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On the other hand, being attacked like you have been, only shows that you are a real journalist.
Thanks again.
A question NOT asked by the champions of gotcha television who put together the item on the situation of Palestinian Christians that aired on the CBS Sixty Minutes programme on Sunday April 22, was this fairly obvious one: Why are Christians fleeing from every corner of the globe INTO Israel?
Israel is the only polity in the entire Middle East in which Christian numbers are growing absolutely. They have in fact increased 400 percent since 1948. Today there are about 163,000 Christians in Israel -- about 2.1% of the total population of around 7 million. This number is growing as Christians flee into Israel from all the nearby African states, such as Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia Somalia, Kenya and beyond. They are fleeing also from the states of the former Soviet Empire and from Muslim-majority communities around the world.
Incidentally, the Muslim population of Israel is also growing - from 100,000 in 1948 to 900,000 today -from 9.5% of the whole in 1948 to 14.8%. These Muslims vote in Israeli elections and have always held a significant role in the brokering of interests that go into forming Israeli governments. How can this reality be squared with the Arab cartoon-denunciation of life under the Israeli boot? It would have been good to hear Bob Simon ask this fairly obvious question.
Among many other realities that were overlooked is that Israel does not rule in the Palestine Authority. The Palestine Authority does. The State of Israel does assume responsibility for keeping individuals dedicated to liquidation of the Jews out of the Jewish state. Some of these are local Palestinians; others are Muslim zealots who have come to the bosom of the PA on commission from al-Qaeda, from Iran, from Hezbollah and other terrorists organizations. The wall* is certainly an eyesore, and inevitably it has made life significantly more difficult for everybody. But it has served its purpose: since it was completed, loss of civilian lives by terrorist deeds has been reduced by at least 80%.
Since 1995, all aspects of daily life in the PA - economic policy, legal realities, schooling, and so on -- are presided over by the Palestine Authority. Simultaneously, persecution of Palestinian Christians by Palestinian Arabs has increased - a circumstance attested to without exception by all disinterested journalists and qualified scholars, and most thoroughly documented in the published books and articles of Justin Reid Weiner. The best clue to what life is like under that benign aegis is that between 1995 and 2004, 45,000 Arabs moved out of the PA and into Israel and that of this number four to one were Christians.
With their feet, the Christian Arabs and a goodly portion of Muslim Arabs are declaring their preference for Jewish rule over Muslim-Arab rule. They are not alone in this: Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, an estimated one-third to one-half of the Christian population of Iraq has been displaced from cities and towns where they have lived for centuries, some fleeing to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, others abroad. Many of these are now resident in Israel. In Egypt, 100,000 have already left since the so-called Arab Spring began.
The bottom line (says Giulio Meotti, who is among the best informed European scholars of this phenomenon), "The Christian era in the Middle East is over." Everywhere, that is, except in Israel. The one feature that distinguishes Israel from all these other nations is that the former is the nation-state of the Jews, governed by Jewish laws, its government and other institutions reflecting Jewish character. As for all the others, Jews are either totally absent -- 800,00 of them having been driven out by Muslim mobs following the 1948 war --or present today only in miniscule numbers and living under constant threat of extinction.
The premise governing the Sixty Minute script was that the flight of Christians from the Holy Land is owing to intolerable conditions imposed upon the Palestinian Arabs by Israeli rule. The leaders of the various local churches, all of them Arab Palestinians, pulled out all the stops as they heaped blame for everything that is unhappy in the daily life of the Arabs of the land upon the fundamentally inhumane character of the Jews. Why then is all the traffic out of the lands where Arabs rule and into the only corner of the world in which Jews rule?
*The Security Barrier: only 8km of the 140km consist of concrete sections (wall) to prevent direct shooting
Paul C. Merkley is an ICEJ Canada Board Director, Professor Emeritus in History from Carleton University and the author of several scholarly academic books on Christians and Israel and recently of Those That Bless You I Will Bless: Christian Zionism in Historical Perspective, Mantua Press, Brantford Ontario, 2012.
I was very troubled by your recent story about the treatment of Palestinian Christians. I thought that you were an educated man, yet in the preface to your story you state that you were shocked that a story about the persecution of Christians by Jews in Israel would be so controversial. Are ignorant or just naive! What do you think started the Crusades? The news that Christians in the Holy Land were being persecuted by Muslims. Oh, and while the crusaders were on the way to liberate the Holy Land from the infidel Muslims, we might as well slaughter a few thousand Jews along the way. There are many factual errors with your story (if 11,000 Christians live in the Old City of Jerusalem, what percentage of the population of the Old City are they? You say 1% because you are comparing that to the entire population of Jerusalem, not just the Old City-sloppy and incorrect), but even so, are you hoping to start a holy war? Christians may be mistreated by lots of people in Israel, but your style of reporting will only make things worse, not better. You should be ashamed.
And I dare you to deny it, simon.
I have been a faithful viewer of your show for many years but must strongly condemn and disagree with you for your recent show about Christians in Palestinian society Segment.
In my humble opinion the segment presented an utter failure to accurately report the true status of Christians in Palestinian society.
You did the world and the peace process a dis-favor and you should correct of the factual errors and distortions in the segment, such as:
The false statement that the security barrier encircles Bethlehem
The error regarding the decline of the Christian population
The erroneous characterization of the Kairos Document as benign and positive. Denounced as anti-Semitic by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the document characterizes Palestinian acts of terror as "legal resistance."
I strongly request that "60 Minutes" do another story, this time an honest and complete one, on the suffering of Arab Christians at the hands of Islamic extremists.
You should know that even Palestinian Christians themselves acknowledge the problem of Islamist hostility toward Christians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it amazes me that a news organization like yours could not uncover it (or more probable refused to report on it-SHAME ON YOU!!!!)
At the same time you need to remove or correct your distorted Web article about the village of Taybeh where Christians were terrorized.
Most disappointed,
Dr. Scott Lawrence
Jerusalem Israel
Shame on you.
The segment ignored the Christian exodus from Muslim countries around the world, the targeted destruction of churches by organized Islam and the absence of freedom of religion for Christians in many Muslim nations.
Mr. Simon falsely stated that the security barrier encircles Bethlehem and failed to note that that Christians in Bethlehem fear for their lives at the hands of the Muslims. Furthermore, the Kairos document is known to be anti-Semitic and characterizes Palestinian acts of terror as legal resistance.
Any reduction in numbers or percentage of Christians in the Holy Land is due to overpopulation by Muslims and exodus by Christians who fear for their lives and the lives of their children. Christian Arabs in Israel have freedom in all respects and would never want to live in a Muslim country.
CBS should be ashamed of itself. I will never turn on "60 Minutes" again.
You have joined the ranks of the mass media with half truths about things in Israel. I thought the NY Times was the "King of Delegimitizing Israel", but you seem to have become a prince of half truths with Christians in Israel. Would you do a piece on gays in the Middle East and democracy in the Middle East. It will be interesting on the what you present. Will you show the Middle East to be a haven for equal rights, freedoms, and democracy. And to give you further topics for your shows how about the starvation,sickness, and civil wars in Africa that continue....and lets not forget North Korea and other dictatorships of the world. Yes, you presented a topic that certainly is a drop in a world filled with injustices. Find somethings else to pick on the world!