after they’ve been given overwhelming evidence that what they’ve said is not true. And people have seen others called out on the lie, and yet they repeat it themselves. Why? Why not invoke Qalqilya – a place in the West Bank where numerous suicide attacks were launched from? For people indifferent to Qalqilya’s history as a source of terror attacks during the Second Intifada (like many of the folks at Christ at the Checkpoint), images of this city would be very compelling. Why lie about Bethlehem?

Dexter Van Zile..
The Algemeiner..
23 March '14..

Last week, approximately 600 Christians descended on Bethlehem to attend the 2014 Christ at the Checkpoint Conference organized by Bethlehem Bible College. The organizers and presenters of this conference say that they want to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but they just cannot stop themselves from engaging in an ugly propaganda war against the Jewish state.

In other words, they cannot refrain from lying about Israel, repeatedly and shamelessly.

Three times during the conference, attendees were told that Israel has constructed a security barrier that completely surrounds the city of Bethlehem. Two people called it a wall and a third described it as a wall and fences.

No matter how they describe it, the security barrier, which was constructed to stop terrorists from crossing from the West Bank into Israel, does not surround the city. Even the map of the West Bank provided in the program for Christ at the Checkpoint shows this. The eastern and southern sections of the city are not confined by a wall.

Nevertheless, on the first night of the conference, Bethlehem Mayor Vera Baboun said the city is “surrounded with a wall.” I was in the audience when she said this and there were Palestinian Christians sitting next to me who didn’t bat an eye after hearing this lie.

This was not an honest mistake. Baboun is the mayor of the city, for heaven’s sake. We all know politicians lie, but this is a bit much.

Mayor, will you please stop lying?

Then, in a short film shown to the audience on the first full day of the conference, March 11, Qustandi Shomali, a professor at Bethlehem University, said “Bethlehem is surrounded by a wall and the Bethlehem population cannot reach very easily other areas in the West Bank.”

Again, I was in the audience when this film was shown and no one in the audience voiced a word of objection. Not one word. And again, this was not an honest mistake, for Shomali lives in nearby Beit Sahour. He knows that Bethlehem is not surrounded by a wall.

Professor, will you please stop lying?

And then on Friday, March 14, the last day of the conference, Sami Awad, executive director of Holy Land Trust, a Palestinian non-profit, appeared in a short film in which he claimed that “Today, Bethlehem is a city that is completely surrounded by walls and fences. The wall completely engulfs the city.”

I was not in the room when the film was shown, but it is on Youtube, right here. It goes without saying, (but has to be said), this was not an honest mistake. Holy Land Trust is headquartered in Bethlehem. Awad works in the city. He knows the route of the barrier.

Sami, will you please stop lying?

Probably not. This is not the first time Awad has uttered this falsehood. He said it to an audience of Christians in Galveston, Texas, in 2009. He was called out on it in a piece published on CAMERA’s website in 2012. And yet he said it again two years later. Did he expect not to get caught?

The upshot is this: Three different people offered the same lie to an audience comprised mostly of Evangelical Protestants from the United States and Europe. They told people that the city in which they were currently staying was surrounded by a security barrier, when in fact it isn’t.

This lie has been repeated so many times it is astounding.

Rocks, firebombs, their users and the real Bethlehem have a new religious inspiration

...Had they asked us, we might have suggested a more honest name for this shabby exercise. Not Bethlehem Unwrapped, since that town remains tightly in the grip of forces about which the church cannot admit, but Anglicans Unraveling.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
07 January '13..

At St James's Church in Piccadilly, they must be laughing into the sleeves of their cassocks this morning.

The area around Bethlehem - the real Bethlehem, a short stroll south of Jerusalem, not the Hollywood-like "art installation" erected on the grounds of the London church to make concrete the Israel-bashing that emanates from its politically-extreme clergy's pop theology - has been rocked in recent days by escalating acts of lethal-minded Palestinian Arab violence.

That's "lethal" as in likely to take someone's life and/or organs, rather than a reference to some movie.

Last night (Monday), a pipe bomb was thrown into the car park of the ancient Rachel's Tomb, injuring an as-yet unidentified person. Ynet said police and Border Guard forces were searching the area for the attackers. Times of Israel noted that this happened just hours after Secretary of State John Kerry flew out of Israel after another peace-making visit and in the wake of "sporadic attacks throughout the West Bank" that have grown more frequent (we would say more intense) as a result of those visits.

