Christian plight in the Holy Land

Christian plight in the Holy Land DAVID PARSONS, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 13, 2006

The long-neglected plight of Palestinian Christians has finally hit radar screens in the US Congress, though there is still lots of clutter to clear up over the source of their distress and how to remedy it.

The unlikely catalyst was conservative commentator Robert Novak, who relishes any chance to spread dirt on Israel. In a Washington Post column in late May, Novak disclosed that veteran Congressman Henry Hyde, Republican chairman of the House International Relations Committee, sent President George W. Bush a private letter suggesting American support for Israel's security fence may involve "the affirmation of injustice" due to its "negative consequences on communities and lands under their occupation."

Accompanying Hyde's letter was a report compiled by his staff over recent years detailing the alleged impact Israel's security barrier is having on Arab Christians in the Holy Land, particularly in Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

In response, House members Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Joseph Crowley (D-NY) circulated a proposed resolution in June that blamed the Palestinian Authority's systematic abuse of Palestinians Christians for their continuing flight from the land where Christianity began.

A heated debate has ensued on Capitol Hill, fueled by Arab clerics and pro-Palestinian American clergy who fault the draft resolution for exaggerating the role Islamic radicalism plays in the Christian exodus from the Holy Land. Three senior Arab clerics in Jerusalem (Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, Anglican Archbishop Riah Abu al-Assal, and Lutheran Archbishop Mounib Younan) even invited McCaul and Crowley to visit the region and see for themselves how the "massive migration to other countries of Palestinian Christians [is] largely due to the illegal [Israeli] Occupation."

This debate is not new and all sides agree that the Palestinian Christian community is dwindling fast, from around 10% of the population in 1948 to barely 1.5% today. What remains in dispute is who should be held responsible for the decline - Israel or the Palestinian Muslims. IT WOULD seem Chairman Hyde has fallen victim to that evil twin of divestment - namely the dismantlement campaign. Both are anti-Israel propaganda initiatives launched after the infamous UN conference on racism in Durban in 2002. While divestment made some in-roads in the Presbyterian and Anglican churches, the campaign to force Israel to dismantle its security fence has now penetrated the halls of Congress - thanks mainly to Arab Christian activism.

Yet it is farcical to pin the primary blame for the Palestinian Christian exodus on Israel's security fence or its "occupation," since the phenomena predates both by decades.

More than 60% of the native-born Palestinian Christians had already fled the land long before the fence started going up three years ago. And most of that emigration occurred prior to Israel's entry into the West Bank in 1967, when the area was under Jordanian occupation. The last British census in Jerusalem, for example, found 28,000 Arab Christian residents in 1948, while Israel's first official tally in 1967 registered only 11,000.

So for the bulk of the ancient Arab Christian community of the Holy Land, the current debate over the impact of the security fence is rather pointless - they fled long ago. TRUTH BE told, Palestinian Christians have been driven out by the Arab-Israeli conflict itself, which arose from and is perpetuated by the Islamic world's bitter and unremitting rejection of Israel's very existence.

These Christians have wanted little to do with this conflict, which stymied economic opportunities in the land. More mobile and better educated than their Muslim neighbors, they sought a future elsewhere. Some crossed over into Israel proper, the only country in the Middle East where the Christian community has actually grown over the past 50 years, while scores of others started anew in such far off places as Toronto, Santiago and Sydney.

Those that remain suffer under the same hostile Islamic spirit battering Israel, which views Jews and Christians as followers of "inferior" faiths who are naturally destined to be subjugated by Muslims. Palestinian Christians - like other Christian minorities in Arab lands - have grown accustomed through the centuries to this sad state of dhimmitude, with most of their leaders maintaining a code of silence about it to protect their flocks.

It is a truism that the higher up the Palestinian Christian cleric, the greater their likely silence. The signers of the invitation letter to Cong. McCaul and Crowley are cases in point.

"The entire history of Palestine never witnessed any religious conflict between Christians and Muslims," Bishop Riah told The Washington Times at a time when Muslim gunmen were invading Christian homes in Beit Jalla to shoot at Gilo.

"[I]n Arab countries there is no persecution of Christians," Latin Patriarch Sabbah assured Newsweek at Christmas two years later. BY PUSHING for dismantlement of Israel's security barrier, Palestinian Christian leaders seek to accomplish two goals:

First, they prove their nationalist credentials to the Palestinian Muslim majority. They have not given any sons as shahids (martyrs) in the jihad against Israel, but they are contributing to the cause and thereby appease the Islamist beast.

Second, they genuinely want to keep the door open to Israel, lest their parishioners get trapped beyond the wall without any escape hatch from the menacing Muslim masses.

Nonetheless, they would have us pretend that Palestinian society is the shining exception to the prevailing Muslim oppression of Arab Christian minorities throughout the Middle East. Hundreds of thousands from the ancient Assyrian Christian community have fled the Sunni insurgency in Iraq over recent years. The proud Egyptian Coptic and Lebanese Maronite communities are wilting and fleeing under official and societal persecution. The practice of Christianity is banned in Saudi Arabia. But all is fine in Palestine!?

