This is to be expected. The Left both here and in Europe which so strongly supports the Palestinian cause cares nothing for the plight of Christians. Hell they don't even like Christians.

This is why they don't utter a word of protest.

Posted by: waltc at December 9, 2007 11:40 AM

There's a very relevant piece on this over at FrontPage:

Making Palestine Safe for Fascism By P. David Hornik

From the article:

... At any rate the Bush administration, having joined the zeal for a Jew-free Judea and Samaria (West Bank) —- a zeal not at all dampened by what has happened in Jew-free Gaza over the past two years —- probably shouldn’t be expected to be too alarmed about the prospect of a Christian-free Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. But according to an Israeli human rights lawyer, that, if things take their course, will be the situation within fifteen years.

Justus Reid Weiner, who is resident scholar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, is quoted as saying that: “The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the international community, human rights activists, the media and NGOs. . . .”

and

... As Weiner pointed out in his earlier article,

The plight of Christian Arabs remaining in the PA is, in part, attributable to the adoption of Muslim religious law in the PA Constitution. Israel, by contrast, safeguards the religious freedom and holy places of its Christian (and Muslim) citizens…. Israel is the only state in the region in which the Christian Arab population has grown in real terms — from approximately 34,000 in 1948 to nearly 130,000 in 2005.

So transferring the West Bank to full Palestinian control, putting it out of Israeli and thereby Western reach, would leave the remaining Christians there to the same sort of helpless fate suffered by Christians in Arab countries like Egypt and Sudan.

Not something Bush and Condoleezza Rice want to highlight as they relentlessly push Israel into concessions....

Posted by: joeblough at December 9, 2007 12:14 PM

Joeblough wrote:
"Who the heck are we supposed to vote for?"

I am pretty sure that Barack Obama would blame Israel for the plight of Palentinian Arab Christians. Unfortunately, many liberal Protestant churches in the USA have accepted the theory that it's the fault of the "Israeli Occupation".

Hamas has vowed to impose Sharia law. The "Palestinians" deny that there ever was a Jewish temple in Jerusalem. How can that be good for the Christian Arabs?
--
CT Yank

Posted by: CTYankee at December 9, 2007 1:26 PM

Greetings:

Maybe we can get get Peter, Paul and Mary to change their song to "Where have all the Christians Gone."

Posted by: 11B40 at December 9, 2007 1:46 PM

The real Islam. Undiluted, but ignored in the Western press. We are insane...

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at December 9, 2007 2:15 PM

When will these people realize they are fighting a losing battle and get out? The Islamaniacs have been crazy for centuries and they just get worse. Let them have Gaza to destroy-all infidels get out while you still can.

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at December 9, 2007 4:38 PM

"Radical Islamic groups are waging a campaign to get rid of us and no one seems to care."

Perhaps this Christian leader is referring to the fact that predominantly Christian western states and Churches in the west are being very silent over this. It is true. But this has something to do with Christian Palestine leaders who come parading around the west with an Anti-Israel, pro-PA, pro-Hamas message. One such fellow recently came through here and got a hero's welcome in the local christian community. Seems just being from Palestine makes you a hero these days. And everything he said about Israel being an evil oppressor and the Palestinian helpless victims was lapped up uncritically. There is indeed a great malaise in the church that manifests itself as a huge blindness on this issue. But it is as much the fault of Christian intransigence in the West as it is the result of a consistently anti-Israel message coming from Christian leaders in Palestine.

The church in the West is aware that the Church in Palestine is in dire straits but it is rare that, through church channels, we hear the real story about the nature of those hardships. More often than not we hear that the Jews are persecuting them through racist and aparthied policies. Those of us who care to track down these stories generally find they have no basis, except that they may recount actual events, drained of their genuine significants and spun out, by these same Christian leaders, in line with PA propaganda. And we are to respond with an outpouring of aid when the Muslims threaten them with extinction?

But the true story of the nature of the anti-Christian persecution is largely untold (except in places like Jihadwatch that cares to gather them together in one place) but is amply documented.

I'm not saying this fellow, who remains anonymous here, personally contributed to this problem. But there are a good many christian leaders, his compatriots, whose words and actions for the last 40 years have led to this situation in which their cries for help are falling on deaf ears. What I have said can only be a generalization; there are Christians who have spoken out, only to be threatened by the Muslim majority and marginalized by their Christian colleagues.

I do not mean to engage in the game of blaming the victim here, but the truth must be told: By and large the Christian community in Palestine has thrown in its lot with the Muslims, hoping for Israel to be neutralized or eliminated, harking back to a mythological "free Palestine" in which Christians, Jews and Muslims lived in harmony. It is only now, perhaps too late, that they may come to finally shed their denial and realise that they are lying in a bed of their own making, and that, whether or not such a Palestine ever existed ... it is the last thing that would replace the state of Israel should it collapse now.

Posted by: Archimedes2 at December 9, 2007 6:38 PM

Time to get on over to the Jerusalem Post, pronto, and put some substance into the talkbacks to this article, people.

Congratulate Khaled Abu Toameh for telling it like it is.

