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Prof. Justus Reid Weiner discusses the situation regarding Christians living in Palestinian Authority controlled Bethlehem as opposed to those Christians living in Nazareth, Israel.

Another anti-semitic invention to exploit the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem to propagate a lie:["More than a billion Christians around the world are about to celebrate Christmas, commemorating the birth of Jesus, the promised Messiah. There is one thing the Palestinian Arabs hope you all remember during those celebrations - that Jesus was, in fact, a Palestinian (Arab).It is nothing new for the Palestinians to claim that Jesus was a Palestinian. The Palestinian leadership gets in on the action all the time. Yasser Arafat used to openly declare as much as he kicked off Christmas from Bethlehem every year.Arafat...

http://youtu.be/Isuu9EiFU_E

Jingle Bells Bethlehem style. Palestinian minister Fadiha with a special Christmas carol...

On December 25, Christians around the world will gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Joyful carols, special liturgies, brightly wrapped gifts, festive foods—these all characterize the feast today, at least in the northern hemisphere. But just how did the Christmas festival originate? How did December 25 come to be associated with Jesus’ birthday? The Bible offers few clues: Celebrations of Jesus’ Nativity are not mentioned in the Gospels or Acts; the date is not given, not even the time of year. The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8)...

The modern search for the Star of Bethlehem began with Johannes Kepler (imperial astronomer for Rudolph II of Germany), who shortly before Christmas in 1603 observed a conjunction (pairing) of Jupiter with Saturn from his observatory in Prague. That this occurred in the constellation of Pisces he thought was important as well – perhaps recalling Rabbi Isaac Abarvanel's belief, noted in his 15th-century commentary on Daniel, that not only does a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn foretell important events, but in Pisces this holds a special significance for Israel; and such an event might even foretell the coming of the...

Arab Islamic apartheid, discrimination, oppression, persecution against Christians Vs the only free State [in the region]: Israel---Christine M. Flowers: The very real persecution of Christians in the Arab worldSeptember 30, 2011IF THE "Arab Spring" bathed the Middle East in some much-needed sunlight, there's at least one group that sees ominous clouds on the not-so-distant horizon. That would be the region's embattled and apprehensive Christians, who've lived a kind of double life for many decades.While nominally citizens of the countries they inhabit, most non-Muslims, the majority of whom are Christian, are treated as second-class members of society because so many governments...

Jordan closed Bethlehem to Christians from 1949 until 1967 when Israel opened the gates. Now the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, prohibited a Jewish guide from attending a Congressman’s tour. Florida Republican and Tea Party member Allen West wrote his constituents after touring Israel earlier this month, “When we went to Bethlehem to visit the birthplace of Jesus- a Jew- our group was not allowed to have our regular Jewish guides or bus drivers because Israeli citizens are not allowed in Bethlehem or the ancient city of Jericho where the Bible teaches us that Joshua blew down the wall...

The Muslim Fatah-controlled authority in Judea and Samaria is encouraging a "sharp demographic shift" in Bethlehem, where the Christian population 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 today. It is estimated that, for the past seven years, more than one thousand Christians have been emigrating from the Bethlehem area annually and that only 10,000 to 13,000 Christians remain in the city. International human rights lawyer Justus Reid Weiner, who teaches at Hebrew University, told the Jerusalem Institute for Global Jewish Affairs that, under...

Sarah Palin has emerged at the centre of a potentially embarrassing mystery when she abruptly aborted a visit to Bethlehem just yards from an Israeli checkpoint guarding the entrance to the city of Christ's birth. Mrs Palin, whose trip to the Holy Land is being seen as an attempt to burnish her foreign policy credentials ahead of a possible presidential bid, had been planning to tour Christian sites before holding evening talks with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Bethlehem was supposed to be her first stop of the day, according to a leaked copy of her schedule. .... It...

When Christmas comes around, the Palestinian Authority looks for ways to incite Christian hatred of Jews worldwide. This year, the Jew-baiting has taken the form of a report by AFP regarding a Jewish town's opposition to Christmas trees and a book that calls Jesus "the first Palestinian martyr." While carrying the anti-Jewish Christmas tree story, world media neglected to note that the PA has been brutally and systematically driving out its Christian population - in Bethlehem and elsewhere - through torture and murder. Depicting Israel in the role of Dr. Seuss's "Grinch who stole Christmas," AFP sadly reported that "there...