I suspect Bob Novak probably cares more about smearing Israel than the fate of Palestinian Christians. By the same token, some probably highlight Muslim maltreatment of Palestinian Christians just to score points for Israel. But for far too many of them, it is much too late to play the blame game over who or what caused their exodus from the Holy Land. Rather, the pertinent question should be what can be done to preserve the embattled Christian remnant still clinging to the land. The answer to that, dear friends, lies largely in Israel's protective hands.

The writer is media director for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem and contributing editor of The Jerusalem Post Christian Edition.

the pertinent question should be what can be done to preserve the embattled Christian remnant still clinging to the land. The answer to that, dear friends, lies largely in Israel's protective hands.

The writer is media director for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem and contributing editor of The Jerusalem Post Christian Edition.

2 posted on 07/16/2006 7:54:10 PM PDT by A. Pole (For today's Democrats abortion and "gay marriage" are more important that the whole New Deal legacy.)

One of my closest friends is a Palestinian Christian. He has relatives living in California, Peru, and still some are living in the West Bank.

Most Christians left the country because they do not need to deal with the Muslims and take advantage of opportunities in the West where they are able to assimiliate easily anyway.

4 posted on 07/16/2006 7:59:19 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican (Everyone that doesn't like what America and President Bush has done for Iraq can all go to HELL)

Whatever turns attention to the plight of the Christians in the Middle East.

5 posted on 07/16/2006 8:01:23 PM PDT by A. Pole (For today's Democrats abortion and "gay marriage" are more important that the whole New Deal legacy.)

Oh come on, just between friends!!! You really didn't read the whole thing before you bumped it?

You really meant to bump:

The answer to that, dear friends, lies largely in Israel's protective hands.

LOL

"Second, they genuinely want to keep the door open to Israel, lest their parishioners get trapped beyond the wall without any escape hatch from the menacing Muslim masses."
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Is there a reason the wall couldn't have been built to incorporate them into Israel? I understand wanting to keep the muslims out, they want to kill all the Jews. The Christians pose no threat.

There is no surprise that Hyde would denounce Israel. Hyde is a whore to the Muslim Kosovo Albanian lobby (see the documentary "The Brooklyn Connection" available on Netflix and Blockbuster Online). One of the first things Kosovo Albanians did after the NATO bombing was to kick out the local Jews. http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/ceda.htm

You "can't serve two masters" -- Islam and non-Islam (Jews & Christians).

There are many many Jews outside the fence.

The fence is composed of links of foolish beliefs as recent events have proved.

As to the route of the fence, Israel has been taken to the International Court of Justice over the issue and the US has been less then understanding too.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=312751&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

"As to the route of the fence, Israel has been taken to the International Court of Justice over the issue and the US has been less then understanding too."
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To heck with that nonsense. Israel had to build the wall for their own security. My question was why weren't the Christians included when the wall was built. They pose no threat to the Jews.

I tried to explain to you. Because George W Bush has promised a "Palestinian" State and the US, the World, Israel's Leftists (rulings of the Israeli Supreme Court), get upset with every inch the fence goes into what is considered the future "Palestinian" State.

That is why large entire Jewish neighborhoods are outside the fence too.

"That is why large entire Jewish neighborhoods are outside the fence too."
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What large entire Jewish neighborhoods are outside of the wall? I thought the settlers were relocated.

I know its semantics, but the pictures I've seen of the wall show a wall not a chain link fence.

Blaming George Bush for the Christians being abandoned to the wolves is weak.

Approximately 70,000 Jews are outside the security fence -- including some large settlements.

It would be impossible to put the Christian areas (well, those that still exist) behind the security fence -- they are too intertwined with Muslim neighborhoods in places like Bethlehem. There'd be no way to include the Christians without including hundreds of thousands of Muslims.

14 posted on 07/16/2006 9:11:33 PM PDT by ChicagoHebrew (Hell exists, it is real. It's a quiet green meadow populated entirely by Arab goat herders.)

"Blaming George Bush for the Christians being abandoned to the wolves is weak."

It's the fault of the West entire.

The city of Hebron is outside the wall, even though Jews have lived there for 3 thousand years.

Dozens of communities are being abandoned in the latest land for peace deal as the Muslim hordes advance.

17 posted on 07/17/2006 3:44:36 AM PDT by American in Israel (A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)

Israel could do worse than to invite all non-Muslims to move within the fence, I would think.

"It would be impossible to put the Christian areas (well, those that still exist) behind the security fence -- they are too intertwined with Muslim neighborhoods in places like Bethlehem. There'd be no way to include the Christians without including hundreds of thousands of Muslims."
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I can understand this reasoning. As a Christian my heart is with these people who will be persecuted and killed.

I think the wisdom of building the wall is self evident now. If no wall existed today it would be that much easier for a third front in the war to be opened up and for terrorists to sneak into Israel.

"It's the fault of the West entire."
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Nonsense!

Israel is the only power on the ground next to these people that is a modern state. If Israel can't help these people how will the world's superpower do from an ocean away. I can understand that if it can't be done because of demographics, or location, but don't look to blame someone else for a bad result.

BTW, was resettlement ever offered to those that could prove they were Christians?

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