Christian in Haifa Expresses his Vews

A view of one of, what I believe, is the silent majority. what a pity that they feel threatened when expressing the opinions. 

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JH. is not an ordinary man. J who was born in Haifa identifies himself firstly as an Israeli citizen: secondly as a Christian and lastly an Arab. An Israeli-Christian-Arab in that order. He has a strong conviction that the Jews have a  claim on Israel. Two things make Joseph extra ordinary: his thoughts about Jews and his lack of fear in expressing those views.

 He is 38 years old, married with 4 children, two sons and two daughters. After high school Joseph studied accountancy and business management at Haifa University. His acquired knowledge helped him build a business making custom made furniture in his workshop in Downtown Haifa. He speaks with pride when he says he owns is own home and can provide for his family.

J. admires the Jewish people and calls them ‘brilliant’.  ‘From nothing’ he says ‘they have built a great nation’. He sees them as a people with unique God given abilities that think creatively and make good managers in business. He also believes that the Jews have a historical right to claim Israel as their national homeland with Jerusalem as the capital. These views would cost J. his life if spoken in the West Bank or Gaza: even in some Arab communities within Israel he could expect persecution by way of rejection. He states that many Christian Arabs feel this way but are too afraid of speaking out.

J. wants a strong Israel. When Israel shows weakness he says Christian Arabs feel insecure. With concern he sites the recent wars and compares them with the Yom Kippur war in 1967 when Israel took Jerusalem for its capital. Since 67 Israel have gained nothing from their battles. He highlights the recent war in Gaza and asks after all the losses on both sides what has Israel gained? Hamas lives to fight again. This he says is a weakness of Israel’s leadership and a recipe for disaster.

J. says to survive in Israel a man needs a dream. His dream is to enter into politics and have a place in the Knesset. He speaks of Ghandi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King as men who had dreams and became leaders. Today he is a hard working carpenter: tomorrow could be a different story.

Christians to EU: Israel is Our Safe Haven

From John Ryan http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/24522/Default.aspx?hp=readmore

Some 150 Israeli Arabic-speaking Christians on Sunday demonstrated outside the European Union mission in Tel Aviv, demanding that the international community stop nitpicking against Israel and start combating the severe persecution of Christians everywhere else in the Middle East.

“Nations, organizations and international missions are quick to raise an accusing finger against Israel at every opportunity,” said Father Gabriel Nadaf, spiritual father of the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum, which organized the rally.

Those same nations and organizations “don’t life a finger against the ethnic cleansing of Christians in the Middle East,” the priest continued.

Father Nadaf went on to explain that from Syria to Egypt to Iraq to the Palestinian Authority, Christians on a daily basis suffer intimidation, harassment, desecration, coercion, torture, rape, physical abuse and murder. “According to the statistics, a Christian is murdered every five minutes [in the Middle East], and the Western world is silent about this,” he lamented.

In messages posted to its Facebook page during the Tel Aviv rally, the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum insisted that “there is no place but Israel that is safe for Christians in the Middle East!”

While the rally was largely ignored by the mainstream Western media, the Israeli press took great interest, and forum spokesman Shadi Khalloul, a veteran of the IDF, was interviewed by various television and print media outlets.

Khalloul has spoken numerous times with Israel Today regarding the Christian awakening within Israel, and the bonds of brotherhood than bind local Christians to the Jewish people and the Jewish state.

Last month, Israel’s Knesset took the first important step toward recognizing local Christians as an independent minority separate from the Arab Muslims. Both Nadaf and Khalloul say this is necessary, since local Christians were here before the Arab Muslim conquest around 600 AD.

A growing number of Israelis, including lawmakers and opinion shapers, are likewise waking up to the strong Christian minority in their midst, a minority that has been long neglected, but which is now beginning to boldly take its place alongside the Jews.

West Bank Update - Christian Community Part 1

A contact from the Emmaus group in the UK recently returned to Bethlehem to assess any changes in the status of the Christian community there.

Below is part 1 of his report.

 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. There are rumours (unconfirmed) of young children being kidnaped in Beit Sahour, a neighbouring town to Bethlehem, for the harvesting of body organs. Even school Facebook pages are warning parents to be vigilant. It is believed that Beit Sahour is being targeted because it has a higher proportion of Christians.

“Israel is holding us together, otherwise radical Islamists groups like Hamas would have taken us over” 27yr old Hebron Resident

Update on the Condition of West Bank Christians

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

Read complete report:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwqYts6ZHWS6aWhHYmQ5X09tRzQ4NXlWNS1PaXBOX0o0TTln/edit?pli=1

Christianity becoming extinct in its birthplace

MIDDLE EAST historian Tom Holland told a briefing in London last night that the world is watching the effective extinction of Christianity from its birthplace.

In an apocalyptic appraisal of the worsening political situation in the region, a panel of experts provided a mass of evidence and statistics for the end of the region’s nation states under the onslaught of militant Islam. 

‘In terms of the sheer scale of the hatreds and sectarian rivalries, we are witnessing something on the scale of horror of the European Thirty Years War,’ said Holland.

‘It is the climax of a process grinding its way through the twentieth century – the effective extinction of Christianity from its birthplace.’

The event titled ‘Reporting the Middle East: Why the truth is getting lost’ at the National Liberal Club in Whitehall, sought answers to the ‘anaemic’ coverage of attacks on Egypt’s Christians on 14 August.

