The Holy Land’s Forgotten Few
by Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday:
Archbishop Justin Welby worries about Christians in the Holy Land, but seems mainly concerned with those in Israel.
No doubt they face problems, but these are tiny compared with what they would endure if they lived under the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Some years ago I visited Christian Arabs living in and near Bethlehem. There, for public relations reasons, the PA gives the impression of tolerance towards Christianity, which was established in the region long before Islam.
It is misleading. Christians are powerless and without protection. One young man, lamenting the refusal of Muslim-dominated courts to help in a property dispute, burst out: ‘We are so alone! All of us Christians feel so lonely in this country.’
I was told, in whispers, of the unprintable desecration of the Church of the Nativity by Palestinian gunmen in 2002.
Now Christians are emigrating, and towns that have been Christian for more than 1,000 years are becoming Muslim.
The Archbishop should both pray and act for this unhappy, forgotten and unfashionable minority.
Read here (scroll down)
Read also, by the same author, My Christmas in the Evil Empire – festivities in the shadow of the Kremlin
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