Bethlehem will become a town of churches devoid of Christians
by Yoram Ettinger
1. “Bethlehem will become a town of churches devoid of Christians, if you transfer the area to the Palestinian Authority,” predicted the late Mayor of Bethlehem, Elias Freij, pleading – in 1993 – not to transfer the area to PLO control. The heads of Bethlehem and Beit Jallah monasteries begged the US and Israel – in 1993 – to refrain from transferring the area to the Palestinian Authority. Their request was denied, in order to advance the Oslo Process…
2. Christian Arabs shrank from a sizeable 15% minority to a 1.5% splinter group in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Their plight has intensified since the 1993 establishment of the Palestinian Authority, which has supported/tolerated physical, social, economic, legal and political harassment/terrorism against Christian minorities.
3. There are more Christian refugees from Beit Jallah (contiguous to Bethlehem) in Belize, Central America, than Christians left in Beit Jallah. There are more Christian refugees from Ramallah in Michigan and in South America than Christians remaining in Ramallah. Bethlehem was transformed from a Christian – to a more than 80% Muslim – majority.
4. Islam considers Christian minorities as “Dhimmis” guilty of rejecting Muhammad, tolerated as long as they are submissive, inferior to Muslims, handy scapegoats, and therefore subjected to legalized persecution. Legalized persecution has been employed – since the 7th century – in order to assert Islam over other peoples, most of whom have either vanished or severely shrunk. A Muslim who converts is subject to capital punishment.
5. As befits Dhimmis – Churches, convents, monasteries, Christian cemeteries, schools, homes, land and Christian women in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are subject to desecration, destruction, burning, confiscation, intimidation, rape and harassment. Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity was hijacked, in April-May 2002, by 200 Palestinian terrorists, fleeing the IDF. Nuns and priests were held hostages and the church was looted. Abu Mazen pressured Israel to allow the return of the hijackers – who were previously deported by Israel – to his territory.
6. “After we do away with the Saturday People, we shall take care of the Sunday People” has been a regular feature during anti-Israel PLO/PA rallies.
7. During 1970-1982, PLO terrorism in Lebanon accelerated the flight of Lebanese Christians, reducing them from the ruling sector to a precipitously dwindling minority. In 2007, The Palestinian Authority-supported/tolerated oppression has intensified the flight of Christians from Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
8. Institutionalized oppression of Christians in the Palestinian Authority – along with unprecedented terrorism and hate education – has been the most authentic reflection of Abu Mazen’s and Hamas’ approach toward tolerance and peaceful-coexistence.
9. Egregious violations of human rights, by all Arab regimes, have been a core cause for the lack of inter-Arab peace during the last 1,400 years.
10. A great deal of suspension of disbelief underlines the assumption that peaceful-coexistence could be achieved with a regime (the PLO/Palestinian Authority), which is the role-model of human rights violations, hate-education, conventional terrorism, hijacking, homicide bombing, abrogation of commitments and oppression of Christian minorities.
11. A great deal of self-destructive instinct is required, in order to assume that rewarding such a rogue regime with an independent (Palestinian) state – cushioned with annual foreign aid since 1994 – would serve as water and not as fuel on the fire of anti-Western terrorism and Mid East turbulence.
12. Yet, Washington’s suspension of disbelief has swept Christians’ predicament under the Annapolis Carpet, sacrificing religious and civic liberties of Christians in Gaza, Judea & Samaria on the altar of wishful-thinking and political-correctness (the Oslo-Annapolis process).
13. However, the exercise of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, free election and other civil liberties constitutes a prerequisite for a genuine – rather than a false provisional – peace.
14. President Bush (Sept. 20, 2001, Joint Session of Congress): “They [the Taliban] want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa…What is at stake is not just America’s freedom. This is the world’s fight. This is civilization’s fight.”
15. Ignoring the plight of Christian minorities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and overlooking the oppressive nature of the Palestinian Authority (Abu Mazen since 1993 and Hamas since 2006) for the sake of the “Peace Process” guarantees repeated failure, a setback to peace and a boost to radicalism and terrorism at the expense of vital US values and national security interests.