Pre-planned destruction of scores of ancient churches, monasteries, schools, orphanages and businesses had gone unreported for days across the West, Nina Shea, Director of the Hudson Institute Religious Freedom Centre in Washington said.

After the Islamists swept multiple elections during the first revolution in 2011, US newspapers asking how it would change Egypt suggested merely that women would be prohibited from wearing skimpy clothes, and Sharm el-Sheikh would close as a tourist destination.

This was ‘utterly trivial’ she said.  Persecution of Copts, who dated their church to Gospel writer St Mark in Alexandria, was at its worst since the fourteenth century, with ‘horrific levels of violence’.

‘It has been the worst persecution in 700 years against the oldest, largest remaining Christian minority in the Middle East.’ 

The media had failed to ask the most basic questions, she said.  ‘Why were the Copts singled out, what was the significance and purpose of the attacks?’ 

A fourth-century church dedicated to St Mary – whom Muslims were supposed to revere – and that was a UNESCO World Heritage site, had been destroyed and designated as a Muslim prayer space.  

It was 200 years older than the Bamyan Statues in Afghanistan, yet the mainstream media had ignored its demise.

Yet there was enough evidence to show that the violence was part of a plan to ‘drive out the Copts, to terrorise them into leaving’, she added.

Lapido Chief Executive Dr Jenny Taylor who organized the event which was co-hosted with foreign policy think tank Henry Jackson Society, said the media’s job was impeded by ‘secular blinders’.

They tended to report the Middle East’s religions as a ‘variant of a Westminster debate’ with ‘left-wing underdogs versus right-wing overdogs and the Christians getting lumped in with the overdogs if they get mentioned at all.’

Holland said Egypt was not a developing nation, which needed help to emerge as a Western democracy but had been the world’s first state, with a civilization on a level with China and Iran.  In Roman times, it had been the world’s bread basket.

Now it was the single largest importer of wheat anywhere on the planet.

The audience which packed the National Liberal Club’s David Lloyd George Room in Whitehall, heard a litany of atrocities and devastation covered by Arabic-speaking foreign correspondent Betsy Hiel of the Pittsburgh Tribune, on the ground in Cairo throughout both revolutions.

The Coptic Church in UK’s General Bishop Angaelos, former secretary to the predecessor Pope Shenouda, spoke in detail of distortions in media coverage that were mere presuppositions aggravating the situation on the ground.

Some reports had even suggested Egypt was undergoing a civil war - absurdly referring to a 'field hospital' in a mosque in the 'leafiest', most affluent part of Cairo.

'Egypt will never have a civil war.  Its demographics just don't fit that scenario.'

Muslims had often protected Christians. The church and civil society together were against the extremists.  Many Muslims had turned against the Brotherhood when it became clear there was no economic plan.

In answer to a question from the floor he agreed there had been what felt like ‘silence’ from Western churches, governments and indeed Western Muslims after the attacks, which belied Islamist propaganda that the West colluded with Christians. 

Shea also spoke about Syria.

Christians in Syria were now ‘caught in the middle’, she said.  There was a shadow war against them by rebels, with jihadis and al-Qaeda factions deliberately attacking Christians. 

‘When they conquer a town they set up sharia courts and mini sharia states.  The Christians are fleeing.  Given the choice to be killed or to leave, they leave.  If they stay, the jizya tax is imposed, and then raised.  If they cannot pay they are killed.’

She said Christians dared not go to refugee camps run by rebels as they would be recruited to fight. 

The so-called Damascus Plan drafted by the Free Syrian Army for after the war ends, included retribution killings against any who did not oppose Assad.

http://www.lapidomedia.com/christianity-becoming-extinct-its-birthplace-says-holland

but

While Christian population dwindles in Muslim Middle East, it thrives in Israel

First, while the Christian population is diminishing throughout the Middle East, including the Palestinian areas, the opposite is true in Israel. The Christian population throughout the Middle East has been declining for decades. In 1914, Christians constituted 26.4 percent of the total population in what today is Israel, the Palestinian areas, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, while by 2005 they represented at most 9.2 percent 

The exception to this regional trend is Israel, where the Christian population has thrived.

As documented in the Central Bureau of Statistics' Statistical Abstract of Israel 2008, in the last dozen years, Israel's Christian population grew from 120,600 in 1995 to 151,600 in 2007, representing a growth rate of 25 percent. In fact, the Christian growth rate has outpaced the Jewish growth in Israel in the last 12 years! In 1995, there were 4,522,300 Jews in Israel, and in 2007 there were 5,478,2000, representing a growth rate of 21 percent – 4 percent less than the Christian population grew during the same time....

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/05/while-christian-population-dwindles-in-muslim-middle-east-it-thrives-in-israel.html  for the complete article

"Begin on Saturday, Finish on Sunday"

 Ali Salim  a scholar based in the Middle East.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3943/begin-saturday-finish-sunday

Americans need to internalize that Western interests are in danger of being attacked and destroyed by both foreign and domestic enemies. If political Islam is not stopped now in the Middle East, it will explode in the West.

The mood in the Middle East is rapidly changing. The elation of the Arab Spring, which led to prosperity and an economic and social upturn in the lives of millions of Arabs, has now deteriorated into a sense that significant dangers are stalking the Arab-Muslim world.

