An alarming increase in hostility and violence against indigenous Christians in the West Bank and Gaza has escalated their exodus — and a human rights lawyer predicts they may disappear from Jesus’ birthplace.
Palestinian Christians Under The Gun – Alienated from the Muslim community that surrounds them, Palestine’s remaining Christians find that survival in their Holy Land can be hell.
By Nicole Jansezian
An alarming increase in hostility and violence against indigenous Christians in the West Bank and Gaza has escalated their exodus — and a human rights lawyer predicts they may disappear from Jesus’ birthplace.
No reliable census numbers exist, but unofficial estimates show that Christians have dropped from 80 percent of Bethlehem’s population in 1948 to just 20 percent now, and a mere 2 percent in the Palestinian territories at large.
The situation is worse in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Amid a smoldering population of 1.6 million Palestinians, fewer than 2,000 Christians (perhaps as few as 1,000) live as an apprehensive minority.
“These days, the Christians feel more and more pressure,” said a Gazan who requested anonymity, noting a recent Hamas edict that requires all female students to wear an Islamic uniform, covering their heads and legs completely. “The Christians feel the Muslims look at us as the weak element in society. Many Christians in Gaza feel this area, or this country, is not for us,” he said.
The Christian population in the Holy Land often is caught in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which often is drawn along religious lines.
Christians have left for a litany of reasons, including better economic opportunities abroad. Those who remain traditionally blame Israeli policies for Christian emigration. Israel controls the borders, often preventing Palestinians from working or visiting family members in other parts of the territories and in Jerusalem. The Gaza border has been impassable for three years since rocket fire against Israel picked up and Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier.
However, during the past few years, many Christians have softened their blame of Israel while sharpening allegations of Muslim intimidation and large clans’ Mafia-like rule.
Statistics from the Israel-based Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center and interviews with Palestinian Christians — many of whom asked to remain anonymous for fear of revenge — provide examples of intensifying radical Muslim attacks against Christians during the past decade:
The violence culminated in Gaza with the murder of Rami Ayyad, 31, an employee at the Bible Society who was kidnapped and tortured before being shot in October 2007.
In Gaza, militants have vandalized a monastery as well as Christian and Western schools; bombed the YMCA and Internet cafes; and ransacked the Gaza Baptist Church, using the church as cover while shooting at rival groups.
One Christian who works for the Bethlehem municipality said he doesn’t always get paid. “In general, they hate Christians,” he said. “I know Jesus is with me, but sometimes I’m afraid. There are a lot of them, and they can come and gang up on you.”
In 2002, dozens of terrorists commandeered Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity for 39 days, knowing that Israeli troops would refuse to storm the church. The gunmen, holding 200 priests hostage, desecrated the traditional birthplace of Jesus with graffiti and a fire, stole relics, and used the Bible as toilet paper.
Mobs have burned down or vandalized dozens of Christian businesses and Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and evangelical churches in Ramallah, Tulkarem, and Bethlehem.
In the West Bank, Christians enjoy more freedom but still are subject to discrimination. One Christian from Ramallah said he fled after death threats for not giving his land to a Muslim who demanded it. Another, pressed to sell half of his business to Muslim buyers at a fraction of its value, let his company go bankrupt instead, then moved with his family to Canada.
Christians have filed criminal complaints alleging kidnappings of Christian women to marry Muslim men, land thefts, harassment, and job discrimination. Many say they do not have an advocate in the Palestinian government.
“Christians are increasingly aware that, unless something dramatic happens, their days are numbered,” said Justus Weiner, a senior fellow at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Weiner, a human rights lawyer who has investigated injustices against Palestinian Christians for 13 years, predicts that the Christian community there will vanish in another decade.
On the other hand, most traditional churches in the Holy Land challenge Weiner’s research, even denying any rancor between Christians and Muslims. Wadie Abunassar, former media adviser for the Catholic Church there, emphatically blames Israel.
“The occupation is the source of evil,” he said, referring to Israel’s control of Palestinian borders and travel from the territories. “Occupation creates a lack of stability.”
The situation for Christians in Israel, Abunassar contends, is worse than in the Palestinian territories and Syria. Christians in Gaza can address grievances to the ruling party, Hamas, and get more justice than in Israel, where “anyone not defined as a Jew is less equal,” he says.
“I’m not saying there are no problems . . . there are some fanatic Muslims who are troublemakers,” he says. “But it is not because of Islam. The occupation, poverty, living conditions are major contributions” to the flight of Christians.
Despite Abunassar’s claims, most Christians interviewed admit privately that they would rather live in Israel than in a Palestinian state.
Another Palestinian from Gaza agrees that civilians are suffering “in this big prison” but explains that most difficulties intensified when Hamas took power in 2007 and, with Iranian backing, began pushing an Islamic agenda.
Weiner denounces the lack of interest in the Palestinian Christian plight among foreign governments, Christians worldwide, human rights groups, and the media.
“If you don’t make human rights one of your top priorities, or the top priority,” he said, “then none of the other stuff [the peace process and eliminating terrorism] is going to work.”
As originally published in Newsmax magazine.
Tags: Christian Persecution