Persecuting Christians in Gaza

ICC Note:

The U.S. has pledged to help rebuilding efforts in Gaza, yet Christians and others continue to be heavily persecuted under the authority of terrorist organization Hamas.

By Ken Blackwell

5/11/2010 Palestinian Territory (Family Research Council) – Does Secretary Hillary Clinton read the reports issued by her own State Department? It’s a fair question. She recently argued passionately at a summit at the Egyptian resort center of Sharm el-Sheikh for increased Western and Arab financial aid to an entity called the Palestinian Authority. To show the Obama administration is taking the lead, she pledged $900 million in U.S. taxpayer funds to jump start the re-building of Gaza and to underscore American commitment to the “two-state (Israel and Palestine) solution.”

The most recent State Department report on religious freedom in the Palestinian Authority-administered (PA) areas includes these from Bethlehem, on the West Bank of the Jordan River. “The PA did not take sufficient action… to remedy past harassment and intimidation of Christian residents of Bethlehem by the city’s Muslim majority. The PA judiciary failed to adjudicate numbers cases of seizures of Christian-owned land in the Bethlehem area by criminal gangs. PA officials appear to have been complicit in property extortion of Palestinian Christian residents, [emphasis added] as there were reports of PA security forces and judicial officials collude[ing] with gang members in property extortion schemes. Several attacks against Christians in Bethlehem went unaddressed by the PA…”

In Gaza, which we are paying to rebuild, Muslims attacked Christians with impunity. The Lighthouse Baptist School in Gaza City has been attacked repeatedly, as has the YMCA. Rami Khader Ayyad was abducted on the way home from work at the Baptist Holy Bible Association and murdered and the association offices were bombed.

Remember, Secretary Clinton is sending $900 million of your tax money to the people who pulled off these attacks, or who failed to investigate the attacks, or who were complicit in these attacks.

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