The 2 YouTube links posted in #9 above are excellent. Here’s more on the subject:

From Christianity Today:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/juneweb-only/125-11.0.html

“Masked gunmen used rocket-propelled grenades to storm the main entrances of the school and church,” [in Gaza, said] Roman Catholic priest Manuel Musalam… “Then they destroyed almost everything inside, including the Cross, the Holy Book, computers and other equipment.” Every cross inside the church and school was destroyed, he said.

…One Christian teenager in Gaza told Catholic News Service, “We all hope it will be better, but it will never ever be good with Hamas.”

…Several Christian institutions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have been targeted by masked gunmen over the past few months. Last April, a bookstore run by the Bible Society in the Gaza Strip was bombed… A group calling itself the Huda (Guidance) Army Organization threatened to target all Christians living in the Gaza Strip following remarks against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad that were made last year by Pope Benedict XVI… The group also threatened to attack churches and Christian-owned institutions and homes. “All centers belonging to Crusaders, including churches and institutions, will from now on be targeted,” it said. “We will even attack the Crusaders as they sit intoxicated in their homes.”

From Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=home&sid=aC7P93EMyb1Q

The stone walls of St. Porphyrius church in Gaza were raised in the fourth century, a reminder of Christianity’s long role in the Mediterranean city’s history. The saga may be coming to an end. Christians, a minority of 3,000 among the Gaza Strip’s 1.2 million Muslims, are increasingly menaced by Islamic fundamentalists in this besieged Palestinian territory. Christians say they are on the verge of being driven out.

“Never in Palestinian history did we feel endangered until now,” said Archimandrite Artemios, the Greek Orthodox priest who heads St. Porphyrius. “We face the question of whether we are part of this community or not.”

…While there are few indications Hamas itself is trying to intimidate Christians, the change brought to the surface underground Muslim groups that are actively hostile to Christians, said Hamdi Shaqura, 46, an official with the independent Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

On Feb. 15, arsonists firebombed a library operated by the Young Men’s Christian Association and destroyed 10,000 books, police and YMCA officials said. Last fall, kidnappers killed a Christian bookstore owner and the shop was blown up twice. In August last year, vandals damaged a Catholic church and school…

The Oct. 7 murder of Rami Ayyad, 30, who operated the Palestinian Bible Society Bookstore in Gaza, was the first time that a Christian was killed for religious reason, Artemios said. Five Christian families have fled to the West Bank since, he noted.
Three months before Ayyad’s death, a pair of bearded men warned the bookseller, who was a Baptist, to convert to Islam or die, said his mother, Anisa Boutros Francis, 55.

…“Before, Israel was the only enemy. Palestinians were together,” said Ayyad’s mother. “Now, you don’t know who is who.”

Most of us are now hard at work trying to find ways to keep Nazareth from becoming completely Arab,(Not Arab Christian, but Arab Muslim)It is no mystery why Arab Muslims want to dominate in the Galilee, and it is inordinately difficult for Christians to even buy property there. The Israeli gov is no help when they allow Galilee farmland to be purchased by outside Arab groups rather than purchasing it themselves. What is going on there?

So we come to the current discussion. The Palestinian Authority’s jurisdiction is divided into two groups, near as I can see. Fatah is nominally Muslim, increasingly fundamentalist, and hopelessly corrupt. Hamas is much more fanatically Muslim, already fundamentalist, and hopelessly corrupt. Both groups essentially hate anyone who isn’t part of their group, and they tend to enforce all their laws with a few bursts from an AK-47. Israel, for all its faults (and it has a few, no question) doesn’t usually settle disputes with gunfire. While Israel has had corruption scandals, it’s not on the level of the PA. Israeli Arabs don’t serve in the Israeli army (unless they volunteer; oddly, by Moho’s lights, some do, choosing the Jews rather than a benevolent Muslim government).

Moho, if this were the 30s, would be pointing out that Hitler wasn’t that bad, because most American country clubs wouldn’t allow Jews to be members. That would have proven we were as bad as the Nazis, and I’m sure he thinks we’re as guilty of the results as they are. Unfortunately for him, some of the rest of us can think, reason, and use sound judgment.

Onward Christian Soldiers. Satan/jihad awaits.

Otherwise, you will continue cheating yourself.

Those Palestinian Christian’s homes were not burned out by Israelis…

They were not intimidated, harrassed, threatened, and physically brutalized by Israelis…

It’s been Arab Muslims who have made it impossible to live there…

So obviously it’s YOU who doesn’t know what he’s talking about…

(Is that the best you can do for your “arguement”, btw? Pathetic.)

You didn’t answer my question if you’d want to be a dhimmi in the Muslim world.

The simple fact is that Israeli Arabs have more freedom and more civil, political and religious rights than religious and ethnic minorities generally have in Muslim and Arab countries. All your blather won’t change that fact. Hell, Israeli Arabs have more rights than many Muslims and Arabs have in Muslim and Arab countries. I haven’t checked lately, but usually about 10-15% of the Knesset are Arabs. How many Jews are there in the PA’s legislative assembly? For the matter, how many Jews are there in any legislatures in any Arab or Muslim countries?

Starting in 1948, three quarters of a million refugees were forced from their homes in the Middle East. No, not the “Palestinians”, I’m talking about Sephardi Jews. Why is it that no Sephardi Jews that I’ve ever met have any desire to move back to the Arab and Muslim countries where their families are from?

Why is it that no Muslim that I’ve asked would want to be a dhimmi.

According to Article 5 of the draft Palestinian constitution (which mentions Christianity and other “monotheistic religions”, apparently because there is something taboo about the word “Jew”) non-Muslim monotheists will have civil rights. The draft guarantees “equality in rights and duties to all citizens irrespective of their religious belief.”

That seeming equality, though, is abrogated (hmmm, where did I hear the word “abrogation” before? – oh right, in the Koran where the earlier pacific and tolerant statements are abrogated by later verses the compel Muslims to subjugate and wage war on non-believers) by Article 7 which subordinates the activities of non-Muslim monotheists to the imperatives of Shariah.

As I said before, Jewish law, Halacha, has no such equivalent status in Israeli secular law. When the Israeli body politic has to confront issues relating to Judaism, it is invariably the subject of heated and contentious debate, not automatic acquiescence to Jewish law or rabbis.

Hell, there have been scores of demonstrations in Jerusalem by non-Zionist strictly orthodox chareidi Jews who feel that the secular Israeli government routinely desecrates the Sabbath and abuses religious Jews. There was just a large demonstration because Intel’s J’lem factory operates on the Jewish sabbath.

Speaking of Jerusalem, you said that Ramallah prospers because it is the seat of the PA gov’t in the West Bank. By that logic, Jerusalem should be Israel’s most prosperous city, as it the capitol of Israel and the seat of the government. Jerusalem, though, is not nearly as prosperous as Tel Aviv, and I believe it also has a higher poverty rate than Haifa, Israel’s third largest city.