Israel Matzav

The last hope for Middle East Christians

It's no secret that there's only one country in the Middle East where Christians have not become an endangered species, and where their population has grown over the last 100 years. You guessed it - it's Israel and I've written about it time and time again (search Bethlehem in the blog for some examples).

In Catch the Jew, Tuvia Tenenbaum writes about a meeting he had with a Christian in Bethlehem, who acknowledged that the town's Christian population had declined by more than 90% since 2000, as Christians fled. When he asked her why, she blamed it on... you guessed it: The 'Occupation.'

So what is it that these people don't get? Luma Simms, a Christian who grew up in Iraq tries to explain.

This is not just a Muslim problem. This anti-Semitism trickles down to minority groups living in Islamic dominated lands. Middle Eastern Christians manifest a hobbled prejudice since they lack the power to politically act out against Israel. As I have observed my Middle Eastern community over the years, there seems to be a Stockholm Syndrome phenomenon. After being so long under Islamic rule and imbibing Islamic propaganda, the Christians are apt to parrot their “captors” in the Islamic authoritarian governments. I hold out hope that a free Arab Christian culture could break this spell within a generation. But hope is running out—Christianity may not survive in the Middle East.

Indeed it may not - at least outside of Israel. Simms goes on to explain why Israel is the last hope for Middle East Christians.

Israel is the last hope for Arab Christians; it’s as simple as that. America is not leading on the refugee issue, especially for Iraqi Christians. Yet helping them, doing good to the Christians in the Arab world, would require Israel overcoming her neighbors’ anti-Semitism, even of those Christians who will not ask for help because of their prejudices.

Arab Christians in America and abroad feel caught between Muslim interests on one side and Israeli interests on the other. They are bitter. They are a weak minority, always overlooked. Arab Christians have no power to negotiate or threaten, no money to buy arms, and no land to cultivate and build. Their bitterness makes them miss an important ally: Israel. As the genocide of Middle Eastern Christians continues, the only hope of an Arab Christian remnant—a remnant that would keep and pass on its beliefs, traditions, and customs—is through help from the state of Israel. It is the humanitarian thing to do.

Israel already exemplifies this humane treatment of her enemies. They have hospitals and medical units close to their borders where they discreetly treat the wounded and injured who come to them for medical help. These people eventually go back to their homes in Syria. Patients keep the medical care quiet to protect themselves from reprisal back home for receiving care from Israel. Sometimes the patients are combatants and other times it is civilians caught in crossfire; some arrive barely alive not even knowing they are in Israel, regaining consciousness only to find themselves being cared for by the very people they have been taught to hate. These doctors and nurses are “sowing seeds of peace.”

Another reason why helping Arab Christians would be good for Israel: What better way to overcome jihad in the region than for Israel to forge an alliance with Christians? For their part, Middle Eastern Christians should see Israel as an ally, support its democratic state, and build an alliance to combat Islamic terrorists. For too long Islam has used a divide and conquer tactic on the Christians and Jews. For example, when Arab Christians living in Nazareth wanted to integrate into Israeli society and enlist in the Israel Defense Forces, they were harassed, attacked, and threatened by Arab Muslim groups. What’s worse was the accusation by Muslims and Christians that they were betraying Palestine. Anyone thinking clearly can see this for what it is: Muslims fearing the alliance of Arab Christians with Israel.

Labels: Bethlehem, Christians in Israel, Christians in Muslim countries, Iraqi Christians, Palestinian Christians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:58 PM 0 comments

Paying the jizya to stay in Bethlehem

Dexter van Zile attended the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference in Beit Jala, next to Bethlehem this past week. He questions whether Christian submission to Islam is a worthwhile price to pay for staying in this land.

At the 2012 and 2014 conferences, speakers blamed radical Islam’s violence against Christians in the Middle East on Christian support for Israel, as if Muslims had no moral agency of their own. Speakers condemned Jews for having rejected Jesus as the messiah, suggesting that this rejection rendered Jews unfit to run a sovereign state of their own.

On a more practical level, speakers falsely reported that the security barrier completely surrounds Bethlehem, the city of Christ’s birth, in an attempt to portray the Jewish state as an obstacle to God’s purposes for peace in the Middle East.

I was stunned that the speakers defamed the Jewish people so brazenly and that the audience of 600 Evangelicals from North America and Europe listened so happily to it all.

Similar messaging was broadcast at the 2016 conference. I should be in a high dudgeon about what I heard, but instead I feel pity.

Spreading lies about the Jewish state, as unsavory and self-destructive as it is, is the price Palestinian Christians pay for staying in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It’s what they have to do.

Jews stay in the land through the force of arms and diplomacy. Palestinian Christians stay in the West Bank by shilling on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, one of the most corrupt and incompetent set of elites in the world.

Palestinian Christians have to pretend that their fellow Palestinians are ready for statehood, jihadism in the Middle East is not the fault of Muslim radicals but the West, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all Israel’s fault and that Palestinian leaders can be trusted to make peace with the Jewish state even though they can’t be trusted with the money thrown at them by Western governments.

