Wednesday, May 18, 2005
The PC(USA) and Palestinian Christian activists abroad export the idea that it's Israel that's responsible for the massive migration of Christians from their homes PA controlled areas. This article will give you a slightly better idea of the truth of the matter, and the difficulties they face.
...The incident -- the second elopement in less than a week involving an underage Christian girl and an older Muslim man -- brought to the surface simmering tensions between Muslim Palestinians and the dwindling Christian community in Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus.
Under Palestinian law, buttressed by strong social customs in this still- traditional society, girls under 18 cannot marry without their parents' formal consent. Young women rarely leave home without a chaperone, and Western-style boyfriend-girlfriend relationships are virtually unknown.
When Adriana's father attempted to bring her home from her hiding place in a village near Hebron early the next morning, he was rebuffed by armed men threatening to kill him. Violent demonstrations erupted in Bethlehem as young Christians vandalized homes and businesses owned by the Omar family. At least 15 Christians were injured when Palestinian police opened fire on the crowd. Two of them were hospitalized with gunshot wounds, and Christians complained that the police used undue force...
..."I don't want to inflame intercommunity feeling, but someone has to tell the truth," Bassem Sabat told The Chronicle last week, in his first interview since the elopement rocked the city. "These Muslim men are preying on Christian girls because they are forbidden from going anywhere near Muslim girls. If this had been the other way round -- a Christian man running off with a Muslim teenager -- both of them would be dead within hours, and the man's family would have to leave the country."
Sabat was not exaggerating the passions such relationships set off. A few days earlier, an east Jerusalem man strangled two of his sisters in an "honor killing" -- a traditional Muslim punishment for girls whose morals appear to have been compromised. And on May 2, a Christian father in Ramallah killed his 22-year-old daughter after she told him she wanted to marry a Muslim man, triggering demonstrations by both Christian and Muslim women in that city...
...Under present law, Palestinian men convicted of "honor killings" serve only six months in prison.
In Bethlehem, tensions have been rising since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994 brought an influx of Muslims into the mostly Christian city and its adjoining middle-class towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour. Christians accuse Muslims of taking over land and jobs and forcing them out of political power. Earlier this month, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both militant Muslim groups, won municipal elections over the secular Fatah party for the first time in Bethlehem's history...