All the above being correct, then why is it that North American Jews and the traditional Christian churches (Catholic and most Protestant) in the US do nothing to prevent the takeover of the Holy Land by jihadists?
Rather, most Christians and Jews in the US are public defenders of a Palestinian state.
This also raises the following question: given that Christianity is the absolute majority religion in the US, and especially that the Bush family and most in the Bush government profess to be Christians, why is it that they so ardently empower Islamists in the Holy Land?
Just proves that most Christians A- don’t care if they know at all and B-Their support of Palis in deference to all other so called injustices in the world including Christian is always secondary to Christian dogmatic antisemitism.
Yamit,
I disagree. Most of this is a result of Western propaganda. George Bush Jr. is just as Christian as any practicing Muslim.
The European conversion to Islam will later contaminate the West.
Ultimately it is possible that Western elites convert to Islam, thus opening the doors for a new Islamic age in the West. If this happens, the next war of civilizations will not be between Christendom and Islam but rather between Islam and Buddhism, Shinto and a few other remaining traditions.
Hugo Chávez has already brought Hizbollah and al-Jazeera into Venezuela, and Hizbollah has already converted a couple of local Indian tribes to Shia Islam; Islamic Jihad already has a foothold in Brazil. Their website here says they will try to form a political party. For the time being they are very weak and Evangelicals very strong. But the Ford Foundation works miracles with their money…
What do you disagree with?
Yamit,
Today’s antisemitism has relatively little to do with Christianity. Christianity was its main vehicle for many centuries, but no more. Rather it is nowadays a work of the pseudo-left and the fascist right that turned the left into a pseudo-left. Both Christianity and Judaism have succumbed to idolatrous political religions.
I’ve been hearing many Jews claiming that the Vatican representative in Jerusalem – Michel Sabba – anti-Israel lashout proves that Catholic antisemitism has never receded. This is only partly correct. Nowadays most Catholics are secular and have nothing against Jews. Sabba is no fool. He knows that Muslims are very likely to take over Jerusalem and he is just appeasing them. Just like Olmert does. They suffer from exactly the same kind of acute stupidity.
Alex my take on this is that for many years after the Holocaust classical Christian antisemitism lowered its profile for many years but never completely, it was deemed along with other cultural mores to be what is now called Political Correctness. I remember as a young student after the 6 day war how the YSA young socialist Alliance hit the students of every campus with the anti Vietnam propaganda and in their literature they equated Israeli imperialism with American Imperialism and poor Vietnamese with poor Pali. Small group big noise and they capitalized on anti war sentiment to spread their message. It took 30 years but their view has become dominate one in America and Europe.
In the lit that I saw I found revisionist historical account of Israel and the Arabs but the one that stuck. It was pure commie misinformation. By lumping America and Vietnam with Israels great victory in 67 it began not only the slow erosion of support and respect Israel had after the war. This same partially hidden antisemitism morphed in the main by transferring classical mostly church based and then socialist left based antisemitism into a uniform of antisemitism called now anti Zionist or anti Israel Ideology and theology. It is the same antisemitism but now directed at a country that should not exist according to their Christian and Socialist beliefs, I leave out the antisemitic right for now as they are mostly lunatic fringe and make no alliances with mainstream left today. So the same antisemitism has just transferred their focus from individual Jews in the large to the State of Israel.
I will clue you Sabba is a Pali Arab who hates as much as anyone. The Christians Arabs which were most of the Pali intellegensia hate has much more than the Muslim Arabs I know because I worked with them for almost 2 years. Do not ever confuse change of tactics with reduction of overt anti antisemitism They have not allocated and are spending 3-5 billion dollars for nothing. America is losing 400 thousand Jews per decade and no small numbers of these to Christianity. Most are after our souls some want our bodies as well 6 ft under. In short Alex they have just become more sophisticated.
I do not understand paragraph 5′s “Abu Mazen pressured Irael to allow the return of the hijackers – …”.
What pressure? Isn’t this standard GOI practice?