Repeating these messages is the tax, or jizya Palestinian Christians must pay to maintain peaceful relations, precarious as they are, with their Muslim neighbors in the West Bank.

In previous epochs, Christians paid protection money to Muslim rulers to ensure their safety, but today they pay the jizya by telling lies to their fellow Christians in the West.

Read the whole thing.

The West laps this stuff up as if it's the truth. Why? Historical anti-Semitism undoubtedly plays a role....

Labels: Bethlehem, Christians in Israel, Islamic terrorism, Palestinian Christians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:32 PM 1 comments

Video: Fatah Holds Military Parade in Bethlehem to Mark Movement's 51st Anniversary

Fatah held a military parade in Bethlehem (which has gone from majority Christian to less than 20% Christian under Fatah rule) last week.

Let's go to the videotape.
Looks real peaceful, doesn't it?

Labels: Bethlehem, Fatah, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Christians, peaceful demonstrations

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:26 PM 0 comments

Orthodox Rabbis call on US government to save historic Middle East Christian communities

In a Wall Street Journal editorial, two Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, have called on the United States government to step up and save the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East, which are now threatened with extinction.

Islamist terror attacks like the ones in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have underlined the need for more and better vetting of refugees from the Middle East who seek safety in the U.S. But with tens of thousands pushing at the gate, who should to get first preference?

In our view, as rabbis, any immediate admissions should focus on providing a haven for the remnants of historic Christian communities of the Middle East. Christians in Iraq and Syria have been suffering longer than other groups, and are fleeing not just for safety but because they have been targeted for extinction. In a region strewn with desperate people, their situation is even more dire. Christians (and Yazidis, ethnic Kurds who follow a pre-Islamic religion) have long been targeted by Muslim groups—not only Islamic State, or ISIS—for ethnic cleansing. Churches have been burned, priests arrested.

In the worst cases, Christians have been tortured, raped and even crucified. Mosul, Iraq, which was home to a Christian population of 35,000 a decade ago, is now empty of Christians after an ISIS ultimatum that they either convert to Islam or be executed. In Syria, Gregorios III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of the Church of Antioch, said in 2013 that “entire villages” have been “cleared of their Christian inhabitants.”

Unlike some others, Middle East Christians have nowhere else to go. As a result of turmoil not of their making and beyond their control, these Christians are the region’s ultimate homeless. Should some sort of peace ever return, the likelihood is that maps will be redrawn, carving up the pie among larger ethnic groups. There will be no place for Christians among hostile Muslim populations.

The animosity toward Christians is illustrated by a horrific incident earlier this year off the Italian coast. In April, Italian police investigating events on a boat that had departed from Libya said 12 Christian refugees who were attempting to cross the sea to Europe were thrown overboard by Muslim migrant passengers, and drowned.

The U.S. can do much good for Christian refugees. Their religious heritage establishes an important basis of commonality in the many Christian communities in our country.

When Secretary of State John Kerry announced in September that the U.S. will accept as many as 100,000 refugees by 2017, many of them Syrian, the State Department provided a list of more than 300 agencies in 190 locations that would assist on the local level. Of those agencies, no less than 215 are Christian. It makes sense to play to the strengths of those agencies.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems to disagree.

Tragically, present policy does not take into account the uniquely precarious situation of displaced Christians. Instead of receiving priority treatment, Christians are profoundly disadvantaged. For instance, the State Department has accepted refugees primarily from lists prepared by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees, which oversees the large camps to which refugees have flocked, and where they are registered. Yet endangered Christians do not dare enter those camps.

George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote in the Telegraph in Britain in September that a similar protocol in the U.K. “inadvertently discriminates against the very Christian communities most victimised by the inhuman butchers of the so-called Islamic State. Christians are not to be found in the UN camps, because they have been attacked and targeted by Islamists and driven from them.”

But the world is too busy focusing on the 'Palestinians,' who themselves have driven Christians out of towns like Bethlehem. Where are the Christian demonstrators on behalf of their brethren in the Middle East? Darned if I know.

Labels: Bethlehem, Christian Copts, Christian flight, Christians, Christians in Israel, Christians in Muslim countries, Islamic Christian hatred, Palestinian Christians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:57 PM 1 comments

If Joseph and Mary were trying to reach Bethlehem today.... UPDATED

Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.

Here's a great comment in the Washington Post from the Volokh Conspiracy's David Bernstein. What would happen to Joseph and Mary if they were trying to reach Bethlehem today, before Jesus' birth?

Mehdi Hasan, political director of the Huffington Post, UK, has a post up entitled, “If Mary and Joseph Tried to Reach Bethlehem Today, They Would Get Stuck at an Israeli Checkpoint.”

