Christmas in the occupied West Bank and Gaza

Christmas? Would that be the festival for Christians,many of whom have fled persecution in the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem?

airheadmax might like to know about the attacks on Israel from Palestinian/Hamas/terrorists in Gaza during the "Christmas" or December period.

These attacks constitute the real terror;-

December 6;
a Qassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed near Ashkelon.
December 7;
Two mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip exploded in the Eshkol Region.
December 8;
mortar shell fired from the Gaza Strip landed in the Shaar Hanegev Region. Around 11 pm, Palestinians fired five more mortar shells from the northern Gaza Strip into the Eshkol Region.
December 11;
Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket from the Gaza Strip near a kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev Region.
December 18;
five militants from Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees were killed by an Israeli airstrike as they were preparing to fire rockets into Israel.
December 19;
Palestinians fired two mortar shells from the Gaza Strip into the Eshkol Region. In the evening, Palestinians fired two additional mortar shells from the Gaza Strip into the Ashkelon Coast Region.
December 20;
In the afternoon, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired seven mortar shells into the Eshkol Region.
Several hours later, Palestinians fired two or three additional mortar shells at open areas in unspecified regions in Israel.
December 21;
At about 8 am, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired a Qassam rocket at Kibbutz Zikim in the Ashkelon Coast Region. The projectile exploded several yards from a kindergarten as parents were bringing their children to it. 14-year-old girl in a nearby building was moderately injured in the leg by flying glass. Several other people suffered from shock. A staff member said the children would not be evacuated because the kindergarten was inside a bomb shelter to begin with.
December 24;
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired a mortar shell in the Eshkol Region. In the early evening, Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket that landed in the Ashkelon Coast Region.
December 26;
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired two rockets at the Eshkol Region.
December 30;
a Qassam rocket fired by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip hit the Eshkol Regional Council.

Hamas continued throughout 2010 to stockpile missiles supplied by Iran.

Christamas for Christians? This is how the Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza and Judea & Samaria behave towards their Arab Christian brethren.
The Christian holiday season is the time to publicize the real "moment of truth" about Christian Arabs' suffering under the PA. Up to now, for the most part, Church leaders have remained silent about Muslim abuses.
Samir Qumsiyeh, owner of the private Al-Mahd (Nativity) TV station in Beit-Shahur, warned that, “15 years from now there will be no Christians left in Bethlehem. Then you will need a torch to find a Christian here.”

Muslims were persuaded to move from Hebron to Bethlehem where large-scale Muslim housing was planned.
In 1990, Christians comprised 60 percent of the population of Bethlehem. By 2001 they were 20 percent of the population, resulting in a significant effect on local elections. As a result, PA chairman Arafat appointed a Muslim as Governor for the Bethlehem District, and the bureaucratic, security and political apparatus was purged of Christians.

Muslims boycotted Christian businesses in Bethlehem’s Nativity Square forcing many of them out of business. Approximately ten percent remained by paying extortion money to Muslim terrorists. When a Christian owner of a café in Manger Square refused, he was charged with collaborating with the Israelis, later shot in the eye, and fled after having lived in Bethlehem for 30 years. Refusal to pay was often fatal.
At the PA-controlled Voice of Palestine, Christian names are not permitted to be mentioned in the obituaries read on air. Those who sell land to Jews are subject to the death penalty according to the Palestinian Land Law, a clear violation of international rulings.

Christians have considerable trouble buying land or selling their own property to other Christians, as there is a perception that selling to any non-Muslim is prohibited. The PA does not recognize Christian property rights, including holy sites. As early as 1997, the PA Ministry of Information claimed that the Palestinian people “have assumed their natural right to of controlling parts of the Palestinian land, the most important of which under Palestinian national sovereignty is in the Palestinian city of the birthplace of Jesus Christ---Bethlehem.”

Palestinian protection means little when Christian cemeteries and symbols are desecrated, property wrecked, monasteries robbed of gold and precious objects, and parishioners hindered from attending services.

Of all the abuses Christians are forced to endure, the treatment of their women is the most egregious. They are subjected to verbal sexual harassment and rape and compounding the problem is that in the Middle East, a female who has been violated is regarded as “unfit for marriage.” Raping a Christian woman often has fewer consequences than raping a Muslim one. The rapist knows that under a Muslim- controlled PA there is a greater chance of not being prosecuted. If the victim is Muslim, the perpetrator has to contend with members of her extended family, who are obligated to obtain compensation or revenge and do not turn to government agencies.

