Once again, anger and fear resurface among Christians living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, who also are preparing to celebrate Christmas amidst the restrictions due to the Covid19 pandemic.
However, their concerns are not because of the spread of coronavirus, but rather because of a letter (which was made public on social media and other Palestinian websites) that was sent to the government of Hamas in Gaza regarding the upcoming celebrations of Christmas.
The letter, entitled “Activities to reduce interaction with Christmas during the next two weeks,” was sent by the Director-General of the General Administration of Preaching and Counseling of the Palestinian Endowment Ministry in Gaza.
In what appeared to be an official correspondence between Palestinian officials, the letter discussed the steps taken during “an emergency meeting” that was held in Gaza on December 15. It included the issuance of “awareness and guidance” that needed to be implemented by 10 departments within the Islamic Waqf ministry.
The main goal behind this campaign would include “issuing fatwas [to prohibit Muslims from participating in Christmas], releasing videos, and requesting some preachers” to talk about the great sins of celebrating their holidays with the Christians.
It is worth noting that the number of Christians still living in Gaza may not reach 1000, while the Orthodox and Catholic churches continue to provide parish services to the remaining families, in addition to two schools whose students are mostly Muslims.
After Hamas gained full control of the Strip, the Baptist Church in Gaza, which had operated since 1950, was soon almost shattered. In October 2007, Rami Ayyad, one of its active members in Gaza, who managed its Christian bookstore there, was kidnapped, tortured, and then killed.
After Ayyad’s assassination, seven church leaders left for the West Bank, while Hanna Massad, the church’s pastor, moved to Jordan with his family.
Since Hamas installed Shari’ah law in Gaza, which fomented further threats against the remaining Christians from Islamic extremists, Christians in general feared gathering in groups. They no longer wear crosses, while women dare not move around freely by themselves or be unveiled.
Hamas has always prohibited the Christians from holding public celebrations during Christmas and New Year, ever since its usurpation of power in 2007. This time, it intends to socially isolate them as well.
In the West Bank, the situation of the Christians may seem relatively better, but the fear of Islamic jihad remains a ghost haunting them.
The number of Christians in Bethlehem, which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, is rapidly dwindling. Christians today make up merely 15% of what was once known as a Christian-majority town. The violent military actions taken by Fatah militants wreaked havoc on the traditional birthplace of Jesus Christ after the outbreak of the so-called Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000.
Palestinian Christians singing Christmas carol near the Church of the Nativity
A few years ago, a visa clerk at the US consulate disclosed to this writer that Palestinian Christians who met the US tourist visa requirements often decided to overstay their visit to the United States, and eventually applied for political asylum because of fear of growing Islamic jihad activity within the Palestinian society. Those applicants share with the USCIS in secrecy their valid stories of persecution at the hands of “their Muslim brethren.”
On the other side of the country, Christians inside Israel tell a completely different story. They increasingly are incorporated in all walks of life, and their numbers are growing. It is worth noting that their academic achievements rival those of the majority Jewish population.
The head of the Israeli Christian Aramaic Association recently posted on his Facebook page an appeal to the Likud, the main party of the current Israeli government. “We call upon the Likud party which is the [ Israeli] government to open up for appointing Christians and to work on integrating our Christian community and our youth into the state of Israel. This is the responsibility of the members of the Likud party today.”
The Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic, recited by Shadi Khaloul, head of the Israeli Christian Aramaic Association
In Jordan, where Christians have lived so far in peace and safety and enjoyed opportunities that secured them access to both the public and the private sectors, the picture has begun to change.
Yesterday, The Students’ Union of the College of Sharia at the University of Jordan issued a statement expressing its refusal to erect a Christmas tree and light inside the university courtyard. It added that what the university did is a matter that does not appease God in a country whose religion is Islam.
“Muslims, in general, are living in a crisis because the image of Islam has worldwide been shaken. I am not surprised that they seek to defuse their anger in the remaining Christian minorities.” George Abu Kova, a Palestinian Christian who lives in the United States commented on Facebook in reply to Hamas’s letter against Christmas.
Samir Qumsiyeh, a former advisor to the Orthodox and Catholic Patriarchs in Jerusalem, expressed his dismay and anger to the letter in a post on Facebook, saying, “Hamas’s positions are well known. Have you forgotten that Ismail Haniyeh [Hamas Prime Minister] congratulated Erdogan for turning the Hagia Sophia Church into a mosque and thus ignored the feelings of Christians in general and the Christian Palestinians in particular? Then you hear from them that we are one people within all its components.” Unfortunately, our reality is painful and we have no future.“
spiro says
Fear of Christmas
Fear of truth
Carol says
Fakestinian Christians are mostly the likes of Sirhan Sirhan and his ilk of IslamoChristian Dhimmis and therefore deserve no pity.