How would that carpenter and his pregnant wife have circumnavigated the Kafka­esque network of Israeli settlements, roadblocks and closed military zones in the occupied West Bank? Would Mary have had to experience labour or childbirth at a checkpoint, as one in ten pregnant Palestinian women did between 2000 and 2007?

Well, since Joseph and Mary were Judeans, i.e., Jews, from Nazareth, they wouldn’t need to be afraid of Israeli roadblocks needed to combat Palestinian terrorism, but of being murdered by terrorists from Hamas or Fatah.

Seriously, this sort of historical revisionism, treating ancient Jewish Judeans as if they were Palestinian Arabs, and then analogizing modern Israel to the oppressors of Jesus and his family, a common trope in the UK, would be laughable if it were not  so pernicious. Pernicious not simply because it’s a ridiculous distortion of history, and not simply because it’s often accompanied by a large dose of anti-Semitism, with Palestinians playing the role of Jesus and the Israelis being the foreign oppressors crucifying him.  But pernicious because it goes to the true heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict–the failure of the Arab side to recognize that the “Zionists” are not the “European settler-colonialists” of Third Worldist imagination, but a people with a three thousand year plus tie to the Land of Israel, whose religion was born there, who ruled two separate kingdoms there, who have prayed toward Jerusalem for two thousand years in their ancient Hebrew language, and so on.

Read the whole thing. There's a great punch line at the end.

UPDATED 9:42 PM SATURDAY BOSTON TIME

Here's more from Charisma Magazine. 

First of all, on the approach to Bethlehem, they would encounter a sign telling them that as Israelis, it's illegal and unsafe for them to continue to Area A (under full control of the Palestinian Authority, of which Bethlehem is part according to the 1990s Oslo agreement).

If they proceeded anyway, whether by foot, bicycle, car or donkey—given the current state of affairs—they would likely be met with problems from the get go, including possibly being stoned, firebombed, shot at or lynched. Recent instances of Israeli Jews going into or near other Palestinian Arab communities have played this out.

Yes, the town in which an Orthodox Jewish boy was born a little more than 2,000 years ago has become hostile and inhospitable—and, in fact, dangerous—to Jews today. Yet as much as Jew hatred is common in the region here today, it's not much more hospitable to Christians.

Recently the Pope decried the situation that Christians face from throughout the Islamic Middle East as did the Vicar of Baghdad. Bethlehem is no better.

The 2002 siege of the Church of the Nativity by Palestinian Arab terrorists, desecrating the place and the faith, is a distant memory. However, the ideology and thugery behind that remains.

As a result, the town that is not just the birthplace of Jesus but arguably of Christianity, has seen a decrease in its Christian population from 70 percent just decades ago to about 30 percent today. This is not because of Israel's "occupation" or other problems blamed on Israel, but because life in Bethlehem as a Christian is hostile and inhospitable at best, and even downright dangerous.

...

So glaring is Jesus' absence from Bethlehem this season, one ministry paid to put up a "radical" billboard celebrating Jesus. But they also had to rent a generator and full-time security people because no private companies would provide electricity to light up the sign, and for fear that someone would deface it or burn it down.

What's behind all of this? How is the situation going from bad to worse? I asked a Christian friend who had spent considerable time in Bethlehem until called in by police and told he was at risk and they couldn't protect him. He packed and left, and I drove him to my home where he couldn't be threatened.

Read the whole thing. 

Labels: Bethlehem, Christians in Israel, Christians in Muslim countries, Christmas, honor killing, Judea and Samaria, Palestinian Christians, Palestinian terrorists, revisionist history

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:15 AM 0 comments

Ted Cruz comments on his appearance before Middle East Christian group

I debated just making this an update to the previous post about Ted Cruz's actions on Wednesday night, but I decided it deserved a post all by itself. I also debated whether to excerpt it or to just embed the whole post. I decided to embed the whole post.

Here's what Ted Cruz posted on his Facebook page around 12:30 am Eastern time Thursday morning (Hat Tip: Sunlight).

Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Christians in Israel, Christians in Muslim countries, Lebanon, Palestinian Christians, Ted Cruz

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:11 PM 1 comments

Ted Cruz to Christian group: 'If you don't support Israel, I can't support you'

Ted Cruz is simply awesome. On Wednesday night, the Texas Republican Senator spoke to a group called Defense of Christians, which is fighting Islamic slaughter of Christians in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the group also includes some anti-Semites. When Cruz told them that Christians have no greater ally than Israel, some of the group started booing. Cruz didn't back down, and eventually he walked out (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

Cruz, the keynote speaker at the sold-out D.C. dinner gala for the recently-founded non-profit In Defense of Christians, began by saying that “tonight, we are all united in defense of Christians. Tonight, we are all united in defense of Jews. Tonight, we are all united in defense of people of good faith, who are standing together against those who would persecute and murder those who dare disagree with their religious teachings.”

Cruz was not reading from a teleprompter, nor did he appear to be reading from notes.

