Howard Stern December 2013
This report was
compiled during a visit to Bethlehem in December 2013. Howard is co-founder of
the Emmaus Group and an internationally accredited negotiator and mediator in
conflict resolution.
Overview:
Since my last visit in
2012 there have been some notable changes. An overwhelming sense of fear and
anticipation now pervades the Christian community, fuelled by their belief
there is little they can do to change anything. They are now a minority
representing just 4.8% of the population living among a Moslem majority of
95.2%, with a fragile constitution built on Sharia that affords them less
rights or equality. It would be unfair to say they have given up hope, but
there is a growing sense of hopelessness.
Palestinian society as a
whole seems to be deteriorating with increasing levels of debt, violence,
discrimination and lack of interest in even trying to explore ways forward with
the Israel. Many are just too tired and weary.
Fear:
Fear was present in most
conversations as was anger. There is deep frustration with the Palestinian
Authority who, in their opinion, has failed them completely. Basic
infrastructures are absent or of poor quality with no credible law and order,
health service, social services or education.
This is despite the vast
amounts of aid flowing in over twenty years.
While I was there, three
days of shootings occurred with gunfights in the street at night, and a police
officer killed. Hospitals and medical facilities are avoided for fear of
catching disease and government schools are seen as incubators of radicalism.
It is unsafe for
Christian women to walk in parts of some cities and although not a new
phenomenon, the areas in
which women will now not walk has widened. Kidnapping is a
growing concern,
exacerbated by the very recent attempt to take two young female Christian
schoolteachers on their way to work. Christian schoolchildren will not travel
in taxis unless the driver is a Christian and known personally to the family.
“Israel is holding us
together, otherwise radical Islamists groups like Hamas would have taken us
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1 comment:
Israel should be accepting Christian Arabs who genuinely want to get out of The West Bank RIGHT NOW or at least making it clear that they would be welcome to settle in Israel. In my opinion there is only one outcome that can possibly work in the ME and that is the restoration to the State of Israel of the eastern area (known as "Transjordan") that was earmarked for the new State of Israel by the League of Nations at the end of the 1st World War.
REMINDER. Britain was legally administering the territory, under a League of Nations Mandate, which was to be partitioned under a United Nations plan in 1947 – a plan accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs.
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