Christian gravestones vandalized by Muslims in West Bank

May 25, 2009

Reuters reports: 

Vandals desecrated some 70 graves in two Palestinian Christian cemeteries on Sunday in what a Palestinian Authority official said was a rare attack on the Christian minority in the occupied West Bank.

Watch how everyone interviewed goes out of their way to stress that this was a rare or isolated incident.

A church official in the village of Jiffna near Ramallah where the attack took place called in Palestinian security officials to investigate, but neither he nor the investigators said they had any initial clues who was responsible.

"This unfortunate incident has brought Muslims and Christians closer and many from the Muslim community have shown solidarity with us and have condemned this action," said Greek Orthodox Church official George Abdo.

Abdo said it was the first time such an incident had occurred in the village.

Issa Kassissieh, a Palestinian Authority official and adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas on Christian affairs, said he believed it was "an isolated act against Christian symbols".

"Palestinian Christians and Muslims have always lived in harmony in the Holy Land," Kassissieh said.

Jiffna, northeast of Ramallah, is home to some 1,600 inhabitants, about two thirds of whom are Christians from the Greek Orthodox and Catholic communities. The Palestinian Authority says 50,000 of the West Bank's 2.5 million Arab population are Christians.

Christians have emigrated from Palestinian territories en masse in the past three decades. The official line is that the Israeli occupation is causing dire economic conditions is forcing them to leave. No mention of Muslim persecution of Christians. They've always lived in harmony. Right.

But the decline of Christian numbers in Bethlehem long pre-dated the building of the security barrier. Scholars note that it even pre-dated Israel’s capture of the West Bank in the 1967 Six Day War. 

Greater Bethlehem, which includes the linked towns of Beit Sahour and Beit Jala, was part of the British mandate of Palestine until 1948, then fell under Jordanian control until June 1967. Israel administered the area until it handed authority to Yasser Arafat’s P.A. in 1995 as a result of the Oslo peace accords.

Israeli political analyst Yoram Ettinger, a former Israeli government liaison to the U.S. Congress, revealed several years ago that in the run-up to the handover to Arafat, former Bethlehem mayor Elias Freij, an Orthodox Christian, lobbied the Israeli government not to transfer Bethlehem, saying it would become a town with churches but empty of Christians. Freij later became a P.A. minister, and died in 1998.

Read more here (http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=48189) and here (http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/pope-in-bethlehem-a-missed-opportunity-aaron-klein-argues-benedict-ignored-murder-persecution-of-christians/).

Israeli Defense Minister: Talk unlikely to halt Iranian nukes

May 25, 2009

Talking to Iran would most likely fail to halt the Islamic regime's nuclear program, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio on Monday. 

"I believe that the chance the dialogue has of stopping Iran's nuclear efforts is very low," Barak told Israel Radio. "I also believe the Americans understand this. They only think that there is logic to this, even if the chance is low... in order to contend with what needs to, or is likely to happen in the future." 

President Barack Obama's early diplomatic overtures to Iran have been rebuffed so far. Iran posed one of the most "serious potential threats" to Israel, Barak said, stressing that Israel would not take any options off the table to defend itself.

Bibi to U.S.: Whatever on the settlements

I wonder if he'll take that tack on Iran as well

May 25, 2009

At least one person is willing to stand up to President Boy Wonder Obama. The two-time prime minister of Israel Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu isn't taking orders from the White House despite behaving himself during meetings in D.C. last week.

Netanyahu on Sunday rebuffed U.S. calls for a full settlement freeze in the occupied West Bank and vowed not to accept limits on building of Jewish enclaves within Jerusalem.

The note of defiance set the stage for a possible showdown with U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, which, in talks with Netanyahu in Washington last week, pressed for a halt to all settlement activity, including natural growth, as called for under a long-stalled peace “road map.”

“The demand for a total stop to building is not something that can be justified and I don’t think that anyone here at this table accepts it,” Netanyahu told his cabinet, referring to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, according to an official.

Netanyahu said Israel had no plans to set up any new West Bank settlements. But he told Obama, according to the official, that his government “does not accept limitations on building” within what Israel defines as its capital, the Jerusalem municipality, an area that includes Arab East Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank captured in a 1967 Middle East war.

Commentary from Ed Morrissey of Hot Air:

One can cheer this in at least one aspect. It sends notice to Obama that Israel will not allow itself to become a doormat to Obama’s ambitions in the Middle East. Israel has no reason to have any confidence in the road map, and Obama’s insistence on unilateral compliance is laughable just a few weeks after Hamas provoked a war in Gaza. The Palestinians have done nothing to comply with the road map requirements, and Israel rightly objects to being held accountable alone for its responsibilities.