Israel offers Bethlehem to Palestinians

ColoradoFB · Jun 30, 2003

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1056971391963_36///?hub=World

LadyEagle · Jun 30, 2003

Christians, kiss it goodbye. (for now)

Haruo · Jun 30, 2003

Israel has never "claimed" Bethlehem and thus has never been in a position to "offer" Bethlehem to the Palestinians. Bethlehem is a Palestinian town, and what the Israelis are offering is to move their occupation forces out of it.

SheEagle's rhetoric in the other thread on the "holy places" (with an far more inflammatory and misleading title) notwithstanding, it is probable that (even though the Christian population has shrunk a great deal relative to the Muslim population since the '67 war) if an end to the intifada can be achieved, most of the population of Bethlehem will be much more inclined to reestablish the tourist trade than to torch the tourists, just as in Egypt most of the population would rather make money off the Pharaohs than blow up those who want to gawk at the pyramids. At least I think it's a reasonable hope.

Haruo

Haruo · Jun 30, 2003

Ah yes, I see that while I was typing that up SheEagle inserted the more inflammatory, less informative wording into this thread. Here's a link to her 'Christians ..... Kiss It GOODBYE !' thread (click).

Haruo

LadyEagle · Jul 1, 2003

Originally posted by Haruo:
Ah yes, I see that while I was typing that up SheEagle inserted the more inflammatory, less informative wording into this thread. Here's a link to her 'Christians ..... Kiss It GOODBYE !' thread (click).

Haruo
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Church of the Nativity

In May 2002, 13 Palestinian terrorists forcibly took over of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem. They stole gold objects from the monks, ate their scarce food, and urinated on the church floor. Tanzim commander Abdullah Abu-Hadid told Yediot Achronot that the seizure of the church was premeditated. He said: "The idea was to enter the church in order to create international pressure on Israel... We knew beforehand that there was two years worth of food for 50 monks. Oil, beans, rice, olives. Good bathrooms and the largest wells in old Bethlehem."

Destroyed Christian Sites in Lebanon

During the seven-year Lebanese civil war (1975-1982) Christian communities in Lebanon were targets for the reign of terror of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Palestinian Authority's predecessor. Christian villagers were massacred, churches destroyed, and cemeteries desecrated. The town of Damour, 10 miles south of Beirut, was particularly hard hit. Hundreds of Damour residents were reportedly massacred.

The massacre of 586 Damour Christians by the PLO on January 23, 1976 was described by an eyewitness, Maronite Father Mansour Labaky: "The attack took place from the mountain behind. It was an apocalypse. They were coming, thousands and thousands, shouting 'Allahu Akbar! God is great! Let us attack them for the Arabs, let us offer a holocaust to Mohammed! And they were slaughtering everyone in their path, men, women and children."

Six years later the following reports from the remains of Damour were typical:

The New York Times, June 21 1982, by David Shipler: "For nearly seven years, until the Israeli army attacked and captured [the Christian town of Damour] last week, the town was inaccessible to its own people; the Palestine Liberation Organization made it a stronghold, using the churches as firing ranges and armories... Where a cross would have hung [inside a church] a triangular PLO symbol is painted in the Palestinian nationalist colors... High in the belfry, a concreted cross has obviously been used as a target over the years, for it is chipped and gouged in a thousand places."
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Link

Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)'s tanzim militia leaders also inside the church include another Ibrahim Abayat, this one nicknamed Abu Galif; Abdalah Tirawi, the head of the Palestinian "general intelligence service" in Bethlehem; Kamel Hassan Hamid, Fatah, general secretary of Bethlehem, a weapons dealer and a "money bag" for terrorists operations. These are all Arafat's men, all involved in recent suicide bombings in Israeli neighborhoods, including in Beit Israel, Kiryat Yovel and Gilo.

Over the last two weeks, twenty-five Palestinians including some gunmen have surrendered. But the hard-core thugs are still holding clergy and innocent civilians hostage to protect themselves. They are denying hostages the remaining food and water. They have denied sick priests medical care. They have stolen church artifacts and fired on a Palestinian youth who tried to
escape from the compound over rooftops. On Monday, one of the priests lifted a sign in the window, saying, "Help Us!"

Using priests and nuns as human shields in most sacred locations for Christianity is not just barbaric. It is a violation of 1977 First Protocal of the Geneva Convention and is a war crime.

Similar cases from the Baltic wars are heard today before the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Only brutal terrorists would desecrate religious shrines and hurt clergy, but it's familiar from this crowd, as the bombing of a church in Islamabad in March by Bin Laden supporters demonstrated. Five were killed, including two Americans. In the Djerba Island Synagogue bombing in Tunis, a cooking gas truck was crashed into the building killing sixteen, most of them German tourists, including several children. And on Easter eve, twenty-nine Israelis were murdered and almost two-hundred were murdered in the "Passover Massacre" in the Israeli coastal city of Natanya.

Christians have long been targeted in the Middle East. Thousands of churches were destroyed during the Arab conquest during the seventh century. Ten thousand Lebanese Christians were massacred in the 1860's, while 100,000 were killed in the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990. Thousands of women were raped. That war was provoked by Arafat's PLO.

The story of the village Dammur where 500 Lebanese were massacred, primarily boys, and whose population was expelled in an ethic cleansing, symbolizes treatment of Christians in the Middle East. But instead of an international arrest warrant, of course, Arafat received a Nobel Peace Prize. Nine hundred thousand Lebanese left the once prosperous country during and after the civil war, altering its character forever. The vast majority of them were Christians.

In other corners of the region, ethnic and religious cleansing is a reality. The hard-line Muslim government of Sudan, which harbored Osama Bin Laden in the 1990's murdered between one and two million Sudanese Christians and Animists in the south
of the country. Christian Copts of Egypt, the descendants of the Pharaohs, Assyrians, and Armenians are persecuted, their churches burned down, their communities scattered from Paris to California. Bethlehem, the site of the current holdup, was seventy percent Christian in 1970. Today it is close to 70% Muslim.

Tensions are rising between Christians and Muslims in Nazareth. It seems that this is the scenario Arafat is preparing for Israel.
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Link

The Recent Historical Record Speaks for Itself to those who will open their eyes and see.

Oh, but you're so right, Haruo. Everyone knows Islam is the religion of "peace" and my remarks were inflammatory. Everyone knows what regard Muslims have for Christians and Jews. After all, we're all God's children and we're all bound for heaven or paradise or whatever we want to call it. So, once the PLO, al-Aqsa Martyr Brigade, Hamas, and Hezbollah and Palestinian Jihad get all they want, everyone will live together peaceably without any further homicide bombings or terrorist threats.

I should show more love for the jihad terrorists and follow the lead of my President. How mean of me, how un-Christian of me.

Have a nice day.

[ July 01, 2003, 09:18 AM: Message edited by: SheEagle9/11 ]

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