Samir A. Zedan says
They are not asking for your pity. Things have dramatically deteriorated and they’re aware of that. BTW, the writer of the article was once a Palestinian Christian but by all means not a thimmi
Infidel says
Samir, are the majority of Palestinian Christians where you are, or are they what Hugh calls ‘islamo-Christians’ i.e. Arab supremacists interested in replacing Israel w/ an Arab state?
gravenimage says
Carol, the claim that most Christians in the Middle East have murdered Westerners is completely mistaken.
And not only was Samir Zedan a ‘Palestinian’ Christian, but Robert Spencer’s heritage is also Middle Eastern Christian.
Then, having no pity for the victims of Islam is disturbing.
Crusades Were Right says
Sorry, but to inject a note of REALITY:
The Islamic terror state, Azerbaijan, used ISRAELI drones against little Christian Artsakh (eastern Armenia) a few weeks ago.
Israel is no friend of Christians THERE!
gravenimage says
Israel sold Azerbaijan these weapons *before* they attacked Armenia.
But this poster never misses a chance to attack Israel, and sneers at the idea that our values are Judeo-Christian. The fact is that Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Christians are *not* persecuted.
Crusades Were Right says
An example of when I “attacked” Israel WITHOUT justification, please?
Providing those advanced weapons to a terrorist Islamic entity such as Azerbaijan was to assist Azerbaijan’s terrorist campaign against Armenians. What did the Israelis think the Azerbaijani jihadists would do with them? Attack Russia? Attack Turkey? Attack Iran? Any serious (and even casual) observer of the geo-political scene in that region knows perfectly well that continuing the Armenian Genocide and annexing Armenian land was THE main purpose for such weapons in Azerbaijani hands!
“Judeo-Christian” civilization, values, etc:
Often stated in JW, but NEVER proved. You can stick a hyphen between any two things that are VERY different, but they will still be different.
(Sorry if pointing out truths comes across as “sneering”.)
gravenimage says
I have actually been critcal of Israel–or *any* Western nation–selling arms to any Muslim country. But the claim that Israel sold armd to Azerbaijan in order to attack Armenia long before they did so makes no sense at all.
Then, claiming that Judeo-Christian values do not exist does not make it so. Jesus was *himself* Jewish. And key Christian values like the Golden Rule are ultimately Jewish:
Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
— Leviticus 19:18
Hillel the Elder (c. 110 BCE – 10 CE),[24] used this verse as a most important message of the Torah for his teachings. Once, he was challenged by a gentile who asked to be converted under the condition that the Torah be explained to him while he stood on one foot. Hillel accepted him as a candidate for conversion to Judaism but, drawing on Leviticus 19:18, briefed the man:
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.
— Shabbath folio:31a, Babylonian Talmud
Jesus himself said:
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
–Matthew 7:12
Then there is this Verse:
The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the LORD am your God.
— Leviticus 19:34
Crusades Were Right can desperately ignore this if he wants to–but he cannot expect that we will do the same.
Infidel says
Not a fan of the Assads, but Syria is another country where Christians are safe w/ the Baathists/Alawites. In fact, they only started getting persecuted and driven out of their cities once the Syrian civil war started in 2011 – by the sunni majority
gravenimage says
Assad *has* oppressed Christians, Infidel–but no nearly so murderously as have surrounding Muslim nations.
Samir A. Zedan says
Israel has always extended the hand to help Christians. First time after the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. The second time, was after the 1967 war but the Christian community thought that the West Bank was to be returned to Jordan. Unfortunately twice the Christians didn’t learn the lesson and followed what their Druze brethren did by declaring full allegiance in exchange for full citizenship.
gravenimage says
+1
somehistory says
Jesus Christ said that His True followers would be “hated” and “persecuted” because He was “hated and persecuted.” He warned that “because of my Name, the world hates you,” this is why the “world hates” Christians…because it hated…and still hates…Jesus Christ.
Jesus told the Truth…always, and was hated for it; murdered for it. Christians speak Truth…the same Truth spoken by Christ…and are hated and persecuted for it.
This will be until Christ returns to cleanse the earth of evil…and that includes islam and its evil demon ‘god,’ satan the devil.
gravenimage says
Gaza: Internal Hamas government memo calls for ‘activities to reduce interaction with Christmas’
…………….,.
Hamas has already driven out or murdered almost all the Christians from Gaza–but they are still going to persecute the few remaining. Surviving Christians are under 1% of the population there–probably less than 18,000 people.
Florin P says
Christians should never live in terrorist-lead countries. I guess the Christians who live there are the ancestors of the Crusaders who once cleared the land. If Europe is accepting refugees, all of them should be Christians, not terrorists and other trojan horses.
gravenimage says
Florin, you don’t appear to know that the Levant is the *birthplace* of Christianity. Your idea that Christianity was brought in to the region as some sort of alien creed a thousand years after the birth of Christ is quite mistaken.
I do agree, though, that Christians have no future in Muslim hell holes, and that the West should offer persecuted Christians sanctuary.