Ed Vitagliano reports at OneNewsNow.com:
But there is another group of people whose circumstances, while increasingly precarious, are almost invisible to the world: Palestinian Christians.
A combination of threats and intimidation from Muslim extremists and the fallout from the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict are driving many of these believers from their ancestral homes.
David Parsons, media director for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem and contributing editor of the Jerusalem Post Christian Edition, said that the “Palestinian Christian community is dwindling fast, from about 10 percent of the population in 1948 to barely 1.5 percent today.”
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Muslim journalist Khaled Abu Toameh dismisses any attempts to blame Israel above all factors. “True, Israel’s security measures in the West Bank have made living conditions more difficult for all Palestinians, Christians and Muslims alike,” he said. “But to say that these measures are the main and sole reason for the Christian exodus from the Holy Land is misleading.”
The exodus is not simply the fault of the entire Muslim community, either, Toameh said. The Arab-Israeli conflict has ruined the economy in many places throughout the Palestinian region and has heightened the dangers facing Christian families.
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“Over the past few years, a number of Christian businessmen told me that they were forced to shut down their businesses because they could no longer afford to pay ‘protection’ money to local Muslim gangs,” Toameh said.
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The persecution is taking its toll in some locales. “Today, Christians in Bethlehem constitute less than 15 percent of the population,” said Toameh. “Five or six decades ago, the Christians living in the birthplace of Jesus made up more than 70 percent of the population.”
Squeezed between Israel and Palestinian Muslims — especially Muslims on the more radical fringe — the difficulties endured by many of these Palestinian Christians are often completely off the radar screen of believers elsewhere.