I remember some of the barbarians that seized the Church of the Nativity went to Europe, some to Gaza and the rest freed.
This article reminds me of the US establishing that Demjanjuk was an SS guard but Israel did not establish this.
Our problems are internal.
Kol tuv,
South; Boker tov eliyahoo
Yamit,
That’s why I said it was only ‘partly’ correct. The correct part is what you say. But you just can’t generalize. Christianity today is a huge collection of completely different ideologies. The only thing Catholics and Adventists (for example) have in common is the belief that Jesus was the Christ. The Adventists I know (and many Evangelicals who support Israel wholeheartedly) have no antisemitism at all, whereas the Catholic Church needs it to survive.
Christian Arabs were in fact those who brought the European type of antisemitism to Islam. Because Islam has become even more antisemitic than it was until the 19th century, the old Christian antisemitism has never receded in the Arab world. The surrounding world always influences. This is not the case in the American continent, where most Christians are not antisemitic.
As regards Jews converting to Christianity in the American continent, this is no big deal. It has always been like that. The last period in history when the Jewish population increased (rather than decreased) was the Chassidic era, when lots of non-Jews converted to Judaism in Eastern Europe. Christianity is a missionary religion and there is nothing we can do about it. Jews in the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, UK or Australia convert to Christianity because they want. No one is forcing them to do it. All it shows is that Jewish education is poor in those countries and mostly unattractive as compared to whatever the churches are offering them. I have an example in my family. An uncle of mine, who was raised as a secular Jew, recently converted to Christianity under the influence of his new wife, who is an Evangelical Christian. Nobody in the family could believe it. When I asked him about it, he said he had never felt so good as he does now. Why that? Because my grandparents were poor and my grandfather (an immigrant from the Ukraine) realized that most synagogues in town were a showcase for the upper middle class and wealthy Jews to show off their wealth whereas kavanah was virtually absent in the services. Thus, my grandfather, whose mother was a pious religious woman who raised all her many children in Jewish orthodoxy, had a good reason to avoid the synagogues, where the prayers had become just a dead fixture. Then my grandfather started praying alone at home… My uncle, as my mother, were raised seeing that you couldn’t be a full Jew while you were poor. Poor Jews were overtly segregated by the rich-to-be or rich ones. Still, my uncle married another secular Jew, with whom he had his children. He became a well-to-do businessman, but, due to the humiliation his father suffered as a poor Jew in the kehilah, he came to care nothing about Judaism. So it was just natural that after divorcing and dating a woman who happened to be an Evangelical, he would be open to visit her church… Then what did he see there? That the poor in the church were not segregated and received all kinds of help from the rich…
Of course the story above is not the same everywhere. But I did see very similar contexts in the US. Usually only the orthodox synagogues are more egalitarian, but even then considerably less so than the Protestant churches I was invited to visit in the US.
In other words, if Jews are concerned about the continuity of Judaism beyond the narrow circle of those raised in orthodoxy, they are far behind Christians in attracting secular Jews.
Ettigner’s account is both good and bad.
On the one hand, it is a good summary of the negative impact Arabs and Palestinians have had on Christians and their institutions in Lebanon, other Arab lands and in particular lands in the West Bank given over to Palestinian control.
On the bad side, Ettinger completely ignores the far more interesting issue and question being, why has the Christian world not risen up to denounce the Arabs and Palestinians in this regard and mount a unified campaign to get Western leaders to take measures to stop the Arabs and Palestinians attacks on Christians and Christian institutions and see to it that what Christians have lost thereby, is regained?
Because Western propaganda is designed to scapegoat Jews for every problem created by the Western elites.
Alex, you know that scapegoating Jews has no bearing whatsoever to the question I posed, so why raise it?
Mr. Narvey,
Why are you so nervous? All I did was answer your question, which, by the way, was a longer repetition of mine in comment no. 1.
