Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Palestinian Christians Fleeing What? Israeli Occupation or Muslim Persecution?

This post's title asks a question that I cannot answer with any confidence. I have read many different versions of this but always written by someone who was Pro-Palestinian Authority or Pro-Israel.

I finally found an on-line article that, while biased, does make an interesting comparison between two Palestinian Christian cousins who take polar-opposite positions on this subject.

You can read it here. It will be well worth your while.

By the way, if you are a Palestinian Christian still living in the Middle East or have emigrated to another region of the world, please leave a comment stating your own personal experience or opinion.

The ideological fog is almost too thick for me to see where the reality is!

While I am confident that Israel's initial displacement of Palestinians in the 1948 "catastrophy" and their subsequent (beginning in 1967) occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has caused great despair and suffering among the Palestinian Christians, my own bias is inclined towards the opinion that the rising power and influence of Islamist fundamentalism has, in recent years, made life almost unbearable for those Palestinian Christians who remain and have not yet been converted to Islam. (I have previously linked to an article that supports my bias. You can find it here).

I am open to any non-ideological information on this subject. Thank you.