[benja123]

The Christian population in the Christian towns of the Westbank (Bethlehem) and in Gaza have been decreasing steadily for the past 70 years - this has nothing to do with the occupation of the Westbank and Gaza and everything to do with persecution by the local population. This trend is not confined to just the Westbank and Gaza and is in fact a trend that is occurring across the entire Middle East where in the past 100 years the Christian population has decreased from 20% of the population to approximately 5% of the population.

[DSingularity]

If by persecution by the locals you mean the Jewish Israelis — sure. But if you are trying to imply that the Muslim Arabs persecuted the Christians get out of here.

By wide margins the European Christian crusaders killed more Arab Christians then any other ethnic group. Palestinian Christians and Muslims have coexisted for a long, long time. To the point that the holiest of Christian churches are often entrusted to Muslim custodianship. How else would you explain that?

[sudosysgen]

Indeed. The majority of Palestinian Christians left due to their ethnic cleansing by Israel in 1948.

It's not Hamas that destroyed a Christian church and orphanage a week ago. It was an Israeli bomb.

There were two or three attacks of Christians in Palestine by Muslims, however them being religiously motivated is doubtful and the perpetrators were condemned and prosecuted by everyone, even Hamas.

The vast majority of persecution of Christians in Palestine for their religion was by Jewish extremists, overwhelmingly. Let alone ethnic persecution of Christians.

[benja123]

The fact is Christians have been persecuted in the Middle East for 100s of years. Under the Ottoman Empire Christians (and any non Muslims) had to pay a Jizya tax - which is persecution (unless you believe it is okay to tax people for being another religion), moreover you had numerous massacres of Christian populations by the Ottoman Empire (one example of this is the Armenian genocide, but you also had cases of Greek, Maronites and other Christian group being murdered at a large scale). Now with that said, Europe was no better, and often worse when it came to its treatment of minorities at that time.

Regardless, the fact that historically Christians (and other minorities) were treated relatively well in the Middle East does not change the reality that for the past 100 years Christians and other minorities are facing massive persecution in the Middle East and in some cases genocide or ethnic cleansing.

Some examples of persecution Christians currently face (by no means complete)

- In Egypt, Copts can not perform any repairs on their churches without government approval, moreover in the past 10 years alone 100s have been killed by mobs attacking them.

- In Saudi Arabia, Christians can not practice their religion in public.

- In Iran Christians that converted from Islam face the death penalty

- Turkey two Byzantine Era churches, Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Holy Saviour, were just converted to mosques.

- In Gaza Christian business and places of worship are regularly attacked by Islamic extremists, often with tacit approval of the ruling Hamas.

And this is just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the type of persecution Christians face in the Middle East today.

Now let’s for a second talk about Jews of the Middle East. A 100 years ago the Jewish population in the Middle East (outside of Israel/Palestine) was nearly 1 million and yet today it numbers maybe a few 100.

Ask yourself where are the Jews of Syria, Algeria, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq etc? All had relatively large Jewish communities until recently. Persecution, violence and yes, ethnic cleansing is what decimated the Jewish population of the Middle East (outside of Israel).

The reality is, one of the few countries in the Middle East where religious minorities do not face any major persecution is Israel. Yes, you have had individual cases of extremists attacking minorities - but this is true for every country in the world, and when it does happen they are usually caught and brought to justice. This is why the fastest growing religious community in Israel is Islam and this is also why the Christian population in Israel is continuing to grow (unlike in the areas in the Westbank under the Palestinian Authority rule and Gaza under Hamas rule, where the Christian population is decreasing at an alarming rate). Does it mean Israel is perfect when it comes to how it treats minorities? Nope. But, when it comes to its treatment of minorities it is no where near as bad as the rest of the Middle East and is not much worse (and in some cases better) than the EU and the US.

[DSingularity]

> Ask yourself where are the Jews of Syria, Algeria, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq etc? All had relatively large Jewish communities until recently. Persecution, violence and yes, ethnic cleansing is what decimated the Jewish population of the Middle East (outside of Israel).

Yeah, please stop with your disinformation. Zionists try to present the migration to Israel from Arab lands as if it was somehow equivalent to the Palestinian Nakba. Lets see what some of those migrants say about this. Yisrael Yeshayahu, a former Knesset speaker who migrated from Yemen said "We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations." -- basically he came because he was a zionist. Another former speaker Shlomo Hillel said "I do not regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists" [1]. Iraqi-born Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, speaking of the wave of Iraqi Jewish migration to Israel, concludes that, even though Iraqi Jews were "victims of the Israeli-Arab conflict", Iraqi Jews aren't refugees, saying "nobody expelled us from Iraq, nobody told us that we were unwanted" [2]. It is truly despicable to paint those who came to Israel from other parts of the Middle East as colonizers looking to steal the property of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs as victims.

> And this is just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the type of persecution Christians face in the Middle East today.

