Obama to visit Bethlehem

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Obama to visit Bethlehem (any chance of Pope Benedict’s photo opp?)

Haaretz reports The Church of the Nativity has been added to Obama's itinerary on the Palestine portion of his trip to the region.

Haaretz:

Obama is expected during his trip to pay a visit to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on Friday, March 22, members of his delegation told Israeli government ministry representatives on Monday.

According to a high-ranking Israeli official, that stop was added to his itinerary only in the past few days. UNESCO recognized the Church of the Nativity as a Palestinian World Heritage Site in June 2012, several months after Palestine became a full-fledged member of the organization.

What they don't say and what is significant; U.S. congress pulled funding for UNESCO the day after Palestine became its 195th full member on October 31. 2011:

Cheers filled the hall at Unesco’s headquarters here after the vote, with one delegate shouting, “Long live Palestine!” in French.

Defying a mandated cutoff of American funds cost UNESCO 22% of it's budget, around 70 million dollars. This is a very telling decision by President Obama, who sought a waiver that would allow the U.S. to continue supporting UNESCO. And the US, along with Israel, is on record as opposing UNESCO's decision to grant the Church of the Nativity world heritage status.

...

Will Obama visit reprise the amazing optics of Pope Benedict's visit four years ago? From the Times:

Just yards from the barrier separating Israelis and Palestinians, Pope Benedict XVI expressed solidarity on Wednesday with “all the homeless Palestinians who long to be able to return to their birthplace, or live permanently in a homeland of their own.”

It was not the first time the pope had endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state, but the location, with the concrete-and-barbed-wire barrier and a checkpoint towering in the background, was deliberately chosen to strengthen his case. Benedict called the structure, which is loathed by Palestinians but which Israel says is key to its security, “a stark reminder of the stalemate that relations between Israelis and Palestinians seem to have reached.”

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/03/bethlehem-chance-benedicts.html

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Returning to His place of birth? Maybe Obama can find a copy of his birth certificate there. I wonder if God is still a vengeful god?

1

LORD, avenging God,

avenging God, shine forth!

2

Rise up, O judge of the earth;

give the proud what they deserve!

- Psalm 94:1-2

[Karee 4,191]

Defying a mandated cutoff of American funds cost UNESCO 22% of it's budget, around 70 million dollars. This is a very telling decision by President Obama, who sought a waiver that would allow the U.S. to continue supporting UNESCO. And the US, along with Israel, is on record as opposing UNESCO's decision to grant the Church of the Nativity world heritage status.

...

Will Obama visit reprise the amazing optics of Pope Benedict's visit four years ago? From the Times:

http://mondoweiss.ne...-benedicts.html

I wonder if they built that wall with out of work construction crews from the former East Germany? The craftsmanship looks somewhat familiar.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I wonder if they built that wall with out of work construction crews from the former East Germany? The craftsmanship looks somewhat familiar.

Concrete tilt-ups -- pretty standard stuff. Cast a slab on site, then lift it up with a crane to put in place.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

[Karee 4,191]

I suppose building walls to restrict freedoms has come a long way since the 60s.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

A few facts about Bethlehem that some may not know:

Bethlehem is a Palestinian city located in the West Bank, not far from Jerusalem. It has a population of about 25,000, of whom about 40% are Christian, and 60% Muslim. The city was more predominantly Christian in the past - in 1948, about 85% of the population was Christian, but there has been a steady decrease since then, especially since 1967.

According to Bethlehem's municipal law, the mayor and a majority of the city council seats are reserved for Christians; the rest are not restricted to a certain religion. The current mayor is a woman. She's a member of Fatah and she is the first female to be elected mayor of Bethlehem. All Palestinian parties are represented in Bethlehem (including Hamas.)

Bethlehem's main industry is tourism, and much of the tourist infrastructure there - hotels, restaurants, gift shops, etc. - is owned and operated by the Christian community.

However, tourism has been devastated by the violence of Israel's occupation and violent Palestinian resistance against it. And the endless restrictions and closures and other disruptions imposed by Israeli occupation forces have progressively made daily life harder and harder for the population, and this has driven many Christians to emigrate over the last 40-some years.

The Wall now cuts off Bethlehem from Jerusalem, and just about all entrances to the city are controlled by Israeli checkpoints and road blocks.