Then put in a suitable snippet from the Quran, or Joseph Schacht on 'the law of war' as applied by Islam to all non-Muslims. Point people to Bat Yeor's books on dhimmitude, Spencer's books, Bostom on Jihad.

You have to stay on point, since the word limit is pretty short.

There are weirdoes and Muslim spin-doctors in the JP talkbacks; which simply means that if YOUR post is clear, rational and contains a scholarly reference, it will catch people's attention, by contrast with the surrounding nonsense.

Letters to the editor covering the same material - the Quranic, Hadith, Sira roots of Muslim persecution of both Christians AND Jews, and background on dhimmitude in eretz Israel after the Muslim invasions - would also be useful.

I read the JPost daily. Whenever I encounter a news article, blog entry or op-ed that cries out for clarifying or supporting input from a 'Spencerian' POV, I throw something into the talkbacks. Now and then I read comments by other folks that suggest I'm not the only one. But the more the merrier.

Israel is small. If most Israeli Jews and some of the Christians finally "got" what Spencer and Bat Yeor and others have been trying to tell us, things might turn around pretty smartly.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at December 9, 2007 6:51 PM

Why on earth should anyone care about "Palestinian Christians" when they don't care about themselves? Did they care when Islamic terrorists invaded the Church of the Nativity and befouled it altar? No! They prevented the Israelis from going in to get the terrorists out cuz they deemed the Jews to be worse than the Islamics. The Jews have given the "Palestinian Christians" what they want—life in solidarity with their Arab Muslim brethren. Now the "Palestinian Christians" are discovering what they knew all along but ignored because they hate Jews more than they love Christ: Muslims, when in control of a state, do not care if the Christians are of the same ethnicity with themselves; as long as a man is non-Muslim, he must be subject to terrorism until he either converts, pays jizya, or dies. The "Palestinian Christians" have made their bed. Let them lie in it.

Posted by: indga at December 9, 2007 11:11 PM

"Greetings:

Maybe we can get get Peter, Paul and Mary to change their song to "Where have all the Christians Gone."

Posted by: 11B40"

how about:

Crosby Stills Nash & Young - Find The Cost Of Freedom Lyrics

Daylight again, following me to bed
I think about a hundred years ago, how my fathers bled
I think I see a valley, covered with bones in blue
All the brave soldiers that cannot get older been askin' after
you
Hear the past a callin', from Ar- -megeddon's side
When everyone's talkin' and noone is listenin', how can we
decide?

(Do we) find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground

Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down
Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down
(Find the cost of freedom buried in the ground)

.......Islam is forcing a fight to the death....last man standing wins...it is better to die a free man....

Ban Muslim Immigration..

Posted by: exsgtbrown at December 10, 2007 7:23 AM

The Arab Christians in the Palestinian territories should volunteer to live in Sderot, Israel. They'd be far better off with some rockets being launched at them, than they are now with a knife in their back, held there by the Muslim Mafia.

At least Israel would care more about them than the Western "Christians" do.

I'll bet all of the Christians in the Muslim-occupied lands would be far better off in Israel than where they currently live.

(Can anyone tell me at what point we finally decided that the Muslims were actually entitled to the lands that they took by force from others?)

And the increase in population by people likely to be loyal to Jewish Israel would be a great benefit to Israel as well.

"People of the Book -- Unite!"

Posted by: PersonOfTheBook at December 10, 2007 2:24 PM

What he actually should say is, "Muslim Mafia is waging a campaign to get rid of us and no one seems to care."

Posted by: PersonOfTheBook at December 10, 2007 2:27 PM

The Gaza Christians have only God to turn to now.
I pray that He answers their supplications. They could have helped their case if only they were willing to blame it all on the Jews. Then the WCC, Rowan Williams, Robert Novak and countless dhimmi Christians would have been only too happy to take up the cudgels on their behalf. But they would rather be truthful. Sorry that doesn't fit the narrative, one cannot get any Jew-baiting mileage out of the truth. Please come back with some tearful olive grove stories instead.

Posted by: ivan at December 11, 2007 12:26 AM

Why on earth should anyone care about "Palestinian Christians" when they don't care about themselves?
------------------------------------------

I get furious when I read such crap as this statement made by people who usually only know about Palestinian Christians from what the leftist media tells them. Spouters of such anti-Christian ignorance are the best allies the Muslims could ever have.

Other than by a few brave reporters like Khaled Abu Toameh, how often is the average Palestinian Christian ever interviewed. The answer is never!

Instead the media will almost always focus on the miniscule group of liberal Westernized Protestants like Ashrawi or Naim Ateek of the Presbyterian Sabeel Center, all hotbeads of Liberation Theology and dhimmitude. Or they may interview the corrupt Roman rite "Patriarch" of Jerusalem whom Rome is soon to replace. These dhimmis have little contacts in the Palestinian Christian community and even less support.

Completely ignored are the over 90% of Palestinian Christians who are Orthodox or Melkite and simply want to run their businesses and live a life free of politics. Of these indigenous Christians, those who are able to vote in Israeli elections are Likud's most loyal voting bloc. However, this is almost never mentioned in the western media.

Posted by: Provoslavni at December 11, 2007 1:44 PM