Earlier in the day, Palestinian Arabs hurled a grenade towards an IDF base near Bethlehem. Again, fortunately, no casualties, no damage. That is plainly not the outcome intended by those behind the attack who put their lives on the line when firing at armed security personnel. They mean business, and though yesterday they failed, it is a certainty they will keep trying.

Why, by the way, would there even be a need for armed security personnel in the vicinity of the peaceful little town of Bethlehem?

For the same reason that Rachel's Tomb, a modest place of Jewish pilgrimage since Roman times, is today dwarfed by thirty-foot-high walls and guard towers that entirely encase it in concrete: because of the gunmen and grenade hurlers who live nearby and are urged on by political and religious leaders to do everything they can to hurt the Jews.

(Continue)

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. Check-it out! 
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Guess who the Washington Post finds to blame for the Christian exodus from Bethlehem?

...Not once does O'Connor cite an Israeli official to rebut the article's fault-finding of Israel -- a gross violation of basic journalistic standards. There also is no mention that Bethlehem is under Palestinian Authority rule, which means that Abbas is derelict in failing to exert responsibility for the safety of all Bethlehem inhabitants. And there is no mention that there is one important exception to the exodus of Christians from the Middle East -- one country where Christians actually are growing in numbers.

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
23 December '13..

The Washington Post runs a big spread in its Dec. 22 edition under the headline, "What's missing in Bethlehem? Mayor urges tourists and Christians to return". The article, by Anne Marie O'Connor, tells readers that "for years, Palestinian Christians have been quietly abandoning the place where Jesus is said to have been born in a manger. Middle-class residents have packed their bags for less chaotic lives in Latin America, Europe and the United States."

From 90 percent Christian in the early 1900s, Bethlehem, a city of 22,000, today is more than two-thirds Muslim.

"Thanks to an exodus of Christians," O'Connor writes. Bethlehem was 60 percent Christian in 1990, but Christians lost their majority in the 90s. By 2000, Christians accounted for only 40 percent of Bethlehem's population. By recent counts, Bethlehem today is only 15 percent Christian and 1,000 Christians leave every year.

So, what accounts for this Christian exodus from Bethlehem? O'Connor puts the onus on Israel -- "the Israeli military checkpoints and security barrier that separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem, a 10-minute drive away... and Israeli settlements that are growing around Bethlehem," she tells readers.

But that's hardly the full story, and certainly not the real story. For starters, O'Connor fails to point out that there's a good reason for Israel's nearby security barrier and checkpoints. Bethlehem has for many years been a hotbed of Palestinian terrorist cells. Rachel's Tomb on the outskirts of the city is a regular target for Palestinian stone-throwers and snipers.

Using a Marathon as Political Warfare

If The Palestine Marathon had nothing to do with politics, it had everything to do with political warfare. It is likely the first marathon in the history of modern sports that categorically prohibited runners from Israel from taking part, banning Israeli Jews, Muslims and Druse athletes.

Dan Diker..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
23 April '13..

The so called “Right to Movement” Palestine Marathon that took place in Bethlehem this past Sunday bore an extra responsibility to foster good will and understanding as an international sporting event. The race came at the end of a week that saw two young radical Islamist terrorists detonate bombs near the Boston Marathon’s finish line slaughtering three spectators and wounding nearly 200. The Palestinian marathon was to show the redeeming power of sports to overcome the politically and ideologically driven hatred that killed and maimed so many of Boston’s runners and spectators.

The Palestinian race organizers and main sponsors – KVINFO, the Danish Center for Gender, Equality and Ethnicity, led by Danish runners Laerke Hein and Signe Fischer – planned the inaugural contest in Bethlehem to take place in tandem with the high-profile inaugural London Marathon, noting that they “wanted to show that the Palestinians are perfectly capable of hosting an international marathon,” adding that “the Palestine Marathon is about cultural exchange and understanding, and it is free of any political agenda.”

Palestinian Olympic Committee spokesman Samia Wazir also told the BBC that “the Israelis should look at this as purely a sporting event, it has nothing to do with politics.”

Really? If The Palestine Marathon had nothing to do with politics, it had everything to do with political warfare. It is likely the first marathon in the history of modern sports that categorically prohibited runners from Israel from taking part, banning Israeli Jews, Muslims and Druse athletes.

