Christian persecution by Arafat: Joseph Farah reveals why 2 million have fled the Middle East

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Friday, January 3, 2003 | Joseph Farah

[JohnHuang2]

Question: What's worse than being bullied, harassed, intimidated and persecuted for your faith?

Answer: Being bullied, harassed, intimidated and persecuted for your faith – and watching the perpetrator of these crimes against humanity successfully blame someone else for committing them.

That's exactly what is happening to Christians today in Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. They are being beaten up. They are being killed. They are having their businesses burned down. They are watching their daughters raped. They are being run out of their ancestral homelands.

And the very people doing this – Arafat's PA – are blaming it all on Israel.

The latest evidence of this campaign came on Christmas Day in an editorial in the Jordan Times.

Interestingly, the editorial doesn't sugar-coat the toll on Christians.

• "The alarm bell has already been rung," it said. "In a few decades, there may be no Christians left in the Holy Land."

• "It is time it is given its real name: Ethnic cleansing."

• "According to Palestinian experts, at least 1,500 Christian families have left Bethlehem over the past year."

• "It is a generally acknowledged fact that Palestinian Christians emigrate in proportionally higher numbers than Muslims."

All true. But the reasons for this modern-day exodus are totally obscured by the report.

After explaining that Christians tend to be professionals and belong to the middle class, the paper says it is easier for them to find employment abroad. Christians, the paper says, feel more at home in the West. It all sounds like the Jordan Times is writing this off as a voluntary phenomenon. Then the phony blame-game begins.

"A few experts have also talked of some sort of pressure from Palestinian Islamic militant groups, such as Hamas, although this phenomenon has certainly played a negligible part in the Christian exodus from the Holy Land, compared to the brutal aggression carried out by Israel," the editorial says.

Nothing could be further from the truth. This kind of distortion adds insult to injury to the remnant of Christians left in the Holy Land. They know who their enemy is. They know why are they are oppressed. They know who is attacking them. They know who is occupying them.

And it's not Israel.

I've talked to these people. I've broken bread with these people. And a new documentary, "Holy Land: Christians in Peril," made within the Palestinian Authority demonstrates just what an outrageous lie is being perpetrated by Arafat and his co-conspirators in the Arab world with regard to the persecution of Christian Arabs.

Here are the facts. Some 2 million Christians have fled the Middle East in the past 20 years. Some estimates are much higher than this. Since Arafat took over administration of the Palestinian territories from Israel the Christian population has dropped from 15 percent to 2 percent.

If these people were fleeing Israeli oppression, why did they leave after the Israelis left? It makes no sense.

The Jordan Times, apologists for Arafat to the end, knows this truth. It knows the only way Israel has sped up the exodus of Christians from the Middle East is by withdrawing from territories in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, southern Lebanon and elsewhere. When Israel administered those areas, Christian Arabs believed they had a friend in the Jewish state.

Now the protective hand of Israel has been lifted because Israel itself is under siege.

It's time for the whole world to recognize the mini-holocaust taking place against Christians in the Middle East.

As the Jordan Times wrote: "How much longer will it take for the international community to come out against the ethnic cleansing in Palestine?"

They've got that right. It is indeed a form of ethnic cleansing. But the perpetrators are not Israelis, they are Muslim Arabs, and they are acting under the color of authority of Yasser Arafat.

---

[MEGoody]

"Article 33 of the Fourth Convention states: “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed,”

They are being punished for knowingly harboring a terrorist and/or assisting said terrorist in planning terrorist acts.

And please don't bother to claim their families and neighbors did not know the guy (or guys) was (were) a terrorist(s). We all know better than that.

[DugwayDuke]

Those "people" were terrorists. They weren't some innocent palestinian wandering the street who just happened to take refuge in that sanctuary. They were known terrorists wanted for planning suicide bombing attacks and other terrorist activities. Attempting to equivalize the actions of a lawful armed force in pursuit of wanted terrorists with the terrorists being pursued is despicable.

But the point remains that you asked for a single act of Muslim palestinians "targeting Christian palestinians". You got it. And, a very despicable act it was. Their movement into that holy ground was deliberate despite your apologetics. They knew where they were and there were ample other buildings they could have choosen to occupy. The only reason they choose that church was to incite public opinion against the Israeli army. That is deliberate targeting.

You can highlight or capitalize all you wish. The facts remain that if a house is used to facilitate terrorist activities then that house is subject to destruction. The occupants of that house forfeit all protections under the Geneva Convention since they have become participants in a terrorist activity.

You were thinking of "genene"? Was that the place where the Israelis were forced to stop each amblance since the noble and peaceloving muslim palestinians were using red cross vehicles to transport bombs intended to blow up more family pizza parlors? Well, keep thinking. When you use humanitarian facilities such as amblances as cover then any armed force is fully justified in completely destroying such on sight. The Israelis would have been justified under international law to pre-emptively destroy any and all amblances but they chose to risk their troops in stoping and searching them instead.