“Religious bigotry is a cancer with many manifestations,” he continued. “ISIS, al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas, state sponsors like Syria and Iran, are all engaged in a vicious genocidal campaign to destroy religious minorities in the Middle East. Sometimes we are told not to loop these groups together, that we have to understand their so called nuances and differences. But we shouldn’t try to parse different manifestations of evil that are on a murderous rampage through the region. Hate is hate, and murder is murder. Our purpose here tonight is to highlight a terrible injustice, a humanitarian crisis.”

“Christians have no greater ally than Israel,” he said, at which point members of the crowd began to yell “stop it” and booed him.

... 

Those who hate Israel hate America,” he continued, as the boos and calls for him to leave the stage got louder. “Those who hate Jews hate Christians. If those in this room will not recognize that, then my heart weeps. If you hate the Jewish people you are not reflecting the teachings of Christ. And the very same people who persecute and murder Christians right now, who crucify Christians, who behead children, are the very same people who target Jews for their faith, for the same reason.”

The cries of “stop it, stop it, enough,” and booing continued. “Out, out, leave the stage!” At this point IDC’s president, Toufic Baaklini, came out to the stage to ask for the crowd to listen to Cruz, but Cruz had already had enough.

“If you will not stand with Israel and the Jews,” he said. “Then I will not stand with you. Good night, and God bless.” And with that, he walked off the stage.

Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: The Right Scoop). More after the video.



I want to respond to one claim in the Daily Caller piece (the first link) and then I want to give another blogger a say. The Daily Caller wrote:

Many Christians in the Middle East take issue with Israeli military policy, which has made life for Palestinian Christians in their homeland very difficult, and driven many from their homes. “Israel’s policies have led to demographic pressure that’s made the West Bank and Gaza far more Muslim than in 1948,” explained one Middle East analyst.

Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Christians in Israel, Christians in Muslim countries, Lebanon, Palestinian Christians, Ted Cruz

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:30 AM 2 comments

Judge Jeanine nails the Pope

Judge Jeanine Pirro, who is a Catholic herself, nails the Pope's inaction to help Christians in the Middle East (Hat Tip: Bad Blue).

Let's go to the videotape.



I am reasonably sure that Judge Jeanine would say the same thing with respect to helping Christians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Labels: Christians, Christians in Muslim countries, Palestinian Christians, Pope Francis I

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:18 PM 0 comments

How Hamas embeds itself among civilians

Linda Todd is a Christian who used to live in Gaza. In this post, she talks about how Hamas uses the civilian population to cover their terrorism.

What amazed me was the fact that this Hamas facility was so close to a “non-Hamas” neighborhood. It is not a secret and this is a common practice and I’m telling you, it’s frightening. Of course, my first thought was “Why is Israel bombing this neighborhood?” Then I was told about the Hamas facility. Yes, they do tuck their operations into residential areas and let civilians endure the consequences.

As soon as the facility was hit, there was no further bombing that night.

I attended church while in Gaza, and I was surprised to find a Hamas headquarters located directly across the street from the church, again in an area of Gaza City where I was told you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find Hamas supporters. I soon learned that the church has sustained damage during bombing one night.

When I worked in a school there, it was well known that Hamas occupied the high rise overlooking our school field. We could often see people staring down on us. The school kids would often stop and shout up at the people, telling them off, telling them to stop watching us. It was obvious to me that if that building ever became a target to bomb, the school would again sustain heavy damage. In fact, it did in the last large military action. Hamas is everywhere.

There seems to be no separation at all between terrorist and civilian areas, which is disgusting because they know there are civilians who don’t support them and yet they pop up everywhere.

Just wondering why 'human rights watch,'  B'Tselem, the UN 'human rights council' and all those other groups that claim to support human rights have nothing to say about this.

Labels: B'Tselem, Gaza, Hamas, Human Rights Watch, human shields, Palestinian Christians, United Nations Human Rights Council

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:24 PM 0 comments

For the first time a 'Palestinian Nakba' event is disrupted (at St Johns Wood church)

Here's the video maker's description:

I went along to this nakba event with two signs. 'Palestinian christians are persecuted by palestinian muslims how can this church support this?' The other saying 'If you dont believe me ask Christy Anastas' (A palestinian christian who is pro Israel and exposes the PA and Hamas. Those two girls confronting me. Imagine how they would be treated dressed like that under hamas control? Or being harassed by men who go unpunished in the PA?! Yet they want to blame Israel, where Palestinians in Jerusalem have applied for Israeli citizenship I wonder why?!

Let's go to the videotape.



I'm amazed he wasn't lynched.

Labels: Fatah, Hamas, London, Muslim-Christian relations, Muslims, Naqba day, Palestinian Christians, Palestinian people

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:39 PM 1 comments

Pope to drive around Bethlehem in open car, declare himself Che Guevara of 'Palestine'

Does it get crazier than this? Pope Francis is coming to Israel later this month, and he says that he will drive around Bethlehem with no security in an open top car. Rumor also has it that he will declare himself the Che Guevara of the 'Palestinian Authority.'

