By David Meir-Levi
The following is for anyone who still believes the Arab propaganda lies which accuse Israel of being the cause for the decline in Christian populations of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
As I have pointed out in earlier emails and articles, the Muslim terrorists and their supporters in the PA territories have been waging a low-level war of intimidation and threats against Christians ever since Arafat took over after the Oslo Accords in 1993. As Hamas grows stronger, the level of violence and persecution against Christians increases.
Under Jordanian rule, from 1948 to 1967, the Christian population of the West Bank declined slowly, but Christian majorities remained in Bethlehem, Bit Jalla, and a few other Christian villages.
After the 6-day war, under Israel, the Christian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip grew and thrived from 1967 to 1994. Shortly after Arafat took over, in 1994, the Christian flight began again, with many Palestinian Christians seeking refuge in Israel, where they could worship in peace and live openly as Christians without threats or intimidation. Today, Bethlehem, which was once 80% Christian, is only 15% Christian.
Unfortunately for the Christians of the West Bank, some of their own leaders have played the ‘dhimmi’ and provided the validating chorus of “righteous Christian voices” affirming the Arab propaganda claim that Israel is at cause for Christian flight. By regurgitating for western audiences the Arab lies that they themselves knew to be false, these leaders bore false witness
against Israel and against their own people, your own brethren in Christ, in order to curry favor with Arafat, with the PLO, and now with Hamas.
And even more unfortunate for the Christians of the West Bank, a plethora of Christian leaders from the USA and UK have traveled to Israel to hob-knob with the terrorists, glad-hand the mass murderers, and press the flesh in obscene photo-ops with terrorist leaders who are directly at cause for the persecution and suffering of the Palestinian Christians. Such public
actions by American Christian leaders, and their mendacious but rosy tales of Muslim-Christian amity, are also false witness against Israel and against your own brethren in Christ in the Holy Land.
I don’t recall off-hand which of the commandments is “thou shalt not bear false witness”; but I’m sure that it is one of the Top Ten.
It may have been difficult for some Christians elsewhere to discern the truth about the Muslim persecution and intimidation and violence against Christians; especially when Bishops and Patriarchs in the West Bank were assailing Israel and dutifully betraying their own people by supporting the Arab mendacious propaganda. And especially when American Christian leaders
came home from ‘fact-finding trips’ to regale their flock with more regurgitation of Arab lies.
But the article below should be adequate witness to the truth.
When the Muslim terrorists say: “el-yaum es-Sabbat, bas ghanem el-ahad” (“today is Saturday, but tomorrow is Sunday”), they know that the Christians of Bethlehem know exactly what they mean: When we finish with the Jews, we start on the Christians.
Meanwhile the majority of the Christian world stands idly by (remember Leviticus 19:16), while a small but influencial minority are the cheerleaders for Hitler’s little helpers.
What was it the lady said? “There will be no peace until the Christians love their own Christian brothers more than they hate the Jews?” (I am of course refering to the various factions such as the Anglicans and the Catholics, not the Christians we often hear from on this site.)
That’s right, isn’t it.