Middle East

Radar Blip: Palestinian Christians

Ed Vitagliano reports at OneNewsNow.com:

But there is another group of people whose circumstances, while increasingly precarious, are almost invisible to the world: Palestinian Christians.

A combination of threats and intimidation from Muslim extremists and the fallout from the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict are driving many of these believers from their ancestral homes.

David Parsons, media director for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem and contributing editor of the Jerusalem Post Christian Edition, said that the “Palestinian Christian community is dwindling fast, from about 10 percent of the population in 1948 to barely 1.5 percent today.”

[…]

Muslim journalist Khaled Abu Toameh dismisses any attempts to blame Israel above all factors. “True, Israel’s security measures in the West Bank have made living conditions more difficult for all Palestinians, Christians and Muslims alike,” he said. “But to say that these measures are the main and sole reason for the Christian exodus from the Holy Land is misleading.”

The exodus is not simply the fault of the entire Muslim community, either, Toameh said. The Arab-Israeli conflict has ruined the economy in many places throughout the Palestinian region and has heightened the dangers facing Christian families.

[…]

“Over the past few years, a number of Christian businessmen told me that they were forced to shut down their businesses because they could no longer afford to pay ‘protection’ money to local Muslim gangs,” Toameh said.

[…]

The persecution is taking its toll in some locales. “Today, Christians in Bethlehem constitute less than 15 percent of the population,” said Toameh. “Five or six decades ago, the Christians living in the birthplace of Jesus made up more than 70 percent of the population.”

Squeezed between Israel and Palestinian Muslims — especially Muslims on the more radical fringe — the difficulties endured by many of these Palestinian Christians are often completely off the radar screen of believers elsewhere.

On the Run in Egypt

Meet Maher El Gohary

It is a clear day along the coast, but in a bungalow off the beach, Maher El Gohary sits behind a locked door with an open Bible and a crystal cross, suspicious of every voice and sandal scraping past outside.

He and his daughter, Dina, live like refugees, switching apartments every few months, not wanting to get close to neighbors. Gohary’s life has been threatened, his dogs have been killed, and it’s been suggested that he’s insane or possessed by spirits.

He is a man this Muslim nation cannot fathom: a convert to Christianity.

[…]

A tall man in blue shorts and rimless glasses, Gohary, 56, looks as if he is ready to walk the beach. But he and Dina have just moved to the three-room bungalow. Their suitcases are still packed; the only thing hanging on the walls is a clothesline. Listening for noises outside, Gohary speaks of how years earlier the teachings of Jesus, especially parables on forgiveness and loving your enemy, changed his life.

“In Islam, if you steal your hands are cut off, but in Christianity you can be forgiven,” he says. “This compassion is what attracted me.”

Back then he was a young cadet at the police academy, inspired by a Christian bunkmate who ignored the taunts of Muslim recruits. Gohary, the son of a police general, began reading the Bible.

[…]

Gohary listens at the door. He doesn’t want an unexpected knock, and says he and his daughter will stay here a month or so and then move on.

Source: Los Angeles Times — A Christian on the run in Egypt

HT: Persecution.org

Palestinian Moderation

Here is the beginning of a very interesting article:

The media has long promoted Fatah — in contrast to Hamas — as the party of Palestinian political moderates seeking peace with Israel, while glossing over evidence to the contrary. See “Is Fatah Moderate?” An example of this was coverage by some media outlets of the Sixth Fatah General Congress, the first such conference in twenty years, which has officially concluded on August 13, 2009.

The goal of the conference Aug. 4-13, which drew some 2200 delegates from around the world, was to elect new leaders, reinvigorate its platform and revive Fatah’s image as the leading party against its rival Hamas. The Congress demonstrated the deep Palestinian divide between Fatah and Hamas hundreds of Gazan delegates were barred by the ruling Hamas party from attending the conference, as well as broad internal divisions among Fatah’s own delegates who nearly came to blows at the conference. As a result of numerous disputes, the conference was extended several times from its original three-day schedule.

Fatah has not changed to its internal charter calling for the “complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence” through violence.” Article 12. Other articles which still stand include:

Article 17, which states: “Armed public revolution is the inevitable method to liberating Palestine.”

Article 19, which states that “armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.”In addition, Fatah….

Source: CAMERA: Sixth Fatah Congress: The Myth of Moderation

Israel Nukes Iran?

I drifted out of sleep this morning with that dream fresh at the edges of my consciousness.

I figured it was just a dream.

That’s good news to start a new week.

(No, I don’t attribute any significance to the dream. No, I have no idea why I would have dreamed that. Maybe it was the cukes I had at bedtime. But maybe not…since I didn’t have any.)

Culling the Opposition

Do you think Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad and former Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister Mousavi can remember 30 years ago?

That was a generation ago.

That was when the Shah of Iran was toppled and the US Embassy taken over for 444 days by the student radicals and protesters and revolutionaries of that day.

That was their heydey…and I’m sure they remember it well.

I suspect they would like to keep the new generation from doing to their power as they themselves did to the Shah’s power.

But how do you bring out into daylight the new generation of student radicals and protesters and revolutionaries…where you can ID them and/or arrest them and/or demoralize them and/or eliminate them?

And how do you increase the odds that in the process you might snag some agent provocateurs of the foreign sort — especially Israeli and American?

You stage a fraudulent election! 😯

So those three men (Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and Mousavi) got together with other Iranian power brokers and planned the whole thing.

Is that my belief, my accusation? 🙄

Oh, don’t be silly!

On the other hand, I do not find such a scenario to be impossible or even improbable.

I just don’t know. And neither do you.

But I read it here first. And so did you (I suppose).

Now we’ll see if it develops legs.

MCC Iran Silence

Should the Mennonite Central Committee be silent on Iran?

As a Christian and a conservative Mennonite (the latter of which MCC isn’t, by the way), I say they shouldn’t make any political statements regarding the unrest in Iran.

Alas, they have not kept silence when it comes to Israel’s “mistreatment” and “oppression” and so forth of Palestinians. Nor have they kept silence when it has come to saying good things about Iran’s leadership.

Therefore, it seems the folks at CAMERA make a good point:

When it comes to rehabilitating his image in the United States, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can count on the Mennonite Central Committee for assistance.

The organization has sponsored two dinners and an interfaith pilgrimage to Tehran during which Christian leaders have met with the Iranian President and offered kind words about the man afterwards.

Now that events demonstrate that Ahmadinejad is the public face of a brutal regime willing to suppress the people it governs, the organization has fallen silent.

After more than two days of protests and violence in Iran, the MCC has not published any statement about the organization on its website, nor does it have any plans to.

Even though I don’t identify with MCC, I still cringe at that kind of negative publicity seared to the the term Mennonite. 🙁

Oh, the above-quoted story is dated June 15. I just probed the MCC site and found no current Iran-related statement.

Maybe MCC has turned over a new leaf and has decided to stay out of politics. If that is the case, I commend them for that.

Above all, love God!