Arabic TV, especially Al-Jazeera, has been broadcasting programs asking if bloodshed is the only mission of Islam, and if jihad [war in the service of Islam] still motivates believers to invade other countries with abandon and indulge in worldwide slaughter.

Given the current situation, the Middle East is obsessed with asking itself: Who is responsible for the Muslims' catastrophe? And what keeps us chained behind, while the rest of the world forges ahead in social, economic and technological progress? Needless to say, the imams do not blame themselves. They claim that to change the situation we need only more and closer study and practice of the Islamic faith.

As always, our Islamic society, constantly at odds with itself, blames everyone for our misfortunes. In the days of the Prophet (S.A.A.S.), we blamed the Jews of Khaybar in the Arabian Peninsula for our ills. Now the imams who head the militant Islamist organizations tell us that the Jews, a tiny people who pose no threat to the might of Islam, are responsible for all our ills and for all our failures.

Islamic radicals, however, hate not only the Jews but also the Christians, who have become, we are told, our sworn enemies. Christianity, like Judaism, is also vilified. The history of our hatred for the Christians began with the Crusades, and over the years the same hated Crusaders became the hated European imperialists and the hated colonialists.

The hatred for the Christian West is founded on a sense of deprivation, of humiliation and inferiority, of being threatened and exploited, all of which cast doubt on the eternal message of Islam as the only up-to-date religion, destined to rule the world and invalidate the other religions. The Islamic sages who interpret the will of Allah say that both Christianity as well as Judaism, while monotheistic, are anachronistic, and while temporarily they can exist -- with the patronage of, and overshadowed by, Islam -- eventually all Christians and Jews will convert to Islam.

Islam's openly-stated desire to control the world is now light-years away from its current wretched plight. The Muslims' low self-image not only makes us self-destructive, but leads to the desire to destroy anyone who succeeds, even if it means destroying ourselves as well. The unique prosperity and power of the Jews in Palestine, compared with the slaughter, poverty and backwardness of their Arab neighbors, create antagonism, jealousy, rage and an increasingly murderous desire for "revenge" among Muslims still under the heady influence of the Arab Spring and incited by the sheikhs of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The imams in the mosques brainwash the masses, claiming that Islam's real enemies are the Christians, "the Crusaders," manipulated by the Jews who control them. Attempting to fool the leaders of the Christian West and weaken Israel, the Islamists sugarcoat the real situation and tell the Christians that all they have to do is solve the Palestinian problem. Once that has happened, the artificial Jewish existence in Palestine will come to an end, the entire Middle East will metamorphose into paradise and blossom, and everyone will live in harmony forever. Unfortunately, many Europeans have swallowed this tale whole. In the meantime, however, when not speaking to the West and telling each other the truth, the Islamists repeat the ancient adage, "We will begin on Saturday and finish on Sunday," that is, first we will get rid of the Jews and then we will get rid of the Christians -- as we are seeing now in Nigeria, Iraq and especially Egypt.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3943/begin-saturday-finish-sunday

Christian Community Set to Join the IDF

A joint Government-community forum is to be established to promote the enlistment of Christian community youth in the IDF and national service and their integration into the life of the state.

                            

A meeting was held today with Father Gabriel Nadaf, a Greek Orthodox priest from Nazareth and spiritual leader of a forum for the enlistment of Christian youth in the IDF, Naji Abid, leader of the Orthodox council in Yafia and Lt. (ret.) Shadi Khaloul, head of the forum.

A government instruction requires that a joint Government-community forum be established within two weeks to promote the enlistment of Christian community youth in the IDF and national service and their integration into the life of the state. The forum will work to integrate members of the Christian community in the law on equality in sharing the burden and deal with the necessary administrative and legal aspects, protect those who support enlistment and enlistees from violence and threats, and step up law enforcement against those who disturb the peace and incite to violence.

There has been a significant increase in the number of Christian enlistees in the IDF, from 35 a year ago to approximately 100 this year; an additional 500 young people from the community are doing national service.
The Prime Minister said, "Members of the Christian community must be allowed to enlist in the IDF. You are loyal citizens who want to defend the state and I salute you and support you. We will not tolerate threats against you and we will act to enforce the law with a heavy hand against those who persecute you. I will not tolerate attempts to crumble the state from within. The State of Israel and the Prime Minister stand alongside you."


Father Nadaf said, "Our goal is to guard the Holy Land and the State of Israel. We have broken the barrier of fear – the state deserves that we do our part in defending it. Those who oppose the integration of the Christian community in the institutions of state do not walk in the path of Christianity."

Palestinian Islamists are cleansing the Holy Land of Christians

Having spent the last 4 weeks in the UK and USA and had the opportunity to meet and talk to so many people, it is quite clear that there is a vast lack of knowledge of the real Israel and the region in which we live. 

When we told everyone who asked, that we were from Israel, the discussion, particularly with those of the Christian faith indicated a total lack of awareness of what is happening to their co-religionists in the region.

Thus I think it appropriate to publish the article below and pose the question "It is not time for the churches in the West to stop fooling themselves and their congregations into believing that the horrifying reduction in numbers of Christians in the Middle East is somehow the fault of the Jewish State."

Anglican Friends of Israel reflects on the significance of Hamas’s legislation which would mean the closure of Christian schools in Gaza, and urges Christian leaders in the West to start holding Palestinian leaders responsible for what happens to Christians under their jurisdiction.

