And now another viewpoint written around the same time -- The Beleaguered Christians in Bethlehem :: Gatestone Institutedocmauser1,
The facts are Bethlehem's problems have everything to do with Isreali acts in her Occupation of Palestine
Here is what the UN has said about Bethlehem.
UN report highlights 'shrinking space' for Palestinians in Bethlehem
Israel's separation wall in Bethlehem May 2009
Israeli measures have reduced the amount of land available in Bethlehem for Palestinian use, limited the areas access to resources and restricted its potential for development, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says in a new report.
Shrinking Space: Urban Contraction and Rural Fragmentation in the Bethlehem Governorate, examines how Israeli measures such as the Barrier, settlements and closures have impacted Palestinian livelihoods, development and residential expansion in Bethlehem, which comprises approximately 660 kilometres.
The space available to the Palestinian population in the Bethlehem governorate has been significantly constricted by Israeli measures such as the continued expansion of Israeli settlements and their outposts, states the report.
These measures have reduced Bethlehems development space, limited its access to resources, severed Bethlehems historic links to Jerusalem and restricted the urban areas potential for residential and industrial expansion, it adds.
Only 13 per cent of land in Bethlehem is available for Palestinian use, and much of it is fragmented, the report shows. In addition, Israel retains security control and jurisdiction over building and planning in 66 per cent of the governorate.
Also, the Barrier route in Bethlehem reaches 10 kilometres into the West Bank. If completed, it will cut off some of the most fertile cultivated land in the governorate as well as 21,000 Palestinian villagers from the urban centre, according to the report.
As of now, the report says, around 175,000 Palestinians live in the Bethlehem governorate. Since 1967, some 86,000 Israelis have also been settled there, and they live in 19 settlements and 16 settlement outposts.
UN report highlights 'shrinking space' for Palestinians in Bethlehem
Here is a video from Bethlehem, filmed by Christians there.
Mazin Qumsiyeh film: Christmas 2009 in Bethlehem | Letters from Palestine |Axisoflogic.com
Sherri
jt2
Why are all the articles claiming that the Muslims are persecuting Christians on Israeli propaganda sites?
Just curious.
And the UN, like you, isn't a mouthpiece for all things anti-Israel and anti-Jew?
Former US Ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick on serving at the international body, "I felt for the first time in my life that I could understand how the Holocaust happened" and that "The United Nations hasn't really improved much in the years since I was there, and it hasn't really improved much at all with respect to Israel." She also said that when she first began attending Security Council and General Assembly sessions as America's ambassador,
"I was very deeply shocked by the simple anti-Semitism that pervaded the place." The anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment she was exposed to at the world body was "mysterious," and "very, very strange," she said.
This is your precious United Nations at work:
A UN sponsored conference was held in 2001 in Durban, South Africa. The conference was meant to combat racism, but ended up being a forum for world leaders to make various anti-Semitic statements.[37][38] Among the anti-Semitic literature freely handed out at the conference were cartoons equating the Nazi swastika with the Jewish Star of David, flyers expressing the wish that Adolf Hitler had completely killed every last Jew on Earth, and copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[39][40]
Criticism of the United Nations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia