Christians in Jerusalem

Nobody has said that. Why are you so determined to pick a fight?

This.

Christians don't do so well in many countries in the middle east, and particularly treated badly in many predominantly Muslim countries.

Ah, not heard of that. I'll check it out. Always seeking to inform myself...

as well as Jordan there is a substantial Christian community in Lebanon but it is very very complicated politically.

I would actually not say that Christians are at the same risk as Muslims in Jerusalem but this has to do with the Temple Mount. That introduces a whole other layer of things, and the Jewish activists that are really focused on that issue are a whole other level. (To understand this, understand that the mainstream Jewish opinion is that we are forbidden to set foot on the Temple Mount because we don't know the site of the Holy of Holies. Forget the politics, I would never go up for that reason, no matter how much or for what reason I wanted to see it. This opinion is held by both Zionist and non-Zionist rabbis. The extremists who want to go up, and worse want to destroy the mosques and build the third temple, are not a huge group but they are really vocal and extreme.)

So much ignorance amongst American fundamentalists. I'm hoping some are starting to wake up to the truth.

Ps From The Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple is a great book about Christian and other minorities in the middle east.

I read an article about Palestinian Christians in which one guy described his encounter with an American Evangelical woman. ' It's ok ' he said ' I'm already a Christian.' To which she replied - ' how wonderful , when did you convert?'

Gosh, this is terrible. I do actually acknowledge that some of Christian or moreover church history is pretty dark. But pretty much all that dark history was in Europe and the west. Middle Eastern Christianity was always much more positive. Jews, Christians, Muslims and others always were friends in the Middle East. Apparently Christians in the region also fell victim to medieval crusades. So, it's sad that some (I'm sure just a small minority) extremist Jews take out their anger about European (centuries old) crimes on their neighbours in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. It has nothing to do with them or their ancestors. Pretty much every religious tradition has some things in its history that they wish weren't there. We're not our ancestors...

I addressed this point above.

I'm sure people who think like this are extremists and do not represent the majority. However, there are people in authority in Israel who have openly shared similar views and I don't believe there has been enough done to challenge it and prevent such acts.

The spitting is particularly abhorrent and derogatory.

https://m.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-761490

Christians in Jerusalem face the same persecution as Muslims do, at the hands of Israeli settlers. They often get spat on too unfortunately.

Never said it wasn't but you seem to want to distract from what is the subject of this thread. Why?

Others on the thread seem happy to discuss this in wider terms than just East Jerusalem and have experience and knowledge of the subject. Seems wise to listen to what they have to say?

This thread is about Christians in Jerusalem. If you want to talk about their plights in ME, by all means, start a new thread. I am already looking forward to it.

Jordan is the other exception, isn't it? They have official protection in Israel & Jordan but I don't think anywhere else. @Corinthiana 's experience is still valid. The refugees she has worked with can speak of their experience - they may not necessarily be experts in the detail of the whole picture in the ME. Equally some Palestinian Christians may have had good experiences in Gaza but objectively there is strong evidence that Hamas has not protected Christians and there has been persecution from Islamist extremists.

I lived in Jordan for 2 years and can categorically say the above statement is untrue. Christians in Jordan make up about 4% of the population, and are very free to practise christianity. They are automatically exempt from (islamic) religious studies if they go to state schools, are granted all of the religious holidays off school and have their own religious curriculums and in fact schools. There are two towns that are almost exclusively christian. There is no difference between muslim/christian at all, the relation is very good. I knew many who had family in Palestine too and they said the same thing. Corey Gil Shushter did a christian Palestinian edition and they all said they are free to practise with the Muslims but under occupation of Israelis, which targets them.

Where did I say you couldn't talk about it? The link I posted includes references to Christians having various difficulties in Israel. Any society under threat, as Israel is, tends to have an increase in inter-communal tension. It would be weird to expect that not to happen in some way. Its hardly surprising when the roots of antisemitism are in christianity and there are religious extremists in Israel. But there needs to be some balance. All societies experience communal tension & prejudice, what matters is how those things are dealt with. Israel has a pretty good record in the wider context of the Middle East.

Palestinian Christians specifically do face attacks from extremist settlers (who don't care that they're not Muslim; they care that they're not Jews). However they also face oppression from islamists. there's a reason for substantial Christian representation in secular Palestinian nationalist movements.

christians are also more likely to emigrate. (By the way this is also true in Lebanon, so the phenomenon is more complicated than Israeli-Palestinian politics.) Bethlehem, for example, has seen a huge change in demographics; it's now 90% Muslim where it used to be majority Christian. This is not due to settler violence but the economic and social impact of the occupation and its particular geographic position (it's cut off between settlements and the separation barrier, and before that by checkpoints.) The settlers in this area are not violent, in fact they pride themselves on not being (though they are willfully blind to the impact of their presence).

The situation in Jerusalem itself is complicated and always has been, and there are layers beyond the conflict itself such as disputes between different Christian denominations. When it comes to Christians in general, not specifically Palestinians, there's also been several cases of Christians trying to infiltrate the Jewish community, that is, missionaries posing as Jews. This is an incredibly sensitive issue in Israel. (It is not illegal to be a missionary, but it is such a sensitive issue that when BYU, the Mormon university, opened a Jerusalem center, the students were given a specific order not to evangelise and it is very strictly enforced.) When one of these incidents happens, it can result in reactions towards the Christian community.

I think you need a very black & white way of thinking to see it that way.

I certainly am. Apparently Christians and Muslims were great neighbours in most of the Middle East for centuries. I don't know much about it, but I know that changed in Iraq and elsewhere after the invasion there. We can blame Tony Blair and co for that.