August 26, 2002
Film documents Arab Christians' woes
___By Matt Young
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict long has been the focus of international attention in the Mideast, a pro-Israeli French film producer claims there's another little-noticed struggle there of equal importance--between Muslim and Christian Palestinians.
___In "The Holy Land: Christians in Peril," a documentary to be released in September, Pierre Rehov explores the plight of Christianity in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
___Beginning at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, where Palestinian Muslims allegedly held Christian monks hostage in a five-week standoff with the Israeli Army that ended in May, the film attempts to portray what Rehov says is the persecution of Christians at the hands of extremist Muslims.
___"It's a story of (Christians) living under Islam for so many centuries as second-rate citizens," said Rehov, who is also president of the Luxemburg-based World Committee for Justice and Peace. The group supports Israel and filed a criminal lawsuit against Yasser Arafat for genocide in December.
___"Some Christians are forced to sell their lands and shops to Muslims," Rehov claimed. If Christians don't, they face harassment and property damage, he said.
___Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff, who has spent time in Israel and is the national director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, said some Christians feel unwelcome at the hands of Muslims.
___"Some reports seem to indicate that there is less freedom (for Christians) to practice and be proud of their religion," Resnicoff said.
___But Charles Kimball, who wrote a book about Christians in the Mideast a decade ago and is a professor of religion at Wake Forest University, said historically Palestinians of all creeds have gotten along well in the Holy Land.
___Palestinian Christians and Muslims "are very much together in (their quest for) Palestinian independence," Kimball said. "Arafat's wife is even a Christian." So is Hanan Ashwari, one of the most visible Palestinian spokeswomen.
___However, Kimball conceded that newer Islamist groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which seek to establish an Islamic Palestinian state instead of the secular one advocated by Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, have begun to sow the seeds of tension between Christians and Muslims in the region.
___"As more extremist Muslims have gained power and challenged the Palestinian Authority, more Christians have become concerned about their future," he said.
___As further evidence of Christian torment, Rehov said 20 years ago, 150,000 Christians lived in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Now only 60,000 live there. And since 1950, Christians in the territories have dropped from 15 percent of the total population to 2 percent today, he said.
___Rehov said he is making the film to open the eyes of Christians worldwide to the struggles of their brothers and sisters in Palestine.
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