Pope Francis apparently feels very at ease over his visit to Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled areas during his May 24-26 visit to Israel. The Vatican reported on Thursday that he will ride in open-top non-bulletproof cars in Bethlehem.

The pope's predecessor, Benedict XVI, rode in a bulletproof "popemobile," an armored car introduced after the attempted assassination of John Paul II in 1981. The current pope has in the past shown his preference for non-bulletproof cars.

"It's a program that he (the pope) himself has approved," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told AFP.

Some may doubt Francis's decision, given the animosity towards Christians in Bethlehem which was on display last week, as Christian Arab residents of a village near the city were savagely attacked by local Muslims with stones as they celebrated a Christian holiday at Saint George’s Monastery. Indeed, most Christians have reportedly been driven out of the city by Muslims.

A possible indicator to the pope's feeling of ease may be found in reports from February by Rabbi Sergio Bergman, a member of the Argentinian parliament and close friend of Pope Francis, who said that the pope intends to define himself as the "Che Guevera of the Palestinians" and support their "struggle and rights" during his visit.

Once upon a time, Bethlehem was overwhelmingly Christian. Not any more. I think he's off his rocker to do this. 

Labels: Bethlehem, Christians in Israel, Palestinian Christians, Pope Francis I

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:00 AM 2 comments

London's Saint James Church promotes Christian torment in 'Palestine'

London's Saint James Church is running something called the 'Bethlehem Unwrapped' festival in the heart of London. As I have noted previously, the festival includes what claims to be a replica of Israel's 'security fence,' on which visitors are invited to scrawl graffiti.

The Church is actually doing a disservice to Christians in the Middle East, leaving aside whether what they are doing is also anti-Israel.

The decision by a Christian church to cooperate with Muslim Palestinians in an anti-Israel Christmas exhibit focusing on Bethlehem will be seen as incongruous by some, given the record of oppression of Christians by Palestinian Muslims in that city and elsewhere.

Under the Fatah and Hamas regimes in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, the resident Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses including “intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycott, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion,” notes writer Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld.

As a result of this persecution, the Christian population of Bethlehem went from a 60 percent majority in 1990 to a 40 percent minority in 2000, to about 15 percent of the city's total population five years ago.

It was estimated that in 2000-2007, more than one thousand Christians emigrated from the Bethlehem area annually and that only 10,000 to 13,000 Christians remained in the city by 2008.

...

According to international human rights lawyer Justus Reid Weiner, the crimes committed against Christian Arabs reflects their inferior social status in Islam, known as dhimmitude. 

"As dhimmis, Christians living in Palestinian-controlled territories are subjected to debilitating legal, political, cultural, and religious restrictions. Muslim groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad have built a culture of hatred upon the age-old foundations of Islamic society. Moreover, the PA has adopted Islamic law into its draft constitution.

"In such an environment, Christian Arabs have found themselves victims of prejudice and hate crimes," he explains. "Tens of thousands of Palestinian Christians have left their ancestral homes and emigrated. They flee to almost any country that will issue them a visa."

Weiner points out that the first Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman, Yasser Arafat, determined the policy that led to this demographic shift. "After the PA gained control of Bethlehem, it redistricted the municipal boundaries of the city. Arafat also defied tradition by appointing a Muslim governor of the city. The Bethlehem City Council, which by Palestinian law must have a Christian majority, has been taken over by Muslims. Eight of the fifteen seats on the Council are still reserved for Christians, but Hamas controls the City Council with some Christian allies. Arafat crowned his efforts when he converted the Greek Orthodox monastery next to the Church of Nativity into his official Bethlehem residence.

Read the whole thing. 

The festival is so hopelessly anti-Israel that the Israeli embassy in London has canceled its participation in a debate there.

Why @IsraelinUK has decided to withdraw our participation from the Bethlehem Unwrapped event at St James’s Church pic.twitter.com/TFCwnOLcvm
— Yiftah Curiel (@yiftahc) December 30, 2013

The church's behavior is completely in keeping with the spirit in London. Here's a letter that our ambassador, Daniel Taub, recently had published in the Times of London (the paper is behind a paywall and all I have is the letter, which someone sent me by email).

‘Jack Straw refuses to countenance the possibility that anyone other than Israel might have a part to play in the plight of the Palestinians’

Sir, Jack Straw (Opinion, Dec 26) asserts that Palestinian shacks in the South Hebron hills are being gratuitously demolished by Israel while their residents are charged exorbitant sums for water.

In fact, although these structures were built without regard to planning permission, the Israeli authorities, which under the Israeli-Palestinian agreements are charged with responsibility for planning regulations in the area, invited the residents to submit a master plan to regularise the situation.

The proposed master plan which was submitted was rejected. Not, as Straw suggests, because of gratuitous harassment, but because the planning committee found that it did not provide adequately for welfare services for the residents, and in particular would deprive Palestinian women of access to educational and professional opportunities. The committee has invited the residents to make an amended application.

