The American Spectator : Persecuting Christians in Gaza

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The Hell-Hole Spectator

Persecuting Christians in Gaza

By Ken Blackwell on 5.11.09 @ 6:08AM

The folly of sending more U.S. tax dollars to the Palestinian Authority.

Does Secretary Hillary Clinton read the reports issued by her own State Department? It's a fair question. She recently argued passionately at a summit at the Egyptian resort center of Sharm el-Sheikh for increased Western and Arab financial aid to an entity called the Palestinian Authority. To show the Obama administration is taking the lead, she pledged $900 million in U.S. taxpayer funds to jump start the re-building of Gaza and to underscore American commitment to the "two-state (Israel and Palestine) solution."

The most recent State Department report on religious freedom in the Palestinian Authority-administered (PA) areas includes these from Bethlehem, on the West Bank of the Jordan River. "The PA did not take sufficient action… to remedy past harassment and intimidation of Christian residents of Bethlehem by the city's Muslim majority. The PA judiciary failed to adjudicate numbers cases of seizures of Christian-owned land in the Bethlehem area by criminal gangs. PA officials appear to have been complicit in property extortion of Palestinian Christian residents, [emphasis added] as there were reports of PA security forces and judicial officials collude[ing] with gang members in property extortion schemes. Several attacks against Christians in Bethlehem went unaddressed by the PA…"

In Gaza, which we are paying to rebuild, Muslims attacked Christians with impunity. The Lighthouse Baptist School in Gaza City has been attacked repeatedly, as has the YMCA. Rami Khader Ayyad was abducted on the way home from work at the Baptist Holy Bible Association and murdered and the association offices were bombed.

Remember, Secretary Clinton is sending $900 million of your tax money to the people who pulled off these attacks, or who failed to investigate the attacks, or who were complicit in these attacks.

That's the Christians. How about the Jews? The Palestinian Media Watch, run by Arab-speaking Israeli Itamar Marcus tells a jarring story. The new 12^th grade Palestinian schoolbooks urge youngsters on to jihad and to "the ribat for Allah." Students who kill Israelis are "worthy of a great reward from Allah." It's part of their Islamic Education texts.

Those texts are interesting. They have no Israel in their maps. But the United States is there; we are identified as "enemy of the Palestinians and the Arabs."

Eight of their schools are named "Al Khansah," the Mother of Martyrs School. The Mother of Martyrs is a woman who expressed joy that her four sons had died in jihad. We may assume they are not charm schools.

Another school is actually named for Saddam Hussein. This man killed 400,000 Arabs and Kurds, most of them Muslim. Can anything good from funding such a school?

Daniel Patrick Moynihan once ridiculed the U.S. Supreme Court for its church-state rulings. The high court said state aid could go to religious schools to purchase books, but not maps. "What about Atlases," Moynihan asked with a twinkle: "They are books of maps." U.S. taxpayer money can now go to pay for Atlases -- but over there, in Gaza, where Israel has been eradicated, and the U.S. is vilified.

All of this has been documented, again and again. Our State Department has been filing Religious Freedom reports on the Palestinian Authority for a decade. And just as long, it has been ignoring them. Secretary Clinton is ignoring them now.

The Palestinian Authority, of course, has no authority. Where the locals get to vote, they willingly choose Hamas, the terrorist outfit.

Is this the new diplomacy? Is this the new direction of U.S. foreign policy? We're supposed to cheer when our new leader bows low before the Saudi king. Of all people! The report on religious freedom in Saudi Arabia could be written on one side of a postcard: there is none. (Save the postage.)

Can anything good come from Nazareth? Or from a policy that pays the people who have turned the hometown of the Prince of Peace into a war zone?

topics:
Religious Persecution, Religious Freedom

About the Author

Ken Blackwell, a board member of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and a senior fellow at the Family Research Council.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (43) | Leave a comment

Tim| 5.11.09 @ 10:58AM

We turned those people over to Arafat and his gang, is it any wonder that murder, terror, robbery and extortion are the order of the day?

President Obama delights in pushing around bankers and industrialists, but these Palistinian thugs get a slap, -on the back. No questions asked.

melvin polatnick| 5.11.09 @ 4:48PM

The voice of God is a whisper. Very few mortals besides the Pope can hear it. He is bringing Gods words to the Holy Land. It says: "warriors should lay down their arms and let love replace greed".

Alan Brooks| 5.11.09 @ 7:36PM

"let love replace greed"??

please, this is AS, not the Catholic Worker; Emmett Tyrrell is not Dottie Day. Save the baby talk for your grandkids.