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:

Primarily guilty of doing what diplomats are generally urged to avoid

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

Israel’s embassy in Ireland got itself in hot water for an inflammatory posting on its Facebook page that embarrassed the Jewish state. The post stated that were Jesus and Mary alive today and walking around Bethlehem without security, they would be lynched as Jews by the Palestinians. When a controversy over the post ensued, it was soon deleted and an apology was issued. But the Dublin embassy is not getting off so easy. The New York Times quoted Haaretz’s diplomatic correspondent as reporting that this was just the latest though most egregious example of an aggressive stance taken by Israel’s envoys in Ireland. Apparently the embassy is guilty of speaking of Irish anti-Israel activists. It even had the temerity to re-post a satirical video about Irish media bias against Israel by the Latma comedy troupe.

All of this has brought down the opprobrium of Haaretz and the Times on the Dublin embassy. The Times even closed its piece on the subject by quoting a Palestinian response to the posting about Jesus and Mary that said that Christmas is freely celebrated in Bethlehem each year. But that remark, as well as much of the criticism of the supposedly undiplomatic behavior of the envoys, is off the mark. As much as it might have been wiser for anyone connected to the Israeli government to avoid any mention of the holy family or Christmas, their “offensive” post was primarily guilty of doing the one thing that diplomats are generally urged to avoid: telling the truth.

As the Times notes, Ireland has become a hotbed of anti-Israel incitement in the past few decades. Though Irish independence fighters and Jews struggling to free their ancient homeland once identified with each other due to their common British foe, the Irish Catholics now seem to identify more with the Palestinians while it is the Ulster Protestants who think of Israel as a role model for survival as a minority in a hostile environment. The Irish media is well known for its anti-Israel bias and agitation against the Jewish state that seems to be louder and nastier than in even neighboring Britain.

Perhaps that’s why Israel’s Dublin embassy has come to the reasonable conclusion that it needs to stop playing defense when it comes to correcting misperceptions about the Middle East conflict. In too many instances, Israeli diplomats and spokespersons have avoiding getting into scrapes but in the process failed to adequately defend their country at a time when a rising tide of anti-Semitism has distorted the debate about the Middle East conflict in Europe.

Rennert - Wash. Post, AP blind to Christian persecution in Bethlehem

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
25 December '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/12/wash_post_ap_blind_to_christian_persecution_in_bethlehem.html

In its Dec. 25 edition, the Washington Post runs an Associated Press article that depicts Bethlehem in warm, festive terms with tourists and pilgrims packing hotels for Christmas celebrations in Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity - plus an accolade to the Palestinian Authority for its presumed respect of all religions ("Bethlehem packed with Christmas Eve visitors" page A19)

To put this year's celebration in a historical context, the article reports that Israel turned Bethlehem over to Palestinian civil control in 1995, and "since then, residents have been celebrating the holiday regardless of religion." Which religion pray tell was blacklisted in Bethlehem before 1995? The AP doesn't say.

It gets even more problematic in the next paragraph, which reads: "Today, only about one-third of Bethlehem's residents are Christian, reflecting a broader exodus of Christians from the Middle East in recent decades." This hardly does justice to Bethlehem's real history and the real travails of its Christian residents under Palestinian rule.

Christmas in Terrorland

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
Friday Afternoon Roundup
25 December 09

In the media's Middle Eastern coverage it wouldn't be Christmas without the usual seasonal run of stories on how Bethlehem's Christians are suffering because of Israel. These stories will occasionally admit that the number of Christians dropped drastically under the Palestinian Authority, not under Israeli rule, but this doesn't stop them from running the usual smear campaign.

The Wall Street Journal (via Debbie Schlussel) has an excellent rebuttal

Meet Yussuf Khoury, a 23-year old Palestinian refugee living in the West Bank. Unlike those descendents of refugees born in United Nations camps, Mr. Khoury fled his birthplace just two years ago. And he wasn't running away from Israelis, but from his Palestinian brethren in Gaza.

Mr. Khoury's crime in that Hamas-ruled territory was to be a Christian, a transgression he compounded in the Islamists' eyes by writing love poems.

"Muslims tied to Hamas tried to take me twice," says Mr. Khoury, and he didn't want to find out what they'd do to him if they ever kidnapped him. He hasn't seen his family since Christmas 2007 and is afraid even to talk to them on the phone.

Speaking to a group of foreign journalists in the Bethlehem Bible College where he is studying theology, Mr. Khoury describes a life of fear in Gaza. "My sister is under a lot of pressure to wear a headscarf. People are turning more and more to Islamic fundamentalism and the situation for Christians is very difficult," he says.

