Five lies (not counting distortions and errors) in Guardian op-ed claiming ‘Christians being driven out of the holy land’. - by Adam Levick

...Though we’re of course accustomed to errors, distortions and omissions in Guardian op-eds about Israel, this piece by the Orthodox Patriarch, suggesting some sort of sinister Jewish plot to ethnically cleans Christians from the holy land, rises to a whole other level of dishonesty.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
07 January '18..

A Guardian op-ed by Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, (“Christians are at risk of being driven out of the Holy Land”, Jan. 7th) is full of errors, lies and distortions:

Lie #1

“there is a threat…to the religious status quo, a threat instigated by radical settlers in and around Jerusalem, the heart of Christianity.

Theophilos’s assertion that “radical settlers” threaten the religious status quo in Jerusalem is not true, as later in the article we learn that the “radical settlers” are Jews who buy property in east Jerusalem. However, Jewish groups purchasing land in (east) Jerusalem do not threaten the “status quo”, at least in regards to what that term typically refers to: access to holy sites, such as the Temple Mount. (Alternatively, if he’s not referring to the status quo at holy sites, he could be making a morally troubling argument that any Jew who moves into areas of the city where Jews were ethnically cleansed and forbidden to live under Jordanian rule is itself a violation of the ‘status quo’.)

Also, note how he characterises Jerusalem as “the heart of Christianity”, but fails, in this paragraph or anywhere throughout the op-ed, to acknowledge the Jewish connection to the city.

Lie #2

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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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‘Religious Freedom’ and a Half-told Story at BBC Radio 4 - by Hadar Sela

...As we see, this report presented an entirely one-sided and distorted account of a story that was repeatedly portrayed as being solely about "the church's rights in the region" and with absolutely no mention of the other side of the story and the rights of the people affected by the church's actions. One might also question the timing of this story seeing as it actually broke several months ago but BBC audiences heard nothing about it until various church bodies began a PR campaign. As for Edward Stourton's claim that "religious freedom" includes real estate deals - that one will surely go down as one of the more ridiculous notions promoted by the BBC.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Waatch..
23 November '17..

The November 19th edition of the BBC Radio 4 religious affairs programme ‘Sunday‘ included an item described in its synopsis as follows:

“Madeline Davies from The Church Times tells Edward why the Greek Orthodox Church is selling it’s [sic] land in Israel.”

However, as listeners quickly found out, it in fact developed into a story about a draft bill currently awaiting debate in Israel’s Knesset.

Presenter Edward Stourton introduced the item.

Stourton: “In the holy land nothing stirs passions like the land itself. The Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem – Theophilos III – seems to be selling off an awful lot of it. Madeline Davies of the Church Times has been following the story and told me what’s happening.”

Davies: “The Greek Orthodox Patriarchy owns a large amount of land in Israel and it’s really the only source of income that the Patriarch has. They’ve got a lot of costs to cover and they have sold some land in order to cover those costs. There’s really a dispute over some of those sales; whether some of those sales were done with the full permission of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch and whether some of them were actually done without the approval of the church and should never have gone through.”

Stourton: “And why is it such a sensitive issue?”

Davies: “It’s really a question about the co-existence in Jerusalem. There’s a desire to ensure that the church is able to control its own land; to make its own decisions about whether it sells it and who to, or whether the government can really intervene in who owns land in the area.”

Stourton then promoted extremely partisan – and inaccurate – framing of the story:

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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 Fabrication and Fiction of "Dwindling" Christians in Israel ...by Dexter Van Zile

Mainstream media often alleges that Israel is inhospitable toward its Christian inhabitants resulting in a dramatic decline in their numbers. In fact, just the opposite is true.

Dexter Van Zile..
JerusalemJournal.net..
27 September '17..

One of the most enduring methods of de-legitimizing Israel is to portray it as a bad place for non-Jews, Christians especially, to live. Oftentimes, Palestinian Christians will describe Israel as behaving like Jews in First Century Jerusalem as described in the New Testament. Jews in Israel mistreated Jesus back in the day, and now Jews are mistreating his modern-day followers.

To buttress this narrative, anti-Zionists will play around with the numbers of Christians living in the country to falsely assert that Israel’s Christian population is “dwindling” when, in fact, it has grown substantially since the War for Independence in 1948/49.

Oftentimes, commentators point out that Christians amounted to 20 percent of the people who lived in the area that is now included in the Jewish State and that today, Christians are only two percent or less of the population and as a result, the population is decreasing. The implication is that Israel, the Jewish state, is inhospitable for Christians and is unworthy of Christian support.

The alleged decline of Christianity in the Jewish state is a prevalent theme that has been promoted in number of outlets such as the Catholic Near East Welfare Agency (CNEWA), the Associated Press, Sojourners, National Geographic, and by 60 Minutes.

