“O Little Town of Bethlehem”
By Henk Kamsteeg

For much of Bethlehem, the “peace and loving each other” Christmas festivities are far from its streets. The city where once Jesus was born has now become a battleground. A place where radical Islam fights its ideological warfare. Caught in the middle of it all are the Arab Christians, who already for many years have suffered incredible hardships, bombings, kidnapping and intimidation. As a result thousands of Christian residents are leaving Bethlehem, and the way things are, soon there may be no Christian left at all in the famed city of David.
When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, Christians composed 80 per cent of the Bethlehem residents. Since that time, the oppression of Christians in the birthplace of Jesus has risen sharply. It largely began in 1995 when Israel withdrew from the city and turned over control of the town to the Palestinian Authority. Official figures tell us that Bethlehem, including Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, is comprised of some 61,000 people. In Bethlehem itself the divide is 60 per cent Muslims and 40 per cent Christians. However, Naim Khoury, the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Bethlehem, dismisses those figures out of hand. “Since 1995 the figure of its Christian population has gone down from approx. 62 per cent to approx. 15 per cent,” he says. Now Christian residents live in a Palestinian area, Muslim-dominated in absolute numbers and in character.
Naim Khoury grew up in a Greek-Orthodox family with deep roots in the Old City of Jerusalem. As a child he attended an Arab school where the color of the Mediterranean Sea was painted in red and not blue. The teacher explained that the sea would be red after the Jews had been killed and kicked out in the sea.
Naim was the first member of his family who came to faith in Jesus Christ. Through the power of prayer his whole family came to faith. His brother was powerful in his conviction and preached wherever he could. He was slaughtered a couple of years ago on the Mount of Olives by fundamental extremists.
According to Khoury, who is also responsible for churches in Jericho and Jerusalem, there is a growing anti-Semitism and sentiments of anti-Christianity in the Palestinian territories in particular. “The election of Hamas has made the situation for Christians even worse and many are now fleeing the Holy Land. What was once a partly Christian area is now almost completely under Islam,” he said.
There is a dossier of 140 illegal land grabs where Christians have lost their land to the Muslims. Other complaints range from services in the Church of the Nativity being drowned out by blaring loudspeakers from a mosque across Manger Square, to incidents of what local Christians call harassment of their women by Muslims. A lot of Christians don’t wear the cross anymore, especially men, because they don’t want to stand out and they don’t want any trouble. They are harassed, but hardly anyone dares say anything publicly about the Muslims.
The town of Bethlehem made worldwide headlines in 2002, when the focus of international attention climaxed when heavy fighting broke out between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen on Manger Square near the Church of the Nativity. Several hundred Palestinians stormed the Church thinking, “This is a place for peace, and where Jesus was born,” one of the main terror leaders of the siege reportedly said. The siege finally ended March 10. Of course Israel was blamed and it was said the Jewish state held civilians inside the church hostage for over a month…
But Khoury does not blame the Israeli for Bethlehem’s fleeing Christians. “There is no freedom for Christians in the Middle East,” he said, “but there is freedom in Israel for me as an Arab Christian! Why can we not speak about this openly? Christians are being persecuted and killed for their faith. Why do others have the right to kill Christians and we are expected to say nothing? We need to wake up to what is happening.”
Pastor Khoury called on the European parliament and other international institutions to raise these questions and ask if they are compatible with our universal values. “If not, why are we not reacting when people are killed for their faith and convictions,” he said.
Recently, Roger van Oordt, the director of Christians for Israel in the Netherlands, visited Naim Khoury. At a breakfast meeting Naim told him that he and his family are under constant pressure from the Muslim population in and around Bethlehem. There have been several attempts to assassinate Naim, and he is threatened again by fundamental extremists that he will be caught soon and killed. “I realize that my life is not in the hands of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but in the hands of the Lord God Almighty,” he said. “The police in Jerusalem advised me to be at least during the nights not in Bethlehem, because usually Hamas is doing its work in the night and not during daytime.” Christians for Israel recently provided Naim Khoury with funds to install a security system in the church.
Pastor Khoury is aware that Hamas is building its empire in the territories, using money and food as a means to gain support from the local population. “When Hamas takes over the power in the territories, the first to be slaughtered would be the Christians who are not supporting Hamas,” he said.
During an interview with Aviel Schneider, Jerusalem’s israel today editor, Naim Khoury told him withdrawal from more territory, such as the West Bank, might bring a temporary quiet, but that there will be no real peace until the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ, returns.
When asked about the future status of Jerusalem, Khoury said “There is no such thing as [Arab] East Jerusalem and [Jewish] West Jerusalem in the Word of God. It just says ‘Jerusalem,’ and the city should be united forever.
“Our church has been attacked 14 times,” Khoury continued. “A few years ago, three bullets were fired at me; one hit my left arm, and the other two missed. But I’m not going to compromise. I’m one out of nine leaders in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Yet, I’m the only one who takes this stand. I don’t believe in replacement theology [the doctrine that the Church has replaced Israel]. We love Israel because we love God. We love the Word of God, and we hold on to His promises.”
Bethlehem needs Jesus’ miracles now perhaps more than ever. And it is to Him the town’s Christians turned to at Christmas 2007.
“Pray that the Spirit of Christ, of Almighty God, the Prince of Peace, will be able to make people live in peace and harmony together and to have the peace of God in their hearts; to be able to forget about violence and killing and shooting and suicide bombing. We need to pray to Almighty God to help me, my family and the people here to live in peace and harmony. It can be done. The only One Who can do it is the Lord Jesus Christ”
Pastor Naim Khoury, First Baptist Church, Bethlehem.

“O Little Town of Bethlehem” By Henk Kamsteeg

“O Little Town of Bethlehem”
By Henk Kamsteeg