A National Prayer Network Special Report
ARAB CHRISTIANS SUFFER, AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WATCH
By Harmony Grant
31 Oct 06
Representing
the estimated one-third of American voters who support Christian Zionism,
Hal Lindsey blames the Palestinians for their own suffering.
“Why doesn't
anyone face the truth?” he asks, “The main obstacle to improving conditions
for the Palestinian people is the Palestinian people. Specifically, their
overwhelming decision to elect Hamas to represent them as their government.”
("The Czechoslovakia Solution," Oct. 25, worldnetdaily)
When Condoleezza
Rice refers to Palestinians’ “daily humiliations” under Israeli occupation,
Lindsey sputters, “What occupation? The only territory under Israeli 'occupation'
is Israel.”
Apparently
Lindsey doesn’t read any of the hundreds of testimonies of Palestinian suffering.
One is available, for instance, in the BBC’s recent story about the struggle
Palestinian farmers face merely to harvest their olives.
“For years
settlers have been attacking Palestinian farmers and chopping down their
trees,” the BBC reports. “Palestinian farmers often require a permit from
the army to visit their lands which lie close to Jewish settlements.
The Israeli
army is supposed to protect the farmers from the Jewish settlers who routinely
attack and harass them. A farmer named Jamal says Israeli soldiers are just
part of the gang of thugs. “…Israeli soldiers riding in military jeeps
often appear in the town's groves. The soldiers fire tear gas and live bullets
and bark at the villagers through loudspeakers to leave the area, he says.”
(BBC, “Olive Harvest Sparks Tensions,” Oct. 24)
Harassment
of farmers is just one lash in the whip of Israeli oppression.
The 1.4
million Palestinians currently living in the Gaza Strip continue to suffer
without electricity after Israel bombed their power plant three months ago.
They are still “forced to live without electricity for long parts of the
day and night…” (B’tselem Sept. 06 Status Report).
The bombing
that westerners have already forgotten as one blip in the ongoing “tension”
is a source of daily hardship for Palestinian men, women, and children. The
Gazan urban population gets water only 2-3 hours per day, according to B’tselem.
The lack of electricity has affected business and caused medical care to
decline.
The bombing
of the power plant was a collective punishment for the kidnapping of Israeli
soldier Gilad Shalit. Apparently Gazans weren’t suffering enough under their
already crushing load of economic isolation, military checkpoints, systematic
abuses, and intentionally disruptive road construction. Apparently it also
wasn’t enough that virtually every family in the Occupied Territories has
been broken by Israel’s refusal to process any of the 120,000 requests for
family unification filed in the last 6 years (B’tselem, Aug. 15, 2006, “Israel's
freeze policy on family unification in the Occupied Territories splits tens
of thousands of Palestinian families”). Israel prevents Palestinians from
living with spouses who are foreign residents and forbids family members
who are foreign residents from visiting their loved ones in the Occupied
Territories.
Imagine
being separated from your spouse, denied almost all freedom of movement and
much of your access to medical care as well as your access to basic electricity
and water except for a few hours a day, and facing daily harassment from
the civilian army that stole your ancestral land. Then imagine being told
your failure to participate in the political process correctly makes your
suffering your own fault!
Evangelicals
think they are doing God a favor by supporting Israel, but many of the suffering
Arabs and Palestinians pray tearfully to the very same Jesus. Persecution
suffered by Arab Christians increases with every passing week that the US
foreign policy privileges Israel and turns a blind eye to her cruel aggressions.
When we
invaded Iraq for Israel’s sake, Arab Christians (along with all the dead
American boys) paid a huge price. American Conservative reports: “The United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees figured that roughly 36 percent of
the 700,000 Iraqis who had fled to Syria as of March 2005 were Christians.”
(The American Conservative, Oct. 23, “Christians in the Crossfire,” Doug
Bandow)
Iraqi
Christians feel like “human targets;” their lives have worsened since Saddam’s
overthrow, and their religious freedoms have been lessened or taken away.
Arab Christians are associated with the infidel West, says American Conservative,
and suffer as surrogate targets for an American enemy who can’t be reached.
For evidence, just check out the "Christians of Iraq" website and its long
list of atrocities suffered by Christian Iraqis since spring 2003 (christiansofiraq.com).
Christians
also made up almost 41 percent of the Lebanese population that suffered Israel’s
harsh military action a few months ago (International Religious Freedom Report
2005, US State Department).
American
evangelicals may someday say in horror to Christ, “Lord, when did we see
you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not
minister to your needs?” (Matt. 25:44). But with every passing day, Christians
refuse to minister to suffering Arab Christians.
Evangelicals
have uniformly accepted the Zionist media’s image of the demonized Arab.
We watch Palestinian suffering without compassion, and actually hold the
coat for our brother’s oppressor. We have funded the Zionist military machine
responsible for history’s oldest refugee camp, for dispossession and continued
oppression of the Palestinians, and for constant violations of human rights
and international law. Now this international bully seems geared up for war
on the whole Arab world.
When will
the church stop assisting our brother’s oppressor? What will it take for
us to recognize the eyes of Christ in the face of a terrorized Arab child?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harmony
Grant, the niece of Rev. Ted Pike, is a staff writer and researcher for the
National Prayer Network. For more of her articles go to www.hisnamesake.blogspot.com.
Learn
much more about the threat of liberal Jewish activism at http://video.google.com/.
Google's video site shows Rev. Pike's videos, Zionism and Christianity:
Unholy Alliance, The Other Israel, Hate Laws: Making Criminals of Christians,
and Why the Mid-East Bleeds, in their entirety, free of charge.
Please visit www.truthtellers.org
NATIONAL PRAYER NETWORK, P.O. Box 828, Clackamas, OR 97015