The truth about those Palestinian Christians
From Melanie Phillips’s Diary:
The Archbishop of Canterbury and all those other Christians who blame Israel for the plight of Bethlehem’s Christians should be sent a copy of this article by the incomparable Khaled abu Toameh (a Palestinian Muslim) in the Jerusalem Post:
According to the families, many Christians have long been afraid to complain in public about the campaign of ‘intimidation’ for fear of retaliation by their Muslim neighbors and being branded ‘collaborators’ with Israel. But following an increase in attacks on Christian-owned property in the city over the past few months, some Christians are no longer afraid to talk about the ultra-sensitive issue. And they are talking openly about leaving the city…
Qumsiyeh said he has documented more than 160 incidents of attacks on Christians in the area in recent years. He said a monk was recently roughed up for trying to prevent a group of Muslim men from seizing lands owned by Christians in Beit Sahur. Thieves have targeted the homes of many Christian families and a ‘land mafia’ has succeeded in laying its hands on vast areas of land belonging to Christians, he added. Fuad and Georgette Lama woke up one morning last September to discover that Muslims from a nearby village had fenced off their family’s six-dunam plot in the Karkafa suburb south of Bethlehem. ‘A lawyer and an official with the Palestinian Authority just came and took our land,’ said 69-year-old Georgette Lama.
The couple was later approached by senior PA security officers who offered to help them kick out the intruders from the land. ‘We paid them $1,000 so they could help us regain our land,’ she said, almost in tears. ‘Instead of giving us back our land, they simply decided to keep it for themselves. They even destroyed all the olive trees and divided the land into small plots, apparently so that they could offer each for sale.’ When her 72-year-old husband, Fuad, went to the land to ask the intruders to leave, he was severely beaten and threatened with guns. ‘My husband is after heart surgery and they still beat him,’ Georgette Lama said. ‘These people have no heart. We’re afraid to go to our land because they will shoot at us. Ever since the beating, my husband is in a state of trauma and has difficulties talking.’
‘We will fight and fight until we recover our land,’ Fuad Lama said. ‘We will resort to the courts and to the public opinion for help. Unfortunately, Christian leaders and spokesmen are afraid to talk about the problems we are facing. We know of three other Christian families - Salameh, Kawwas and Asfour - whose lands were also illegally seized by Muslims.’ A Christian businessman who asked not to be identified said the conditions of Christians in Bethlehem and its surroundings had deteriorated ever since the area was handed over to the PA in 1995. ‘Every day we hear of another Christian family that has immigrated to the US, Canada or Latin America,’ he said. ‘The Christians today make up less than 15 percent of the population. People are running away because the Palestinian government isn’t doing anything to protect them and their property against Muslim thugs. Of course not all the Muslims are responsible, but there is a general feeling that Christians have become easy prey.’
So the land grab of Palestinian property and the destruction of Palestinian olive trees and the persecution of Palestinian Christians are being perpetrated by – Palestinian Muslims; and not just that, but by the Palestinian Authority, the one that has received a ton of money from the EU and probably a fair few Christians too, because they know for a certainty that the persecution of the Palestinian Christians is perpetrated by Israel.
What scapegoating. What ignorance. What wickedness.