If you read the comments preceding yours, you may have realized that I started off asking exactly the same question you asked. Then Yamit offered an answer (comment no. 3). In his view Christian antisemitism speaks louder than protecting the Christians of the Land of Israel. Then I replied to him (comment no. 4), saying that I disagreed. I said that Western propaganda (that is, what the corrupt mainstream media tell Western Christians) is responsible for Christian inaction towards the Christians of the Land of Israel. I made an ironic comment about Bush being as Christian as a practicing Muslim, since he and Mr. Kastner Olmert (another irony) are about to hand Judea and Samaria over to the Islamonazis.
Now, what do the mainstream media say about the fate of the Christians of the Land of Israel? The very few publications (among those read or watched by most Westerners) that bother to devote its pages to it say that the Christian population is dwindling due to the “Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestinian Arabs.” Since reality is the opposite, namely that Muslim anti-Christian behavior has always been a feature of Islam, which, according to Koranic law, has to treat Jews and Christians as ‘dhimmi’ (oppressed minorities) and charge them the abusive ‘jiziah;’ and since the Christian population of the Land of Israel has considerably shrunk from the time Israel relinquished power over Judea and Samaria to the PLO, then it is clear that the Christian population of the West is systematically disinformed by their media about the situation of their coreligionists in the Middle East. Since the few articles in the mainstream media that deal with the issue of Middle Eastern Christian emigration point their fingers at Israel rather than Islamic intolerance, then it follows that Western propaganda continues to scapegoat Jews (as represented by their state) for the crimes of the West.
Is it clear now?
No Alex, your response is neither clear nor responsive to the central issue that is raised by Yoram Ettinger’s article.
Your comment and point in your post #1 is limited in both purpose and region being the Holy Land. My question and point dealt with a far broader issue which is referenced in Ettinger’s article.
Let me put it this way, scapegoating Jews, be it through the media or through the many sectarian churches of Christendom as regards persecution of Christians by Muslims might be a momentary feel good thing, if indeed that is what they do to feel better.
It does not however ease the suffering of Christians in the least and it does nothing for Christians to regain what they have lost in the Middle East and in other Muslim nations such as the Sudan and Somalia.
I disagree with you on the point that sectarian Christian leaders take their lead and insight from the media into the plight of Christians persecuted and Christian institutions attacked by Muslims in some Muslim nations.
Christianity is not just a network of churches and institutions throughout the world, but a network for information on what is going on wherever there is a Christian community.
If you do think that Christendom’s failure to come to the aid of their persecuted Christian flocks in various Muslim nations has something to do with Christian anti-semitism, then we disagree.
The answer as to why Christendom has failed its people persecuted in Muslim lands lies elsewhere then with or about the Jews.
By the way, I am not nervous in the least over your comment. I was just perplexed by it for I know that you know better.
Mr. Narvey,
1) You should read Ettinger’s items again (it’s not an article, just a list of itemized info). It is exclusively about the situation of the Christians of the Land of Israel. There are just a couple of items where he touches Lebanon and the Middle East/Africa (the Bush quote), but even then in the context of explaining the situation of the Christians of the Land of Israel. He mentioned Lebanon exclusively because the criminals who tortured Lebanese Christians are the same who torture the Land of Israel’s Christians, namely the PLO terrorists. This is not going to be easy for you to distort. Anyone reading this will see it.
Ettinger’s mention of a Bush speech, and his last item naturally show both how confused he is about the US policy and the flagrant inconsistency of the US government make-believe war on terror. Ettinger has not yet realized that the US war on terror is in fact intended to be a ‘boost-on-terror’ policy. Bush is just an actor in the grand theater, and a pretty bad one by the way. His father was a much more convincing fascist.
2) I didn’t say that churches are scapegoating Jews. Nowadays their scapegoating of Jews is a lot weakened (as they are weaker). What I said is that the media, which are paid by the governments to lie about Jews and Israel, are fully engaged in a propaganda war whose aim is the scapegoating of Jews and Israel for the expansion of Islamic terror.
3) “It does not however ease the suffering of Christians in the least and it does nothing for Christians to regain what they have lost in the Middle East and in other Muslim nations such as the Sudan and Somalia.”
Of course it doesn’t. You just want me to write… Since when are fascists concerned about whatever people’s welfare?
