Bethlehem's Complicated Christmas

[P F Tinmore]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJdKXGoI1j0&feature=watch-vrec]Bethlehem's Complicated Christmas - YouTube[/ame]

 

[abu afak]

YASSER ARAFAT'S EXEMPLARY CHRISTIAN SPIRIT
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/feb02/davis1.htm
2002
This just in the Oslo perion 1994-2001

"...The fate of Bethlehem offers a fine example. Since 1994, when Arafat first came to administer Bethlehem the Christian population has gradually been reduced from a 60% majority in Bethlehem to a mere 20%.

This Arafat ensured by first Gerrymandering the municipal boundaries of the city, extending them to include the neighboring refugee camps – Dehaisheh, El-Ayda and El-Azeh and adding a few thousand from the Ta'amarah Bedouin tribe.

Concurrently Arafat fired the city council which was composed of 9 Christians and 2 Moslems while appointing Muhammed A- Hjabari, a Moslem from Hebron as mayor.
The entire political structure of the city – in the bureaucratic, security and political spheres were eventually Cleansed of Christians.
Today the Bethlehem region is in reality run by the local Fatah leader and his Thugs.

The physical and psychological intimidation of Palestinian Chrisitian Arabs throughout the territory then proceeded rapidly. Mosques were erected in close proximity to churches in order to Oscure and Dominate them.
This is the case with the Al Khanga and Abdul Malek mosques which today tower over the Church of the Nativity.

Christian cemeteries, convents and monasteries were Desecrated, their personnel intimidated and in places, their land confiscated.
[......]
Not that it wasn't expected. The late Christian mayor of Bethlehem Elias Friej warned that the implementation of the Oslo Accords would result in Bethlehem becoming a town with churches but no Christians. For over 7 years Christian Arabs in East Jerusalem and other West Bank towns have besieged Israeli officials with requests for Israeli I. D. cards knowing full well that the institution of Palestinian rule would result in the kind of extortion and corruption seen wherever the PLO has hoisted its tent.

Those who know something about Persecution of Christians throughout the Arab world will not be shocked by what has occurred in the Palestinian Authority. In Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, Christian populations suffer from both direct and indirect State sponsored discrimination. In other Muslim countries such as Nigeria and Indonesia there is open persecution of Christians while in the Sudan it is estimated that close to 2 Million Christians have lost their lives in the course of a bitter civil war.
[.....]

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[abu afak]

Christians must realize Israel’s fate intertwined with fate of non-Muslims in region
Giulio Meotti / 04.18.11
Mideast without Christians -

This is the saddest Easter in the long epic of Arab Christianity: The cross is near extinction in the lands of it origin. The much-vaunted diversity of the Middle East is going to be reduced to the flat monotony of a single religion, Islam, and to a handful of languages.

In 1919, the Egyptian revolution adopted a green flag with the crescent and the cross. Both Muslims and Christians participated in the nationalist revolution against British colonialism. Now, according to the Egyptian Federation for Human Rights, more than 70 Christians a week are asking to leave the country due to Islamist threats.

The numbers are telling. Today there is only one Middle Eastern country where the number of Christians has grown: Israel. As documented in the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, the Christian community that numbered 34,000 people in 1949 is now 163,000-strong, and will reach 187,000 in 2020.

In the rest of the Middle East, the drive for Islamic purity is going to banish all traces of pre-Islamic pasts. This has affected not only Christians, but other non-Islamic communities too, such as the Zoroastrians and Baha’is in Iran (the late also found refuge in Israel, in Haifa.)

The silence of the global forums, the flawed conscience of human rights groups, the self-denial of the media and the Vatican’s appeasement is helping facilitate this Islamist campaign. According to a report on religious freedom compiled by the US Department of State, the number of Christians in Turkey declined from two million to 85,000; in Lebanon they have gone from 55% to 35% of the population; in Syria, from Half the population they have been reduced to 4%; in Jordan, from 18% to 2%. In Iraq, they will be exterminated.

Should the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem continue in the next two or three decades, there may be no clergy left to conduct religious services in Jesus’ birthplace. In Iran, Christians have become virtually non-existent since 1979, when Khomeini ordered the immediate closure of all Christian schools. In Gaza, the 3,000 who remain are subjected to persecution. In Sudan, Christians in the South are forced into slavery.
[......]

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[P F Tinmore]

YASSER ARAFAT'S EXEMPLARY CHRISTIAN SPIRIT
Yasser Arafat's Exemplary Christian Spirit (Avi Davis) February, 2002
2002
This just in the Oslo perion 1994-2001

"...The fate of Bethlehem offers a fine example. Since 1994, when Arafat first came to administer Bethlehem the Christian population has gradually been reduced from a 60% majority in Bethlehem to a mere 20%.

This Arafat ensured by first Gerrymandering the municipal boundaries of the city, extending them to include the neighboring refugee camps – Dehaisheh, El-Ayda and El-Azeh and adding a few thousand from the Ta'amarah Bedouin tribe.

Concurrently Arafat fired the city council which was composed of 9 Christians and 2 Moslems while appointing Muhammed A- Hjabari, a Moslem from Hebron as mayor.
The entire political structure of the city – in the bureaucratic, security and political spheres were eventually Cleansed of Christians.
Today the Bethlehem region is in reality run by the local Fatah leader and his Thugs.

The physical and psychological intimidation of Palestinian Chrisitian Arabs throughout the territory then proceeded rapidly. Mosques were erected in close proximity to churches in order to Oscure and Dominate them.
This is the case with the Al Khanga and Abdul Malek mosques which today tower over the Church of the Nativity.

Christian cemeteries, convents and monasteries were Desecrated, their personnel intimidated and in places, their land confiscated.
[......]
Not that it wasn't expected. The late Christian mayor of Bethlehem Elias Friej warned that the implementation of the Oslo Accords would result in Bethlehem becoming a town with churches but no Christians. For over 7 years Christian Arabs in East Jerusalem and other West Bank towns have besieged Israeli officials with requests for Israeli I. D. cards knowing full well that the institution of Palestinian rule would result in the kind of extortion and corruption seen wherever the PLO has hoisted its tent.

Those who know something about Persecution of Christians throughout the Arab world will not be shocked by what has occurred in the Palestinian Authority. In Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, Christian populations suffer from both direct and indirect State sponsored discrimination. In other Muslim countries such as Nigeria and Indonesia there is open persecution of Christians while in the Sudan it is estimated that close to 2 Million Christians have lost their lives in the course of a bitter civil war.
[.....]

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It makes one wonder what Palestine would be like if Israel hadn't dragged Arafat back from exile and install him as the government working for Israel.

BTW, this on the bottom of your link would not indicate any bias, would it?

 

[docmauser1]

It makes one wonder what Palestine would be like if Israel hadn't dragged Arafat back from exile and install him as the government working for Israel.

Those sharing the sentiment should ask the US State department, of course.

 

[irosie91]

Arafart was DRAGGED back to "palestine"?

 

[P F Tinmore]

Arafart was DRAGGED back to "palestine"?

He was.