Mideast: Christian-free Zone?

You saw the images on television this Christmas season –Israeli soldiers patrolling Bethlehem.

You heard the Jews blamed for the unrest in the city of David – the birthplace of Jesus.

This column is about what you didn't see or hear in those reports – something of an annual journalistic ritual.

The Christian population of the Palestinian Authority, once representing 20 percent of the region, is down to 2.4 percent. There are fewer than 50,000 Christian Arabs living within the Palestinian Authority.

Many of them prefer life in Israel to life under the rule of Yasser Arafat and his friends in Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In fact, life would be better just about anywhere else, and those who have the ability to leave have left.

This massive display of ethnic cleansing and population movement has been totally obscured by the Palestinian Authority and covered up by the international media. Worse yet, it has even been blamed on Israel.

But Christians fleeing the Holy Land know why they are leaving. All one needs to do is ask them. It began a long time ago. I know, because my grandparents fled for the safety, security and freedom of America. Christians in the Middle East know very well who their enemy is. They know why are they are oppressed. They know who is attacking them. They know who is occupying them.

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.

They are being driven out. They are being murdered. They are being raped. They are being systematically persecuted. They are being harassed. They are being intimidated.

Such is life for Christians now in Bethlehem and other formerly Christian towns in the West Bank. Just imagine what it will be like when Palestine becomes a real state.

If these people were fleeing Israeli oppression, why did they leave after the Israelis left? It makes no sense. The only way Israel has fed 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 lived in safety and security.

The truth is the Christian population in Israel has more than quadrupled since 1948. Why? Israel guarantees religious freedom – whereas the Palestinian Authority offers an official religion of Islam.

What has happened in the Palestinian Authority is that the protective hand of Israel has been lifted as it has – under international pressure – given Arafat and the Palestinian Authority more and more autonomy to run its own territory.

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.

It's time for the whole world to recognize the mini-holocaust taking place against Christians in the Middle East. It's time to punish those guilty of these atrocities – specifically those in charge of the Palestinian Authority. For God's sake, they must not be rewarded with a state of their own.

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The PA lynches Muslims too. It boggles the mind that these people are treated with any respect among the nations of the world. Just amazing.

I hope the CHristians have some sort of process for getting to the Isralei side of the Security Fence before things get much worse.

2 posted on 12/30/2003 5:10:36 AM PST by ovrtaxt (*The Dems are the gas, the Reps are the brakes --- But they are parts of the same machine.*)

3 posted on 12/30/2003 5:24:00 AM PST by FreedomPoster (this space intentionally blank)

God knows that we let anything into this country. My question is this 50,000 people is a drop in the bucket for a country of our size, that is 1,000 people for each state, most definitely less than 1 person for each town. With that being said why not simply bring these Christians here?

" With that being said why not simply bring these Christians here?"

If I were to take a guess on this one (even if this is a rhetorical question), could it be that the government behind the American government that is liberal controlled ( you shall know them by their fruits) is pro Islam and anti Christian?
What a huge mistake the socialist-communist democrat liberals are making in this country! They are destroyers.

5 posted on 01/02/2004 6:38:32 AM PST by wgeorge2001 ( In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.)

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