Miraj,

Those who advocate a one-state solution are telling us Israelis, lod and clear, that we are fighting for our national self-determination and survival.

Habesor

Quote:

'

Bullcrap. Palestinians aren't fighting for their literal survival.  No one is trying to destroy Palestinians with rockets or suicide bombers or declarations of, "well if we can't win through violence, we'll win with demographics."  There is no government policy for the destruction of Palestine, neither in theory nor in practice.  This is in stark contrast to what Israel (and Jews) are experiencing. '

Shusha, you watched 60 minutes?

No govenment is going to be out in the open and say things not politicaly correct -

- unless they've been cought and exposed like on Wkileaks*

More on the story MISSED by 60 minutes:  

Bethlehem’s last Christians?

Op-ed: World, churches silent in face of Islamic persecution of Palestinian Christians

Yet largely ignored by Western media, a systematic campaign of Muslim persecution against the Christians is taking place in Palestinian areas. It’s a religious and ethnic cleansing campaign silenced by the global churches.

 
Christians have long been the frontrunners of Arab nationalism. The most prominent Palestinian intellectual was a Christian, Edward Said. The propaganda term “Nakba” has been penned by a Christian, Constantin Zureiq. The terrorist George Habash was a Christian, as was Yasser Arafat’s wife. Azmi Bishara, the Arab MK who leaked secrets to Hezbollah, comes from a middle-class Christian family from Nazareth.

 
Since the first Intifada, Palestinian Christians created a Muslim-Christian unity to portray Israel as the aggressor, colonizer and invader. They thought that the Islamic-Christian front against Zionism would help secure their position in the Arab world. Indeed, Arab Christians, and especially their judeophobic clergy, have been in the vanguard of the battle for the destruction of Israel. It was a political operation that also served to cover the crimes committed against Christians by the PLO and the Islamic groups: forced marriage, conversions, beatings, land theft, fire bombings, commercial boycott, torture, kidnapping, sexual harassment, and extortion.
. . .

After the 1948 war, Christian communities suffered most in the West Bank, not under “Israel’s occupation,” but because Muslim refugees were cynically settled in their midst by the Arab leadership. Ramallah was 90% Christian before the war, while Bethlehem was 80% Christian. By 1967, more than half of Bethlehem’s residents were Muslim, while Ramallah is a large Muslim city today.

 
In a process of “Lebanonization,” Arafat changed Bethlehem’s demography by bringing in thousands of Muslims from refugee camps. Arafat then turned the city into a safe haven for suicide bombers and transformed the Greek Orthodox monastery, located next to the Church of Nativity, into his residence. Christian cemeteries and convents were desecrated and Christians became the PLO’s human shields.

 
In the first year of the second Intifada, when Arafat’s terrorists ravaged Christian towns by gunfire and mortars, 1,640 Christians left Bethlehem and another 880 left Ramallah

. . .

Today, Palestinian Christians risk the same fate of their brethren in Lebanon. Everyone remembers the Phalange atrocities at Sabra and Shatila. But very few know that the first ethnically cleansed community during the civil war was a Christian town. In November 1976, Palestinian forces came into Damour and dynamited homes and churches, massacring entire families. They exhumed the dead from the Christian cemetery and scattered skeletons throughout the rubble. Some 500 Christians died that day. Will Bethlehem be a second Damour?

full article:
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-42216...

Apr 24, 2012 -- 5:50PM, vra wrote:

vra,

Palestinian Christians spoke out, from Palestine. That was what the story was all about. And we specifically heard from one family in Bethlehem who has had family members who have left, who has the financial ability to leave but who stays and endures hardships of the Occupation and being surrounded by the Wall. We also heard from a prominent businessman there in the West Bank who says no Christians suffer persecution there from Muslims.

 

Sherri, you're cherry-picking the news.  Every day I get Middle Eastern news feeds from A.P., Reuters, BBC, and CNN, plus I've had the advantage of talking with Palestinians there and here.  The reasons for leaving are mixed, and to simply blame Israel for all the problems makes so little sense. 

I spent time at a joint Jewish-Palestinian kibbutz just south of Jerusalem, and I listened to what was being said.  I've been in Bethlehem, although I didn't talk politics with the Palestinians when I was in the city.  I've had students back here in the states who are Palestinian Christians, and I can tell you without one reservation most would tell you that there's more to the story than what you're telling.   

BTW, to use the Middle Easter Monitor, which clearly is a partisan site, for "information" means that there is no intention of attempting to get objective information.  Try some of the sites I mention above as you can get daily news feeds from them. 

>>>>>>>> Most B-net members do "Cherry pick" their news to post. I accepted it and enjoy it. Since we have diverse membership, if I read few posts, I get an idea of where "Truth" stands.

Palestinians are occupied people for last SIX decades. Beside lack of BASIC needs, freedom and dignty they are under assult from a regime which keeps stealing more lands. These are traumatized people!!

So while I agree Palestinians are far from being perfect. It is also true there is NO way they are in a position to make fundamental improvoments in lives of Palestinian Christians.

ALSO when I read history of this land and speak to Christian arabs, I see an outpouring of support among Christian Arabs for Palestinian causes. They consistantly point to Israel for making their lives a living hell and many of them actively particiapated in resistant movement against illigal settlers and immoral zionist expantionist policies.

The whole PLO movement had many Christian leaders.

So no amont of tap dancing can take the "Burden" away from the state of Israel. Albeit Israel has a lot of fair minded citizens in it, it's politics has been "Hijacked" by fanatic Zionists who tend to support an extreamist point of view.

I am happy to learn that, at long last CBS decided to inform it's viewers about ground reality. I am sure they are going to be under assult from Proxy fanatics groups of the USA but at the end of the day truth will come out.

Let people ask questions, let them find out for themselves. Becuase this is too important for the whole world.