Again, I know it would be seemingly convenient for you -- a defender of Apartheid Israel -- to find another nation which behaves like Israel (in its persecution of other races/religions). Nonetheless, even if what you are saying is true -- and I believe many of the Muslims of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria would reject this -- what you are proving is nothing. This is just a whataboutism/red herring/tu quoque. How about Israel starts treating the Arab Muslims and Christians with dignity, stops abusing their rights, stealing their property and land.

Just remember -- you are here defending a country which has institutionalized racism and apartheid.

[1] http://www.haaretz.com/hitching-a-ride-on-the-magic-carpet-1... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20050814015754/http://www.haaret...

[benja123]

Ah yes - All 1 million Jews in Arab lands were so happy they just packed up and ran to Israel once they got the chance.

Look, I have relatives and many friends that escaped those countries because they were being persecuted and in some cases we’re under the threat of death. You trying to change history because it doesn't fit your narrative doesn't change what actually happened.

The reality is Yemenite Jews have faced legal persecution and violence for many years. Read up about the pogroms like the Adyen Riots of 1947 where nearly 100 Yemenite Jews were murdered.

Did some Yemenites came before Israel existed? Absolutely, as did Jews from all over the world. After all it is the most religiously significant place in Jewish religion - it is only natural that some would come and choose to make a life here. That does not change the fact that Jewish communities across the middle east faced (and still face) significant persecution.

I can give you countless examples of pogroms the Jews in the middle east faced before the state of Israel even existed, the Farhud pogrom in Iraq in 1941, the massacre of Jews in Constantine in 1934, the Hebron and Safed Massacres of 1929 in which 2000 year old Jewish communities were wiped out and there are many many many more. There were also and in some cases still are unjust laws, real apartheid laws, that exist persecuting against Jews and Christians. In Iraq you had laws that denied Jews the right to a bank account, or to work in many professions, including government positions, you had laws in Algeria that denied the Jews citizenship and laws in Libya that effectively denied Jews citizenship. And again - this is only the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the type of persecution Jews faced and still face today across the Middle East.

As far as you calling Israel an Apartheid state, plenty of Israeli Arabs would disagree with you. I have provided some links to a few of them[1][2][3]. The majority of Israeli Arabs are proud to be Israeli [4] and of Israel’s achievements. Does Israel have some racism? For sure - so does the US, the UK, France etc.. - that does not make it an apartheid state. Arab Israelis make up 20% of the states population and they have the same right as anyone else in the country and that is best demonstrated by the fact that the third largest political party is in fact an Israeli Arab party.

As for the Palestinians in the Westbank and Gaza - I truly hope to see them form a successful state beside Israel where they can enjoy those same democratic rights (the rights Mahmoud Abbas has denied them since 2006 when he last allowed an election). We were extremely close to achieving this in the past and I hope we achieve it in the future.

Now you never actually even tried to counter my argument about the persecution and real apartheid like laws christians face in the rest of the Middle East. Are you denying that 100s of Copts christians have been murdered in Egypt in the past 10 years? or the laws in Saudi Arabia that deny Christians the right to practice in public? Or that you can be put to death in Iran for converting from Islam to Christianity or the fact that Turkey just turned two historic Byzetine churches into mosques?

Now regardless of the above argument - and since you raised the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (I did not - I spoke about the persecution of minorities in the Middle East and how it has effected the demographic balance). The only way we will get to a solution to this conflict is when we all start acknowledging each others suffering and start talking about the other sides suffering as well. I as an Israeli am willing to do that and I also will continue to fight any racism I see here in Israel (both by how I vote and by how I act). But this conversation has to be based on facts, those facts do not ignore the other sides suffering. It's a complicated conflict and there is no easy solution, but hopefully, through dialogue we can celebrate small baby steps in the right direction. However, I will not stand by when you or any other try to deny the suffering of any side and the persecution of minorities (doesn't matter if they are Jewish, Muslim, Christian[5], Bahai, Druze etc..) in the Middle East.

[1] - Yoseph Haddad - https://www.facebook.com/YosHaddad

[2] - Israeli Ambassador George Deek - https://twitter.com/GeorgeDeek

[3] - Mohammad Kabiya - https://twitter.com/mohammadkabiya as just some of the examples.

[4] - https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/both-jews-and-arabs-say-...

[5] UN watch on the decline of Christians in Iraq and Syria - https://youtu.be/kbJ2su1rwAs

[sudosysgen]

Have you ever been in Gaza or the Westbank?

How these places work is that if you leave, you can never come back.

These places are awful to live in. The only people that stay there stay because they don't have a choice or for ideological reasons. That's why Christians leave moreso, they often have family that left and can get refugee status more easily.

The trend of Christians leaving is a highly localized trend. The greatest number of Christians left not everywhere in the Middle East, but in Iraq, Syria, and, a while ago, Turkey.

The events in the last sixty years that contributed the most to Christian emigration were the Lebanese civil war, the Iraq war, the Syrian Civil War, and the Nakba of 1948.