Around the world, there are various Christmas traditions practiced. Some traditions include attending church services, gift-giving, and family gatherings.
But one time-honoured Christmas tradition is as predictable as it is tiresome: the tendency of some news media outlets to produce anti-Israel hit pieces, falsely accusing Israel of oppressing the Christian community of Bethlehem.
Today, Bethlehem is a largely Muslim-majority city in the “West Bank” controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA). Two thousand years ago, it was a Jewish town in the land of Judea (the area from where the Jews are so named). It was there that Jesus, a Jewish boy, was born.
Many commentaries all but erase the Jewish People’s presence in their own homeland, instead portraying Israel as an occupier and prosecutor of Palestinian Christians there.
In his December 21 opinion column in The Globe & Mail entitled: “This Christmas, Bethlehem’s anguished Christian community has a message for the world,” Andrew F. Bush joined this unholy cacophony by blaming Israel for the woes faced by Bethlehem’s Christian population.
Bush wrote that “The heaviest weight, though, is not economic but rather the sorrow people feel because of the death of nearly 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of whom are women and children.”
While Bush does not share his sources with readers, there is only source of all casualty data in the Gaza Strip: Hamas, via its so-called “Gaza Ministry of Health, which has been accused of inflating casualty figures, does not differentiate between Hamas combatants and civilians, nor does it distinguish between those killed in Israeli strikes or by Palestinian rockets.
Rather than stating the facts, Bush merely shared Hamas disinformation, falsely presenting it as gospel truth.
Only decades ago, Bethlehem was a Christian-majority city; today, Christians represent barely 10 percent of the population. Bush wrote that the culprit is clear: “Emigration continues to reduce their presence. A predominant reason for this departure is that families see a bleak future for their children under Israeli occupation,” he wrote.
Bush pointed out correctly that in Gaza, too, the Christian population has fallen, and today has all but disappeared under Hamas’ despotic rule. Their numbers have fallen by as much as 70 percent in less than 20 years, since Hamas violently took power in the coastal enclave. This is hardly surprising; Hamas is a genocidal Islamic terrorist organization, and hardly welcoming of its Christian minority.
But if the problem is Israel, Christians who live in the Jewish State haven’t gotten the memo. The Christian population in Israel continues to grow every year, making it virtually the only country in the entire Middle East with a growing Christian population.
This is not to say that the condition of Christians in Bethlehem is easy. But pointing the finger at Israel is not only a cheap shot, it is giving an undeserved pass to the perpetrators of Bethlehem’s Christians: the Palestinian Authority government.
Clearly, the cause of emigration of Christians from the Palestinian territories is not because of Israel, otherwise the same decline would be seen in Israel. Christians are fleeing Bethlehem because of the widespread oppression, corruption, violence and the growth of Islamic fanaticism in the area. Christians in Bethlehem, unlike Christians in Israel, face harassment and persecution for their beliefs and practices, both from other Palestinians, and from the Palestinian Authority.
In his column, Bush purports to speak on behalf of all Christians in Bethlehem, and wrote that they want to communicate to “the wider church,” and to convey that “uncritical political support of Israel makes their lives much more difficult.”
Israel does not demand “uncritical political support;” it deserves not to be defamed with false claims of persecution and oppression. Israel is not above criticism, but that does not mean that it should be blamed for the travails of Bethlehem’s Christians, when it is the Palestinian leadership that bears responsibility.