Christian women are forced to marry Muslim men in violation of Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states, “Marriage shall be entered in only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.”

Those who speak out openly about this are subjected to death threats. Samir Qumsiyeh documented 160 attacks against Christians, including physical harassment, home robberies, and illegal seizure of land during the past several years and spoke publicly about it. His home was fire-bombed.

The 3,000 Christians living in Gaza among 1.2 million Muslims are also anxious about their future. Archimandrite Artemios, the Greek Orthodox priest who heads the St. Porphyrius church in Gaza, observed that Christians never felt so “endangered” as they do now.

A Christian bookstore owner was kidnapped and murdered, his shop bombed twice.

On February 15, 2008, a library managed by the Young Men’s Christian Association was firebombed, resulting in the destruction of 10,000 books. A Christian bookstore owner was kidnapped and murdered, his shop bombed twice. A Catholic church and a school were vandalized in August 2007. These incidents led Artemios to conclude, “the edifice of tolerance is crashing down over our heads.” Before dawn on May 16, 2008 a bomb exploded outside the Zahwa Rosary School, a Christian school in Gaza city, operated by nuns primarily for Muslim students.

Writing in the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Hussein Shubakshi, a Saudi columnist complains about Christian emigration from the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan and Syria which “has reached astonishing proportions.” In Gaza and the West Bank, there is “a plan to eradicate the entire deeply-rooted Christian presence from its territories.” There are 70,000 Palestinian Christian émigrés living in Chile, particularly in Santiago, the capital others emigrate to Europe, Australia, the U.S. and Canada.

They are “openly and collectively” leaving by the thousands from Arab countries out of “fear, worry” and “society’s failures,” he asserts, adding that failure to address the spread of extremism will be costly to all.

What is particularly discouraging is that many church leaders throughout the world are aware of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the PA against the Christian Arabs, according to Justus Reid Weiner.
Despite the beatings, theft of land, kidnappings, torture, firebombing of churches, forced marriages, rape, extortion, and sexual harassment, these church leaders “remain silent.”

This behaviour by his Palestinain Muslim friends is what airheadmax condones or supports.

Christmas? Would that be the festival for Christians,many of whom have fled persecution in the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem?

You're making some progress, Millis.

With newstupid, you have to do all the translating back into normal speech: "activists" means "terrorists" or "terror-supporters"...
And he made quite a factual mistake about the majority in Jerusalem, which has been Jewish for more than 150 years.

But then, what can you expect from this disgusting ISM hatemonger?

Only a Nazi calls it 'IOF'.

There is no other necessary response to this Nazi.

Ignore this pondlife.

Hopefully, Newsmax, if the Israelis and the Paslestinians agree to end their mutually destructive harrumphing, there might be an end to these tragedies.

Piss off, Millis. Israel is the victim here.

However, I doubt either side's leadership is mature enough to grasp the nettle. They both think the status quo serves them and absolves them of looking their populations in the eye and telling them some home truths.

No, Yoni, both sides are the victims of hubris and self-delusion.

Utter drivel and ignorance of history as usual from Millis.

Both Israel and the Palestinians delude themselves that the current situation works in their favour. When both sides show maturity perhaps there will be peace. However, egged on by outside forces who are just as entrenched in their stupidity, neither side is going to learn.

Basically, they are as bad as each other.

joe, you were doing a reasonable job until you said they were as bad as each other.

Please clarify this. Do you mean in their hubris or overall morality. If the latter then you are sadly deluded. Only Israel haters or the ignorant believe this. As you are not the latter, you would be the former.

"Basically, they are as bad as each other"

Brainless wanker.

Ray, in their hubris and self-delusion both sides cling on to falsehoods.

As for morality, luckily Israel keeps some semblance of being Western.

I think from now on I will restrict myself to responding to people who give their full names, rather than the crude cowards who hide behind partial names, made-up names etc.

I think from now on I will restrict myself to responding to people who give their full names, rather than the crude cowards who hide behind partial names, made-up names etc.

How do you know that these full names are true? It seems you are totally unable to think straight.
How do we know that Joe Millis is not in fact Sam Telegram?

And I suspect Max News is a pseudonym, Millis.

JOE leave Posner out of this

Where is Posner, Wheelchair?