The case of
Bethlehem
in the Palestinian Authority
illustrates clearly the failure of western Christians
to stand up for the rights of Christians in the Islamic world
and the third world.
Bethlehem, birthplace of Jesus,
is
now under Islamic terrorist rule.
And Christians in the West don't care.
Christians in the West
sing hymns about Bethlehem
every Christmas,
but they don't care about the state of the real Bethlehem.
Even worse, many of them support Islamic terrorist rule of Bethlehem.
Life for Christians under Islamic rule in
Bethlehem today.
The persecution of Christians in Bethlehem by Islamists
is a case study in how the western Christian churches fail to stand up for third world
Christians against their tormentors.
There were
20,000 Christians in Bethlehem in 1995,
when Israel handed over Bethlehem to Arafat and his Islamic terrorists.
By 2010, there were only 7,500 Christians in the town.
A few more years of PA rule and Bethlehem will be entirely Muslim.
Bethlehem Christians fear neighbors, Jan. 25, 2007:
"15 years from now there will be no Christians left in Bethlehem. Then you will need a torch to find a Christian here. This is a very sad situation."
Interview, December 05, 2008, with Joseph Hakim of the International Christian Union:
"Christian minorities in the Middle East are in a critical state, and unless the West can provide security and a strong financial base for Christians, it is doubtful that the Christian communities in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and the Palestinian Territories will survive. If action is not taken immediately, I don't see how the Christians will survive in the next 50 years."
The Catholic church:
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor,
head of the Catholic church in England and Wales,
deplores the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem, Dec 2005.
Yet he blames Israel
rather than the true reason for the slow ethnic cleansing of Christians
- Islamic fundamentalism and Palestinian Authority rule.
The Anglican church:
The idiot Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams
(and here
and here)
bemoans the (Islamist) persecution of Christians in Bethlehem, Iraq
and the Middle East, Dec 2006.
And then he blames Christians and Jews for it, rather than the Islamists.
He blames America, Britain and Israel for somehow having policies that "enrage"
the Islamists and make them persecute minorities (which they would never do otherwise,
apparently).
Rowan Williams "understands" rather than
attacks the Islamist killers, torturers and persecutors of Christians,
and even says we should give them what they want.
The message they receive is that violence works,
keep it up,
and even escalate it.
Far from standing up for Christians worldwide, he is encouraging their persecutors
to keep going.
"the principal reason for the Christians' flight is Muslim violence.
Indeed, if it were Israel's behaviour it would hardly be only Christians who were fleeing."
She quotes a report that says:
"Every one of the more than twenty Muslim states in the Middle East has a declining Christian population. In fact, Israel is the only state in the region in which the Christian Arab population has grown in real terms
- from approximately 34,000 in 1948 to nearly 130,000 in 2005."
More
from Melanie Phillips on
"the appalling misrepresentation of the Church of England of the plight of Bethlehem's Christians and the scapegoating of Israel for their situation by the Archbishop of Canterbury."
The Christmas libel, Melanie Phillips, 18 Dec 2007.
"a few years ago Bethlehem was mainly Christian, now it is 80 per cent Muslim .. Might the fact that such a dramatic change occurred simultaneously with Bethlehem coming under Muslim control after Oslo ... just possibly have something to do with it?"
One says:
"In 1945 there were 32,000 Palestinian Christians in Jerusalem, now it's 10,000 to 11,000".
These are strange stats. Why just Jerusalem, rather than all of Israel?
Maybe Christians prefer to live in Tel Aviv?
Anyway, according to these
stats of Christians in Jerusalem,
there has been little change (in fact, a small rise) in Christian numbers since 1967.
Whatever he is complaining about took place before 1967, not since.
Before 1967, Jerusalem was completely different.
The Christian clerics claim they are
"second-class citizens"
in Israel,
and at "almost at every level of life there is discrimination".
The article does not however list any examples of this "oppression".
Anti-Israel (and pro-Islam) Christians
It is sadly true that many Middle Eastern Christians
blame the Jews rather than the Muslims
for their problems.
Why is a mystery.
I guess it is hard to escape the ingrained habits of
1,300 years of dhimmitude.
For 1,300 years they had to please their overlords.
And turning to, say, the tropes of
Christian anti-Semitism
is a lot easier than standing up to the jihad (which may get you killed).
