The Christian holiday season is the time to publicize the real "moment of truth" about Christian Arabs' suffering under the PA. Up to now, for the most part, Church leaders have remained  silent about Muslim abuses.

On December 11, 2009,  Palestinian Christian leaders issued a 13 page document known
The PA does not recognize Christian property rights, including holy sites.
as   "Kairos Palestine-2009: A moment of truth." Having "reached a dead end" because of the “Israeli military occupation,” the leaders appealed to churches worldwide to treat Israel as they had apartheid South Africa by divestment and economic boycott.
 
The authors of this document include anti Israel Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Lutheran Bishop of Jerusalem Munib Younan, Archbishop of Sebastia Atallah Hanna from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, so this distorted description of the plight of Christian Arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria is no surprise.
 
Justus Reid Weiner, an international human rights lawyer, warns that the present Christian Arab leadership is not telling the truth about the conditions in these areas, and who is responsible for the anguish of Arab Christians.  The “patriarchs and archbishops of Christian Arab denominations,” he says, “who are currently deceiving the international community, are self-interested people. They collaborate with the Muslim perpetrators of intimidation and violence. Against all evidence they claim that the Christians Arabs are living comfortable and prosperous lives. In fact the present situation is growing worse by the day."

Though these false accusations are not new, there is a danger they could change the way some of Israel’s Christian supporters view the Arab/Israeli conflict. Let us examine what is really transpiring in these areas.   
 
Samir Qumsiyeh, owner of the private Al-Mahd (Nativity) TV station in Beit-Shahur, warned that, “15 years from now there will be no Christians left in Bethlehem. Then you will need a torch to find a Christian here.” Christian population changes in the West Bank have been flat from 1967 to 2006.
 
The cause for the concern is the Islamic success at the municipal elections,  and the
15 years from now there will be no Christians left in Bethlehem.
Muslim campaign of “intimidation” to force Christians to leave and relinquish their land.  After the Palestinian Authority (PA) took control of Bethlehem in 1994, they altered the municipal boundaries of the city and the predominately Christian suburbs of Beit Jallah and Beit Sahour to incorporate the 30,000 Muslims residing in the nearby refugee camps of Dehaisheh, El-Ayda and El-Azeh, and thousands of residents living near the Ta’amarah Bedouin tribe. These boundary modifications created sweeping changes in the demographic balance of Bethlehem.
 
Muslims were persuaded to move from Hebron to Bethlehem where large-scale Muslim housing was  planned. 

In 1990, Christians comprised 60 percent of the population of Bethlehem. By 2001 they were 20 percent of the population, resulting in a significant effect on local elections.  As a result, PA chairman  Arafat appointed a Muslim as Governor for the Bethlehem District, and the bureaucratic, security and political apparatus was purged of Christians.
 
Muslims boycotted Christian businesses in Bethlehem’s Nativity Square forcing many of them out of business.  Approximately ten percent remained by paying extortion money to Muslim terrorists. When a Christian owner of a café in Manger Square refused, he was charged with collaborating with the Israelis,  later shot in the eye, and fled after having lived in Bethlehem for 30 years.  Refusal to pay was often fatal.

At the PA-controlled Voice of Palestine, Christian names are not permitted to be mentioned in the obituaries read on air.  Those who sell land to Jews are subject to the death penalty according to the Palestinian Land Law, a clear violation of international rulings.
 
Christians have considerable trouble buying land or selling their own property to other Christians, as there is a perception that selling to any non-Muslim is prohibited. The PA does not recognize Christian property rights, including holy sites. As early as 1997, the PA Ministry of Information claimed that the Palestinian people “have assumed their natural right to of controlling parts of the Palestinian land, the most important of which under Palestinian national sovereignty is in the Palestinian city of the birthplace of Jesus Christ---Bethlehem.” 
 
Palestinian protection means little when Christian cemeteries and symbols are desecrated, property wrecked, monasteries robbed of gold and precious objects, and parishioners hindered from attending services.
 
Of all the abuses Christians are forced to endure, the treatment of their women is the most egregious. They are subjected to verbal sexual harassment and rape and compounding the problem is that in the Middle East, a female who has been violated is regarded as “unfit for marriage.” Raping a Christian woman often has fewer consequences than raping a Muslim one. The rapist knows that under a Muslim- controlled PA there is a greater chance of not being prosecuted. If the victim is Muslim, the perpetrator has to contend with members of her extended family,  who are obligated to obtain compensation or revenge and do not turn to government agencies.
 
Christian women are forced to marry Muslim men in violation of Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states, “Marriage shall be entered in only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.”
 
Those who speak out openly about this are subjected to death threats. Samir Qumsiyeh documented 160 attacks against Christians, including physical harassment, home robberies, and illegal seizure of land during the past several years and spoke publicly about it. His home was fire-bombed. 
 
The 3,000 Christians living in Gaza among 1.2 million Muslims are also anxious about their future. Archimandrite Artemios, the Greek Orthodox priest who heads the St. Porphyrius church in Gaza, observed that Christians never felt so “endangered” as they do now. He
A Christian bookstore owner was kidnapped and murdered, his shop bombed twice.
did not know whether they were still “part” of the Gaza community.
 
On February 15, 2008, a library managed by the Young Men’s Christian Association was firebombed, resulting in the destruction of 10,000 books.  A Christian bookstore owner was kidnapped and murdered, his shop bombed twice. A Catholic church and a school were vandalized in August 2007. These incidents led Artemios to conclude, “the edifice of tolerance is crashing down over our heads.” Before dawn on May 16, 2008 a bomb exploded outside the Zahwa Rosary School, a Christian school in Gaza city, operated by nuns primarily for Muslim students. 
 
Writing in the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Hussein Shubakshi, a Saudi columnist complains about Christian emigration from the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan and Syria which “has reached astonishing proportions.” In Gaza and the West Bank, there is “a plan to eradicate the entire deeply-rooted Christian presence from its territories.” There are 70,000 Palestinian Christian émigrés living in Chile, particularly in Santiago, the capital others emigrate to Europe, Australia, the U.S. and Canada.
 
They are “openly and collectively” leaving by the thousands from Arab countries out of “fear, worry” and “society’s failures,” he asserts, adding that failure to address the spread of extremism will be costly to all.
 
What is particularly discouraging is that many church leaders throughout the world are aware of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the PA against the Christian Arabs, according to Justus Reid Weiner.

Despite the beatings, theft of land, kidnappings, torture, firebombing of churches, forced marriages, rape, extortion, and sexual harassment, these church leaders “remain silent.”  Others, “rather than identify the true Palestinian perpetrators of crimes against their people, take the politically correct path” by accusing Israel of being responsible. They do not concede or criticize Muslim aggression. 

The Western Christian leaders involved in this anti-Israel activity are from the American Episcopalian and Presbyterian movements. Those taking comfort in evangelical backing for the Jewish state should know that Jim Fletcher, publisher of the pro-Israel Balfour Books and an evangelical Christian, observes that there is an increasing erosion of evangelical support for Israel influenced by the constant attacks against Israel in the Western media. Until there is a concerted effort to counter the lies and distortions within the Christian community, this erosion will continue.

(for exact sources in footnotes, see http://gmsplace.com/?p=3370 )