My Response Letter to National Geographic's "The Christian Exodus from the Holy Land"

Article: The Forgotten Faithful Arab Christians:
June, 2009 Issue
(There is January 2011 Update at the end of this article)
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It is amazing how Islamic extremism can be conceived as being largely responsible for the reduction of Christian populations in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, but when it comes to Christian reduction within the Palestinian controlled areas, it automatically becomes an "Israeli occupation" issue.
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If Bethlehem was a Jewish town of Judea (from where the very word "Jew" derives) for centuries before the word "Palestine" was ever spoken, who then from a truly historical reality is currently "occupying" Bethlehem? The first-century New Testament book of St. John 4:9 doesn't have the "woman at the well" asking Jesus (the Bethlehem native) "How is it that thou, being a Palestinian, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Palestinians have no dealings with the Samaritans."
I mean, is it possible for the Navajo Indians to ever become "occupiers" of southwestern portion of the United States?
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Perhaps, as Christians Lisa and Mark (the two main characters in the article whose names had to be concealed not from those "Israeli occupiers" but from their own fellow Muslim Palestinians) should more justly proclaim their hatred to National Geographic not for the Israelis as they have, but for the true reason behind their ordeal. Perhaps with a little deeper investigation they can find out exactly what their fellow Christians in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria have already found out; Islam is globally at war with all infidels including "Christian" infidels.
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It isn't the "Israelis" protecting themselves within their natural right and within their own ancient homeland that is the root-cause of Lisa and Mark's hardship, but instead its their fellow Palestinian Muslim's desire for Jew-murder in the name of their god Allah that is the very base foundation behind the entire Israeli - Palestinian conflict!
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Perhaps seeing the proclaimed "24 foot concrete barrier" at Bethlehem as a memorial-monument to the innocent Jews who died by Palestinian sniper fire before "the monument" was erected can somehow ease some of Lisa and Mark's frustration? Then again, since Jew-hatred is a religious, cultural, and heritage thing among the Palestinians (apparently even among Arab Christians) where a woman can be elected into a government office on the merit of giving her three sons as suicide martyrs, then perhaps not!

Some Distorted and Unmentioned Facts Contained within Your Article:

• Nowhere in the article does it condemn the PA for the plight of what is suppose to be its own Palestinian Christian citizens.
• At every angle it is suggested that Israel is to blame for everything seen as a negative. For example, the author writes: "Since the July 2006 war with Israel which ruined the Lebanese economy and strengthened Hezbollah.." of which the reader is left with the impression that it was Israel that ruined Lebanon by the method of "war" causing Hezbollah to be strengthened! The fact that nearly 4,000 rockets that was sent by Hezbollah raining down on Israeli non-military population centers that indeed started, set in motion, and BEGAN the "July 2006 war" thereby "directly causing" the ruining of "the Lebanese economy" is totally and purposely avoided!
• Bethlehem is NOT surrounded by a 360 degree 24 foot tall enclosed wall as in "surrounding " the city of Bethlehem! This "surrounding" claim is spoken by Israel / Jew-haters because there is no easy access for their accepted suicide shahids to enter Israel proper via Bethlehem. And they don't like the fact that the security fence is tall enough to keep out Palestinian sniper fire.
  
• Fact: Any part of the West Bank can be traveled via entry from Bethlehem.
• Israel should not be in the business of providing jobs for Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza no more than the United States should be in the business of providing jobs for Mexico and Canada! How dare the stinking Gentile world think they should! If they want the entire West Bank as their state, then let them find jobs among their own Palestinian people - no check-point needed! The truth is the Palestinians are incapable of running a viable government for their people and the UN, EU, and Quartet knows this. This is why billions and billions can be given to the Palestinians from every nation on earth and their people like Lisa and Mark of this National Geographic article will still face living hardships. Oh, but suicide belts and "Karine A" type weapon shipments will always be of Palestinian plenty!
• National Geographic caption of a picture states "Christian farmers lost their olive groves when Israelis built a fence around a settlement." The question is due to what? Is all that barbwire that I see in the picture there in order to stake a land claim or to protect their very lives from would-be Palestinian murderers seeking Jewish lives? Since there has never been a government state or country called "Palestine" how did those two so-called "Palestinians" in the photo obtain such olive groves to begin with? Was that land that they are standing on ever forcibly taken from a Jew at any time in the past? especially during the time between 1948 to 1967? And if so what steps should be taken to satisfy that Jew-persecution related Palestinian-injustice?
  

- Joe Whitehead
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January, 2011 Update:
Over the last few months many massive attacks have been carried out on Christian churches in the Middle East outside of Israeli controlled areas. Church bombings are becoming more increased and frequent in Iraq > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8146922.stm (also see>)http://catchthefire.com.au/blog/2010/12/31/the-vicar-of-baghdad-speaks-out-about-recent-iraq-church-bombing/ as well as in Egypt >http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54016

Just days after the New Year's Day church bombing massacre in Alexandria, Egypt, an off-duty Egyptian police officer shoot six more Christians in the area >http://english.freecopts.net/english//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1192&Itemid=9 and this was just after a man was sentenced to death for the same thing one year earlier on January 06, 2010. > http://www.france24.com/en/20110116-egypt-sentences-muslim-death-coptic-christmas-shooting

This demonstrates that their Islamic will to murder Christians (who are fellow Egyptians) far outweighs any fear of capital punishment brought about by the secular Egyptian government.
As with Christians who have already left Iraq, The Coptic Christians already feel Islamic pressure to leave Egypt > http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=11905&pageid=&pagename= (Did you read the sign the girl was holding up?)

An Islamic responsible, church bombing in December, 2010 that you probably didn't hear about from the media was in Manila, Philippines >http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203418804576040453344879590.html
Did you hear about the December, 2010 church bombing massacre in Nigeria? > http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2010/12/pope-condemns-church-bombings-in-nigeria-philippines-14909
How about the church bombing in Peshawar, Pakistan in September, 2010? >http://www.fides.org/aree/news/newsdet.php?idnews=27398&lan=eng

With these world-wide Islamic church-bombing massacres in mind, lets go back and examine Mark and Lisa's real "Christian persecution" problem living in Arab-Muslim controlled area Bethlehem given in the June 2009 issue of National Geographic. Is their dilemma as with many other Christians still living in Bethlehem really due to as what one anti-Judaism liberal told me, "the conflict" in general, or is their Christian bleak fate due to the Arab-Muslim culture taking care of the "Sunday people" when they have the means to do so? > http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/saturday-people-sunday-people_518121.html

Isn't it strange that while world pressure on Israel has contributed to less and less Israeli (IDF) military police authority in Bethlehem the more and more Christians are leaving the city due to persecution? If that wasn't bad enough, the Israeli / Judaism / Jew haters (like those at National Geographic and all through the media world and elsewhere) have the audacity to blame the Israeli government on the Bethlehem Christian demise, while purposely looking the other way at the world preponderance of church-bombing evidence at "global jihad" on Christians being the problem.