Last week the Catholic Herald reported that five Church Schools ("two Catholic and three Christian") are under threat in Gaza because of the ruling party Hamas’s intention to extend their Muslim Brotherhood-inspired version of Islam throughout their fiefdom. Their edict, which forbids the education of boys and girls together, will mean that the schools must close down because of lack of space and staff. That most of the students are Muslim matters not at all. What’s important is the segregation of male and female as far as possible.

For some, this will be the first chill wind signalling what a Palestinian state dominated by Islamists will mean for Palestinian Christians. But such folk have missed warning signs going back many years.

In 2005, the annual report on human rights abuses around the world produced by the US State Department recorded abuse of Palestinian Christians by individuals and by Palestinian institutions, such as government and the police. The report stated: 

The PA judiciary failed to adjudicate numerous cases of seizures of Christian-owned land in the Bethlehem area by criminal gangs. There were credible reports that PA security forces and judicial officials colluded with gang members to extort property illegally from Christians. Several attacks against Christians in Bethlehem went unaddressed by the PA, but authorities investigated attacks against Muslims in the same area.

About this time a Roman Catholic priest in Ramallah bewailed the fact that in his experience Muslim Palestinians did not want Christians living among them.

Then there are the attacks on Christians and their property by fellow Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza, few of which were reported by Western media outlets. Bible Society official Rami Ayyad was kidnapped and murdered by Jihadists in Gaza. The YMCA in the West Bank town of Qalqilya was torched, as were church schools in Gaza. 

The steady trickle of information about the harassment and persecution of Palestinian Christians by other Palestinians has increasingly come from Palestinians themselves, notably from the East Jerusalem-based Israeli-Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh. Abu Toameh risks his life to report various aspects of the underbelly of life under the Palestinian Authority. He reports on corruption within the PA leadership, the effects of chaotic and wasteful governance, and the way in which Palestinian leaders talk peace for eager Western ears whilst inciting their citizens (in Arabic) to believe that their Jewish neighbour can be eliminated.

Khaled Abu Toameh has covered the treatment experienced by Palestinian Christians in both the West Bank and Gaza extensively. He insists that the haemorrhage of Christians from the Holy Land is not due, as many would have us believe, to the Israeli ‘occupation’, but to their increasing marginalisation at the hands of neighbours who use their power to disadvantage Christians.

Then there is the increasing fear that Mahmoud Abbas’s weak Fatah regime in the West Bank could give way at any moment to a Hamas coup. If this happens – given Hamas’s previous record – it could well be the death-knell for Christianity in the Palestinian Territories. Only last week, Abbas permitted Muslim fundamentalists to strut down the streets of Ramallah. Why?

And now another source of information about the realities of life for Palestinian Christians is opening up. Palestinians from within the Territories are speaking out about the injustices that Palestinians are inflicting on other Palestinians. They do so at risk of their lives to whomever will listen. 

One young Christian Palestinian woman – who had to flee her West Bank home because shedared to challenge the narrative that holds Israel responsible for all Palestinian woes – has spoken to audiences of all faiths and none in the UK and Europe about the unnecessary poverty and misery which years of mismanagement and corruption have brought to all Palestinians. She has also given accounts of the discrimination Palestinian Christians suffer at the hands of fellow Palestinians from both her own and her friends’ experience.

At a recent meeting in the Midlands, she told how, earlier this year, a student was beaten up by his classmates in a classroom in front of a teacher, with no action taken against the perpetrators. His crime? Refusing to give up his Christian faith and adopt Islam. She tells tales of the way in which she and other Christian students were sexually harassed by Muslim boys on their way to university because, unlike Muslim girls, they had to share public transport with the boys. 

Even more chillingly, she reports how Palestinian Christian businessmen were murdered because they refused to pay the protection money demanded by what she described as the ‘Palestinian mafia’.

Though disturbing, the testimony of people like this young woman and journalist Khaled Abu Toameh is refreshing because it breaks a conspiracy of silence which has gone on for years. Many Palestinian Christians have claimed that their relations with their Muslim neighbours are nothing but cordial; that they are Palestinians first and foremost, united against their common (Jewish) foe. Yet the steady exodus of Palestinians from territories that are under the day-to-day control of other Palestinians suggests that something else is going on. 

Why Christian Palestinian leaders are unwilling to admit in public what they certainly acknowledge in private is unclear: fear of reprisals from their government, neighbours and even family must have some bearing on the situation. Nevertheless, this is a disaster for Christianity in the Palestinian Territories. As Abu Toameh comments: "By not talking openly about the problem, the Christian leaders are encouraging the perpetrators to continue their harassment and assaults against Christian families."

Nevertheless, Hamas’s action cannot be misunderstood by anyone. Respect for the views and culture of minorities such as Gaza’s Christians has no place in their thinking. Perhaps this is why it was reported by West Bank Christians and by Abu Toameh that 'Out of the 600 Christians from the Gaza Strip who arrived in the West Bank in the past two weeks to celebrate Christmas, dozens have asked to move to Israel because they no longer feel comfortable living under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.’

It is time for the churches in the West to stop fooling themselves and their congregations into believing that the horrifying reduction in numbers of Christians in the Middle East is somehow the fault of the Jewish State. The future for Christianity in the land of its birth is grim indeed as long as Western Christians avoid holding Palestinian leaders responsible for what happens to Palestinian Christians on their watch.