The price of water is determined by the Palestinian Water Authority, not by Israel. Jack Straw refuses to countenance the possibility that anyone other than Israel might have a part to play in the plight of the Palestinians. Far more damaging than the castigation of Israel, however, is the effect of such condescension and low expectations on the Palestinian side.

Ultimately, the most effective way of dealing with the issue of the South Hebron hills is for the two sides to reach a final status agreement. But ignoring the fact that the Palestinians too have responsibilities will not help bring that agreement closer.

Daniel Taub

Ambassador of Israel to the Court of St James’s

Labels: British anti-Semitism, Christians in Israel, Christians in Muslim countries, London, Londonistan, Palestinian Christians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:18 AM 0 comments

Video: 'Palestinian' protests in support of Israel

Here's a 'Palestinian' Christian from Ramallah protesting in support of Israel in front of the United Nations.

Let's go to the videotape.

Labels: Palestinian Christians, Ramallah

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:07 AM 1 comments

What Bob Simon doesn't want to hear about Christians in the Middle East

I am sure that many of you remember that horrible 60 Minutes segment done by Bob Simon last month, which was called Christians in the Holy Land. Simon probably does not know about, and does not want to know about, a Christian village named Taybeh in Samaria.

This is a village whose population is 100% Christian. It is surrounded by a number of Muslim villages, some of which are extremely hostile.

The number of Christians living in Taybeh is estimated at less than 2,000. Residents say that another 15,000 Taybeh villagers live in the US, Canada and Europe, as well as South America.

Over the past few years, the Christian residents of Taybeh have been living in constant fear of being attacked by their Muslim neighbors.

Such attacks, residents say, are not uncommon. They are more worried about intimidation and violence by Muslims than by Israel's security barrier or a checkpoint. And the reason why many of them are leaving is because they no longer feel safe in a village that is surrounded by thousands of hostile Muslims who relate to Christians as infidels and traitors.

Just last week, scores of Muslim men from surrounding villages, some of the men armed with pistols and clubs, attacked Taybeh.

...

Palestinian Authority policemen who rushed to the village had to shoot into the air to drive back the Muslim attackers and prevent a slaughter.

The attack, residents said, came after a Muslim man tried to force his way into a graduation ceremony at a girls' school in Taybeh.

The man, who had not been invited to the ceremony, complained that Christians had assaulted him. Later that day, he and dozens of other Muslims stormed the village with the purpose of seeking revenge for the "humiliation."

Were it not for the quick intervention of the Palestinian security forces, the attackers would have set fire to a number of houses and vehicles and probably killed or wounded some Christians.

Palestinian government and police officials later demanded that the Christians dispatch a delegation to the nearby Muslim villages to apologize for "insulting" the Muslim man. To avoid further escalation, the heads of Taybeh complied.

Also at the request of the Palestinian government, residents of the village were requested not to talk to the media about the incident.

Even some of the leaders of the Christian community in the West Bank urged the Taybeh residents not to make a big fuss about the incident.

This was not the first time that Taybeh had come under attack. In September 2005, hundreds of Muslim men went on rampage in the village, torching homes and cars, and destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary, after learning that a Muslim woman had been romantically involved with a Christian businessman from the village.

The 30-year-old woman had been killed by her family.

Western journalists based in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have refused to report about the most recent attack on Taybeh, most probably because the story does not have an "anti-Israel angle."

And the 'Palestinians' aren't the only Middle East Muslims whose mistreatment of Christians was ignored by Simon. Here are the results of a brawl between Muslims and Christian Copts in Egypt.

The verdict passed by the Minya Criminal Court on May 21 convicting 12 Copts to life imprisonment while acquitting eight accused Muslims in the same case, known as Abu Qurqas sedition, has caused widespread anger among the Copts. Georges Wahib of United Copts, who attended the court session, said that when judge Abdel Fattah Ahmed al-Sughayar pronounced the verdict at the court yesterday "there was complete silence, as it came as a shock to everyone, then cries of grief and wailing could be heard from the Coptic families with shouts of we are innocent, while the Muslim side broke out into jubilation and shouts of Allahu Akbar."

...

The events of the case started on April 18, 2011 over a speed hump built in front of the residence of a wealthy Coptic lawyer, Alaa Reda Roushdi, which a minibus driver claimed was damaging cars. The fight that broke out led to the death of 2 Muslims, injury to 4 Copts, and the destruction and looting of Coptic-owned homes and businesses (AINA 4-26-2011).

Many rights groups criticized the verdict as being "unbelievable" and "extremely harsh" towards the Copts. All the Muslims defendants, "who torched at least 56 Coptic homes, as well as businesses and barns, were acquitted," said Wagdi Halfa, defense attorney of the Coptic victims, in an interview aired yesterday by Coptic TV Channel. He expressed his incomprehension at how Coptic lawyer Alaa Reda Roushdi, who was not even in Abou Qorqas during the events, and then kept under house arrest by the police for another three days, could get life imprisonment.

