Bethlehem Unwrapped has, undeniably, drawn a disturbing number of enthusiastic and positive responses. Such a shame. It’s inflammatory in a wholly negative way, and I’m astounded at the wrongheadedness of the instigators. They may have begun the project with good intentions, but they leapt onto the wrong bandwagon ‘and they don’t even know it!’
The pretence that it was an even-handed symbol of protest at ‘walls’ in general was belied by much of the participants’ graffiti. The ‘This Wall saves Lives’ slogan was defaced, firstly with “Doesn’t” scrawled in black between ‘wall and ‘saves’, then the word ‘saves’ was altered in red pen to read ‘Enslaves’ despite supposed close supervision by the monitors. It appears that prospective message-scribblers were being asked for ‘paperwork’, perhaps in an un/intentionally ironic replica of ‘the checkpoints’.
“In 2009, Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem issued a joint appeal to Christians throughout the world to understand and help to alleviate the desperate hardship the wall has caused. It is a daily disaster for ordinary Palestinian families.”
says a statement on the official St James’s website. Daily disaster it may well be, but one that pales into insignificance beside the daily suffering of all bereaved families of victims of Palestinian ‘martyrdom’ on both sides.
“In hosting this festival, St James’s Church joins the movement in Bethlehem known as “beautiful resistance”, celebrating the culture, music, food and humour of those who live behind the Wall. St James’s stands in solidarity with the universal call for a just and sustainable solution for both Palestinians and Israelis. “Hmm.
Four Islamic Jihad operatives from Bethlehem were arrested in connection with the December bombing of a Bat Yam public bus.
The terrorists placed a large amount of nails and screws inside the pressure cooker, which Harimi detonated remotely by cellphone.The terrorists were planning a further, larger bombing in Tel Aviv, but were arrested before they could carry out another attack, a senior IDF official told Ynet News. A further 25 kg. of explosive material was confiscated during the arrests, he said.
Let’s leave aside culture, music, food and humour, none of which seem particularly characteristic of the Palestinian, particularly the humour, and merely address the ‘just and sustainable solution’ and “the right of the State of Israel to exist with secure internationally recognised borders.”
So how, given the Palestinian Authority’s openly declared refusal to ever, never not on your nellie, recognise Israel as a Jewish state, and their penchant for sneaking into Israel’s cafes and coffee bars whenever they get the chance, and blowing themselves and everyone nearby to smithereens, would one achieve justice and security without enforced separation?
“This wall is symbolic of walls all over the world that divide and confine peoples, restricting free movement and dominating the imagination of those who live behind them. “
No it isn’t really. It’s a replica of one wall in particular, and to prove it, the slogans.
Are these the slogans of ‘walls all over the world?’ No they’re not. What about Broadmoor, for example. That might be whataboutery gawn mad, but I bet the criminally insane find their walls inconvenient. Are they protesting about all dividing walls that separate something or someone from something or someone? Not this time. No, they’ve built a replica of a specific wall for a specific purpose, and not a very Christian one.
St. James’s is supposed to be a Christian church, is it not? Yet Bethlehem Unwrapped doesn’t seem concerned about the threat they ought to be concerned about. Christians being harassed and intimidated by Muslims.
The information is freely available, but they’re only concerned with*innocent face* style Israel-bashing.
It is estimated that, for the past seven years, more than one thousand Christians have been emigrating from the Bethlehem area annually and that only 10,000 to 13,000Christians remain in the city. International human rights lawyer Justus Reid Weiner, who teaches at Hebrew University, told the Jerusalem Institute for Global Jewish Affairs that, under the PA-Fatah regime, Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses by Muslims.
"There are many examples of intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycotts, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion," he said. PA officials are directly responsible for many of the attacks, and some Muslims who have converted to Christianity have been murdered.
“Persecution of Christians in the Islamic Middle East has intensified in recent years, and the fear now is that Christianity may be becoming extinct in the area where it has existed for two millennia. They are criticized, absurdly, as Crusaders, or as colonialists associated with the West, or as infidels.The exception, and the only country in the area where Christians possess full religious rights and can exercise them, and have increased both in absolute number and proportion of the population, is Israel.”
“Throughout the Middle East, Christians are dwindling rapidly in numbers, mainly because extremist Islamic groups drive them out. Israel is the only country in the region where Christian numbers have been growing steadily since 1948. It goes without saying that Israel is the only country across the Islamic world where Jews can live safely, after almost a million were killed or driven out of Arab lands in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Those few Jews who live in Iran live on a knife-edge.”
There Lucy Winkett, put on your robes and sermonise that.
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