how still we see thee lie…

This line will soon have to change for our Brothers and Sisters fleeing Bethlehem. The body of Messiah in Bethlehem will, one day, no longer have a place to lay its head.
According to Justus Reid Weiner:

“Palestinian Christians have a higher rate of emigration compared to Palestinian Muslims and the Christian population of the West Bank and Gaza has plunged from about 20 percent after World War II to less than 1.7 percent now. Tens of thousands have abandoned their holy sites and ancestral properties to live abroad.”

Why are they fleeing? According to Weiner’s report:

“From Christian Arabs under the thumb of the PA, I have heard testimony of forced marriages of Christian women to Muslim men, death threats against Christians for distributing the Bible to willing Muslims, and Christian women intimidated into wearing traditional ultra-modest Islamic clothing. Churches have been firebombed (most recently in Nablus, Tubas, and Gaza when the Pope made his controversial remarks) and/or shot up repeatedly. And this is the tip of the iceberg.” Read More.

Further more when Bridges for Peace interviewed Weiner he described:

“…phone threats made to Christian Arabs during the night: “We know who you are. We know where you live, and Sharia law tells us to kill you infidels.” Sharia or Islamic law forms the constitution of the Hamas government. “Many Christian Arabs have fled the territories; those who remain are sitting on their suitcases,” Weiner told me.“

Recently, we had a comment posted to our site. I allowed the comment to be posted because there is some truth to what was being said. However, it is only a partial truth. To blame Israel and the Religious Right for all of the Palestinian troubles is ridiculous.

What caused the problems at other times in history?

The problem with half-truths is that they can be what we call “white lies.” Our hope is that by sharing both sides we can then reach a better truth. We aren’t deceived into believing that Israel hasn’t caused some problems no more than we are deceived into believing that they have cause all the problems. In other words: Islam (extremism?) can’t live with People of the Book – Jews or Christians – peaceably. And even if all Jews and Christians did everything that the governments of the world asked of them they would still find themselves in a war with Islam.

Surah 9.29 says:

Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture [ed. note: Jew and Christians] as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth [ed. note: Islam], until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.

Only if Islam is the ruling class can the Muslim allow for other religions to exist. Although, even then the others aren’t without penalty. The only lasting peace that we can expect to receive from Islam is the peace that comes from conversion to Islam.
That is false peace.

Please pray for the Palestinian Christians.
Pray they will find their voice and speak out against failures of the Palestinian Muslims and Israel equally.
Pray that they will stand strong through the heat of the day.
Pray that they will not be disbursed throughout the world.
Pray.