Richard Landes
on how the silence of the victims in a tyrannical society
is not understood by idiots in the West:
"The silence is a direct function of the issue about which it does not speak.
...
We in civil society do not have a clue how rare and precious our ability to speak up.
This means that, faced with a choice between reading silence as evidence of calm, or as evidence of violence, we will naturally prefer the former explanation."
Christy Anastas,
a Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem,
dissents from the Fatah line that all must follow.
In the video,
the creepy Fatah hypocrite
Saeb Erekat
promises human rights some day, but not yet.
Then Christy Anastas speaks.
She starts slow, talking about children encouraged to fight the IDF and getting killed.
But already you notice she is not totally blaming the IDF.
It then gets more interesting.
She blames the PA, not Israel,
for the massive drop in the Christian population of Bethlehem.
She says Christians in Bethlehem have to pay jizya
protection money.
Her family home is right beside the Israeli wall.
She notes the terrible impact the wall has had on their lives.
But she does not blame Israel for building it.
It is all quite refreshing,
though some religious codology comes in later.
Israel won
the
1973 war
because of the
western way of war,
dear, not because of God.
Any Christian who speaks about life in the PA will, of course, have to leave.
She flees to the UK.
"I got threatened to be killed for sharing my beliefs and views. Well, Israel doesn't kill us or threaten us for sharing our views. Palestinians do. I was shocked, I was furious".
If Jesus came to Bethlehem today -
he would be killed as a Jew within hours.
We take it for granted that no Jew
could exist or live in Bethlehem.
Letter writer
Terence Mendoza, December 31, 2007,
points out how shocking this is.
That if the biblical Joseph and Mary travelled to Bethlehem today,
they would be slaughtered as Jews within hours.
"Mary and Joseph, being Jewish, would be putting their lives at severe risk by entering this Judenfrei area."
A children's Christian book
(also here)
asks what if Jesus were born today.
The sad answer is that if a Jewish family went into Bethlehem today,
they would be killed.
The charity
War on Want
produced these
Christmas cards
in 2006,
with a real feel
of anti-semitism.
They did not, however, show what happened to
Joseph and Mary after they entered Bethlehem.
As Jews, they were immediately killed by the Palestinians.
'If Jesus were to come this year, Bethlehem would be closed', Phoebe Greenwood, The Guardian, 22 December 2011.
A disgusting piece in a disgusting paper.
She notes the massive decline in the Christian population of Bethlehem, and blames it not on corrupt and
oppressive Fatah rule,
and Muslim persecution of Christians,
but rather on ... Israel!
She does not mention the massive increase in the Christian population of Israel.
She also shows no understanding that if Jesus really were to come to Bethlehem today, without IDF protection,
he would be killed by the Palestinians.
There was a controversy in Dec 2012 when the Israeli embassy in Dublin made this same point on Facebook.
The IPSC
called them
"racist"
(also here)
for saying the Holy Family would be lynched.
Well known anti-Israel activist
Gary Spedding
also called this
"racist".
But it is obviously true, and I have stated it
on my website for years.
No one attempted to show that the statement is false
- that Jewish families can indeed wander safely round Bethlehem today without armed security.
Why Christians leave Mideast, Joseph Farah, 27 Dec 2005.
"It is becoming an annual Christmas tradition - blaming Israel for the dwindling Christian population in formerly Christian towns like Bethlehem."
In reality:
"If the Israelis contributed in any way to the exodus of Christians,
it was by withdrawing from Bethlehem and .. the West Bank"
and leaving them at the mercy of the Palestinian Authority.
"Open Bethlehem"
blames (of course) Israel for Bethlehem's problems.
Why not:
"Free Bethlehem from Islamist rule"?
Or, if you really want to help Bethlehem:
"Allow Bethlehem become part of Israel".
Peter the Hermit
preaches and leads the
First Crusade
in 1096
to liberate the Holy Land from Islam.
The Crusades
slaughtered around 1 million innocent people.
Image from here.
See here.
Now, Christians are happy to see the Holy Land enslaved under Islam.
They even seem offended if any parts are not enslaved under Islam.
In 1914, Christians were 26 percent of the population of (what is now)
Israel, Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
In 2005 they were at most 9 percent.
Israel's Christian population grew by 25 percent
from 1995 to 2007.
Israel's Jewish population grew by 21 percent
from 1995 to 2007.
Since 1949, the number of Christians in Israel has grown by 345 percent.
