ISLAMIC "PALESTINIAN" APARTHEID - Expert: 'Christian groups in PA to disappear'
http://www.jpost. com/servlet/ Satellite? pagename= JPost%2FJPArticl e\
%2FShowFull& cid=119554679587 4
Expert: 'Christian groups in PA to disappear'
Etgar Lefkovits , THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 4, 2007
The ever-dwindling Christian communities living in
Palestinian- run territories in the West Bank and Gaza are likely
to dissipate completely within the next 15 years as a result of
increasing Muslim persecution and maltreatment, an Israeli
scholar said Monday.
"The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in
Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the
international community, human rights activists, the media and
NGOs," said Justus Reid Weiner, an international human rights
lawyer in an address at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,
where he serves as a scholar in residence.
He cited Muslim harassment and persecution as the main cause of
the "acute human rights crisis" facing Christian Arabs, and
predicted that unless governments or institutions step in to
remedy the situation - such as with job opportunities - there
will be no more Christian communities living in the Palestinians
territories within 15 years, with only a few Western Christians
and top clergymen left in the area.
"Christian leaders are being forced to abandon their followers to
the forces of radical Islam," Weiner said.
Facing a pernicious mixture of persecution and economic hardships
as a result of years of Palestinian violence and Israeli
counter-terrorism measures, tens of thousands of Christian Arabs
have left the Palestinian territories for a better life in the
West, in a continuing exodus which has led some Christian leaders
to warn that the faith could be virtually extinct in its
birthplace in a matter of decades.
The Palestinian Christian population has dipped to 1.5 percent of
the West Bank and Gaza Strip, down from at least 15% a half
century ago, according to some estimates.
No one city in the Holy Land is more indicative of the great
exodus of Christians than Bethlehem, which fell under full
Palestinian control last decade as part of the Oslo Accords.
The town of 30,000 is now less than 20% Christian, after decades
when Christians were the majority. Elsewhere in the Palestinian
territories, only about 3,000 Christians, mostly Greek Orthodox,
live in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, out of a strongly conservative
Muslim population of 1.4 million.
"In a society where Arab Christians have no voice and no
protection it is no surprise that they are leaving," he said.
In his address, Weiner pointedly downplayed the effects that
Israeli security measures, such as the security barrier being
built between Israel and the West Bank, have had on the Christian
Arabs living in the West Bank.
The barrier, which is especially conspicuous at the entrance to
Bethlehem where it is a concrete wall, is an issue which many
Palestinian Christian clerics have pointed to, along with the
ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as a central cause of
Christian emigration.
Weiner argued there was a "180 degree difference" between the
public statements coming out of the mainstream Christian
leadership in the Holy Land - who "sing the PA's tune" and blame
Israel for all the Christian Arabs' ills - and people's
experience on the ground.
"The truth is beginning to come out," he said. "The question is
what is being done with the truth."
His comments come just months after a prominent Christian
activist, Rami Khader Ayyad, 32, was killed in Gaza.
"For too long the plight of Christian Arabs has been put on the
back-burner or ignored altogether," said Rev. Malcolm Hedding,
executive director of the International Christian Embassy, a
Jerusalem-based evangelical organization.
The Evangelical leader, who has drawn the wrath of Catholic
leaders in the Holy Land for his strong support for Israel, said
that "power politics" has prevented the major Christian leaders
in the Holy Land from speaking out on this issue.
"There is a one-sided debate in which Israel is responsible for
everything," he said. "The Christian world needs to stand up and
speak out about this."Technorati - 'palestinian' terrorism 'palestinians' Israel IDF 'palestinian' Apartheid Zionism Anti Israel bigotry Islamic Apartheid War on terror Terror victims 'palestinian' propaganda jihad Genocide bombing Anti Israel bias Arab racism Jews IDF Anti Israel racism Islamofascism Conflict Israel "Palestine" palestinians"Palestinians" Israelis Civilwar Arabs MuslimsJihad Terrorism Fatah non-Muslims Christians Hamas Gaza Terrorism Islamofascism Arab Christians PA Jerusalem Muslims Apartheid Islamic Apartheid 'Palestinian' Apartheid Labels: "palestine", "palestinians", apartheid, apartheid slur, Arab Christians, christians, intolerance, Islam, Islamic apartheid, Islamization, Muslims, PA, palestinian apartheid
Film Tries to Capture 'Truth' of Bedouin Life [Israel's democracy & Arab on black racism inside the Bedouin Muslim community]
Film Tries to Capture 'Truth' of Bedouin Life [Israel's democracy & Arab on black racism inside the Bedouin Muslim community]
http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/13325
Film Tries to Capture 'Truth' of Bedouin Life, in All Its Hues
June 21, 2007 - Carin M. Smilk, Managing Editor
 |
Exterior of "A Step Forward" in Rahat |
Nothing is ever black and white, especially when it comes to people.
Take, for example, the situation with Israel's Bedouin population, particularly in the south of the country, in the Negev Desert. There, some 180,000 Bedouin reside -- all citizens of Israel, but some black, and some white.
The so-called white Bedouin are often dark-skinned, in typical Middle Eastern fashion, like many Sephardic Jews. The black Bedouin are actually former Africans, who were kidnapped by Arab slave traders; auctioned off in Zanzibar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt; and eventually brought through the Middle East -- and into the Negev. With the establishment of the State of Israel, they were freed, and later settled, for the most part, with many of the white Bedouin in desert towns and villages.
Israel keeps no record of the number of black Bedouin as opposed to white; population figures go by ethnicity, hence all Bedouin are counted together. But a sizable community lives in their own neighborhoods in Rahat, one of seven recognized towns established in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the Israel government for certain Bedouin tribes. Less than 30 miles due north of Beersheva, modern-day Rahat is now a bustling city of more than 40,000 people -- the second largest Arab city after Nazareth in the north.
 |
Alia Al Kamalat, headmistress of the Omar bin Al-Khatab elementary school in Rahat, Israel |
But these people are not faring so well, and their hardships led a Jewish filmmaker to take a snapshot of life in Rahat, seen through the eyes of a handful of black Bedouin.
Uri Rosenwaks, originally from Beersheva, came to teach a film class to a group of women amenable to the idea, and along the way, learned a lesson or two himself.
For one, Rahat -- which means "collective" -- ranks as one of the poorest cities in Israel, with an unemployment rate of about 18 percent, twice the national average. Some 50 percent of Rahat's adult population and 60 percent of its children live below the poverty line. It boasts one of the largest birthrates in Israel, with especially low education and employment rates for women, and especially high dropout rates when it comes to boys and school. Statistics point to the blacks as having an even rougher time of it than the whites.
 |
Documentarian Uri Rosenwaks with Bedouin NGO director Majid Al Kamalat after a screening of "The Film Class" |
"Israel," says Rosenwaks, "is turning into a capitalistic jungle," and it's leaving behind some of its struggling citizens. With no previous knowledge of the status of black Bedouin, Rosenwaks took what he absorbed in 18 months and turned it into a 53-minute documentary called "The Film Class," completed in 2006 and now weaving its way through the Jewish film-festival circuit.
'An Unfounded Stigma'
Superficially, the documentary centers on women of different ages understanding the mechanics of film production, but its real value lies in the self-knowledge and ancestral history they gain from interviewing others. For instance, they learn that older women know little in the way of their family trees, reaching back only to a grandparent at best. They know little of how they even wound up in Rahat. Male subjects seem to know more, like the nearly 90-year-old man who tells of black Bedouin, both male and female, being stolen as children, dragged away to be sold.
At times, the women visibly wrestle with their reactions to the stories they hear. They also get the chance to travel to see firsthand where they come from -- the group, with grant money for the making of the film, go all the way to Zanzibar to uncover their roots and find out more about the hardships of former slaves. (They also fly to England for quite a different adventure, one that addresses a serious familial issue, but also adds a bit of levity to the production.)
And it isn't just the past that stings. In an on-air talk with Talal Alkiernawi, the mayor of Rahat, the women challenge him on contemporary issues, like the discrepancies between blacks and whites.
In that interview, the women ask him rather bluntly, "Don't you feel that there is racism inflicted upon the blacks?"
The mayor distinctly pauses before answering with, "I don't see any racism."
Look, he continues, "I am a Muslim like you, an Arab like you. We speak the same language; we share sorrows and joys. I don't see any racism."
But another response to the same question is offered by Majid Al Kamalat, the 36-year-old director of "A Step Forward," a nongovernmental organization founded in 2000 by young Bedouin professionals to help residents from the grass-roots up. Its office in Rahat serves as a natural meeting place, as well as the location for part of "The Film Class."
This time, Rosenwaks plays interrogator, referring to something Al Kamalat quietly notes on film: "When you talk about a stigma, what do you mean?"
Replies Al Kamalat: "There is a stigma about the Afro-Bedouin community -- an unfounded stigma -- that we are all thieves and criminals, that we don't care about anything, but the opposite is true. As one of the community, I think it's the opposite. I see positive things, but people tend to see only the negative."
One such positive is the career of Al Kamalat's wife, Alia, who serves as headmistress of the Omar bin Al-Khatab elementary school -- kindergarten to grade six -- in Rahat. A working mother of three, Alia Al Kamalat represents one of the very first female Bedouin principals, though several more have followed in her footsteps. At 35, she is setting a trend for a new generation.
As is her husband, who notes that he appears in the film "for the future of the children," meaning all of the children in his city and elsewhere. And because of his own young daughter, he says he wants to further opportunities for women in general.
Those in the film class mention the exact same thing. They are empowering themselves and their families. They are undergoing an awakening of sorts. Be it operating the camera, setting precedents for their children, contemplating higher education or, for a few of the younger women, dabbling with the idea of marrying someone white, the assembly of students winds up earning an "A" -- for awareness.
Technorati - Arab racism Arab supremacy Arabization Arabs slavery Freedom 911 Sudan Mauritania Chad Darfur Sudan genocide Al Qaeda Al Qaida Bin Laden Anti west Anti American Terrorist oganization 'palestinian' terrorism Suicide bombing Saddam Hussein Torture chambers WTC bombing Homicide bombing London bombing Bali bombing Muslim clerics Mullahs Islamic Hitler jihad Sudan genocide Islamic slavery Arab slaver masters Genocide bombing Anti Israel bias Arab racism Anti Israel racism Islamofacsism Conflict Israel Islamic Jihad Hamas "palestinian" Animalism "palestinian" cruelty "palestinian" Savagery "Palestine" "Palestinians" Israelis Jewish refugees Victims of terror Moderates Islam Radical Islam Militants Arab occupation Arab Muslims Indoctrination Arab hatred Muslim hatred Nubians Kurds Berbers Marsh Arabs Maronites Assyrians Arabism Racism Anti Israel Racism Ahwazi Azeris Balochis "palestinian" Racism Rape Jihad Israeli Arabs Race Clashes Akhdam "Abid" "Zurka" "Arabic" Horsemen Non Arabs bedouins Bedouin HilaliLabels: Arab racism, Arab supremacy, Arabs, Bedouins, history, Info, intolerance, Israel, Israel the gem, racism, Slavery
