David Singer says:

//This call to remove every Jew living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - 500,000 men, women and children - was accepted in total silence by the United Nations.//

Indeed...and this is but the tip of the iceberg regarding the U.N. which some (such as me) would call "Big Brother" in the making.

David...you are preaching to either the converted (sympathetic to Israel) or the uncovertable...those who simply don't intend to change sides no matter how compelling the argument might be.

This is because they are driven not by 'factual evidence' but by ideology, and a socialist ideology at that.

Regarding the Christians who are being harmed in the West bank ? well.. what's new.. the numbers of Christians killed or maimed and/or bombed in the whole area, including Pakistan has exploded lately.

Mentioning this re the West bank won't have much impact in terms of drawing nominal Christians to the Jewish side, if that's why you mentioned it. Most Christians who side with the Muslims/Arabs are driven by a more 'social' gospel or a liberal theology which does not see things very Biblically in my view.

Fortunately for we Christians. Our faith is not tied to geography.
The glorious crusades (and glorious some of them were indeed aside from some minor isolated blemishes within the German knights travels of an anti Jewish nature) taught us that unless we totally dominate and possess the region, we simply don't have a place there. As soon as the first Crusade obtain victory.. most of the knights went back to their families.

Far better that Jews hold power there as an actual nation. More preferable to the Caliph who burned over 3,000 Churches,Massacred pilgrims and precipitated the first Crusade in 1199.

"Do you really believe Abbas would agree to a Latin American force being stationed in territory he now controls - Bethlehem and Bet Sahur - to protect the Christian residents from the violence that the Palestinian Authority has failed to stop over the last 15 years?"

Who cares whether he will agrees or not? Surely he does not agree to the presence of Israel either, so what? If the UN security council decides to send an international force (Latin American or otherwise) to protect the Christians, then this force will perform its duties by hook or by crook, whether Abbas likes it or not. A review is possible at a later date once the UN is convinced that the Christians are safe there. BTW, this can be a part of a larger UN peace-keeping force that will control Eastern Jerusalem once Israel is also ordered to withdraw.

#Yuyutsu

Are you off the planet?

Has the presence of NATO forces in Iraq stopped the slaughter of Christians?

Would the Security Council ever be able agree on any resolution to send a Latin American force into the Palestinian Authority fiefdom against the wishes of Abbas? Do you think Egypt would accept a similar force to protect the Copts? Would Hamas accept a similar force to protect the Christians being persecuted in Gaza? How do you propose this force ride roughshod over Mubarak,Haniyeh and Abbas?

Do the Latin American countries care a damn about the Christian cleansing in the West Bank and Gaza? They are currently falling over themselves to "recognise" a non-existent state controlled by Abbas - the very man who is failing to protect the Christian population.

If the Christian Arabs in Israel were being mistreated as they are in the West Bank then every human rights organization and the UN would be up in arms. From all of them not one squeak on what has been happening in Iraq,Egypt,the West Bank and Gaza.

It is called double standards.

Everyone averts their gaze when Christian cleansing is being carried out by Muslim majority populations.

The 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference have also been conspicuously silent in failing to condemn the violence on Christians in Egypt,Iraq,the West Bank and Gaza.

When the Pope dared to say something - Egypt recalled its ambassador from the Vatican in protest.

Christians will continue to be singled out and victimized in Moslem countries including the West Bank and Gaza.

That - Yuyutsu - is the reality.

Quite simple, David:

I never suggested sending UN forces to Egypt or to Gaza, only to the West Bank.

Why?

Because Mubarak and Haniyeh have the armies to resist - while Abbas does not.

"Double standards"? sure! Discriminating in favour of what CAN be done and leaving out what CANNOT be done for later.

One operation that I would support, and is militarily plausible, is an international force entering Gaza temporarily in order to free the Christians there (and other moderates who suffer under Hamas), allowing them to move to the West Bank instead (or to any other country who would accept them). The threat of such an operation should probably be enough in itself to make Haniyeh allow the Christians out without a single shot.

As for Egypt, I believe that Mubarak does what he can to prevent terror against the Copts. There, the solution is to work WITH him and not AGAINST him, giving him the necessary assistance and technology to be more successful in averting terrorist attacks.

One comment to ALGOREisRICH:

Strange you mention "socialist ideology" - the people who conquered and occupied the West-Bank and Gaza in the first place, and subsequently approved the Jewish settlements, were not observant Jews, but none other than Israel's Labor party, considering themselves socialist. Indeed, it was them who did the greatest dis-service to the state of Israel, trapping it in that filthy swamp to this very day.

I do understand that it is your natural preference that the Jews will be the ones to carry out the dirty work of protecting Christians in the West Bank, and suffer the casualties that come with the job. But the mystery is why should the Jews accept such a role and the heavy price in life, limb and morally that comes with the occupation.

#Yuyutsu

So what does the world do when the army stands by in Gaza and fails to stop Christians being victimized and discriminated against? Send flotillas with no doubt many Christians on board for photo ops with a Prime Minister that allows such violence to continue unchecked?

Jews living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are part of a state sponsored drive led by the Arab League, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to eradicate the Jewish state and its Jewish population in stages.

The Arab League has had this policy for the last 63 years by refusing to recognize Israel. It refused to do so between 1948-1967 when not one Jew lived in the West Bank, Gaza or East Jerusalem and the State it demands now could have then been created by the stroke of an Arab League pen.

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas officially endorse Jew cleansing in express provisions contained in their Charters.

Kowtowing to these Jew haters in the United Nations has exacerbated the conflict and encouraged the idea that Palestine will one day become an exclusively Moslem State without either Jews or Christians.

The way things are going we might also see very much the same happening to Christians in Iraq and Egypt. The Jews have gone already. Packing up and getting out to go and live somewhere else becomes a sensible option.

With the Christians this option is being taken with increasing regularity as outbreaks of violence against them by majority moslem populations are taken with apparent impunity and little state intervention to bring the offenders to justice.

Getting rid of the Jews this time round has not been - and will continue to not be - that easy to achieve.

Recognition of Israel by the Arab League and removal of the provisions of the PLO and Hamas Charters denying the Jews any rights to nationhood would go a long way to changing attitudes of Jew hating that have been inbred for centuries. This is what the United Nations should be demanding. That it fails to do so is to its eternal shame.

David,

I fail to see how your last post relates in any way to my former comment.

The issue, I remind you, was how to help the persecuted Christians.

I rephrase:
Christians are in danger, therefore we want to do what is POSSIBLE to help them out, but not attempt what is IMPOSSIBLE. I don't know about Iraq, but in the case of Gaza, it is quite possible (as Israel already proved) to enter there with full military force (and perhaps just the threat of doing that may suffice) and extract all Christians (and other innocent victims of Hamas), take them to safety, then leave the place.