In 2007, one year after the Hamas takeover, the owner of Gaza's only Christian bookstore was abducted and murdered. Christian shops and schools have been firebombed. Little wonder that most of Mr. Khoury's Christian friends have also left Gaza.

On the rare occasion that Western media cover the plight of Christians in the Palestinian territories, it is often to denounce Israel and its security barrier. Yet until Palestinian terrorist groups turned Bethlehem into a safe haven for suicide bombers, Bethlehemites were free to enter Israel, just as many Israelis routinely visited Bethlehem.

The other truth usually ignored by the Western press is that the barrier helped restore calm and security not just in Israel, but also in the West Bank including Bethlehem. The Church of the Nativity, which Palestinian gunmen stormed and defiled in 2002 to escape from Israeli security forces, is now filled again with tourists and pilgrims from around the world.

But even here in Jesus' birthplace, which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Christians live on a knife's edge. Mr. Khoury tells me that Muslims often stand in front of the gate of the Bible College and read from the Quran to intimidate Christian students. Other Muslims like to roll out their prayer rugs right in Manger Square.

...

Always a minority religion among the predominantly Muslim Palestinians, Christians are, Mr. Qumsieh says, "melting away," even in Bethlehem. While they represented about 80% of the city's population 60 years ago, their numbers are now down to about 20%, a result not just of Muslims' higher birth rates but also widespread Christian emigration. "Our future as a Christian community here is gloomy," Mr. Qumsieh says.

This kind of "honest reporting" however is a rarity among the usual roll call of pieces attacking Israel, while giving Fatah and Hamas terrorists a pass.

The majority of the stories blame Israel for "scaring away" tourists, not the terrorists, whose latest attack murdered a father of 7 yesterday.

(Read full article)

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The Forgotten Palestinian Refugees

Daniel Schwammenthal
Wall Street Journal
23 December 09

Even in Bethlehem, Palestinian Christians are suffering under Muslim intolerance.

(While I find no surprise in this, many still have not grasped the nature of the problem. This is another opportunity for them.)

Meet Yussuf Khoury, a 23-year old Palestinian refugee living in the West Bank. Unlike those descendents of refugees born in United Nations camps, Mr. Khoury fled his birthplace just two years ago. And he wasn't running away from Israelis, but from his Palestinian brethren in Gaza.

Mr. Khoury's crime in that Hamas-ruled territory was to be a Christian, a transgression he compounded in the Islamists' eyes by writing love poems.

"Muslims tied to Hamas tried to take me twice," says Mr. Khoury, and he didn't want to find out what they'd do to him if they ever kidnapped him. He hasn't seen his family since Christmas 2007 and is afraid even to talk to them on the phone.

Speaking to a group of foreign journalists in the Bethlehem Bible College where he is studying theology, Mr. Khoury describes a life of fear in Gaza. "My sister is under a lot of pressure to wear a headscarf. People are turning more and more to Islamic fundamentalism and the situation for Christians is very difficult," he says.

In 2007, one year after the Hamas takeover, the owner of Gaza's only Christian bookstore was abducted and murdered. Christian shops and schools have been firebombed. Little wonder that most of Mr. Khoury's Christian friends have also left Gaza.

A demonstration of power: Muslims praying in Manger Square, Aug. 7, 2009.
On the rare occasion that Western media cover the plight of Christians in the Palestinian territories, it is often to denounce Israel and its security barrier. Yet until Palestinian terrorist groups turned Bethlehem into a safe haven for suicide bombers, Bethlehemites were free to enter Israel, just as many Israelis routinely visited Bethlehem.

The other truth usually ignored by the Western press is that the barrier helped restore calm and security not just in Israel, but also in the West Bank including Bethlehem. The Church of the Nativity, which Palestinian gunmen stormed and defiled in 2002 to escape from Israeli security forces, is now filled again with tourists and pilgrims from around the world.

(Read full article)
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The Stratagem Behind The Convention

Israel Harel

Haaretz

07 August 09

The Israeli right is once again up in arms, but then, it always rushes in first. Yet this time, the disappointment is also evident in the more pragmatic camp. (Kadima MK Avi Dichter, for instance, said the statements by Fatah leaders send the organization back 20 years.) After all the praise that successive Israeli leaders have heaped on Fatah's peace-loving leaders, they are repaying us with statements about continuing the armed struggle.

