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Bethlehem sees record pilgrim crowd for Christmas Posted at 12:10 AM on Saturday, Dec. 25, 2010 By DALIA NAMMARI - Associated Press   BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- A record number of pilgrims from around the world have gathered in Bethlehem on Christmas Day in the largest celebration this West Bank town has seen in a decade. Pilgrims were assembling around the Church of the Nativity, built on the site where tradition holds Jesus was born, for prayers Saturday morning.The Israeli military put the number of pilgrims this year at over 100,000, compared to about 50,000 last year.--snipOnly one-third of...

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...

The pilgrims will be there as midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity is again broadcast live around the world this Christmas Eve -- but the town of Bethlehem is fast losing its last few year-round Christian residents. Christians are fleeing the town of Christ's birth, and the much-reported hardship that Israel inflicts on residents of the West Bank town has little to do with it. It's the same reality across the Arab world: rising Islamism pushes non-Muslims away. Islamists frown on real-estate ownership by non-Muslims -- Christian, Jew or anything else. And though the secular Palestinian Authority still...

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...