The Forgotten Palestinian Refugees

[vinod2070]

The Forgotten Palestinian Refugees

Even in Bethlehem, Palestinian Christians are suffering under Muslim intolerance.


By DANIEL SCHWAMMENTHAL

Bethlehem


Meet Yussuf Khoury, a 23-year old Palestinian refugee living in the West Bank. Unlike those descendents of refugees born in United Nations camps, Mr. Khoury fled his birthplace just two years ago. And he wasn't running away from Israelis, but from his Palestinian brethren in Gaza.


Mr. Khoury's crime in that Hamas-ruled territory was to be a Christian, a transgression he compounded in the Islamists' eyes by writing love poems.


"Muslims tied to Hamas tried to take me twice," says Mr. Khoury, and he didn't want to find out what they'd do to him if they ever kidnapped him. He hasn't seen his family since Christmas 2007 and is afraid even to talk to them on the phone.


Speaking to a group of foreign journalists in the Bethlehem Bible College where he is studying theology, Mr. Khoury describes a life of fear in Gaza. "My sister is under a lot of pressure to wear a headscarf. People are turning more and more to Islamic fundamentalism and the situation for Christians is very difficult," he says.


In 2007, one year after the Hamas takeover, the owner of Gaza's only Christian bookstore was abducted and murdered. Christian shops and schools have been firebombed. Little wonder that most of Mr. Khoury's Christian friends have also left Gaza.
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Associated Press A demonstration of power: Muslims praying in Manger Square, Aug. 7, 2009.






On the rare occasion that Western media cover the plight of Christians in the Palestinian territories, it is often to denounce Israel and its security barrier. Yet until Palestinian terrorist groups turned Bethlehem into a safe haven for suicide bombers, Bethlehemites were free to enter Israel, just as many Israelis routinely visited Bethlehem.


The other truth usually ignored by the Western press is that the barrier helped restore calm and security not just in Israel, but also in the West Bank including Bethlehem. The Church of the Nativity, which Palestinian gunmen stormed and defiled in 2002 to escape from Israeli security forces, is now filled again with tourists and pilgrims from around the world.


But even here in Jesus' birthplace, which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Christians live on a knife's edge. Mr. Khoury tells me that Muslims often stand in front of the gate of the Bible College and read from the Quran to intimidate Christian students. Other Muslims like to roll out their prayer rugs right in Manger Square.


Asked about why Muslims would pray so close to one of Christianity's holiest sites, Pastor Alex Awad, dean of students at the Bible College, diplomatically advises me to pose this question to the Muslims themselves. Mindful of his community's precarious situation, he is at pains to stress that whatever problems Christians may have with their Muslim neighbors, it's not the PA's fault.
"Muslims and Christians live here in relative harmony," he tells reporters, only to add that Christians "feel the pressure of Islam . . .



There is intimidation and fanaticism but these are little instances and there is no general persecution."


Samir Qumsieh, the founder of what he says is the holy land's only Christian TV station, also stresses that there is no "Christian suffering" and that the Christians' problems are not orchestrated by the PA. Yet his stories of land theft, beatings and intimidation make one wonder why, if the PA doesn't approve of such injustices, it is doing so little to stop it?


Christians have only recently begun to talk about how Muslim gangs simply come and take possession of Christian-owned land while the Palestinian security services, almost exclusively staffed by Muslims, stand by. Mr. Qumsieh's own home was firebombed three years ago. The perpetrators were never caught.


"We have never suffered as we are suffering now," Mr. Qumsieh confesses, violating his own introductory warning to the assorted foreign correspondents in his office not to use the word "suffering."


Always a minority religion among the predominantly Muslim Palestinians, Christians are, Mr. Qumsieh says, "melting away," even in Bethlehem. While they represented about 80% of the city's population 60 years ago, their numbers are now down to about 20%, a result not just of Muslims' higher birth rates but also widespread Christian emigration. "Our future as a Christian community here is gloomy," Mr. Qumsieh says.


Palestinian plight not attributable to Israel barely seems to register in the West's collective conscience. As Christians around the world remember Jesus' birth, perhaps we can think of Mr. Khoury and those Christians still suffering in Gaza and Bethlehem.

Mr. Schwammenthal is an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.

[vinod2070]

Churches Attacked in Malaysia Amid 'Allah' Feud


By JAMES HOOKWAY and CELINE FERNANDEZ

KUALA LUMPUR -- A worsening conflict over whether Malaysian Christians can use the word Allah appeared to take a destructive turn Friday when attackers fire-bombed at least three churches, setting one ablaze.

The predawn attacks are heightening tensions in the Muslim-majority country ahead of a series of protests planned for later in the day. Many of the country's Muslims, who make up 60% of the population, are furious over a High Court decision to overturn a government ban on Roman Catholics using Allah as a translation for God in the Malay-language pages of their weekly newspaper. Some Islamists argue that the word is exclusive to the Muslim faith.

The Dec. 31 ruling, however, said Christians have the constitutional right to use the Arabic word, setting off a potential clash between rule of law and a growing Islamist movement in what has long been seen as a moderate Muslim nation.
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Associated Press Kuala Lumpur police officers inspect the damage to the Metro Tabernacle Church which was destroyed by a fire bomb a little after midnight in the Kuala Lumpur suburb of Desa Melawati, Friday, Jan. 8, 2010.