4) “Christianity is not just a network of churches and institutions throughout the world, but a network for information on what is going on wherever there is a Christian community.”
This is certainly true. However, Christian institutions are not free of corruption. The Vatican, for one, has been consistently collaborating with the Western elites’ fascism for quite a long time. In WW2 they connived with Nazi crimes, thus sending hundreds of thousands of Christians to their graves or Nazi ovens. In fact, if their networking is minimally competent and still they just keep watching the Islamic takeover of Eastern Christianity and humiliation of its followers, that would speak volumes, wouldn’t it?
5) “The answer as to why Christendom has failed its people persecuted in Muslim lands lies elsewhere then with or about the Jews.”
I agree with you. Never said to the contrary. Christendom fails Eastern Christians because the leading Christian institutions (those with some political weight) are corrupt. Nonetheless, that doesn’t prevent them from scapegoating Jews at their convenience. They have always done this and it has always worked fine, so why would they hunt for new scapegoats?
Why perplexed? If you know that I know better, why not credit?
Some more data on Muslim oppression of Christians in the Land of Israel: Click here
Shalom Bill,
Re: “Christianity…network for information on what is going on wherever there is a Christian community”;
Do you really think the Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board serves as a clearing house for any Roman Catholic archdiocese?
The Southern Baptists are distant enough to former President Jimmy Carter and the new Cooperative Baptish Fellowship.
Kol tuv,
Alex: T
They are but most do not realize it: may polls have indicated that at least 36% have overt antisemetic views and a large number still entertain views and concepts some of which could be described as antisemetic , that being said there is a large number wo have no anti Jewish predilections, which is good so you are at least correct in that we can’t paint everyone with same brush, that being said, I want to see America Tested when things are not so good, economy , war etc. Will the Jews be scapegoated as well?
Here I do agree with you: The Jew themselves are the Problem.
Here in Israel though I draw that Line My country My laws , My religion, My rights not to be proselytised, by anyone.b Self defense and self protection here trump some freedoms even to strangers and guests. We demand Respect and they have religious imperative to proselytise
The Arab Christian community in Israel Hate us much worse than the Muslims. The Christian Arab community are more the intellectual better educated and mostly Catholic or Greek orthodox. They hate us from both Nationalist (Arab) and religious as we being here negates there belief in Christian Dogma. By we being here proves they are wrong!
South, I do not understand what relevance the Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board has to the point I made.
My reference to a Christian information network was only answering Alex’s suggestion that Christendom gets their information and insights into problems vis a vis some Muslim nations from the media.
Ettinger’s article had to do with persecution of Christians by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and the negative impact on Christian institutions. Such persecution however is being experienced by Christian minorities in a number of other Muslim nations in the Middle East and Africa.
I had hoped that the observation and question I had raised about Christendom’s complacency in the face of this persecution of Christians by some Muslim societies would generate some discussion.
Thus far, there seems to be little interest, if the foregoing responses are indicative about why Christians have failed to react to the oppression of their brethren and attacks on their institutions by some Muslim societies.
As I stated to Alex, it is unreasonable to believe that the reasons for that complacency have anything to do with antisemtisim because blaming someone for the plight of Christians does nothing to help the plight of Christians.
Thanks Alex for David Bedein’s Dec. 27/07 article. It adds some further insights to Ettinger’s article.
Bedein closes his article with the following:
Like Ettinger, Bedein fails to address why Christendom does not demand that honor and respect be given Christian minorities, be it in territory under Palestinian control or in other Muslim societies where Christians are persecuted and their institutions are attacked.
For those interested, the question I raised about Christendom’s lack of response to persecution of their brethren by some Muslims is dealt with in a Front Page October 10, 2003 article, Muslim Persecution of Christians which brought together 4 experts including Bat Ye’or, Walid Phares, Habib Malik and Paul Marshall to discuss the issue.
The article is found at:
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=8C1D2863-9FE5-43E9-BA8E-B21C2FFE5158
Shalom Bill,
The relevance of the Southern Baptist Convention is that “Christianity” – like Judaism, is MUCH MORE than a single belief-system and following. Alex of Brazil alluded to this.