Adel Roushdi, younger brother of Alaa Roushdi said during the same TV interview that the Islamists wanted to get rid of his brother because of the parliamentary elections, where his brother was sure to win. He accused the police chief in Abou Qorqas of planning the whole episode.

But of course, Bob Simon and the rest of the Western media are only interested in blaming Israel and the Jews for the flight of Christians from the Middle East. They have their own agenda.

Labels: 60 Minutes, Bob Simon, Christian Copts, Egypt, Palestinian Christians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:28 PM 2 comments

Key points in 60 Minutes report about Christians in 'the Holy Land' unsubstantiated and false

CAMERA points out that one of the key assertions in 60 Minutes' segment on Christians in 'the Holy Land' was demonstrably false (Hat Tip: Soccer Dad).

Radliffe, you’ll remember, was the producer of the 60 Minutes segment on Christians in the Holy Land – the segment that falsely reported the security barrier “completely surrounds Bethlehem, turning the ‘little town’ where Christ was born into what its residents call ‘an open air prison.’”

The security barrier does not “completely surround Bethlehem” but in fact passes by its northern and western sides.

CAMERA called Radliffe on Monday April 30, 2012 and asked for 60 Minutes’ source of misinformation about the security barrier. Radliffe said that the Israeli Ministry of Defense was the source of information about the security barrier. He went on to say that maybe the people at the Ministry of Defense “don’t know what they are talking about" suggesting that the error was not the fault of 60 Minutes, but was really the fault of the Israeli government.

When CAMERA asked Radliffe for the name of the official at the Ministry of Defense who gave 60 Minutes the information he said he didn’t have the name and that we should call 60 Minutes’ office in Tel Aviv for that information.

Later on Monday, CAMERA contacted the CBS communications department (via email) for the name of someone we should contact about 60 Minutes’ “source” at Israel’s Ministry of Defense. We have received no response.

So we are left with Radliffe’s statement that the Israeli Ministry of Defense is the source of the error that appeared in the 60 Minutes episode.

This seems pretty incredible. The idea that the Israeli Ministry of Defense would provide such an obvious misstatement of fact about the security barrier just does not make any sense.

Why?

Well, the Ministry of Defense has a map of the security barrier’s route on its website!

And the map clearly shows that the security barrier does not “completely surround Bethlehem.”

I'm sure that many more lies about that segment will be exposed in the weeks ahead....

Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Bethlehem, mainstream media, Palestinian Christians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:38 AM 1 comments

60 Minutes got it all wrong

On Monday, I reported on 60 Minutes' report on 'Palestinian' Christians. Giulio Meotti exposes just how big a lie the 60 Minutes report was.

Since the first Intifada, Palestinian Christians created a Muslim-Christian unity to portray Israel as the aggressor, colonizer and invader. They thought that the Islamic-Christian front against Zionism would help secure their position in the Arab world. Indeed, Arab Christians, and especially their judeophobic clergy, have been in the vanguard of the battle for the destruction of Israel. It was a political operation that also served to cover the crimes committed against Christians by the PLO and the Islamic groups: forced marriage, conversions, beatings, land theft, fire bombings, commercial boycott, torture, kidnapping, sexual harassment, and extortion.

The latest victim has been the Baptist Church in Bethlehem, which the Palestinian Authority just declared as illegitimate, as the US church’s message of reconciliation flies in the face of the hateful propaganda permeating Palestinian society. Arab Christians were obliged to make continual compromises, afraid to mention their own suffering for fear of irritating the Muslim authorities. Soon it became a taboo subject even in the West.

When last month Ayaan Hirsi Ali penned the Newsweek cover story on the persecution of Christians under Islam, she did not mention the Palestinian areas, where Christians dropped from 15% of the population in 1950 to just 2% today. With the PA refusing to reveal accurate statistics, the real extent of Christian emigration is unknown.

...

A few days ago, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, urged William Hague, the UK Foreign Secretary, to address the “tragic situation” faced by Palestinians - not because Islamist threats, but because Arabs were “displaced” by the Israeli barrier in Beit Jala, despite the fact that in constructing the security barrier no land has been annexed by Israel, no houses have been demolished, and no-one has been required to leave their home.

In fact, the bigger truth ignored by the Western press and the Churches is that Israel’s barrier helped restore calm and security not just in Israel, but also in Bethlehem. The Church of the Nativity, which Palestinian terrorists defiled in 2002 to escape from the Israeli army, is now filled again with tourists from around the world.

