Earlier this week I pointed out the annual Christmas tradition of distortions by my “colleagues” in the media, who descend upon Bethlehem to ignore rampant Muslim intimidation of Christians and instead blast Israel – often with completely inaccurate information – for ruining Bethlehem’s Christmas and for the drastic decline of Christianity in one of the holiest cities for that religion.
I highlighted well-circulated articles the past few days that paint misleading pictures of life in Bethlehem, disseminate discredited anti-Israel Palestinian propaganda as fact and fail to tell readers one of the main reasons Christians are fleeing.
Now an opinion piece published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal has taken the cake as the most defamatory piece of disinformation written about Bethlehem this season.
Titled “The Plight of Bethlehem: Why Christians can’t visit the holy shrines in Jerusalem,” Newsweek editor and contributing Journal writer Kenneth L. Woodward starts off by stating Israel has been barring Bethlehem’s Palestinian Christians from visiting holy shrines in neighboring Jerusalem during this month’s holiday.
“Israel’s security wall, its restrictive exit permit system, roadblocks and military checkpoints now make it impossible for most Holy Land Christians to visit the shrines that, for all Christians, make the Holy Land holy,” begins Woodward.
“Temporary exit visas to go from one to the other to worship – or see a doctor or even visit relatives – are hard to come by, of brief duration even when granted, and always subject to the whims of Israeli soldiers,” Woodward states.
This is false.
As was widely reported last week, the Israeli government granted 8,000 Christian Palestinians from Bethlehem special travel permits to visit family or nearby holy shrines over the holiday – amounting to Israeli permits for the vast majority of Bethlehem’s Christians. Israel also gave 42 Palestinian tour guides special permission to lead groups of Palestinian Christians from Bethlehem on religious pilgrimage tours, including to Jerusalem churches.
Woodward continues by admitting he hasn’t visited Bethlehem in seven years so I don’t know why the Journal deems him qualified to publish such a piece.
He states Israeli isolation of Bethlehem strangled the cities economy and laments foreign tourists visiting Bethlehem are afraid to walk around but doesn’t tell us why.
“When buses do arrive, tourists are routinely whisked in and out without time to shop,” he states.
As someone who travels to Bethlehem regularly, including twice this week alone, I can attest to the poor security situation there which is prompting most tourists to get in and out as quickly as possible.
What Woodward fails to tell readers is that Israel doesn’t control Bethlehem. Palestinians security forces do. They are responsible for the current state of anarchy in the holy city.
The Jewish state evacuated Bethlehem in 1995 as part of the U.S.-brokered Oslo Accords which handed strategic territory to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. As soon as Arafat got his grimy hands on it, terrorist groups, including Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas, set up shop in Bethlehem and formed one of the most active terror infrastructures in the West Bank.
Muslim terrorists roam freely in Bethlehem under Palestinian control. Last year I visited Bethlehem’s main shopping area with U.S. radio host Rusty Humphries when suddenly hundreds of armed, mostly masked Fatah gunmen stormed the streets outside the Church of the Nativity, the believed birthplace of Jesus, firing their rifles in the air after the city’s Al Aqsa Brigades leader, Raid Abiat, was killed when he shot at Israeli soldiers.
Later that day, Humphries and I conducted a radio interview with the newly appointed Brigades commander in Bethlehem, Abu Philistine, who also walked around the city quite openly.
Woodward soon gets to the crux of his article, blasting Israel for a “concrete wall” he claims has devastated Bethlehem’s Christian population.
“For example, the wall is being completed around Beit Jala, separating this Christian village from 70% of its lands, which are mostly owned by Christian families. … In Bethlehem itself, the wall severs the city from nearly three-fourths of its western villages’ remaining agricultural lands, as well as water resources that have served the region since Roman times.”
If Woodward had bothered to actually visit Bethlehem since construction began on Israel’s barrier in 2002 he would know he is completely wrong about the information he presented to Journal readers.
No wall encircles Bethlehem or Beit Jala. Israel started building a fence five years ago in the area where northern Bethlehem interfaces with Jerusalem. A tiny segment of that barrier, facing a major Israeli roadway, is a concrete wall that Israel says is meant to prevent gunmen from shooting at Israeli motorists.
The fence was constructed after the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada, or terror war, launched after Arafat in 2000 turned down an Israeli offer of a Palestinian state, returning to the Middle East to liberate Palestine with violence.
Scores of deadly suicide bombings and shooting attacks against Israelis were planned in Bethlehem and carried out by Bethlehem-area terrorists.
At one point during the period of just 30 days in 2002, at least 14 shootings were perpetuated by Bethlehem cells of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorists, killing two Israelis and wounding six.
Many times Muslim gunmen in the Bethlehem area reportedly took positions in civilian homes in the hilltops of Christian Beit Jala, which straddles Bethlehem. Beit Jala afforded the terrorists a clear firing line at southern sections of Jerusalem and at a major Israeli highway down below, drawing Israeli military raids and the eventual building of the security barrier there which Woodward now laments. Again, contrary to his claims, only the portion of the barrier that borders a highway is a concrete wall.
