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Christian families have long been complaining of intimidation and land theft by Muslims, especially those working for the Palestinian Authority. Many Christians in Bethlehem and the nearby [Christian] towns of Bet Sahour and Bet Jalla have repeatedly complained that Muslims have been seizing their lands either by force or through forged documents. In recent years, not only has the number of Christians continued to dwindle, but Bethlehem and its surroundings also became hotbeds for Hamas and Islamic Jihad supporters and members. Moreover, several Christian women living in these areas have complained about verbal and sexual assaults by Muslim men. .....

Christian families have long been complaining of intimidation and land theft by Muslims, especially those working for the Palestinian Authority. Many Christians in Bethlehem and the nearby [Christian] towns of Bet Sahour and Bet Jalla have repeatedly complained that Muslims have been seizing their lands either by force or through forged documents. In recent years, not only has the number of Christians continued to dwindle, but Bethlehem and its surroundings also became hotbeds for Hamas and Islamic Jihad supporters and members. Moreover, several Christian women living in these areas have complained about verbal and sexual assaults by Muslim men. .....

Just a few days before Christmas, as I walked around Bethlehem on a Sunday morning, the lyric "All is calm, all is bright" drifted into my mind. It was a calm, bright day - windy, with a ridge of purple rain clouds gathering on the horizon. There had been tension in the air during my last visit to Bethlehem, soon after the Hamas takeover in Gaza. But now any sense of apprehension seemed to have vanished. I was in the company of "Stefan," an Arab Christian, who serves as a visitors' guide. He was quick to point out, as we...

Ah, Christmas in Bethlehem. Manger Square is ablaze with colorful lights. The weather is usually a bit chilly. Aggressive merchants bombard passersby with “special sales” on all kinds of cedar wood statues and religious carvings. And like clockwork, the mainstream media descend upon this city every year to ignore rampant Muslim intimidation of Christians and instead blast Israel - often with completely inaccurate information - for ruining Christmas and for the drastic decline of Christianity in one of the holiest cities for that religion. Take a widely circulated piece by McClatchy Newspapers writers Dion Nissenbaum and Cliff Churgin. The piece,...

The ever-dwindling Christian communities living in Palestinian-run territories in the West Bank and Gaza are likely to dissipate completely within the next 15 years as a result of increasing Muslim persecution and maltreatment, an Israeli scholar said Monday. Flames are seen at the entrance of an Anglican church hit by a firebomb in Nablus. Photo: AP , AP "The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the international community, human rights activists, the media and NGOs," said Justus Reid Weiner, an international human rights lawyer in an address at the...

Nakla Qaber prepares a grill outside his Bethlehem-area restaurant. (Photo by Andrew Mills) In Land of Jesus, Christians Struggle BY STEVE CHAMBERS BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Nakla Qaber, whose Greek Orthodox roots stretch back generations in a Christian enclave on the West Bank, runs a successful restaurant at a time when most Palestinians are struggling. But when it came time for his son and three daughters to make their own way in the world, they went off to college in the United States and Canada and never came back. "Every time I go to services, I look around and...

Christians living in Jesus' birthplace are bracing themselves as the militant Islamic group Hamas prepares to take power as the Palestinian Authority government after winning legislative elections in January. "There are many Christians who are afraid," said Shatha, a student at the Roman Catholic Bethlehem University. "Since Hamas is new to the government, I doubt they will be able to implement Islamic law," she said the day before Hamas was to take over the Palestinian authority on Feb. 17. "But it's possible they might in the future." Bethlehem's Christian community was already concerned after a member of the city council...

In what many consider to be one of the most notorious holy site desecrations in recent history, nearly 100 Palestinian terrorists in April, 2002, holed up inside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem while fleeing a massive Israeli anti-terror operation. One of Christianity's most sacred sites, the church is believed to be the birthplace of Jesus. Israel surrounded the Church area but refused to storm the structure. Gunmen inside included wanted senior Hamas, Tzanim and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorists reportedly involved in suicide bombings and shooting attacks. Over 200 nuns and priests were trapped in the church...

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU Palestinians blame WND for Bethlehem religious rift Paper calls article on persecution of believers 'an effort to separate Christians and Muslims' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: December 28, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Aaron Klein -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com JERUSALEM – An article published Sunday by WorldNetDaily quoting Bethlehem residents as saying local Muslim persecution prompted tens of thousands of Christians to flee the city is "all lies" and the "kind of American reporting [that] is the real reason for any rift between Muslims and Christians," a major Palestinian newspaper stated yesterday, claiming inter-religious relations in Bethlehem "have never...

ROMA, December 29, 2005 – Thirty thousand pilgrims from all over the world came to Bethlehem for Christmas, one third more than the previous year. The leader of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, a Muslim, attended the midnight Mass at the basilica of the Nativity. And in his homily, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, an Arab, hailed him as a man of peace, reserving his protest for “the wall raised up before us, forcing us to live as if in a prison, our lands confiscated, our young men carried away at night and thrown into the Israeli...

