Near Bethlehem, barrier separates the town where Jesus was born from Jerusalem
Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
The sale of Nativity scenes with a wall running through the middle to symbolize Israel’s security barrier borders on anti-Semitism, Jewish groups are saying.
The Amos Trust, a British Christian charity that works with needy communities around the world, is selling the traditional Nativity sets with a political twist, noting that the wise men won’t reach the stable because of the wall. The Amos Trust says its Nativity sets are made by Palestinian carpenters from olive wood from Bethlehem.
Israel started building its security barrier — a series of walls and fences — in response to an upsurge in Palestinian terrorism that began in 2000. When it is complete, the barrier will stretch nearly 500 miles, dividing Israel from Palestinian Authority-controlled areas in the West Bank. Near Bethlehem, the barrier http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=73 the town where Jesus was born from Jerusalem.
“The security barrier has been deemed a necessary response to terrorism and indeed has saved many lives, both Jewish and Arab,” said Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews…
“It’s a shameful, cheap gimmick and it’s destroying the spirit of http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2566 it,” Arieh O’Sullivan, an ADL spokesman in Jerusalem, told Cybercast News Service. “It’s amazing how low people will go to make a sale.”
O’Sullivan said the sets “come close to resurrecting the old anti-Semitic canard that says http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=273."…
David Parsons, spokesman for the http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=54 Embassy Jerusalem, called the Nativity sets a “disgraceful political exploitation of the Bible’s message.”
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/11561576/
It is interesting to see Jewish spokespeople complaining about the “politicization” of Christmas, given the attempts to ban, dilute and otherwise thwart the holiday. And their “Christian Zionist” allies ignore a number of facts. Among them Jewish http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2392 against Christian leaders, and the persecution of Palestinian Christians, who made up 10% of Palestine’s population in 1948 and whose churches were literally founded by the Apostles. Half of the Palestinian Christian population was ethnically cleansed by the Zionists and, as Palestine’s professional and business elite, were exiled en masse.
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