Is this barrier prompting Bethlehem Christians to flee?
Simple demographic facts will answer this question. Israel built the barrier five years ago. But Bethlehem’s Christian population started to decline drastically in 1995, the very year Arafat’s Palestinian Authority took over the holy Christian city in line with the U.S.-backed Oslo Accords.
Bethlehem consisted of upwards of 80 percent Christians when Israel was founded in 1948, but since Arafat took over, the city’s Christian population plummeted to its current 23 percent. And that statistic is considered generous since it includes the satellite towns of Beit Sahour and Beit Jala. Some estimates place Bethlehem’s actual Christian population as low as 12 percent, with hundreds of Christians emigrating per year.
As soon as he took over Bethlehem, Arafat unilaterally fired the city’s Christian politicians and replaced them with Muslim cronies. He appointed a Muslim governor, Muhammed Rashad A-Jabar and changed Bethlehem’s city council, which had nine Christians and two Muslims, reducing the number of Christians councilors to an almost 50-50 split.
Arafat then converted a Greek Orthodox monastery next to the Church of Nativity, the believed birthplace of Jesus, into his official Bethlehem residence.
Suddenly, after the Palestinians gained the territory, reports of Christian intimidation by Muslims began to surface.
Christian leaders and residents told me they regularly face an atmosphere of hostility. They said Palestinian armed groups stir tension by holding militant demonstrations and marches in the streets. They spokes of instances in which Christian shopkeepers’ stores were ransacked and Christian homes attacked.
They said in the past, Palestinian gunmen fired at Israelis from Christian hilltop communities, drawing Israeli anti-terror raids to their towns.
In 2002, dozens of terrorists holed up inside the Church of the Nativity for 39 days while fleeing a massive Israeli anti-terror operation. Israel surrounded the church area but refused to storm the structure. Gunmen inside included wanted senior Hamas, Tanzim and Brigades terrorists reportedly involved in suicide bombings and shooting attacks. More than 200 nuns and priests were trapped in the church after Israeli hostage negotiators failed to secure their release.
But Woodward failed to address any of this in his piece. Incredibly, he even states, “Bethlehem has historically been one place where Muslim-Christian relations have been remarkably friendly.”
Meanwhile Christian leaders tell me the most significant problem facing Christians in Bethlehem is the rampant confiscation of land by Muslim gangs.
“There are many cases where Christians have their land stolen by the [Muslim] mafia,” said Samir Qumsiyeh, a Bethlehem Christian leader and owner of the Beit Sahour-based private Al-Mahd (Nativity) TV station.
“It is a regular phenomenon in Bethlehem. They go to a poor Christian person with a forged power of attorney document, then they say we have papers proving you’re living on our land. If you confront them, many times the Christian is beaten. You can’t do anything about it. The Christian loses, and he runs away,” Qumsiyeh told me, speaking from his hilltop television station during a recent interview.
Qumsiyeh himself said he was targeted by Islamic gangs. He said his home was firebombed after he returned from a trip abroad during which he gave public speeches outlining the plight of Bethlehem’s Christian population.
One Christian Bethlehem resident said her friend recently fled Bethlehem after being accused by Muslims of selling property to Jews, a crime punishable by death in some Palestinian cities. The resident said a good deal of the intimidation comes from gunmen associated with PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization.
A February Jerusalem Post article cited the case of Faud and Georgette Lama, Christian residents of Bethlehem who said their land was stolen by local Muslims and when they tried to do something about it, Faud was beaten by gunmen.
In a complete reversal, though, Woodward outrageously says it is Israel that is stealing Christian land!
Repeating Palestinian propaganda as fact, Woodward tells readers Israel has been confiscating Christian properties to build its “wall” in Beit Jala.
“Some of the families are attempting to contest the confiscations in court, but construction – -and the confiscation – goes on,” he states.
Once again, wrong. Israel does not unilaterally confiscate Christian land. If a proposed route of the security fence impacts Palestinian land, the Palestinian family can and usually does contest the proposed route in court.
Either the family agrees to compensation or the fence changes course. Israel’s Supreme Court has dozens of times altered the route of the barrier in the West Bank so as not to affect Palestinian land, many times changing the fence in a way that compromises Israel’s security, according to Israel Defense Forces estimates.
But Woodward writes, “many Christians in the Holy Land have no legal recourse to this absorption of their lands and property.”
After blasting Israel for most of the piece, Woodward finally in one sentence allows that the Jewish state “must protect its security,” but he fails to mention the Palestinian terrorism that prompted the security barrier in the first place.
The Journal should be ashamed of itself for allowing such defamatory information to be printed on its well-respected pages. It should be compelled to issue an immediate retraction and an apology to the Israeli government and to the persecuted Christians of Bethlehem whose true plight Woodward failed to address.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America is calling on readers to write letters to the Journal or comment by clicking on the “respond to this article” icon on the upper right of Woodward’s shoddy piece.
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