Israel has had a serious credibility problem for quite a while now. It's only been recently that the world can see how dangerous this country is. I have been posting about the attack on Palestinian Christians for a while.
And Christmas is not being celebrated in Bethlehem due to the conflict.
Israel’s attack on the fifth-century Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza has turned the spotlight on the besieged Palestinian enclave’s Christian population. The region is referred to by name in the New Testament in Acts 8, which refers to Philip the Evangelist baptising a man from Ethiopia on the road between Jerusalem and Gaza.
“Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, ‘Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ This is a desert.”
The Saint Porphyrius Church, is one of the most important religious sites in Palestine. Named after a fifth-century bishop, the site is one of the oldest surviving places of worship in the region and one of the oldest churches in the world. The church was initially built in 425 CE and then later reconstructed by Crusaders in the 12th century, with much of the present structure dating back to that period.
Another major Christian site in Gaza is the nearby and even older Tell Umm Amer monastery. The fourth-century structure, which now lies mainly in ruins, once included churches, a baptism hall, a cemetery and crypt. The monastary served as a place of worship for those traveling between Egypt and the lands of the Levant, including Palestine and Syria. The site is notable for being the birthplace of Saint Hilarion, a fourth-century Palestinian monk, who helped pioneer monasticism.
We can't forget the occupied territories in the "West Bank" which is home to quite a few of the events in the Bible. Unfortunately, if you are a Palestinian Christian, you need to go through all the other hassles of being in the Apartheid state that other non-Jewish people go through: unless your tour is through an approved operator.
I've published other posts on how Christians are not treated well and won't go into it. The bottom line is that Zionism is not-religious, but is based upon ethnicity and the superiority of that ethnicity.