But if that is the direction Fatah's convention is taking, why is the government even allowing the thousands of Fatah members to come to Bethlehem? After all, the result will be a crude anti-Israel extravaganza. One can easily imagine, people are saying, how Likud would have reacted if a leftist government had allowed proven terrorists to convene a mere bowshot from Jerusalem and inflame themselves with rhetoric about resuming the armed struggle.

Is this yet another situation in which "only Likud can do it?" Since it was proved this week that we have a macho prime minister (who forced a majority of both his party and coalition to vote for the land privatization law and the so-called Mofaz law), one must conclude that Benjamin Netanyahu deliberately allowed the thousands of delegates to flock to the Fatah convention. But he was not trying to achieve a reputation for openness and meeting the enemy halfway: His main goal was to extract proof from the Palestinians - proof that would convince Israeli public opinion in particular - on whether we are really dealing with "moderates" here.

Therefore, he ordered that they be allowed to gather and bare their teeth: The dynamic of rhetoric and competition over leadership jobs would do the rest. Indeed, this goal was already achieved in the warm-up phase, before the convention even started - as the open concern expressed this week by members of Israel's moderate camp amply demonstrates. True, there was a nonnegligible risk that the Palestinians would not supply the goods. But now that they are supplying them, in spades, the achievement is complete.

This success was achieved mainly thanks to the Israeli peace camp's veteran dialogue partners. A week before the convention, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) - who is received with the honor reserved for heads of state not only at the King David Hotel, but also at the White House, the Elysee and Buckingham Palace - declared that the Palestinians reserve the right to engage in armed resistance. Were it not for the impressive skill at machinations that our government has demonstrated since it was established, it would have hastened to announce that if this is how the leader of the moderates talks, the convention will result in escalated violence, not progress toward peace, and therefore, Israel will refuse to allow the delegates to enter Bethlehem.

That would have been logical, no? But since Israel's real goal is the exact opposite - namely, to highlight that even the Palestinians' most moderate wing is characterized by inherent aggressiveness - Abu Mazen enabled that goal to be achieved even before the convention opened.

So did Jibril Rajoub, who allowed the highlights of his convention speech ("the military option has not been abandoned") to be published and thereby showed his claws. Now Israel can prove who this man, this fixture at peace conferences both in Israel and throughout the world, really is: He was and remains a terrorist.

But the Israeli media did not fall into this trap. As longstanding and loyal Fatah supporters, they understood that the Palestinians had played into the hands of the rightist government. So, as is their wont, the media demonstrated responsibility by trying, as they have so often in the past, to play down their darlings' warlike statements. Yet the harsh public reactions show that this time, unlike in the past, the media have not managed to tip the scales. The Fatah convention, at least from the standpoint of Israel's interests, is proving a success whose importance would be hard to overstate.
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Bethlehem Residents Have No Water Because of Congress

Ali Waked
Ynet/Israel News
05 August 09

Water supply divided between West Bank city's neighborhoods on weekly basis moved entirely to Fatah conference area; residents suffering from blocked roads as well. Meanwhile, Fatah officials split over absent Gaza delegates

BETHLEHEM – The Fatah movement is attempting to present its first congress in 20 years being held in Bethlehem as a success. The organization is mostly trying to convey a sense of "business as usual" and in terms of the status of Gaza Strip and Fatah activists living in the Strip, who have been stopped by Hamas from traveling to the West Bank for the conference.

But those who are really suffering from heat are the West Bank city's residents, who are waiting for the conference to conclude Thursday. A store owner on the city's main street says the Bethlehem's neighborhoods share the water flow – which is supplied every other week.

Related: 'Water Not Being Withheld In West Bank'

"This time the entire flow is directed to the conference area, and we are forced to manage without any water. (Anyone surprised?) Otherwise, we can buy containers for NIS 500 (about $129), which are enough for up to four days for an average family."

Without any running water and in light of the boosted presence of thousands of security officers, Bethlehem's residents are trying to go on with their lives. "Half of the city's streets are closed, and every time a senior official's convoy passes, the main road is closed," says the store owner.

The Palestinian added that the congress delegates have not left even one vacant hotel room. "But this is not the problem – we expected the hotel area to be busy and closed. The problem is with the senior officials who have rented villas and houses in areas far from the conference, and every time they move, the entire world has to stop. It harms people's life routine."
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