Here's a map where you can see exactly what's going on. This is the Palestinian West Bank, with illegal Israeli settlements marked in dark blue (areas in light blue have already been seized by the Israeli army from their Palestinian owners and already designated for expanding illegal settlements.) The areas in dark brown are Palestinian cities, towns, and villages.

The Wall is shown in red, snaking through the north and west sides of Bethlehem, cutting the city off from the smaller Palestinian villages to the north and west which are within its governate and economic zone. This is the mechanism by which Israel effectively annexes Palestinian territory, chunk by chunk. First have the army go in and seize some property, then move settlers in, then seize even more property to build exclusive Israeli-only roads to connect the illegal settlements to each other and to Israel "proper." When the illegal colony gets big enough, Israel starts building a wall around it and its connector roads, physically separating it from neighboring Palestinian cities.

Any Palestinian villagers who have the misfortune to be caught behind the wall will be subjected to increasingly stringent closures, and Israel's noose will be gradually but inexorably tightened around their necks, until they can no longer get to their fields to tend their crops, or get to their businesses or schools or hospitals, or anywhere at all - until they're forced to either leave or starve to death. Presto - ethnically-cleansed land, which can then be conveniently annexed by Israel without the risk of absorbing any of the undesired native population.

The plan is for that blue blob to soon be expanding eastward - to Tekoa' and Nokdim and beyond. And The Wall is to follow...

This same process is being repeated all over the West Bank. And Obama knows it.

Edited March 12, 2013 by wife_of_mahmoud

[OriZ 3,157]

The pilgrims will be there as midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity is again broadcast live around the world this Christmas Eve -- but the town of Bethlehem is fast losing its last few year-round Christian residents.

Christians are fleeing the town of Christ's birth, and the much-reported hardship that Israel inflicts on residents of the West Bank town has little to do with it. It's the same reality across the Arab world: rising Islamism pushes non-Muslims away.

Islamists frown on real-estate ownership by non-Muslims -- Christian, Jew or anything else. And though the secular Palestinian Authority still controls the West Bank, the clout of groups like Hamas is growing: Even in Bethlehem, where followers of history's most famous baby once thrived, Christians are ceding the land.

UPIArab Christians lighting candles at the Church of the Nativity. Yes, ever since the PA took control of the West Bank in the early '90s, its leaders have taken care to show the world an idealized picture of Muslim-Christian solidarity. But it's a facade -- a way to score anti-Israeli political points.

That tradition continues: Monday, the Palestinian news agency Maan reported on Palestinian Christians "trapped" in Gaza as Israel refuses to let them travel to Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas with their brethren.

In fact, the Israelis decline to let people travel from Hamas-controlled Gaza for the simple reason that Hamas is still sponsoring suicide-bomb and other attacks on its civilians. (It also threatens the secularists of Fatah, the ruling party in the West Bank.) Gaza residents can't go to Egypt, either (Cairo's even building a wall to keep them out), because Hamas and its parent, the Muslim Brotherhood, threaten the regime.

Back to the exodus: Fifty years ago, Christians made up 70 percent of Bethlehem's population; today, about 15 percent.

Indeed, the Christian population of the entire West Bank -- mostly Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic, with Copts, Russian Orthodox, Armenians and others -- is dwindling.

But, again, the story's the same in Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere in the Mideast. Practically the only place in the region where the Christian population is growing is in Israel.

In Bethlehem, Christians now feel besieged. Growing numbers of rural southern West Bankers from the Hebron area have moved north to Bethlehem in recent years. Many see the land as Waqf -- belonging to the Muslim nation. They increasingly buy or confiscate land -- and talk of laws to ban Christian landownership.

Seeing the trend, many Christians have decided to sell while they still can; real estate is leaving families that have owned it for generations.

Then, too, the Christians of the West Bank have traditionally been wealthier and better educated than the Muslims. When Jordan ruled the area from 1948 and 1967, Christians could get permits to travel abroad -- and emigration became part of the tradition.

Now, having relatives abroad means a chance to escape. There are frequent attacks on Christian cemeteries and churches; Christian-owned businesses are often defaced -- and government jobs have grown scarce for non-Muslims.

For all of the late Yasser Arafat's respectful talk about Christianity and its common purpose with Islam, the West Bank Christian population (not counting Jerusalem) dropped under his rule by nearly 30 percent, from 35,000 in 1997 to 25,000 in 2002. It's even lower now -- less than 8 percent of the population.

Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh wrote recently that, before Pope Benedict visited the Holy Land in May, a Christian merchant told him jokingly, "The next time a pope comes to visit . . . he will have to bring his own priest with him [to] pray in a church because most Christians would have left by then."

A researcher of Arab and Muslim affairs, Jonathan Dahoah Halevy, says Islamists think that "soft" Christians around the world wouldn't intervene on behalf of their brethren in places like Bethlehem. Benedict's visit seems to bear that out: He criticized Israeli policies while ignoring the crucial role Islamists play in chasing Christians out of town.

So there may or may not be room at the inn when you arrive at the little town of Bethlehem, but the innkeeper is unlikely to be a Christian

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/bethlehem_exodus_jH6iVNuarsPLBceXPzHO6I

[OriZ 3,157]

The Palestinian Authority, like many authoritarian dictatorships, has gone out of its way to prevent the world from learning critical facts that reflect negatively upon the Palestinian Authority leadership, such as the PA’s atrocious human rights record. This is why the Palestinian Authority has had no qualms about threatening western journalists into reporting the political situation in Judea and Samaria as they would like it to be reported. For example, a western journalist who wanted to do an investigative report on the murder of Israeli Arab actor Julian Mar Khamis was warned by Palestinian security officials that she would be putting her life at risk if she proceeded with the story.

Furthermore, unlike the press within democratic countries like Israel, the Palestinian media does not feel beholden to tell the truth, instead serving as a mouthpiece for the regime. Indeed, one of the first things that the Palestinian Authority did after it was established was to torch Palestinian media offices and to arrest and beat up Palestinian journalists. The PA then proceeded to select editors who agreed solely with their ideology and to shut down opposing newspapers. The PA has continued to date to arrest bloggers and journalists who are critical of corruption within the Palestinian Authority. As Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, who works for the Jerusalem Post, asserted; “The irony is that, as an Arab Muslim, I feel freer to write for this Jewish paper than I do for any Arab newspaper.”

Fatima Baradiya, a young Palestinian woman, was murdered by her uncle for getting engaged to a man that he didn’t approve of.

Israeli attorney Caleb Meyers has asserted, “The greatest abusers of Palestinian human rights are not the Israeli government or the soldiers at the checkpoints or the Israeli settlers in the disputed territories. But it’s the Palestinian Authority itself.” Aside from mentioning the persecution of Palestinian dissidents, he declared that Palestinian women have been slaughtered in honor crimes, which have been on the upsurge in recent years, and Palestinian Christians are persecuted for their faith.

Indeed, despite recent amendments to the laws in the PA related to honor crimes, attorney Salwa Banura claimed that the new law encouraged rather than decreased honor crimes since mitigating circumstances are still accepted by the courts. She claimed that as a result, men who murder relatives in honor crimes can end up only serving three months in prison. Furthermore, according to the Arab Organization for Human Rights, the PA also systematically tortures Palestinians. Their report on the subject claims that 60% of the people detained by the Palestinian Authority now suffer from chronic diseases due to the torture and poor conditions under which they were detained.

However, the plight of Palestinian Christians is especially dire. Out of 600 Palestinian Christians from Gaza who had arrived in Judea and Samaria to celebrate Christmas, dozens have requested to relocate to Israel because living under either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority is unbearable for them. Dozens of Christian families in East Jerusalem have also relocated to Jewish neighborhoods, preferring not to live nextdoor to Palestinian Muslims. These sentiments are understandable if one examines the plight of Christians who are currently living under Palestinian Authority control.

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

According to a study conducted by Dr. Justus Reid Weiner of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, violence against Christian women living in Judea and Samaria and Gaza was rare before the Palestinian Authority took over, but the situation has drastically changed since Oslo. According to Weiner, “The abuse of Palestinian Christian women extends well beyond verbal harassment and intimidation. The widespread occurrence of rape by Muslim men against Christian women exemplifies perhaps the most blatant denial of basic human rights as a result of religious identity.” He spoke with one Palestinian Christian girl, who claimed that Muslim Palestinian men often rape Christian girls in order to make them undesirable for Christian men. She asserted, “She can’t get married at all, after that.”