These attempts to justify and apologize for muslim terrorists are quite pathetic and despicable.

[Michael2001]

I have a Lebanese Christian in my Church and Farah is right on. Farah himself is an Arab Christian. What's sad is that the few Christians remaining in the Mid-East are forced to adopt the Muslim line. But they speak the truth in the US.

[Michael2001]

Well the Christians don't blow themselves up among civilians so there's no need for reprisals against there homes.

[Michael2001]

Since you believe that both Muslims and Christians are equaly oppressed by Israel, do you have any theories as to why the Christians don't blow themselves up in civilian areas?

Could it be that Islam isn't a religion of peace?

[wjcsux]

Israel is the only nation in the Middle East that has had the Palistinians forced on them. Saudi Arabia and Jordan ran them out years ago. Arafat and his group are thugs, plain and simple. I wish Israel would do the rest of the world a big favor, and just obliterate them.

[Michael2001]

If you disagree with this then presumably your own beliefs are not in accordance with peace because you advocate killing for "just reasons" like the muslims and therefore by your own logic people are justified in killing you.

I do not advocate slaughtering Muslims, but when Muslims wage war on the world then it is inevitable that many of them will die. I am a peaceful person, but if people are out to kill me and mine then I will fight.

Let me ask you another question. If the Palestinians were not Muslim, do you think the conflict would have been resolved already? Say the Palestinians were Catholic, or Hindu, or Budhist; do you think the situation would be different?

[Michael2001]

fine but lets change a few words and get the militant islam perspective

"I do not advocate slaughtering Americans, but when imperialists wage war on the Muslim world then it is inevitable that many of them will die. I am a peaceful person, but if people are out to kill and persicute me and mine then I will fight."

That's all well and good, but you are assuming that the Islamics are rational people and projecting our value system on them. They are not peaceful people, and we are not the only ones they are after. They are killing Orthodox Christians in Russia, Jews in Israel, Hindus in India, black Christians in Sudan and the list goes on.

They are not like us and that is what you don't realize. We fight for our rights and our freedoms. Our Founding Fathers fought against the British monarchy, we have fought Naziism and Communism. Muslims fight when somebody insults their prophet. A Christian Nigerian writes an article that says Mohammed would have married one of the Miss World contestants, and Muslims go beserk killing and injuring thousands of Christians. In this case, the Christians have no choice but to fight back; do you disagree?

We cannot give in to their demands. Sometimes you can compromise, but sometimes you have to stand and fight. At this time, we have to fight, so does Israel.

For the record I am opposed to the war on Iraq. I have many friends and family in the military, and I think it is a waste to send them to that God foresaken part of the world, while at the same time allowing those who hate us into this country. No Muslims in this country, and my friends can stay in Virginia. No war with Iraq and no Muslim immigration; that's my position.

[DugwayDuke]

I purposefully inserted the quotation marks around the word "people" to make a point. You first referred to them as people. That is incorrect. They are a hostile armed force that refuses to abide by the law of Landwarfare. As such, they are properly referred to as illegal combatants. They have no rights. They can be summarily dealt with. They have no right to due process or even a trial. They can be shot on sight. They can be executed after capture without trial.

You see, the basic error you make is assuming that civilian law applies. Due process, legal appeals, Miranda warnings (or the Israeli equivalent), etc., are simply not applicable to illegal combatants since illegal combatants have forfeited all rights. That does not mean that an armed force pursuing illegal combatants has carte blanche. Whether their actions are "moral" or "criminal" can only be judged in the context of military law, not civilian.

"But understandable, the church of the nativity is the only building in Bethlehem that the Israeli’s couldn’t blow up without arising international condemnation."

Seizing a church purely for the purpose of embarrassing the Israeli government is an example of the kinds of actions that made these "people" illegal combatants. Such actions are strictly prohibited by the Law of Landwarfare.

"facilitate terrorist activities" means exactly what it means, to knowingly further the achievement of terrorist activities. Encouraging a child to become a suicide bomber is one activity. Accepting a bounty for the death of a child who was a suicide bomber is another. Not reporting the suicide bomb factory in the home next door is another. I think you know full well what the words mean.

Jenin. Oh, yes, there was a lot of propaganda about the "bloody atrocities" committed by the Israelis in Jenin. All of which were subsequently disproven by independent news sources in the weeks following the events there. If you followed the story of Jenin at all, then you are fully aware of the follow-up stories that completly discredited the Palestinian version of events there. You might try searching freerepublic as there were many threads on that subject.

"I have never supported terrorism in any form."

Really? When you advance the arguments that you have in this thread, you support terrorist activities. When you try to establish a moral equivalence between terrorists and the Israeli armed forces, you support terrorist activities. When you repeat discredited tales of Israeli misconduct, you support terrorist activities. Maybe this support was based upon a lack of knowledge. If that be true, then you should investigate further. Once again there are some excellent threads in this forum.

[miltonim]

Muhammad's Koran-inspired persecution of Christians, Jews and all non-Muslims continues...