The Catholic and Orthodox Churches also frequently asked Israeli authorities to change the route of the fence. They simply didn’t want to live under the Palestinian autocracy. Thus, for example, the Rosary Sisters School in the Dachyat El Barid neighborhood north of Jerusalem was included on the Israeli side of the fence, in light of requests from the Mother Superior of the order.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Giulio Meotti, Palestinian Christians, security fence

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:35 AM 1 comments

CUFI hits CBS for 60 Minutes' hatchet job

Jennifer Rubin reports that Christians United for Israel (CUFI) has urged its members to email CBS to protest the extreme bias in Sunday night's piece on 'Palestinian Christians.'

Some Christians in the United States are not sitting still for this. Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the largest pro-Zionist group in the country, sent out an ”action alert” asking its members to contact CBS and air their complaints. The letter to CUFI members states: “This story scapegoated Israel and ignored the greatest threats facing the Christians of the Middle East. By focusing on the wrong story and blaming the wrong party, you have squandered a precious opportunity.” It continues: “The Christians of the Middle East do face unprecedented threats. As Islamic terrorists have stepped up their attacks against Christians, we are witnessing the collapse of the ancient Christian communities of Iraq, Egypt and Syria. Yet you chose to ignore these threats and focus instead on the security measures that Israel has taken to protect its citizens — Jewish, Christian and Muslim — from the very same Islamic terror.” A CUFI spokesman tells me that 16,000 e-mails were sent to CBS in the first four hours.

I wonder if anyone at CBS will now understand how out of touch with reality they are. Nah, that would be expecting too much.

Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Christians United for Israel, Palestinian Christians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:34 AM 13 comments

Report: Netanyahu apprised of efforts to stop 60 Minutes broadcast on 'Palestinian' Christians

Haaretz's Barak Ravid reports that Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, attempted to stop Sunday night's 60 Minutes broadcast on 'Palestinian' Christians, and that Prime Minister Netanyahu was 'briefed' on those efforts (Hat Tip: Jodi Rudoren via Twitter). But whether those efforts actually accomplished anything appears to be an open question.

A senior Israeli official said that Oren's op-ed, together with Netanyahu's speech and the petition to the president of CBS, were meant to foil the broadcast of the investigative report, or to at least affect public opinion in the U.S., particularly in Christian communities, ahead of the broadcast.

Nonetheless, the attempt to thwart the broadcast of the report has brought up the issue of Israel's treatment of its Christian community all the more forcefully. A source in the Foreign Ministry even said that on some level, the preemptive campaign against the report just intensified the resolve of the "60 Minutes" reporters to air it.

"We awakened the dead - instead of stifling the subject we just increased interest in it," the source said.

Officials in the Prime Minister's Office said that, on the contrary, the attempts to affect the article proved successful. "The broadcast of the article was delayed for several weeks because they reexamined the entire report," officials said. "The article was malignant and harmful, but the wording was much softer than in the original version."

Given that the effort to affect the report's contents was originally undertaken because the report had been almost completely prepared without any request for comment from the Israeli government - and that the actual report included an interview with Michael Oren, it would be unfair to say that the government pressure accomplished nothing.

There is nothing illegitimate in attempting to influence the content of a report about your government that is going to be unfavorable. Every government in the world does that, and that's part of the give and take in relations with the mainstream media that all but the biggest bloggers (and I am not yet among the biggest) miss. So long as it's not done by threats (and no one ays that's the case here), there's nothing wrong with it.

Finally, despite Oren's efforts, this was one of the most biased pieces I have ever seen on a major American television network. Were the 'occupation' of the 'West Bank' (or by 'occupation' do they mean the '1948 territories'? That's never defined) to come to an end, there would likely be no Christians left in Israel on either side of the 1949 armistice lines. Look at Gaza, look at Iraq, look at Egypt - do I need to go on? I believe that the 'Palestinian' Christians are motivated by fear of what their Muslim brethren would do to them if they spoke the truth about who is treating them well and who is not. Ask Nonie Darwish.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Palestinian Christians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:16 AM 5 comments

Israeli ambassador to the US on Israel's Christians

Here's Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren talking about Israel's Christians.

Let's go to the videotape.

Labels: Christians in Israel, Christians in Muslim countries, Michael Oren, Palestinian Christians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:29 PM 0 comments

A loaded question

Here's one of the CBS 60 Minutes extras on the last all-Christian village in Israel.

I want you to watch the video and pay close attention to the question that gets asked around the 2:50 mark and to listen to the answer.

Let's go to the videotape.



Note that he asks how many Christians there were when the 'Israeli occupation' started, and the response was 'at least 2,000.' But the truth is - as even the 60 Minutes presentation admitted at the beginning of the main show - that Israel is the only country in the region where there are more Christians than there were 60 years ago. Yes, Christians are leaving Taibe, but that can be attributed to the Muslim-dominated 'Palestinian Authority' and not to 'Israeli occupation.' The question that the priest should have been asked is how many Christians there were in 1994.

Anyone want to bet that the answer would be a lot closer to 2,000 than to 780?

More 60 Minutes media bias....

Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Christians in Israel, Christians in Muslim countries, freedom of religion, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Christians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:46 PM 1 comments