| The saduccees were neither ultra-piuos nor ultra-interolerant. The departure of Palestinian Christians from Bethlehen is not due to Israeli occupation, it is due to Islamic intolerance. If anything the Israeli presence protected Christians from Islamist extremism. In historical terminology the ancient Palestinins would have been the Philistines, and Jesus the Jew from the House of David, was certainly no Philistine. The image was ueful p.r. for Arafat, but meant nothing to most of his Islamic followers. The Christian world who should be disturbed by the exodus from Bethlehem has grown too secular and materialistic to care -- witness the proposed European Union Constitution that ignored Europe`s shared Christian heritage. |
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