Rev. Bill Harter, who visited areas under Palestinian Authority control in order to investigate the plight of Palestinian Christians, reported that the Christians who are presently living under Palestinian control expressed many fears. In addition to being raped, Palestinian Christians can be murdered, robbed, physically assaulted, and have their women abducted and forcefully converted to Islam, without the PA doing much to help them. Thus, it is quite telling that Bethlehem, which used to be a Christian city, now has a Muslim majority since many Palestinian Christians are fleeing from their ancestral homeland in droves due to the PA’s inability or lack of desire to protect them from such abuses. In fact, Israel is the one place in the Middle East where the Christian community isn’t dying off.

http://unitedwithisrael.org/palestinian-authority-regularly-abuses-human-rights-of-palestinian-arabs/

[OriZ 3,157]

Look, call me crazy but I think the solution to this is much more simple than the leaders on both sides make it. If I were Obama this is what I'd be coming with and I'd be conditioning any further financial support to either party upon acceptance of this plan.

*The agreement will end all conflicts between Israel and Palestine.

*Israel will withdraw from the west bank except for the major settlement bloc, all isolated settlements will be evacuated.

*In return for keeping the settlement bloc, the territory swap given to the Palestinians will be equivelent to 110% of the territory.

*The Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem will be the Palestinian capital and the Jewish neighborhoods will remain part of Israel. The holy basin will be internationally managed.

*The Guarantors of the whole agreement as well as combined control over the holy basin will include Israel, Palestine, the U.S., The E.U. and the U.N.

*There will be no right of return into Israel. However, Israel will be responsible for 50% of the compensation. The Palestinians will be responsible for the other 50%. The Guarantors may help finance it as well(say, 50% of Israel's 50% and 50% of Palestine's 50%) if they so wish.

*Palestine will be allowed to have a military force. However, the guarantors guarantee that any hostile move on either side will have them step in militarily if need be, and/or stop financial and other aid.

And they lived happily ever after.....

[^_^ 5,021]

"internationally managed"?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/bethlehem_exodus_jH6iVNuarsPLBceXPzHO6I

Your New York Post hasbarist says a whole lot of clueless and stupid stuff in that article, but one of the most remarkably stupid is his claim that the population of Christians is "growing in Israel." He completely ignores the fact that 80% of the Christians who used to live in what is now Israel were ethnically cleansed from what is now Israel by Zionist militias and later the Israeli army, and are to this day refused the right to return to their homes.

So yeah, there'd be a LOT more Christians in Israel. Except Israel bars them from returning.

The rest is junk and it ignores what actual Christian Palestinians themselves say. I've already linked you to the Kairos document and others, which you also totally ignore. Instead, you'd rather listen to non-Christian Israeli Zionist hasbarists speak for them.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

http://unitedwithisrael.org/palestinian-authority-regularly-abuses-human-rights-of-palestinian-arabs/

To repeat: "United With Israel" articles go into the rubbish bin. Come up with something reputable.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Look, call me crazy but I think the solution to this is much more simple than the leaders on both sides make it. If I were Obama this is what I'd be coming with and I'd be conditioning any further financial support to either party upon acceptance of this plan.

*The agreement will end all conflicts between Israel and Palestine.

*Israel will withdraw from the west bank except for the major settlement bloc, all isolated settlements will be evacuated.

*In return for keeping the settlement bloc, the territory swap given to the Palestinians will be equivelent to 110% of the territory.

*The Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem will be the Palestinian capital and the Jewish neighborhoods will remain part of Israel. The holy basin will be internationally managed.

*The Guarantors of the whole agreement as well as combined control over the holy basin will include Israel, Palestine, the U.S., The E.U. and the U.N.

*There will be no right of return into Israel. However, Israel will be responsible for 50% of the compensation. The Palestinians will be responsible for the other 50%. The Guarantors may help finance it as well(say, 50% of Israel's 50% and 50% of Palestine's 50%) if they so wish.

*Palestine will be allowed to have a military force. However, the guarantors guarantee that any hostile move on either side will have them step in militarily if need be, and/or stop financial and other aid.

And they lived happily ever after.....

Most of this plan (apart from the ideas about the international managers) is actually pretty close to what the PA already agreed to, several times over. It's your government that absolutely refuses to let go of East Jerusalem, while simultaneously expanding the illegal settlements that it insists it will keep. It also refuses to consider allowing any Palestinian military force, other than internal security which would be subject to the Israeli military and Israeli police. This has basically been the problem since Oslo.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Catholics walk in prayer and protest against The Wall in Bethlehem: