Justus Reid Weiner discussed with the JCPA the human rights abuses Palestinian Christians face.
As dhimmis, Christians living in Palestinian-controlled territories are not treated as the equals of Muslims. They are subjected to debilitating legal, political, cultural, and religious restrictions. This has become a critical problem for the Palestinian Christians in the West Bank and Gaza. Muslim groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad have built a culture of hatred upon the age-old foundations of Islamic society. Moreover, the PA has adopted Islamic law into its draft constitution.
Among the little-reported points Weiner raises:
• PA security is complicit in the persecution (and even murder) of Muslims who convert to Christianity.
• Instances of Muslim men seducing and kidnapping Christian women are a growing trend.
• Criminal gangs in cooperation with PA officials steal Christian land.
• Municipal leaders aligned with Hamas openly advocate a discriminatory tax on non-Muslim residents, known as al-jeziya.
• Neither the PA nor Hamas provide Christians under their authority with any recourse for justice.
• Christians now make up a mere 15 percent of Bethlehem’s population, down from 80 percent in 1950.
• Taybeh — the only remaining Christian village in the PA — has seen its population dwindle to 1,300 people.
• Many Christian leaders are too intimidated by PA or Hamas leaders to speak up against harassment.
Wiener also adds:
“Many in the international Christian leaderships knowingly remain silent about the suffering of the Palestinian Christians. Others, rather than identify the true Palestinian perpetrators of crimes against their people, take the politically correct path by blaming Israel. All unrest and suffering in the region is routinely attributed to actions-or omissions-by Israel without acknowledging or condemning Muslim violence.