Fair-minded Christians who want to respond to the notion that Israel is bad for Christians need to know one thing:

The number of indigenous Christians in the Jewish state has increased by almost 300 percent since the War for Independence.

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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 Real Palestinian Christmas Show by Jonathan S. Tobin

...the key facts to remember when you see tomorrow (Thursday) night’s Christmas show from Bethlehem that will be repeated in an endless loop the following day on the news channels. The reality of Palestinian Christmas isn’t the prayers of victims for freedom. Rather it is of a continued determination to wage a terror war against the descendants of the real Jesus as opposed to the Palestinian myth.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
23 December '15..

As Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas evening tomorrow (Thursday night), their television screens will be filled with the usual images from Bethlehem. We won’t hear much if anything about how that city’s once largely Christian population has been driven out by a rising tide of Islamist fervor and the Palestinian leadership’s desire for continued conflict rather than peace with Israel. Palestinians leaders will, as they do every year, speak of their suffering and recycle myths about Israeli persecution of Christians that are eagerly lapped up by credulous journalists. Then they will promote their own bizarre version of replacement theology in which the historical Jesus becomes, as Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas likes to call a “Palestinian messenger.” The whole point of the show is to damage Israel’s reputation in the West and justify its isolation. But the real Palestinian Christmas show involves behavior that won’t be part of the Christmas Eve broadcasts.

Today, as they have virtually ever day for the past three months, individual Palestinian terrorists struck in attempts to kill random Jews they encounter on the streets. In this instance, it took place at the Jaffa Gates to the Old City of Jerusalem, a site familiar to tourists. Two Jews were killed after being set upon by two Palestinians who were killed by police that tried, in vain, to save the victims. That raised the toll to 24 Jews slain in this so-called “stabbing intifada.” More than 100 Palestinians, the vast majority of them terrorists cut down during the course of their attacks have also died.

Yet the same Palestinian leaders like Abbas who will speak tomorrow of Jesus’s message and of a desire for “peace on earth” and “justice” have also played a principle role in inciting these bloody attacks. It is the same Abbas who spoke just a few months ago about the need for Palestinians to prevent “stinking Jewish feet” from polluting holy places sacred to all three monotheistic faiths and who praises those who try to butcher Jews as “martyrs” that will be allowed to grandstand on international television tomorrow. And it is also the same Abbas that refused multiple Israeli offers of peace and statehood, in spite of his claims that this is what he wants.

But, of course, Abbas isn’t the only source of Palestinian leadership. Though they will not put on a Christmas show for the world, Hamas is also making its presence felt. Unlike Abbas’s Fatah Party, those Islamists make no pretense of respecting Christianity. But it is fear of competition from the rulers of Gaza that impels Abbas to continue to stoke the fires of conflict when not preening for the foreign press.

Where the Pope is Welcomed with Lies About Israel’s Christians

...Throw in the de rigueur innuendos that the Palestinian Authority’s declining Christian population is mainly Israel’s fault, and Casey’s verbal Photoshop job is complete: The one country in the Middle East whose Christian population is growing and thriving–a fact increasingly acknowledged by Israeli Christians themselves–has been successfully repackaged to the average reader as a vicious persecutor that is driving its Christians out.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
26 May '14..

I’m a longtime fan of the Wall Street Journal. But I confess to mystification over why a paper with a staunchly pro-Israel editorial line consistently allows its news pages to be used for anti-Israel smear campaigns–and I do mean smear campaigns, not just “critical reporting.” A classic example was its assertion in an April 7 news report that Israel had agreed “to release political prisoners” as part of the U.S.-brokered deal that restarted Israeli-Palestinian talks last summer. The Journal was sufficiently embarrassed by this description of convicted mass murderers that it issued a correction in print, yet the online version still unrepentantly dubs these vicious terrorists “political prisoners.”

A more subtle example was last week’s report titled “On Middle East Visit, Pope Will Find a Diminished Christian Population.” While Israel is the glaring exception to this Mideast trend, reporter Nicholas Casey elegantly implies the opposite in a single sentence that’s dishonest on at least three different levels: “Syria has seen an exodus of nearly half a million Christians, and in Jerusalem, a population of 27,000 Christians in 1948 has dwindled to 5,000.”

First, while Casey never says explicitly that Jerusalem’s shrinking Christian population reflects the situation in Israel as a whole, it’s the obvious conclusion for the average reader–especially given the juxtaposition with Syria, which implies that both countries are treating their Christians similarly and thereby causing them to flee. This impression is reinforced by the only other statistic he gives about Israel: that Christians have declined as a percentage of the total population.

