Mo’adim Lesimkha Vs. I'D Miilad Said ous Sana Saida

Merry Christmas, in Hebrew and Arabic, have different impacts on Palestinian Christians.

Two religion-based areas are next to each other: Israel, and Gaza and West Bank where Muslim religious law is now adopted as part of the Palestinian Authority constitution. The results: In Israel, the Christian population has increased, while in Palestinian areas it has decreased.

[T]wo-thirds of the Christian Arabs had already departed between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan occupied the West Bank and Egypt the Gaza Strip, prior to the "occupation" and decades before construction began on the security barrier to protect Israel's population from waves of deadly suicide bombers. During the same period, hundreds of thousands of Christians were leaving other Muslim-ruled countries in the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa. Every one of the more than twenty Muslim states in the Middle East has a declining Christian population. In fact, Israel is the only state in the region in which the Christian Arab population has grown in real terms - from approximately 34,000 in 1948 to nearly 130,000 in 2005.

The Chicago Tribune reports on the sad Christmas in Bethlehem:

Bethlehem, revered as the birthplace of Jesus, is losing its Christians, an exodus spurred by economic hardship and the grinding conflict with Israel.

Once an overwhelming majority here, Christians have dwindled to about a third of the population of Bethlehem and less than 2 percent of all Palestinians in the West Bank, according to several estimates.

London’s Telegraph reports:

The issue will be in the headlines later this week, when Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, lead a joint delegation to Bethlehem to express solidarity with their beleaguered brethren.

A Bethlehem water engineer tells one of the many common experiences of Christians in Palestinian areas:

"And we know that, if a job becomes available, it will go to a Muslim, not a Christian." He said tension between the Christian minority and Muslim majority is a daily feature of life. It rarely flares into violence or spectacular acts of cruelty, but it steadily corrodes the quality of life enjoyed by Christians.

"My son, Nazar, when he was just 13, used to come home from school and the Muslim boys of his age from the local refugee camp would run after him shouting 'Nazarene, Nazarene', which is a derogatory local term for Christian. Once they caught up and threatened to beat him unless he said Allah was his god and Mohammed his only prophet. We had to move house, but now my son has left university and cannot get a job, so every day he says we must leave."

A Bethlehem cab driver tells us in another British newspaper’s report:

"Every day, I experience discrimination," he says. "
"It is a type of racism. We are a minority so we are an easier target. Many extremists from the villages are coming into Bethlehem."

The owner of the only Christian TV station in Bethlehem plans to leave:

Samir Qumsieh is general manager of Al-Mahed - Nativity - which is the only Christian television station in Bethlehem.
He has had death threats and visits from armed men demanding three acres of his land - and he is now ready to leave.
"As Christians, we have no future here," he says.
"We are melting away. Next summer I will leave this country to go to the States. How can I continue?
"I would rather have a beautiful dream in my head about what my home is like, not the nightmare of the reality."

When we say Merry Christmas, let's remember the Christians in Arab lands for whom it's not so merry.