CHRISTIAN MINORITY CAUGHT IN JEWISH-MUSLIM CROSSFIRE

The New Zealand Herald
May 8, 2009 Friday

JERUSALEM – When Pope Benedict XVI comes to the Holy Land next week,
he will greet a community of believers whose numbers are gradually
eroding. Dwarfed by Jewish and Muslim populations, young Christians
are increasingly leaving to seek their futures elsewhere, especially
those in the Palestinian territories and east Jerusalem.

Christians say they are treated with suspicion by both Jews and
Muslims and feel caught in an increasingly polarised conflict between
them. "It became a Muslim cause and a Jewish cause, so Christians,
we have nothing to do," said Zakaria Mishriki, a 32-year-old Christian
storekeeper in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Holy Land’s Christians mainly consist of Greek Catholics, Roman
Catholics and Greek Orthodox, with smaller contingents of Armenians,
Assyrians and a smattering of other sects.

While their numbers have risen slightly since the period when Israel
was founded, the growth rate has fallen far behind those for Jews
and Muslims in the country.

There were around 140,000 Arab Christians in the Holy Land in 1945,
according to Palestinian sociologist Bernard Sabella. Today, there
are around 160,000, compared to 7.4 million people who live in Israel
and 3.8 million in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The Christian population inside Israel has actually tripled since
the country was founded in 1948, thanks to the relative stability
and prosperity of Israelis overall, said Sabella, while noting Arabs
still suffer discrimination in government employment and budgets.

But in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, where Palestinians are
subject to an Israeli military occupation, the Christian community
continues to haemorrhage people, he said.

"The Christian community is described most often as middle-class,
looking for the advancement of children and young people. But because
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and restrictive Israeli policies,
people get to be 25 or 30, and they start thinking, ‘Why should
I stay?"’

Christians tend to be better educated and wealthier than their Muslim
Arab neighbours, making it easier to leave. Vatican officials have
acknowledged the problem. "Christians are a minority, and in a
situation of difficulties the minorities suffer always more," the
Vatican’s ambassador to the Holy Land, Monsignor Antonio Franco, said.

During his visit, the Pope will also reach out to Muslims and
Jews. Many Muslims are upset over comments by the Pope in 2006 seen as
critical of their religion, while Israel and the Vatican have been at
odds over whether Pius XII, the Pope who reigned during World War II,
did enough to try to stop the Holocaust.

The most beleaguered Christian outpost in the Holy Land can be found
in the Gaza Strip, where some 3800 Christians live among 1.4 million
Muslims.

Abdallah Jahshan, a 32-year-old Gaza Catholic, said he hoped the Pope
would somehow help bring a solution.

"We hope his visit will promote the peace in the area, and work to
make peace between us and the Israeli people," he said.

While relations with the Muslim majority have traditionally been good,
a Christian school has been attacked twice by unknown assailants,
and in October 2007 a local Christian activist was murdered.
From: Baghdasarian