Israel Population at its 65th Year of Independence

On the eve of Israel’s 65^th year of independence, the population of Israel has exceeded the 8 million mark with current forecast of  8,018 million. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 the population was only 806,000 inhabitants.

Analysis of the population:-

Jewish   6,042 million (75.3% of the population),

Arab     1,658 million (20.7%)

"Others", which are non - Arab Christians, other religions and no religious affiliation 318,000 inhabitants (4.0%).

The total population of Israel increased since the 64th Independence Day, by 138,000  - an increase of 1.8%. During this period, 163,000 babies were born  and 41,000 people died. The number of immigrants who came to Israel was 19,500.

At the end of 2011, over 70% of the Jews were native Israelis - born in Israel (more than half were a second generation in the country), compared to 35% in 1948.

In 1948, Israel had only one city with more than 100,000 residents - Tel - Aviv - Jaffa. Today, 14 cities number more than 100,000 residents, of which six with over 200,000 residents: Jerusalem, Tel - Aviv - Jaffa, Haifa, Rishon Lezion, Ashdod and Petah Tikva.

The Arabs in Israel

By MORDECHAI KEDAR - 02/28/2013

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=304871  

There is almost no Arab community that has lived in its homeland for dozens of years in a truly democratic state.

Israeli-Arab man casts his vote [file photo]
Photo: Ammar Awad / Reuters

The topic of the Arab sector in Israel is politically charged and represents contradicting narratives – one Jewish, the other Arab. Just as there are differences of opinion within the Jewish sector, there are variances in the Arab sector, and attitudes toward the Jewish sector, the state and its institutions can often even represent polar opposites.

To start with, there is no such thing in Israel as one “Arab sector”; rather, there are several Middle Eastern populations, some of which are not Arab, and they differ from one another in religion, culture, ethnic origin and histori- cal background.

WITHIN THE Arab sector here, there are a number of ethnic groups that differ from each other in language, history and culture: Arabs, Africans, Armenians, Circassians and Bosnians. These groups usually do not mingle, and live in separate villages or in separate neighborhoods where a particular family predominates.

a) the Circassians in Israel are the descendants of people who came from the Caucasus to serve as officers in the Ottoman army. Despite their being Muslim, the young people do not usually marry Arabs.

b) The Africans are mainly from Sudan. Some of them live as a large group in Jisr e-Zarka and some live in family groups within Beduin settlements in the South. They are called “Abid,” from the Arabic word for “slaves.”

c) The Bosnians live in family groups in Arab villages.

d) The Armenians came mainly to escape the persecution that they suffered in Turkey in the days of World War I, which culminated in the Armenian genocide of 1915.

IN GENERAL, the Arab sector is divided culturally into three main groups: urban, rural, Beduin. Each group has its own cultural characteristics: lifestyle, status of a given clan, education, occupation, level of income, number of children, and matters connected to women – for example, polygamy, age of marriage, matchmaking or dating customs, and dress.

The residents of cities – and to a great extent also the villagers – see the Beduin as primitive, while the Beduin see themselves as the only genuine Arabs; in their opinion, the villagers and city folk have lost their Arab character. The Arabic language expresses this matter well: The meaning of the word “ Arabi ” is “Beduin,” and some of the Beduin tribes are called “Arab” – for example, Arab al- Heib and Arab al-Shibli in the North.

The Beduin of the Negev classify themselves according to the color of their skin, into hamar (red) and sud (black). Beduin would never marry their daughters to a man darker than she is, because they do not want their grand- children to be dark-skinned. Racist? Perhaps.

Another division that exists in the Negev is between tribes that have a Beduin origin, and tribes whose livelihood is agriculture (fellahin), who have low status. A large tribe has a higher standing than a small tribe.

THE ARAB sector in Israel is divided into

- Muslims, subdivided into Sufis, Salafi

- Christians, subdivided into – Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant

- Druse, the religion of the Druse is different from Islam, and Muslims consider the Druse heretics. Because of this, the Druse are supposed to keep their religion secret.

- Alawites. the Alawites in Israel live in the village of Ghajar, in the foothills of Mount Hermon, and some live over the border in Lebanon. They are also considered heretics in Islam, and their religion is a blend (syncretism) of Shi’ite Islam, Eastern Christianity and ancient religions that existed in the Middle East thousands of years ago.
     

The meaning of the word “Ghajar” in Arabic is “Gypsy,” meaning foreign nomads with a different religion. According to Islam, they not have the right to rule, being a minority, but also right to live, being idol worshipers.

SOME PARTS of the Arab sector are communities that have lived in the land now called the State of Israel for hundreds of years, but a significant part is the offspring of immigrants who migrated here mainly in the first half of the 20th century to work in the Jewish farming communities.

Many migrated from Egypt even earlier, to escape being impressed into forced labor as the Suez Canal was being dug. This is how the al-Masri, Masarwa and Fiumi families, as well as many others, came here, with names testifying to their Egyptian source. Other families have Jordanian names (Zarkawi and Karaki, for example), Syrian ones (al-Hourani, Halabi), Lebanese (Surani, Sidawi, Tra- bulsi) and Iraqi (al-Iraqi).

