From the New York Times, with thanks to Anthony:
BETHLEHEM, West Bank, Dec. 20 - In the town where Christians believe Christ was born, the Christians are leaving.Four years of violence, an economic free fall and the Israeli separation barrier have all contributed to the hardships facing Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem, one of the largest concentrations of Christians in the region.
An estimated 3,000 Christians in the Bethlehem area have moved abroad since the Palestinian uprising began in 2000, according to Bernard Sabella, an associate professor of sociology at Bethlehem University who has tracked the issue. While some others put the number a bit lower, there is a consensus that 10 percent or more of the Christian population in Bethlehem and two adjoining towns has departed.
The continuing exodus has left Christians accounting for only about 21,500 of the 60,000 Palestinian residents in the area, or about 35 percent, according to Mr. Sabella. "Christians all over the world need to know this reality," said Hanna Nasser, a Christian who is the mayor of Bethlehem. "If there is not a breakthrough in the peace process, this trend will continue. Imagine the town of Bethlehem without Christians."
Bethlehem's central square should be packed for Christmas celebrations, but the tourists and pilgrims stopped coming when the fighting began.
"For four years there has been no business, no way to earn a living," said Saleh Michel, 88, a Catholic.
For decades Mr. Michel ran a recession-proof family business. His musty souvenir shop, the Bethlehem Oriental Store, is less than 10 paces from one of Christendom's most important shrines, the Church of the Nativity, built on the site where tradition holds that Jesus was born.
Yet Mr. Michel rarely opens these days, and one of his adult sons has moved to Italy. "I asked him to stay," Mr. Michel recalled. "He said, 'Then feed me.' He had no choice but to leave and find work elsewhere."
The gloom stands in stark contrast to the mood five years ago. Back then, the stone square outside the Church of the Nativity was overflowing with tourists for Christmas and New Year's celebrations. Palestinians were talking up the possibility of statehood in 2000. Pope John Paul II visited in March 2000, helping to fuel a surge in visitors. New hotels were rising to accommodate the crowds.
"We all had high hopes," said Fayez Khano, 58, who carves olive wood souvenirs in a workshop dusted with flakes of blond wood.
But today Mr. Khano, a father of three, has a son and a daughter in Dublin, and another daughter who is about to move to the United States.
"We depend on our kids to send us money," said Mr. Khano, who along with his brother has been crafting Jesus figures and manger scenes at his shop for a quarter-century. "I want to stay, because I was born here, but my wife is pushing me to leave. If the situation continues I will have to consider it."
Arab Christians have been a relatively prosperous minority within Israel and the West Bank, generally well educated and middle class. Many have the advantage of having relatives or other connections abroad, enabling them to move with ease to the United States, Europe or Latin America.
The Christian emigrants tend to be quite successful and rarely look back. In one striking example, the two main candidates in El Salvador's presidential election in March, the winner, Tony Saca, and the runner-up, Schafik Handal, were both descendants of Catholic Arab families that came from here.
Bethlehem was more than 90 percent Christian until the middle of the last century. Then the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, begun by Arab states in response to the founding of Israel, brought an influx of Muslim refugees to the Bethlehem area and signaled the start of a demographic shift. But what began as a steady emigration of Christians accelerated into a relative flood with the onset of violence four years ago.
The Christians, most of them Greek Orthodox or Catholic, have not been directly involved in the fighting but have suffered the consequences.
In the early days of the uprising, Muslim gunmen in the Bethlehem area took hilltop positions in Beit Jala, which is predominantly Christian. That afforded them a clear firing line at the southernmost part of Jerusalem. When the Israeli military responded, Beit Jala residents found themselves on the front lines of the conflict, and occasionally among its casualties.
O Come All Ye Faithful
http://www.johnniecarl.com/audio/mi_cm_020.mp3
O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold him,
Born the King of angels;
(CHORUS)
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
O Come, let us adore him,
Christ the Lord.
Sing, choirs of angels,
Sing in exultation,
Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above;
Glory to God
All glory in the highest;
(CHORUS)
It is only fitting and proper that the birth place of Jesus Christ be available for Christians and indeed all who wish, to make a pilgrimage to this holy place.
Tony Blair bowing at the grave of Yasir Arafat yesterday was an act of spineless, gutless appeasement. The palestianian authorities insisted that this concession be made, rubbing Blair's face in crap while giving the veneer of legitimacy from which they hope to build their own false history is all in a days work and long an Arab cultural trait.
Any future agreements with the PA, which is Islamizing through jihad the birth place of Christ, should demand tangible, verifiable proof of protecting Christians there at a minimum.