Store owner in West Bank city says 'We are harassed, but you wouldn't know the truth. No one says anything publicly about the Muslims' With Christmas services here drawing far fewer tourists than in the 1990s and the town's Christian population now at an all-time low, many world leaders and hundreds of major media outlets this week blamed Israel for Bethlehem's decline – often citing false information – while a simple talk with the town's residents reveals a drastically different picture. They say Muslim persecution has been keeping Christians away. "All this talk about Israel driving Christians out and causing...

World leaders, media blame Israel for fleeing Christians BETHLEHEM - With Christmas services here drawing far fewer tourists than in the 1990s and the town's Christian population now at an all-time low, many world leaders and hundreds of major media outlets this week blamed Israel for Bethlehem's decline - often citing false information - while a simple talk with the town's residents reveals a drastically different picture. They say Muslim persecution has been keeping Christians away. "All this talk about Israel driving Christians out and causing pain is nonsense," a Bethlehem Christian community leader told WND. "You want to know what is at...

In the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a crowd of Muslim demonstrators tries to storm a Coptic church to protest at a play about a Muslim campaign to convert Christians. In Iraq, the Christian middle class is emigrating in droves, fearful of the daily violence and the hostility it now encounters from Islamists.  In Saudi Arabia, churches and other places of non-Muslim worship are banned, and foreign workers who try to hold secret Christian services are jailed, flogged and often deported. In the land of its birth, Christianity is in sad decline as the pressures of life under Israeli occupation and...

Since the Palestinian Authority’s takeover of Bethlehem in 1995, under the Oslo Accords with Israel, Bethlehem has been transformed from a Christian city into a Muslim city. Bethlehem’s remaining Christians now live in a condition of dhimmitude (a reference to the second-class citizenship Islam imposes on Christians) in the city of Jesus’ birth.

Church of the Nativity needs a miracle By Tim Butcher in Bethlehem (Filed: 10/12/2005) If pilgrims worshipping in the Church of the Nativity look up at the roof, they will see a battlefield threatening the future of one of Christendom's most holy sites. Squabbling over crucial roof repairs between the three Christian communities who share custodianship of Jesus's birthplace is endangering the 1,500-year-old basilica. A Greek Orthodox priest in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem Large holes in the 500-year-old lead roof have let rainwater flood inside for years. It streams down the walls and threatens to wash away Crusader-era...

Off the record, many Christians in Bethlehem who were interviewed last week expressed deep concern over increased attacks by Muslims on members of their community. "The Christians here are perceived as easy prey," says a prominent Christian businessman. "After the Palestinian Authority arrived here in 1995, many Muslim families from Hebron and other parts of the West Bank have moved to Beit Jala," said a local physician. "Some of them have illegally seized privately-owned lands." Fatah gunmen in Beit Jala who fired into the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo in the first years of the intifada are also responsible for the...

Away from the manger - a Christian-Muslim divide Khaled Abu Toameh, THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 21, 2005 Tourists and pilgrims who visited Bethlehem over the past decade or so must have run into Farid Azizeh, a Christian businessman who, together with his wife, ran a small coffee shop on Manger Square. The couple was famous for the fresh orange juice and Turkish coffee they used to serve to their customers. On the eve of the millennium, many foreign journalists who converged on Bethlehem turned the place into a makeshift media center. Azizeh's coffee shop was among the few businesses in...

Tourists and pilgrims who visited Bethlehem over the past decade or so must have run into Farid Azizeh, a Christian businessman who, together with his wife, ran a small coffee shop on Manger Square. The couple was famous for the fresh orange juice and Turkish coffee they used to serve to their customers. On the eve of the millennium, many foreign journalists who converged on Bethlehem turned the place into a makeshift media center. Azizeh's coffee shop was among the few businesses in Bethlehem that had remained open after the intifada began in September 2000. "The situation will one day...

Christianity Dying In Its BirthplaceBy Daniel PipesFrontPageMagazine.com | September 13, 2005 What some observers are calling a pogrom took place near Ramallah, West Bank, on the night of Sep. 3-4. That’s when fifteen Muslim youths from one village, Dair Jarir, rampaged against Taybeh, a neighboring all-Christian village of 1,500 people.The reason for the assault? A Muslim woman from Dair Jarir, Hiyam Ajaj, 23, fell in love with her Christian boss, Mehdi Khouriyye, owner of a tailor shop in Taybeh. The couple maintained a clandestine two-year affair and she became pregnant in about March 2005. When her family learned of her...

The Custody Must Be Doubled in the Holy LandThe Christians of Bethlehem and Palestine are in greater and greater danger. The Custodian of the Holy Places accuses the Islamic extremists and the Palestinian Authority, "which is doing little or nothing." Meanwhile, between the Vatican and Israel... ROMA, September 7, 2005 – With harsh and unexpected words, the Custodian of the Holy Land, Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, has called everyone's attention back to the increasing violence and humiliation that the Christians of Cisjordan suffer at the hands of Muslims. He made the remarks to the Jerusalem correspondent of the "Corriere della Sera,"...