The truth, however, is that Israel’s Christian population has grown dramatically–from a mere 34,000 in 1949 to 158,000 in 2012, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. That’s an increase of almost fivefold. And while Christians have fallen as a share of the total population, that’s mainly because they have significantly lower birthrates than either Israeli Jews or Israeli Muslims.

Anti-Semites, Jews, lies and Christian victims

...There have always been Jewish anti-Semites. Now some Jewish-Israelis have also joined the list. Serious mental illness can probably be found among all human communities. The problem is that one of those suffering from the illness is publishing her drivel in a newspaper that purports to be normal.

Ben-Dror Yemini..
Times of Israel..
08 January '13..

In late December, The Independent published an article about the bleak situation of the Christians in the Middle East. It had the right idea. The Christians in the Middle East are in trouble. They’re being slaughtered in dozens of different places and millions have become refugees or been forced to flee. Amazingly enough, however, the article was devoted almost entirely to their sad situation in Israel, of all places. “Will Prince Charles, the ‘Defender of Faiths,’ stand up for Christians in Israel?” read the astonishing headline.

Blogger Elder of Ziyon has enumerated lies so egregious – and there are many – in this manifest masquerading as an article (also published here in Hebrew). They saved me the trouble of having to refute the lies myself. Not a single Christian in Israel is being persecuted because of his religion. There has been no pogrom. Israel’s Christians are fully integrated at the top of their professions as physicians, lawyers and judges. The Israeli Christian community is a minority that in many areas, such as higher education, has made remarkable achievements. Even more so than the Jews. They do not need any Prince Charles or The Independent to defend them. But somehow, the author of the article and the newspaper have managed once again to turn the situation on its head and make truth lies and lies truth.

They have created a new reality: The only place in the Middle East where Christians are prospering and thriving has been turned by the industry of lies into a place where they are in trouble. I have to admit that there is something deeply discouraging about articles such as these, which are no more than modern sequels to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

What is intriguing, however, is that the author of the article in the British newspaper is named Mira Bar-Hillel, a Jewish woman and former Israeli. It turns out that she belongs to a not-new breed of Jews. One may not criticize Israel, she once complained, because any such censure is immediately perceived as anti-Semitism. This is a familiar argument, one that is even justified in some cases. The problem is not with criticism. The problem is with lies. And her “article” is an outstanding example of the fact that the problem is just the opposite: The anti-Semites want to spread blood libels and escape attack with the claim that they are merely criticizing.

When Global Media Focuses on Christians Under Attack, Who is their Favorite Target?

The global media is quick to jump on Jewish hooliganism against Christians in Israel, but gives short shrift to the rampant and deadly persecution of Christians in the Arab and Islamic world.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
10 September '12..

The shameful hooligans who vandalized the monastery at Latrun last week raised howls of protest worldwide. The ugly attack was covered extensively in just about every newspaper in the world, with a lot of buzz about the supposed brutalization of Israeli society and a radicalization of religious Jewry.

Without in any way meaning to trivialize or excuse the reprehensible attack, I take offense at the global response to the incident, for a number of reasons. Firstly, there is no sweeping brutalization or radicalization underway in Israeli society. Every responsible Israeli political and religious leader, including the Chief Rabbis, condemned the defacing of the monastery and apologized profusely in the name of Israel and Judaism. Certainly, no-one in Israel encourages such violence, either against Moslems or Christians. 99.99 percent of religious Jews, including the most ultra-nationalist supporters of the settlement enterprise, view anti-Moslem or anti-Christian attacks as abhorrent desecrations of G-d’s name.

Secondly, despite a spate of recent so-called ‘price-tag’ attacks (which will speedily come to an end when the police crack the fringe groups involved), Israel remains the standard-bearer for protection of all holy sites and religious groupings in this land, and it maintains freedom of worship for all.

Moreover, Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the number of Christians is rising (at about one percent per year, currently standing at 154,500, amounting to two percent of the population). In fact, the past two decades have seen one of the most significant influxes of Christians into the Holy Land since the Crusades, and it has created a wholly new Christian landscape. For the first time, there is a significant population of non-Arab Christian Israeli citizens, mainly immigrants from the former Soviet Union who, unlike Arabs, are fully assimilated into the Jewish Israeli mainstream. There are many thousands of newly arrived Roman Catholics, Russian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, and other groups.

Christians in Israel have it good. The percentage of Christian Arabs who graduate high school is higher than that of Muslim or Jewish students, and more than 50 percent of Christian students proceed to study at Israeli universities (including more than 60 percent of Christian Arab women).

But you wouldn’t know this from last week’s media reports. Instead, you would likely have received the impression that Christians in Israel are under assault by the Jews.

What irks me even more is that few readers anywhere in the world would know from the Western media that Christians indeed are under fierce attack – from Arabs and Muslims across the Middle East, often with government encouragement and support.