Speaking on official Palestinian Authority television, the Mufti (Muslim spiritual leader) of Bethlehem, Abed El Majid El-Amarna declared, “We in Bethlehem and in Palestine still suffer as in the days when Jesus was persecuted by those [the Jews] who persecute us today. The same ones who persecuted Jesus are doing the same to us today in Palestine.”

The birthplace of Jesus, just a few miles from Jerusalem, was always a Christian town—until recently. Today it is mostly Muslim. For both political and religious motives, Muslim clerics are now invoking the name of Jesus. Yet Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem refuse to criticize their blatantly anti-Semitic and anti-biblical statements.

On the contrary, the majority of Palestinian Christians support the Islamist claim that the Palestinians are suffering at the hands of the Jews just as Jesus...

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