The Corner Report

On the left is the Church of the Nativity where Palestinian Christians worship. Across the square is Omar's Mosque where Palestinian Muslims pray.

Editorial

Palestinian Christians say the bill masks the real problem in Palestine: The Israeli occupation

By Gale Courey Toensing

In the spring of 2002 when Israeli Occupation Forces laid siege with tanks, machine guns and other weapons of targeted destruction to the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, there was not a squeak of protest from Congress about protecting Palestinian Christians and the holy places of Christianity.

Now, in a triple whammy attempt to demonize Muslims, destroy Hamas, and pit Palestinian Muslims against Palestinian Christians, cynics and hypocrites in the House of Representatives are hawking a bill that purports to be based on concern about the plight of Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land.

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Hamas, readers will recall, is the political party that won an overwhelming majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority, Palestine’s legislature. Both Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims voted en masse for Hamas in a democratic election that former President Jimmy Carter, an election monitor, described in the Herald Tribune, as “honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the results accepted by winners and losers.”

The results, however, did not please the Bush administration, which has labeled Hamas as a “terrorist organization,” or Congress, which is only too willing to be swayed by the powerful Israel lobby that puts a lot of money in members' campaign coffers, and targets for defeat any elected official who dares to speak out against Israel's policies.

The House of Representative's resolution, called “Condemning the Persecution of Palestinian Christians by the Palestinian Authority,” was authored by Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) and Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.). “Palestinian Authority” has become the code word for “Hamas.”

The bill is nothing less than a racist screed against Palestinian Muslims – and, by extension, Muslims everywhere. And, in formulating their baseless allegations, McCaul and Crowley do exactly what they accuse Palestinian Muslims of doing: They incite violence and religious hatred against Muslims and Islam.

In psychology, that kind of neurotic behavior is called projection.

The resolution alleges that the PA uses “violent rhetoric” which has “increased incitement toward Palestinian Christian communities; that “Islamic law” puts Christians at a disadvantage judicially; that Christians “are forced to follow Islamic law in public or face arrest by Palestinian Authority police”; and that the PA violates Christians’ human rights.

It also claims that the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat “gerrymandered the municipal boundaries” of Bethlehem to include more Muslims. This allegation is laughable for two reasons: The 2006 general elections were the first to be held since 1996 and no “redistricting” took place in the interim. And the allegation may indicate a serious case of irony deficiency in McCaul, a member of the Texas legislature, which, led by indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, redistricted Texas to gain Republican voters.

The specious allegations go on and on: Muslims “effectively cleansed” Christians from the government; denied them jobs; forced them to pay extra taxes. “Muslim extremists and criminals” “vandalize and desecrate internationally-recognized holy sites and cemeteries” with impunity; rape and sexually harass Christian women; force Christians to leave the country.

The resolution is one more assault against the Hamas government and the pitifully battered Palestinian people, whose only “crimes” are to insist on their national, civil and human rights, and to have had the nerve to democratically elect a government that is not to the liking of President Bush, the Israel lobby, and its supporters in Congress.

The US-led aid boycott and restrictions that have been in place for more than three months are now pushing the population to the brink of starvation, according to humanitarian and human rights organizations. The recently House-approved, hideously-named “Palestinian Anti-Terrorist Act,” which passed by a lopsided vote of 361 to 37, was so draconian that even the Bush administration opposed it.

McCaul’s and Crowley’s allegations are demonstrably not true, of course. What is so appalling is Congress’s utter ignorance of history and of what is actually happening on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza, and their total indifference to the suffering of millions of ordinary Palestinian men, women, and children. There is no mention in McCaul’s and Crowley’s resolution of Israel’s ongoing brutal occupation of Palestinian lands – an equal opportunity violation of several international laws that oppresses Christian and Muslim Palestinians alike.

Open Bethlehem, a nonprofit international project created in 2005 to save the city of Bethlehem, says the resolution is “grossly misleading” and misrepresents the reality of all Palestinians’ lives. The organization has its headquarters inside Bethlehem University with offices in London and Washington.

On June 13, Open Bethlehem CEO Leila Sansour wrote to each member of Congress, urging them not to sign the bill.

“We are encouraged by the latest interest of Congress in the plight of the world’s oldest Christian community,” Sansour wrote.

“We are, however, disappointed by the latest resolution drafted by congressmen McCaul and congressman Crowley purporting to act on our behalf… The resolution seriously misrepresents the situation facing Christians in the Holy Land… The resolution grossly misleads the Congress as to the real threat that faces our community,” Sansour wrote.

While it is true that 357 Christian families – 10 percent of the Christian population – have emigrated from Bethlehem between the years 2000-2004, Sansour said, it is not Palestinian Muslims who are driving them out.

“This flight is primarily a result of the fear generated by repeated Israeli military incursions, and has been exacerbated by the economic devastation of Bethlehem due to the Israel closure imposed on the city,” Sansour said.

The Apartheid Wall, Israel’s newest and perhaps most perverse expression of unrestrained power, symbolizes Israel’s military occupation and control over all Palestinians, regardless of their religion.

“Perhaps the Israeli barrier is most emblematic of the shared fate of both Muslims and Christian Palestinians. The Bethlehem barrier winding in and around our city consists mainly of 25-fott high slabs of concrete, sniper towers, and remote-controlled infantry positions. It is built on privately-owned Palestinian land, resulting in the loss of most of Bethlehem’s fertile and economically prosperous agricultural lands and many of our major landmarks. . . It has also severed our city from Jerusalem, a city with which we have historically enjoyed interdependent kinship, trade, and social relations,” Sansour said.

The aim of Open Bethlehem, Sansour said, “is to ensure that our community survives in the birthplace of Christianity, as part of a diverse, multi-faith society that will be an essential pillar of an open and democratic Middle East.”

Sansour notes that the resolution was written without consulting Christians living in Palestine or local Christian organizations. In asking members of Congress to reject the resolution, she also urges them of form a fact-finding mission to Bethlehem in August “to learn first hand about the challenges that we face.”

If you are concerned – or outraged – by Congress’s willingness to impose more suffering on the powerless Palestinian population, contact your representatives and other elected officials and tell them to vote against this shameful piece of legislation. Use http://congress.cfl-online.org/