Why should we give them billions more aid? Why should we continue to negotiate for a peace that can only come at the expense of Israel and Christians and will result in the Arabization of the entire region either through terrorism, cultural attrition, and population demographics. What future could one reasonably expect from a people who teach pure hatred to their children from the moment they are old enough to speak?
Think about pilgrimages to Mecca that Air France for example, bends over backwards to accommodate. Image the opposite, a large Christian presence forcing Moslems from their most holy lands, Mecca and Medina and using the tactics of savage terrorism to forcibly eject Moslems from their spiritual centers? Erasing a peoples religion is the most supreme example of hatred and intolerant, tyrannical supremacy that on can imagine.
We must insist that Christians in Moslem lands be justly treated before any large, billion dollar infusions of western aid go to these Moslem countries any longer, Egypt, the "palestianians", Turkey and all the rest.
We must insist on reciprocity. Want to build a mosque, then we must build a church Saudi Arabia. This is the only way Christianity can survive.
Turkey is the greatest example. How are we to expect anything other than the Islamization of Europe, with the inclusion of 70 million Moslem Turkish, "Europeans" into Europe?
Getting back to Bethlehem, this is the birth place of Jesus Christ, the prince of peace, now it is a hell on earth where only 23,000 Christians live and murderous terrorists have somehow gotten the world to accept that Moslems have a legitimate claim to the region because Muhammad went their on "night journeys."
This is how Islam is spread, it does not need a big reason to interject itself into an area, then strong-arm the legitimate inhabitants into making one concession after another until they are brought to the verge of extinction under the laws of dhimmitude.
If people like Blair don't get it now, they never will and the Union Jack with its three crosses superimposed upon one another will be replaced with a star and crescent.
"...Muhammad went their..." = THERE.
And yet the Christian Arabs persist in blaming Israel for their dilemma.
Perhaps their moral cowardice is being rewarded.
M.O.T.
I think you are correct, in this observation. However, the reason for this goes back quite a bit and was addressed by Vatican II, in an attempt to reconcile Christanity with it Jewish roots. Many of the Eastern Christian churches in Arab ciontrlled lands really objected to this beacuse above all else, these dhimmi churchs really are not in a position to be neutral on the issue. These dhimmi churches are for the most part following the Arab line to insure their own survival among a whole host of other historic reasons as well.
Unfortunately, they are becoming extinct.
"Bat Ye’or is very critical of Eastern Churches for not supporting improved relationships between Jews and Christians. From her perspective, Christian migrants to Palestine were Judeophobic and became zealous servants for Islamic causes, seeking to nullify any Jewish rights to Palestine. In order to befriend Muslims, Christians became anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist."
http://inside.fdu.edu/fdupress/03071704.html
http://www.dhimmitude.org/d_today_christian_antizionism.php
"Christians all over the world need to know this reality," said Hanna Nasser, a Christian who is the mayor of Bethlehem. "If there is not a breakthrough in the peace process, this trend will continue. Imagine the town of Bethlehem without Christians."
Alas, the mayor is still playing the dhimmi. It is not a breakthrough in the peace process that is needed, but the anihilation of Muslim power in Judea and Samaria. If this happens, Christians would be more at home in Bethlehem than they have been in centuries.
Let's nopt forget that Bethlehem was also the birthplace of Jesus' ancestor--King David.
The problem is that Christians are a minority in the West, too. The Western majority today thinks Christians are dangerous rabid dogs who are guided by "faith" rather than "logic" (as if secular liberals don't also have a few unprovable axioms of their own) out to make women illiterate slaves.
I agree with montfort that Israel doubtlessly gives the better deal--but one which is not accepted.
MERRY XMAS, hope all of you and your family anf freinds have a good day.
The article gives the impression that Christians leave because of fighting; yet it is obvious that Christians leave everwhere there is a substantial Muslim presence. Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Iraq are all losing Christians because of systematic persecution by intolerant Muslims. Europe may be beginning to experience the same thing. The reasons are well known to visitors to this web site. I live in the Detroit area and have been witnessing Arab Christian immigration all my life ( I am over 60). There is a large Chaldean population here that is at least three generations old. Peace in Isreal will not change this pattern a bit. On a visit to Israel, an Arab shopkeeper told me that "If only the US didn't support Isreal and forced peace, there would be peace in the whole world." Right. I guess everything would be wonderful in Chechnya, Kashmir, Sudan, Nigeria, Indonesia and on and on. Support the Christians, Hindus, Jews and others who are the victims of Jihad.