The Arabic dialect that most of the Beduin in the Negev speak is a Saudi-Jordanian dialect, and because of their familial ties to tribes living in Jordan, when the Beduin become involved in matters of blood-vengeance, they escape to family members in Jordan.

The connection between Arab families in Israel and groups in neighboring countries should not be surprising, because until 1948 the borders of Israel were not hermeti- cally sealed, and many Arabs of “Sham” (Greater Syria) wandered almost totally unimpeded, following their flocks and the expanding employment opportunities.

THE DIVISION between traditional and modern outlooks exists in each group, meaning that in each group there is a subdivision: those who are more connected to the tradition of the group and those who are less connected. Among the young, one sees more openness and less adherence to group tradition, and it can be assumed that the youth of the next generation will generally adhere even less to the group’s traditions. This is obvious among the Beduin groups, because among the young there are more than a few who challenge the Beduin’s socially accepted ways.

Education also plays an important role in the changing attitude toward tradition, because Arab academics are usually less linked to social tradition and the framework of the clan, and live more within the framework of nuclear families (father, mother and children). They also tend to move to more open areas, such as mixed cities like Acre, Ramle and Lod, and even to Jewish cities such as Beersheba, Karmiel and Upper Nazareth, where they adopt a modern lifestyle.

The shift to the city is also connected to a change in the source of livelihood. There are more in the independent professions and fewer in agriculture – a change due partly to the confiscation of the lands of absentees after the War of Independence.

BEYOND THE religious dividing line that differentiates Jews and non-Jews, another basic division exists between the country’s Jewish and Arab sectors in their general approach to the state.

For most of the groups within the Jewish sector, the State of Israel fulfills two roles. One is the political and governmental embodiment of the Jews’ aspirations to return to themselves and to regain the independence and sovereignty over the land of their fathers that was stolen from them after the Second Temple’s destruction.

The symbols of the state are Jewish: the national anthem, which includes the words “the Jewish soul yearns”; the flag, which represents the prayer shawl; the Star of David; and the seven-branched menorah. Hebrew is the official language of the state, and on Jewish holidays, the governmental institutions are closed.

The second role of the state in the eyes of most Jews is functional: to provide its citizens with security, employ- ment, livelihood, health, education, roads, bridges and social services.

For the Arab sector, the first role does not exist. The State of Israel is not the embodiment of their diplomatic and political dreams. The national anthem is not their hymn, the symbols of the state are not their symbols, and our Independence Day is their Nakba (disaster). The second role as well, the functional, is only partly fulfilled in matters of education, planning, roads and infrastructure. One may argue about the causes and reasons, but the facts are clear: How many Arab members are there on government companies’ boards of directors? How may Arab judges are there in the High Court? What is the proportion of Arabs in the academic staff of universities? That said, one cannot ignore the phenomenon of reverse discrimination, either. Laws of planning and building that are observed almost fully within the Jewish sector are very loosely observed within the Arab sector, especially in the Beduin sector in the Negev. How many thousands of buildings have gone up in the Negev without building permits, on land that does not belong to Beduin? How is it that there are no sidewalks in Umm el-Fahm, and the distance between the buildings is about the width of the cars? Another example of reverse discrimination exists in the area of marriage. If a Jew dares to marry a woman before he has completed the process of divorce from his present wife, he will find himself behind bars. But if an Arab mar- ries a second, third or fourth wife, the state pays a monthly children’s allowance for each wife separately and without asking too many questions.

Another case of discrimination in favor of Arabs exists in the area of housing. About 90 percent of the Jewish sector lives in apartments, and about 10% in private houses. In the Arab sector the picture is the reverse.

But the characteristic that most unites the country’s Arab sector is the environment in which they live. All the Arabs in the world live in one of two situations: in dicta- torships in their homeland, or in dictatorships in the diaspora. There is almost no Arab community that has lived in its homeland for dozens of years in a truly democratic state. The Arab citizens of Israel are the only Arab group that lives on its land (especially if you ignore the lands from which they originated) in a democratic regime that honors human rights and political freedoms. This is the reason Arabs outside Israel envy Israel’s Arab citizens and call them “ Arab al-Zibda ” – “butter Arabs.”

Why does the world target Israel?

All of us that are involved in advocating for Israel ask ourselves this question. Kasim Hafeez is an interesting character - see a biography at the end of the article below.
This op-ed states that by singling out Israel, human rights activists abandon those who really suffer from apartheid

Kasim Hafeez

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4347381,00.html 

Genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid; if you've ever had the pleasure of speaking with some of the more zealous haters of Israel you'll hear these phrases at some point, normally yelled at you by a delightful middle class keffiyeh-wearing student.

I guess to some extent, sadly, we have become slightly accustomed to these libels. The hypocrisy of those claiming to be pro-Palestinian and champions of human rights and their obsessive hatred of Israel has led to the abandonment of those who suffer true apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Detractors will undoubtedly be quick to ask why supporters of Israel point to other regimes to exonerate Israel. But this is not really what I'm doing. Israel needs no exoneration as, fortunately, Israelis are able to protest, challenge and choose their governments. That's democracy folks. But, just for the sake of argument, let us say all the malicious lies have some truth to them. Still the question remains: Why is Israel singled out for protests and global marches lauded by the 'enlightened' regimes in Tehran and Damascus, yet some of the world's human rights catastrophes carry on daily, completely ignored, by the same holier than thou activists?