The many “religious” groups are near parallel to political groups. After all, Kng David was running a government and not a “religion”.
“Christendom’s complacency” is not. The noun is really smaller than presented. Christianity also is under siege by barbarians.
Kol tuv,
Bill Narvey,
You haven’t yet given us your answer to why Western Christians do nothing about the suffering of their coreligionists in the Land of Israel and elsewhere in Islamic-dominated lands.
Bill Narvey,
You wrote: “my reference to a Christian information network was only answering Alex’s suggestion that Christendom gets their information and insights into problems vis a vis some Muslim nations from the media.”
Christendom is not made only of pious church-going Christians. It is mostly secular, just as most of today’s Jewry is secular. Therefore, most of Christendom do get their info about Eastern Christians from the media, just as most of today’s Jews do.
“Thus far, there seems to be little interest, if the foregoing responses are indicative about why Christians have failed to react to the oppression of their brethren and attacks on their institutions by some Muslim societies.”
It should be hard for people here to understand why you despise the responses above. They represent the very important experience that everyone here has in the subject. By contrast, you have so far only said what you think is not, without really discussing the issue and answering the question yourself.
Then you wrote:
“As I stated to Alex, it is unreasonable to believe that the reasons for that complacency have anything to do with antisemtisim because blaming someone for the plight of Christians does nothing to help the plight of Christians.”
I have already said above (with nicer words) that fascists don’t give a shit for the plight of anyone. This is the case of Christian fascists as well. Antisemitism serves them a very important purpose: it shifts public attention from their crimes to the best ever scapegoats in history – Jews.
South is correct. Christian networking is 99% intra-confessional. The Christians of the Land of Israel are mostly either Eastern Orthodox or Catholic. These hate each other for 1000 years. There is virtually no connection between their networks – not to mention the virtual lack of dialogue between Catholics and Protestants… And again we are talking about the small fraction of Christendom that practices their religion and care for internal networking. So my point that they get most of their info from the mass media still stands.
Yamit,
You wrote: “They are but most do not realize it: may polls have indicated that at least 36% have overt antisemetic views and a large number still entertain views and concepts some of which could be described as antisemetic , that being said there is a large number wo have no anti Jewish predilections, which is good so you are at least correct in that we can’t paint everyone with same brush, that being said, I want to see America Tested when things are not so good, economy , war etc. Will the Jews be scapegoated as well?”
Your last sentence is the most interesting. But let me answer:
1) Most polls are not trustworthy.
2) The type of antisemitic views you refer to in the American continent are mostly shared by Jews themselves!
3) You don’t need to envisage a weaker America to imagine the scapegoating of Jews. It already happens there. Just read the Mearsheimer-Walt libel. These are ‘respectful’ university professors. In their view, US problems in the world are caused by Jews and Israel.
Alex: what are you saying then polls underestimate or over estimate?
I can defend myseld easier against insidious Jews the Gentiles. Its like you saying blacks cancall ea other nigger but not non blacks!
Mearsheimer-Walt are mostly preaching to the Choir the man on the street never heard of them!
Yamit,
Polls can be whatever they are paid to be. Even more so in Israel, where polls are always affiliated to a political party.
“Its like you saying blacks cancall ea other nigger but not non blacks!”
No, Yamit, I didn’t mean that. What I’m saying is that you can hardly convince people that some popular stuff is antisemitic when most Jews adhere to it, repeat it themselves and have fun with it. For example, most of my Jewish friends here believe Jews run world finances! And most Jews here have more fun with Jew-avaricious jokes than internal Jewish jokes. Needless to say this is a consequence of how rich Jews despise poor Jews and also a consequence of assimilation.
As for what you said about Mearsheimer and Walt, you’re wrong. They would be preaching to the academic choir if their work were not promoted by the big media. Once you reach the NYT, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, CNN, BBC, Fox and CBS, you are pretty much a media star, known by most Americans and the entire world.
Alex on a rethink I bow to your wisdom!
Almost Party time!