We are far too accustomed to thinking that the Middle East is populated only by Muslims and a few Jews. There are Christians living there, too, often beleaguered and under attack. Here are three stories that remind us during this Christmas season that life for Christians in the Holy Land during this Holy Season can be particularly perilous. First, we learn that the cross, the very symbol of Christianity, has basically been abolished from Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. “This Christmas in Bethlehem, the cross has been banned from souvenirs for tourists and pilgrims in the Holy Land. Some textile...

We are far too accustomed to thinking that the Middle East is populated only by Muslims and a few Jews. There are Christians living there, too, often beleaguered and under attack. Here are three stories that remind us during this Christmas season that life for Christians in the Holy Land during this Holy Season can be particularly perilous. First, we learn that the cross, the very symbol of Christianity, has basically been abolished from Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. “This Christmas in Bethlehem, the cross has been banned from souvenirs for tourists and pilgrims in the Holy Land. Some textile...

This Christmas in Bethlehem, the cross has been banned from souvenirs for tourists and pilgrims in the Holy Land... Samir Qumsieh, journalist and director of the Catholic television station Al-Mahed Nativity TV in Bethlehem, said: "I want to launch a campaign to urge people not to buy these products - he says - because the removal of the cross is an intimidation against Christians, it is like saying that Jesus was never crucified. " Qumsieh points out that from 2002 to 2010 the Christian population of Bethlehem has dropped from over 18 thousand to 11 thousand people... Only 15,400 Christians...

Migal Eder-"Tower of the flocks"Alfred Edersheim, author of the excellent "Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah", wrote the following: "And yet Jewish tradition may here prove both illustrative and helpful. That the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, was a settled conviction. "Equally so, was the belief , that He was to be revealed from Migdal Eder, 'the tower of the flock.' This Migdal Eder was not the watchtower for the ordinary flocks which pastured on the barren sheepground beyond Bethlehem, but lay close to the town, on the road to Jerusalem." "A passage in the Mishnah leads to...

When I was in college, I journeyed to Cologne, Germany and visited the city's glorious cathedral. I was a Protestant at the time, but I remember being amazed that people had been building this cathedral for so many centuries. It is one of the greatest Gothic churches of all time.

Early Christians hid the origins of the Bethlehem star 13:15 21 December 01 Marcus Chown A US astronomer claims he has found the first mention of the star of Bethlehem outside the Bible. The reference is in a 4th-century manuscript written by a Roman astrologer and Christian convert called Firmicus Maternus. Photo: Bridgeman Art Library Michael Molnar, formerly of Rutgers University in New Jersey, is the originator of the idea that the star of Bethlehem was not a spectacular astronomical event such as a supernova or a comet but an obscure astrological one. The event would nevertheless have been ...

I am a Christian, I belive in Christ. However, why do Christians knowing that Christ was born in the summer time (northern Hemisphere, celebrate Christmas in Decemeber? I know that December 25th was a holiday during the Roman Empire. It would make sense if some astronomer could calculate when Christ was born. Also, I am sure other religions have records on when the astological event took place when Christ was Born. I think that God intended Christmas to be treated somewhat differently than Easter. For some reason it seems in the telling of the birth of Christ, there is a...

<p>FOR a few minutes on Christmas, children may set down their new toys from the man in the red suit and listen to transmissions from a machine on the red planet. On Thursday, the European Space Agency is scheduled to guide a British probe called the Beagle II onto the surface of Mars in what should become the first successful landing there since NASA's Mars Pathfinder in 1997. But while Mars grabs all the extraterrestrial attention this holiday ("The Beagle has landed!"), normally Christmas is the season of Jupiter, because there's a very good chance that the biggest planet in our solar system was the Star of Bethlehem.</p>

For centuries, historians, scientists and scholars have debated the existence of the Star of Bethlehem in the Biblical telling of Christ’s birth. Now Texas lawyer and professor Rick Larson says he has proven the existence of this celebrated, yet debated, star. He sets forth his case in a documentary, “The Star of Bethlehem.” “Historically, people have taken two positions on the Star,” said Larson in a news release. “Either they believe the Star is true or they think it was made up by the early Church. I took a different approach in my research and treated the Star as a...