For me, a particular source of pain and anger is the situation of minorities and women in my parents' homeland. In Pakistan, not a week goes by without a story of rape, murder, humiliation and torture. In this Islamic country, terms such as Jesus Christ are banned in text messages and a young girl is shot for demanding basic education. Yet apart from the attempted murder of Malala Yusufzai, these stories rarely make it to the press. The brutally oppressed Christian minority suffers at the hands of an archaic blasphemy law, yet, apart from small-scale protests held by Pakistani Christian groups, there were no calls to boycott Pakistan and no flotillas were planned. I guess murdered Pakistani Christians maybe not a trendy enough cause. I wonder if a British newspaper would publish a cartoon of a Pakistani mullah murdering minorities to pave the way for a Sharia state. Our journalists love freedom and liberty, but the love their lives a little bit more.

Obsessed with destruction of Israel

The House of Saud promotes religious apartheid, destroys history and spreads wahhabism, yet the world remains silent. Maybe the cause isn't cool enough. Or maybe we should just allow people to suffer and dismiss it as a cultural phenomenon; maybe we should say this is how things are in that part of the world and focus on the need to stop 'apartheid Israel,' which just elected another Knesset member of Ethiopian descent.

Remember when a handful of Darfur nationals and real human rights activists protested outside the UN Human Rights Commission against the atrocities in the region? Well, the instigator of the ethnic cleansing, Sudan, sat on the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Once again, so many of our activists remained silent because Israel was not involved. It is interesting to note that some of Israel's fiercest enemies like Syria, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain dismissed the UN report on Darfur, penned by Nobel laureate Jody Wolfe, and acted to protect Sudan at the UN.

Why are the self-appointed defenders of Palestinian rights silent while Palestinians are being massacred in Syria by Assad's regime? And why do they remain silent when a Palestinian girl is murdered in the name of honor? Where were they when Hamas fired rockets from inside a school in Gaza? Oh, I forgot, they were outside the nearest Israeli embassy chanting slogans in support of Hamas.

I know there are many people who genuinely care about Palestinians and want to see them live in peace with their neighbors, but there are too many modern-day Jean-Paul Marats who are full of fiery rhetoric and demand blood. People have become obsessed with the destruction of Israel. These people should be ashamed of themselves, emulating the Nazis by urging boycotts of Jewish businesses while murder, rape and humiliation are rampant in so many nations. Real apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing are occurring on our watch, yet these people have become so obsessed with the end of Zionism that the suffering of others had become a side show.

Protest the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia and you'll have my respect. Protesting against an Israeli theater group is pathetic.

Numerous Middle East countries consistently violate human rights, yet the UN vilifies Israel. Is it just me or is something deeply wrong with our moral compass?

Kasim Hafeez was born in a British Muslim household of Pakistani origin. As a result of the constant indoctrination at home and in his circle of friends, he became both anti-Israeli and antisemitic. After reading Alan Dershowitz's 'The Case for Israel' in 2007, he began to doubt his own beliefs, researched the issue and visited Israel. After his return to the UK, he became convinced that he had to take a stand by speaking out about Israel and against Islamist radicalization.

A Christian Holocaust in our time – is it possible?

Howard Stern, Mediator and Negotiator.
hstern@amadeus-mediators.eu

The short answer is yes. One only has to consider the Egyptian Copts facing genocidal threats from the Moslem Brotherhood should they oppose the new government’s Sharia constitution to see the potential: a regime we helped bring to power!

So I must ask why the West is funding the systematic persecution, torture and discrimination of Christians, demonstrated well by Egypt having just been awarded $6.4 billion in “aid” by the EU. My concerns are echoed by Dutch novelist Leon de Winter, who recently stated that “offering aid to Egypt is the same as giving billions to Nazi Germany.” Many observers have commented on how the Arab Spring has become a Christian Winter. The Open Doors charity recently published its world watch list of nations who persecute torture and violate the rights of Christians. "Islamic extremism is the prime persecutor of Christians in the world today," said Ron Boyd-MacMillan, Open Doors' chief strategy officer, at a Washington D.C. news conference. Among 24 of the leading 30 persecuting countries, "it is Islamic extremists, either in government or in violent opposition forces, that are the source of the persecution," he said. The list of 50 countries -- which have a total Christian population of nearly 530 million, may be accessed online at: http://www.worldwatchlist.us/.

Travelling regularly to Israel and the Palestinian territory I have noticed a disturbing trend over last eighteen months in which the rights of Holy Land Christians are being systematically eroded, with threats and discrimination by radical Islamists commonplace. Palestinian Christians say to me, in the privacy of their own homes, that they now regard Israel’s occupation of the disputed territory as their only protection. The Palestinian Territories rate 36/50 in the Open Doors watch list.

Notably, Israel is the only nation in the middle-east where Christianity is actually growing. This Christmas some 600 of the remaining 1500 Palestinian Christians in Gaza were issued permits by Israel to travel to Jerusalem and the West Bank. Many are seeking refuge in Israel stating they feel unsafe living among their Moslem neighbours. The Holy Land Christians are worried for their future. One Bethlehem Pastor I know well, whose identity cannot be disclosed, stated, “we think we have only five to seven years left and then there will be no more Christians in Bethlehem.” Once the City of David and long-time Christian stronghold, Bethlehem’s Christian population has declined from 85% to 9% and is now a Moslem city.

