Dear Editor:
Re: A last Christmas in Palestine?

As a a Christian “stone,” i.e., a Christian with roots in Palestine, I found William John Hagan’s seeming “concern” for Christian Palestinians vile. Why don’t we let Palestinian Christians speak for themselves about Muslim-Christian relations?

Hagan writes about a “pogrom” in Taybeh and quotes a report from Daniel Pipes. What did the parish priest, Father Raed Abu Sahliyeh in Taybeh say when addressing the incident?

“I reject the newspapers and the people who spoke about an attack by Muslims against Christians. I will repeat this a million times: We are Arabs, we are Palestinians and we are Christian since 2,000 years. This is a small biblical village. We have lived in peace with surrounding Muslim villages for 14 centuries.”

Hagan notes blames economic oppression of Christians on Muslims and chided the mayor of Bethlehem, Victor Batarseh. “His message is a simple one. Christians are welcome to visit Palestine and spend their money; they are just not welcome to live there.” This statement defies credulity since Batarseh is a Roman Catholic.

Furthermore, Batarseh, in a recent interview with the National Catholic Reporter blames the occupation for the economic decline of Bethlehem when he says, “The bad times under the recent Israeli aggression have led to enormous pain and suffering for Bethlehem and to unprecedented deterioration in its situation.”

Wouldn’t it be more responsible for Canada Free Press to give space to Palestinian priests and mayors to address the issues of economic decline and Muslim-Christian relations in the Holy Land other than someone with nothing other than a mandate to vilify Muslims and to propagate pernicious Zionist propaganda? If Christians have left Palestine in great numbers since 1948, it is because they traditionally have comprised the merchant class, have had access to better education, and thus have availed themselves of the opportunity to flee Israeli oppression.

http://www.comeandsee.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=677

http://www.stolaf.edu/people/leming/soc265rel/news/April_1.html#A8237.html

http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives2/2005d/122305/122305p.php

Nancy Harb Almendras
Wiesbaden, Germany

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 28th, 2005 at 11:21 am and is filed under Letters, Religion, Terrorism, World events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.