The first-floor office of the Protestant Metro Tabernacle Church in a Kuala Lumpur suburb was destroyed in the early morning attacks.

A Molotov cocktail was also hurled into the compound of a Catholic church, but didn't ignite or cause any injuries. The parish priest of the Assumption Church, the Rev. Philip Muthu, said the church uses "Allah" in some of its Malay-language prayers, but added that he isn't necessarily connecting the attack to the controversy.

The word Allah is widely used as the Malay-language term for God in a number of religions. The government, facing heavy pressure from Muslim groups, has appealed the ruling and has suggested it might change Malaysia's constitution to limit the right of other religions to use the word.

The Rev. Lawrence Andrew, the editor of the Catholic Church's Herald newspaper, said many churches are taking extra security measures. "We are employing more security guards and advising parishioners to be on their guard," he said.

Police ordered tighter security in the wake of the attacks, and Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters he condemned these attacks, saying they could "destroy our country's harmony".

The Malaysian judiciary's website, meanwhile, was attacked by hackers Thursday night. A hacker calling him or herself "Brainwash" replaced the main page of the web-page with a message warning non-Muslims to avoid using the term Allah, saying it is "restricted to Muslims only".

Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com and Celine Fernandez at Celine.Fernandez@wsj.com

[vinod2070]

France Deports 'Radical Islamist'


PARIS -- French authorities said Thursday that they have arrested and deported an Egyptian imam described as "a radical Islamist" and suspected of having issued calls to violence.

The move comes just a few weeks after French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged France's Muslims to practice their faith with "humble discretion."


The move also is occurring as the country is considering ways to tighten security checks on travelers originating from several, mainly Muslim countries, after the alleged attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day.


France's Interior Ministry said that Ali Ibrahim El Soudany, who was arrested on Thursday and immediately put on a flight bound to Egypt, had called on followers "to fight against the West" in recent sermons at several mosques near Paris.

"People who preach hatred and have nothing in common with freedom of faith, don't belong to our territory," Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said in a statement. The imam had been under watch for several months, Mr. Hortefeux said.


Mr. El Soudany, who was still on board a plane late Thursday according to an Interior Ministry spokeswoman, couldn't be reached to comment. Officials at mosques where Mr. El Soudany is believed to have delivered sermons declined to comment.


The ministry said that including Mr. El Soudany, France has expelled 129 alleged radical Islamists since 2001.


As part of a wider fight against radical forms of Islam, French authorities are considering adopting a law banning the burqa, the head-to-toe garment that is worn by some Muslim women and that conceals their faces, saying it isn't a religious symbol but "a sign of enslavement and debasement" of women.



With an estimated five million Muslims, France is home to the European Union's largest Muslim community.

Write to David Gauthier-Villars at David.Gauthier-Villars@wsj.com

[vinod2070]

Christians Riot After Shooting in Egypt


By SHEREEN EL GAZZAR

CAIRO -- Over 1,000 Coptic Christians clashed with police in southern Egypt on Thursday, after assailants in a car opened fire on churchgoers after they exited Midnight Mass, killing seven people and wounding nine.


The clashes occurred as mourners received the bodies of the dead from the hospital, and after burial services. Protesters in Nag Hamadi, about 40 miles north of the ancient ruins of Luxor, attacked a police station with rocks, smashed shop windows and tore down light poles, according to a security official. A curfew was imposed at nightfall into Friday morning.


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European Pressphoto Agency

Riot police outside a morgue in southern Egypt Thursday clashed with protesters seeking the bodies of Christian victims of a shooting Wednesday night.






Some Copts -- a group that makes up about 10% of Egypt's majority Muslim population of 78 million -- claim that Egyptian police have sided with Muslims in recent tensions between the two groups.


The latest strife in Nag Hamadi stems from the alleged rape of a 12-year-old Muslim girl by a Coptic man late last year. Some Christian businesses and cars were attacked afterward, said the Rev. Lucca Helal, a priest at Mary Hannah Church, the site of Wednesday night's shooting. The suspect is in custody, awaiting trial.


The bishop of the Nag Hamadi Diocese cut short the Mass, for Coptic Christmas, because of threats of an attack, Father Helal said.
After the service, three men in a car opened fire on departing churchgoers using automatic weapons, the security official said. The men had earlier fired shots randomly in a commercial area of a main street, without killing anyone. None of the three was apprehended.


The fatalities outside the church included six Coptic Christians and a Muslim church guard. Father Helal called the incident "a terrorist attack at a sensitive time."


On Thursday, tensions rose as authorities delayed the release of the bodies for funeral services. Rioters smashed ambulances outside the hospital, and protests continued through the day. Police tried to disperse the crowd with tear gas.


Fawzi Zafzaf, former president of the interfaith dialogue committee at Al-Azhar, the top Sunni Islamic authority, said the attack Wednesday wasn't motivated by religious differences.


"The concept of revenge is strong in southern Egypt and it can happen between any two families," he said.


The attack was Egypt's worst incident of sectarian violence since 2000, when Christian-Muslim clashes left 23 people dead.

[Selma Shirazi]

So Palestinian Christians you care about? :rolleyes:

[vinod2070]

Originally Posted by Selma Shirazi

So Palestinian Christians you care about? :rolleyes:

Well fellow victims of Islamic terror. ;)