Unlike the Palestinian population which has grown a few million and still you claim genocide, this would have to be the 1st genocide in the world where the population actually increases.
In 1947, West Bank Christians in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, constituted 85 percent of that town’s population, but by 2016, their numbers had declined to 16 percent. Like Christians in the nearby towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, Bethlehemites worry about their security and their future. They are haunted by memories of Yasser Arafat, whose militiamen in 2002 laid siege to the 1,400-year-old Church of the Nativity, held dozens of parishioners hostage, looted valuables, and set fires.One former Bethlehem mayor stated, “There is no future for Christians [here].” Reverend Tomey Dahoud, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Taubus, a city near Jenin, agreed. “The Islamic people want to kill us. That’s their principle and belief. They don’t want Christians in this country. They don’t want to hear our names; they don’t want to see us. That’s the reality.” During riots in 2006, his church was firebombed.The situation has not improved. Their churches are often attacked with no repercussions to the perpetrators, and they may be punished for any positive allusion to Judaism or its symbols in their practices. But they rarely complain publicly.According to veteran Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, the leaders of the Christian community in the West Bank are reluctant to hold their Muslim neighbours responsible for Church attacks or lootings because “they are afraid of retribution and prefer to toe the official line of holding Israel solely responsible for the misery of the Christian minority.”
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