"Price tag" vandals target Latrun Monastery in Israel

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Vandals desecrate Latrun Monastery

Door of Christian holy site torched; 'Jesus is a monkey', names of West Bank outposts spray-painted on walls. 'Whoever did this has no God,' says monastery guard. Police launch investigation

Vandals set fire to the entrance door of the Latrun Monastery early Tuesday and spray-painted slogans against the Christian religion on its walls, including names of West Bank outposts and "Jesus is a monkey".

Names of outposts on monastery's walls (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

The Jerusalem District Police launched an investigation into the incident.

The monastery's wooden door caught fire. The abbot, Father Louie, told Ynet: "At around 3:30 am, a monk sleeping in one of the guest rooms heard a noise, went outside and saw the door burning. He entered our rooms and began shouting and waking us up.

"I went outside and saw the entire door on fire. He put out the fire with an extinguisher we had. If he hadn't done that, everything would have caught fire."

...

"I know there is some tension, but I don't understand why it has to do with us," said Father Louie. "We're Christians and we have nothing to do with it. We try to do everything with love. We are saddened by this incident. It's a shame that some people are unwilling to live with and accept people who are different."

...

The police have been preparing for "price tag" actions by extreme right-wing activists, which are usually directed at Palestinians, following the evacuation of the West Bank outpost of Migron in recent days.

The targeting of a Christian symbol has the potential of making waves in the Western world, which is widely covering the situation in Jerusalem and its surroundings.

This isn't the first time a Christian site has been the target of such an operation. In February, vandals daubed "Death to Christianity" on a Jerusalem church and slashed the tires of three vehicles parked nearby.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4276802,00.html

A Trappist monk stands between graffiti reading in Hebrew, "Jesus is a monkey" ( L) and "mutual solidarity, Ramat Migron and Maoz Ester" (Photo: AFP/Menahem Kahana)

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

If illegal Israeli settlers are indeed behind these "price tag" attacks on Christians in Israel, it seems they may qualify as "terror" under the U.S. State Department's new guidelines (which just this year defined "price tag" attacks carried out by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank as "acts of terror.")

[Darnell 8,478]

Is it legal to be a Christian in Palestine?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Is it legal to be a Christian in Palestine?

Of course. Did you not know that there are Christian Palestinians ?

[Darnell 8,478]

Actually, I knew they were there. I was asking if'n it was LEGAL ... Happy Wednesday !

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Actually, I knew they were there. I was asking if'n it was LEGAL ... Happy Wednesday !

Of course it is LEGAL. Why would it not be legal ? Christian Palestinians have lived in Palestine since the beginning of Christianity.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Palestinian Christians have lived in Palestine since the time of Jesus. Most of them were Palestinian Jews who converted to the new religion. As time passed, Christianity spread, and over the next few centuries, the majority of Palestinians became Christians, although small communities of Palestinian Jews remained.

After the spread of Islam beginning in the 7th and 8th centuries, most Palestinians eventually became Muslims, although some communities of Christian Palestinians, as well as a smaller number of Jewish Palestinians, remained. Bethlehem and Nazareth are some of the better-known "Christian towns" in the West Bank and Israel today; there are also smaller communities in the West Bank and Gaza. Most of the major Christian holy sites are located in the West Bank.

Some notable Palestinian Christians are:

George Habash (founder of the PFLP, or Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine)

Hanan Ashrawi (politician and scholar, former spokesperson for Yasser Arafat)

Edward Said (scholar, academic, literary theoretician, and political activist)

Huwaida Arraf (co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement)

There are many, many more (including some names that may be surprising, such as Benny Hinn.)

However, the number of Palestinian Christians living in historic Palestine has dramatically fallen over the last 7 decades. Many Palestinian Christians, along with Palestinian Muslims, were driven out during the creation of Israel in 1948, and their families live in the diaspora today.

But (back to the OP) this particular monastery is in Israel (it's west of the Green Line.)

Edited September 5, 2012 by wife_of_mahmoud