Palestinian Christians Persecuted

Townhall.com has this interesting piece on a recent book by Justus Reid Weiner a human rights lawyer, dealing with the persecution of Christian Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank. The guilty parties are terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, (for applying Islamic principles of dhimmitude and the capital punishment of apostacy) and the Palestinian Authority (for assisting them, and at the very least, turning a blind eye to anti-Christian violence).

In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both Palestinian Muslims and Christians tell visitors that there is no friction between them --that they live as equals under the P.A.

On the contrary:

Religious persecution is a widespread problem that is felt in different ways, Weiner said. "Some people are accused of collaboration with Israel. Some people are accused of moral offenses. Some people are accused of trying to spread Christianity by giving out Bibles."

Weiner gives the example of Ahmad El-Ashwal, to whom he dedicated his book, who converted from Islam to Christianity. He was arrested and detained in PA gaols for "a couple of months", was tortured, and then:

El-Ashwal was beaten; his car was firebombed; and he was forced to close his successful falafel stand when his landlord wouldn't renew his lease because of his Christian faith. He ran an underground church from his home in the refugee camp and when he didn't return to Islam, masked men knocked on his door in January 2004 and shot him dead.

The Palestinian Authority, it may surprise readers to learn, did nothing about his murder. Little wonder:

The P.A.'s constitution, which has yet to be ratified, is based on Shari'a, the strict Islamic religious law, Weiner said. (Shari'a relegates non-Muslims to an inferior status and also prohibits conversion from Islam to any other religion.).

Moreover

Compounding the problem, church leaders -- long intimidated by P.A. Chairman Yasser Arafat and now by the present P.A. leadership -- don't speak up on behalf of their communities, he said.

Weiner said he was baffled initially by the Church's silence over the mistreatment of its members."I think of Christianity as one of the largest religions in the world involving a billion adherents...and many of them being educated, affluent. Powerful leaders of many countries profess Christian identity and certainly come from Christian backgrounds," he said.

The Palestinian Authority has so intimidated the Christian leadership, that they go along with the Palestinian nationalist cause, said Weiner."They could be counted upon whenever Arafat would snap his fingers to put on their robes and vouch for the fact that the Christians and the Muslims were all Palestinians first and foremost, and they were all committed to Palestinian nationalism as their first priority," he said.

Of course, many Palestinian Christian leaders (the Latin Patriach of Jerusalem springs to mind), are quite comfortable with anti-Israel and anti-Jewish attitudes, even if they are not strapping on the suicide vests themselves. Be that as it may, supporters of the so-called "Palestinian Cause", within the churches and without, have for too long turned a blind eye to the fact that a corollary of the empowerment of Arab-Palestinian terrorist organizations (including the PA) is the persecution of non-Muslim minorities, gays and lesbians, and the brutalization of women in the name of "honour".

They should be ashamed.