As with the funding of Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood, I question why the EU and US fund the Palestinian Authority to the tune of $2.5billion (2010-11) when human right violations take place widely in their territory. While the West contributes vast amounts of money to prop up and embolden such regimes; pogroms, persecution and genocidal threats will continue against Christians. Worse still is the considerable amount of weaponry, munitions and military hardware flowing from the US and Europe to the region - in addition to our taxpayer’s money – weapons used against our own Christian family.

In many nations such as Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria and Syria, churches have been bombed and set on fire, homes ransacked, children terrorized. Men are dragged through the streets and killed. Women are abducted, raped and forcibly converted to Islam. Khaled Mashaal, a Hamas leader in Gaza, recently called on all Moslems and Christians to live as partners in a freed Palestine, whilst ignoring the methodical persecution of Christians throughout Africa, the Middle-East and Palestine.

I believe if action is not taken to halt the supply of arms and money to these regimes then the lives of many millions of Christians remain at risk. So what can be done? The Dutch novelist, de Winter, is withholding part of his tax. We Christians can’t do this for we must “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” But what we can do is lobby our MPs and MEPs to demand the cessation of funding and arms supplies to corrupt and violent regimes. I am well aware of the hurt and pain caused by the silence of the church in the Jewish Holocaust: my concern now is that history is repeating itself with the church appearing silent once again in the face of a second holocaust - of its own people.

Christian Arab Youth Come Under Fire over Desire to Enlist in IDF

Danny Brenner - Yisrael Hayom



The Arab media is waging an unrestrained and vicious campaign against a small group of Christian Arab youth who wish to serve in the Israel Defense Forces.

Two weeks ago, a conference was held at an Upper Nazareth community center for 121 Christian 11th and 12th grade high school students, all residents of Nazareth, Upper Nazareth, and Arab villages in the Lower Galilee region, who had expressed their desire to enlist in the IDF, even in combat units. Every year, some 50 youths from the Christian Israeli-Arab sector enlist for military duty.

After the conference, some Arabic newspapers and online news sites began a smear campaign against the participants, depicting them as traitors. Journalists wrote articles promising to "take care of them" and hunt them down. The Arab Orthodox local council in Nazareth announced that priest Jobrail Nadaf, who took part in the event and supports IDF enlistment among Christian Arab-Israeli youth, had been suspended from his duties as priest and excommunicated from his church for "cooperating with the enemy."

The Israel Defense Ministry said in a statement that it "will not accept that people who work to promote this issue come under threat or attack, and it will act to grant the greatest possible aid and support to all those being threatened."

Christians in the Gaza Strip

Mistreatment and Allegations of Forced Conversions

The situation of the tiny Christian community of the Gaza Strip, which reportedly (AP) comprises 1,500 members residing amongst 1.5 million Muslims, is precarious at best. Living in a territory ruled by Hamas, a Muslim fundamentalist terrorist organization, Christians are being subjected to mistreatment, while reports of forced conversions to Islam continue to surface.


Ever since Hamas seized Gaza from the secular Fatah movement, Christian residents of the Strip have feared for their lives, appealing to the international community to protect them from attacks by Islamist extremists. One year after the Hamas 2006 takeover, Rami Khader Ayyad, the owner of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore, was kidnapped, brutally beaten and murdered. Christian schools, shops and a church have been firebombed and looted, while individual Christians have been harassed and robbed.


These acts and others have apparently led Christians to flee Gaza. AP reported (July 17) that since Hamas took over in 2006, the number of Christians in Gaza has decreased from 3,500 to 1,500. Those left feel threatened but prefer to keep silent about the way they are treated.


Following are a number of recent reports regarding forced conversions of Christians to Islam:


• Palestinian media reported that scores of Christians held a sit-down strike (16 July) at the Elrom Orthodox Church in Gaza City to protest the kidnapping of a young man and two young women, and the attempt to forcibly convert them to Islam.


• Bishop Alkesius, head of the Orthodox community in the Gaza Strip, claimed that Ramez Alamash, a 24-year-old Christian resident of Gaza, was kidnapped by Muslims on Saturday, 14 July. According to the bishop, the kidnappers are demanding that he convert to Islam. They are holding him in a refugee camp, either Almaghazi or Alborj. He added that the young man’s mother went to the police to submit a complaint, but nothing was done because the leader of that group of Muslims is Dr. Salem Salame, who represents Hamas in the Palestinian Legislative Council and is also the Chair of the Association of Religious Sages of Palestine in the Gaza Strip. The Bishop noted that the mother didn’t feel well and was taken to Shifa Hospital in Gaza, where she had contact with the kidnappers, who brought her son to the hospital under heavy guard. However, they refused to let him return home.


The Bishop appealed to all the official entities in Gaza to put an end to the kidnapping of Christians by armed Islamic groups, who (according to the bishop) drug the Christians and demand that they convert.


• The Public Relations office of the Orthodox Church reported that on July 11 a woman and three girls were kidnapped from their home. The Church appealed to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Heniya. In its press release, the Church noted that the police refused to intervene in the Ramez kidnapping (above) because an Islamic religious figure (Salame) was involved. The Church concluded that no one is safe and that the law cannot protect Christians, and holds the Hamas government and senior officials responsible.