The Fish Swims in My Sea (anus| 5.12.09 @ 1:39AM

Didn't get many comments here! We all know the Jews in Israel hate Christians almost as much as they hate Muslims. Wise up! They will use their gamma death rays on us Jesuits next.

Peace| 2.3.10 @ 12:56AM

Have you met every single Jew in Israel that you are so confidant in generalizing an entire population??

Alan Brooks| 5.12.09 @ 2:33AM

By which I mean, kill all kikes. You heard me.

Alan Brooks| 5.12.09 @ 2:36AM

This is AS! you fuckup! AS stands for something!

Ass Syrup!
Ass slip! (do me!)
Alan Shitfuck!

Dont get all pretty here! Fuck all Catholic Workers! Fuck em! Or rather let them fuck me!

Yes!

C. Siegel| 5.12.09 @ 4:21AM

Moderator? Anybody home?

Old Texican| 5.13.09 @ 6:49PM

Perhaps the moderator wants us all to see just how whacko some people are out there.
Christians in Gaza are in my prayers. They have lived there for two thousand years and somehow survived.
I wonder how the attendance would be at MY local churches if death was hovering over the streets.
Hey...I got an idea! Instead of importing a bunch of Palestinian Hamas terrorists to America...let's invite the Christians there instead.

Adrian| 5.22.09 @ 3:24PM

Ever notice how the incompetent Republicans you vote for, helped Osama bin Laden become powerful and funded this rebuilding of Iraq, complete with anti-Americanism in school books? Dot Knight and her Papist Taig Movement = Irish Catholic People?

Lucky Fur| 7.28.09 @ 10:27PM

"Can anything good come from Nazareth? "

History has said No, no it can't.

mevric| 9.3.09 @ 1:58AM

Ever notice how the incompetent Republicans you vote for, helped high school diploma Osama bin Laden become powerful and funded this rebuilding of Iraq, Online high school complete with anti-Americanism in school books? Dot Knight and her Papist Taig Movement = Irish Catholic People?

Smith| 9.3.09 @ 2:00AM

Ever notice how the incompetent Republicans you vote for, helped Osama bin Laden become powerful and funded this rebuilding GED Online of Iraq, complete with anti-Americanism in school books? Dot Knight and her Papist prior learning Taig Movement = Irish Catholic People?

jians| 9.3.09 @ 2:00AM

f Gaza and to emphasise dweller dedication to the “two-state (Israel and Palestine) solution affordable education

Cindy Wells| 9.25.09 @ 11:36PM

These problems are going to exist in the middle east for the next 2 thousand years if we get there. In the meantime you should save some cash with some HP Coupons.

neil| 10.21.09 @ 1:37PM

Seems like just another in the political craziness that surrounds Washington DC. We never seem to be able to get it right.

bad credit refinance loans| 10.21.09 @ 1:39PM

Amazing how the US can just appropriate huge funds like that when we are facing all kinds of budget deficiets all over the country. I bet California could have used those funds.

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Im sure there are thousands of people in the United States that could have used some of those funds to prevent foreclosure and stay in their homes. I know we have to keep our eye on foreign policy, but who is keeping an eye on domestic?

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Christie| 6.10.10 @ 2:44PM

The persecution of Christians in Gaza is a truly awful phenomenon. It is so ironic that an area of land so torn on religous ideals, yet seems to disregard the most basic principles of religion. I also wanted to let you know that I recently found a great website for anyone that needs to get a high school diploma or online highschools , they really take care of you and it is easy to understand and get through. I know this helped me so I wanted to pass it along. Thanks, Christie

Rako| 8.5.10 @ 12:56PM

If you talk to Palestinian Christians, they say the worst thing has been Israel's occupation. They lived under Turkish domination for 500 years. But under Israel's occupation in the last 60 years, their numbers have dropped hugely. Before the occupation, they were 20% of the Palestinian population, now after being forced to emigrate en masse, I think they are only 50,000 or so.

Rako| 8.5.10 @ 1:07PM

The attacks on Christians in Gaza were by a terrorist group called Salafists that the news says is linked to Al-Qaeda and fights Hamas. The brutal repression of Gaza by Israel's army makes it a breeding group for terrorism.

When you are living in a brick hut and bombed out by an ethnicity with the "rightful" claim to your land, all kinds of moronic things go into your head.

paul| 9.9.10 @ 3:40PM

Most of the developed nations in the world have recognised that negotiation (and a little bribery) goes a long way to solving tensions. It's time that the Palestinians reigned in some of the more extremist elements of their community and looked for real peace.

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