The Conflict — Part 8

Hanan Ashrawi, the spokeswoman for the PLO negotiating team and the “darling of the news media,” sidestepped a legitimate question from a Christian journalist and went on to speak about her direct descent from the first Christians in the world ¯ Palestinians. This writer has written much about Palestinian Muslim-Arabs, but here he needs to speak a little here about Palestinian Christian-Arabs.

When this writer speaks of Palestinian Christian-Arabs, he is using general terms. He is referring to those non-Muslim Arabs who have a Christian background, but who may never have set foot inside a church or opened a Bible in their lives. With these people he lumps together those Arabs who do attend church and Bible studies regularly, and who may or may not have had a Biblical born-again Christian experience. There are a number of the latter group personally known to this writer, most of whom he would describe as very fine people. But of the Palestinian Christian-Arabs that he knows well, there is not even one that he could call truthful.

This writer’s personal experience has been that they have all “lied through their teeth” when the occasion necessitated. This writer has said elsewhere in this series that Arabs live in a fantasy world, a world where if you can imagine something it becomes fact. And from this writer’s personal experience, and also from the numerous statements he has read, the great majority of Palestinian Christian-Arabs are very pro-PLO, which is regarded by many Westerners as a terrorist organization. It might seem totally ludicrous to readers, but a prominent evangelical Palestinian Christian-Arab involved in reconciliation work between Christian-Arabs and believing Jews, privately said to this writer and his wife: “Terror is the only answer to Israel ¯ we will beat you in the end.” The reader, therefore, should treat as suspect any statement made by Palestinian Christian-Arabs, until it has been thoroughly verified.

The question asked of Hanan Ashrawi by the Christian journalist at a Madrid press conference was: “How can you expect Israel to give up Judea and Samaria after they have served as launching pads for attacks against Israel at least twice.” Unable to answer the question without incriminating both herself and the PLO of which she is the spokesperson, Ashrawi cleverly counter-attacked ¯ she plucked the emotional heart-strings of the world’s press by claiming that she was a Palestinian Christian descended from the very first Christians in the world. It had nothing at all to do with the question, but the correspondents of the anti-Semitic British press wildly applauded her answer. And a delighted American syndicated columnist, Mary McGrory, reported Ashrawi’s rejoinder as: “It was pretty much game, set, and match.”

Such appalling ignorance! All the first Christians were Jews ¯ Arabs (and Ashrawi is an Arab) did not come into the land until the 7th century ¯ her claim is just another huge Palestinian hoax. Ashrawi, who looks to television viewers more like a headmistress of a British finishing school, is a PLO proxy, and her father was one of the founders of the PLO! She supported “Saddam Hussein, and supports terrorist attacks on Jewish civilians, and death-squad executions of Palestinian Arabs.” Moshe Arens, a former Israeli Minister of Defense, designated Ashrawi as “the authority who sanctions murderous raids.”

Ashrawi also said to the Christian journalist: “There is no Judea and Samaria ¯ Jesus was born in my country.” Most readers are probably aware that for part of Israel’s ancient history the land was divided into two kingdoms ¯ the larger, northern kingdom of Israel, and the smaller, southern kingdom of Judah. The boundaries between the two kingdoms ran almost straight across from the Great Sea (Mediterranean) to the top center of the Salt Sea (Dead Sea), and then southwards down through the middle of the Dead Sea. Judah contained Jerusalem, and Israel contained Samaria. In Roman times, the land was determined by three main geographical areas, Galilee, Judea and Samaria ¯ Judea being the Latin form of Judah, from which the word “Jew” comes. The Romans referred to the whole colony as Judea until they renamed it Syria–Palæstina in 135 AD.

Ashrawi says that “Jesus was born in my country” ¯ Palestine. The Bible tells us in the Old Testament (Micah 5:2), and also in the New Testament (Matthew 2:6 ¯ where it refers to Micah’s prophecy), that Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem, and that Bethlehem is in the land of Judah. The New Testament, which was written while the Jews were under Roman occupation, mentions Judea 45 times and Samaria 12 times. And sure enough, it records that “Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea” (Matthew 2:1). And speaking of Jesus in John’s gospel (4:3 – 4), the Bible says: “He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria.” Jesus even told his disciples (Acts 1:8) that they would be his witnesses in “Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria.” The same gospels that link Jesus to the biblical areas of Judea and Samaria, also tell us that Jesus came out of Egypt “into the land of Israel” (Matthew 2:20, 21). Jesus was born in Judea, in Israel — not in Palestine ¯ it did not exist in biblical times.

As they have done for millennia, the Jews today still refer to the hilly interior regions as Judea and Samaria. In 1948, King Abdullah of Jordan followed the Roman example and disconnected the historic Jewish connection to Judea ¯ he simply renamed it. Just as the Romans coined the name Palæstina, so Abdullah coined the name “West Bank.” And now the whole world happily refers to Judea by this name. Almost 3,500 years of continual Jewish presence in their ancient land is buried beneath consecutive layers of Arab propaganda and lies.

Ashrawi is not alone in remaking Jesus ¯ “King of the Jews” (Matthew 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38; John 19:19) ¯ into an Arabian king and his disciples into Arabs. Most Palestinian Christian-Arabs parrot the same fairy tale. And Ashrawi’s former illustrious boss, Yasser Arafat, described the Apostle Peter as “a Palestinian who defied Rome.” The Jews are also blamed by them for murdering Jesus, “the Palestinian prophet.”

The hostility toward Israel of many Palestinian Christian-Arabs is apparently matched only by their zeal for the PLO. Another Palestinian Christian-Arab, -Dr. Geries Khoury, has written a book entitled: The Intifada of Heaven and Earth: A Palestinian Theology. Khoury -propounds that the PLO orchestrated intifada — which claimed well over 1,200 lives and many, many thousands of injuries and disfigurements — was divine, a God-inspired “glorious time.” Khoury’s divine intifada doctrine also states: “Any believer who tries to justify through his theology the religious right of Israel in Palestine is an infidel who denies God and Christ.” And believe it or not, he even “excommunicates Christian Zionists”!

An Anglican priest, Elias Khoury, was convicted for transporting explosive devices in his car that killed two people and injured 11 others at the British Consulate in Jerusalem and at a city supermarket. Khoury is now on the executive council of the PLO in Amman, Jordan. Archbishop Hilarion Cappucci was also caught -gun-running for the PLO terrorists ¯ large -quantities of weapons and explosives were hidden in his Mercedes. Cappucci said: “Jesus Christ was the first fedayi [terrorist] — I am just following His example.”

Jesus was born a Jew in a Jewish town called Bethlehem in the Jewish homeland called Israel. However, even Christmas cards from Bethlehem today have more Muslim content than Christian.

To be continued

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