New York Times Omits Major Reason Christians are Leaving Bethlehem A New York Times report on the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem and other historically Christian towns in the West Bank (, Dec 23) omitted a major reason for this demographic change - official and unofficial Muslim discrimination against Arab Christians, amid a rising tide of Islamism in the Palestinian territories.The Times cited instead: Four years of violence, an economic free fall and the Israeli separation barrier have all contributed to the hardships facing Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem, one of the largest concentrations of Christians in the region. While...

The Season to be Jolly....in the Holy Land by Judy Lash Balint, Jerusalem: While the usual hand wringing from Diaspora Jews over how to deal with Christmas reaches us by Internet, Israelis don't generally pay the Christian holyday too much attention. Nevertheless, there are certain signs here that the season of joy is upon us. Colored lights adorn the main streets in the southern part of the city and on the main road into Bethlehem. No Christmas symbols on the lights, but they do go up the week before the holiday, and come down after the Orthodox Christmas in...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank, Dec. 20 - In the town where Christians believe Christ was born, the Christians are leaving. Four years of violence, an economic free fall and the Israeli separation barrier have all contributed to the hardships facing Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem, one of the largest concentrations of Christians in the region. An estimated 3,000 Christians in the Bethlehem area have moved abroad since the Palestinian uprising began in 2000, according to Bernard Sabella, an associate professor of sociology at Bethlehem University who has tracked the issue. While some others put the number a bit lower, there is a...

Bethlehem's fate highlights dwindling community's woes BETHLEHEM, West Bank - A tree stands prominently in Bethlehem’s Manger Square. Not a Christmas pine adorned with bulbs and tinsel for the season, but an olive tree. The Palestinians call it “the tree of peace.” It looks dead. The body of the tree — barren, broken and pruned back — is a metaphor for Christian life here. Throughout Israel and the Palestinian territories, Christians are losing both turf and population. Squeezed between opposing sides in an intractable war, Christians are slowly leaving the holy land. More than 110,000 Christians lived in the occupied...

"The report documents Israeli roadblocks, expansion of settlements, the building of the defensive barrier, and other measures, citing them as the reason for loss of jobs in the region of Bethlehem, mostly in the tourism industry, but also in agricultural fields such as olive oil manufacturing. Since September 2000, which marks the beginning of the second intifada, one-tenth of Christian residents have fled, leaving the Bethlehem Christian population at an all-time low of 9.3% of the total residency, according to the report." It ignores, however, a larger trend of flight of Christians from the Middle East, as well as a...

At a time when a film about Jesus is taking America by storm, the fact that the town of his birth, Bethlehem, has become predominantly Muslim rather than Christian is not exactly a hot item. Just half a century ago Bethlehem was 80% Christian; today it’s down to 20% and constantly dwindling. Like Christian Arabs elsewhere in the Palestinian Authority—an entity whose official religion is Islam and whose basic laws reflect the Shari’a—Bethlehem’s Christians have been subject to discrimination and harassment and are abandoning the town to those aiming for an Islamic monolith in the Middle East. But the home...

The Bethlehem exodus Posted: January 1, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com I was touched by the global press corps' "impassioned lament over Yasser Arafat being barred by Israel from attending the Christmas celebration at the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem." Canada's Globe and Mail headlined their story "No Christmas in Bethlehem for Arafat." "Poor Yasser!" "Evil Israelis!" The London Guardian headlined its story, "Arafat Barred From Christmas Celebrations". The Scotsman lamented, "Little Christmas Goodwill for Arafat." A special chair was set aside in "honor" of Arafat, draped with his kaffeiya and prominently featured in all the network news broadcasts. Ahem. This...

Mideast: Christian-free zone? Posted: December 30, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com 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. In 1948, Bethlehem was 80...

A new book has been published in Jerusalem entitled Witness in the Holy Land by Dr. Maria C. Khoury author of the popular book "Christina Goes to Church." Dr. Khoury, the author of seven church books, has made efforts in the last decade to produce children’s Orthodox literature that preserves and documents precious traditions, values and the rich symbolism of the Chrsitian faith. This new book is the first book geared for adult readers, especially young adults that might have an interest in knowing more about the dwindling Christian community in the Holy Land and what life is like under...

Dear Free Republic, In 1995, President Clinton turned Bethlehem over to Yasser Arafat and the PA. Christians worldwide, who consider the city of Jesus' birth a sacred and holy site, were given no voice in the matter. Arafat changed the name of the city, and rewrote the Holy Scriptures. He declared Bethlehem to be the place where Jesus, "the first Palestinian Christian" was born. President Bush met recently with PM Sharon. Said Judea and Samaria are illegal outposts, and have asked them to relinquish them to the PA. That must not happen. Bill Clinton tried that before September 11th,...

Christmas brings our thoughts to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, a town the carol remembers as lying still, in deep and dreamless sleep. Alas, Bethlehem now knows little stillness or sleep and, if Mary and Joseph were to arrive, life might be even more difficult — and the flight to Egypt come earlier. Bethlehem's Christians, gathered around the Church of the Nativity — one of Christianity's holiest sites — were shaken last year when 200 Palestinians, firing Kalashnikovs, knocked down the church doors to escape the Israelis. They remained inside for 39 days, while eight people were killed and more...