City officials in the birthplace of Jesus Christ are tearing down Christmas decorations in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s continued invasion of Gaza.
Bethlehem, an ancient city located in the West Bank, declared via social media and official spokespeople that decorations installed in previous years are being removed amid the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
“Bethlehem Municipality crews announced the dismantling of Christmas decorations installed several years ago in the city’s neighborhoods and removing all festive appearances in honor of the martyrs and in solidarity with our people in Gaza,” the city wrote on Facebook, according to the Jerusalem Post.
A city spokesperson also acknowledged the campaign to remove Christmas decorations in a statement to the Telegraph.
“The reason is the general situation in Palestine; people are not really into any celebration, they are sad, angry and upset; our people in Gaza are being massacred and killed in cold blood,” the spokesman said, according to the outlet.
They added, “Therefore, it is not appropriate at all to have such festivities while there is a massacre happening in Gaza and attacks in the West Bank.”
Despite the significance of Bethlehem to Christians and its high religious tourism from the faithful during the Advent season, the city is majority Muslim.
The Christian population of Bethlehem has been in steady decline since the mid-20th century.
In 1950, Christians made up over 80% of the local population, but now hover around 10% in a Muslim-dominated region.
Many Christians have chosen to flee the area due to persecution and religious harassment.
Additionally, low birth rates among Christian communities in Bethlehem have also contributed to the collapsing demographic in the West Bank.
Approximately 185,000 Christians live in Israel, where they make up just under 2% of the population, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics.
I as a Christian would be devastated, Muslims Jews alike should respect the Christian ways.
Muslims respect nobody except themselves.
You really got that right! We should do like Japan. NO MOSQUES, PERIOD! In fact, I feel that particular “religion” should be banned from our country.
Should but don’t. The left-wing Islamo-Nazis ignore it, but Islamists (not all Islamics) believe that the world must become Muslim or die. No exceptions. Jews first, because there are so few (about 14 million worldwide), but then everyone else. They are not bashful about it, but state it outright.
Evil psychotic mass murderous Middle East religics been enjoying mass murdering each other for past 10,000 years!
There’s NO ‘good guys’ over there… at least, not among the evil religics…
That’s because it is Islamoland.
Would you expect anything less from sympathisers? These terrorists, sympathisers, and Islam desacrate everything they come in contact with! Don’t tell me they are about peace! They hate not only Jews and Christians but others not Islamic. Terrorist supporters like Tlaib, Omar, and the squad as examples must be permanentely deported and banned from this country. Orhers from here need to be put in prison for being terrorists sympathisers!
Muslims hate Christmas anyway. The war is a good excuse for them to deny the few remaining Christians Christmas.
AZ gal, from reports I’ve seen their Koran (bible) says if we don’t share their beliefs we should all die. Muslims are simply no damn good.
From the beginning of Christianity, Bethlehem was overwhelmingly Christian, as you would expect. As of 30 years ago, it was about 80% Christian. However, then Israel turned over control of it to the PA, and now the Christian population is 14%. Muslims hate Christians too, but there are too many of them (2.7 billion) to consider genocide against them yet, whereas there are only about 14 million Jews on earth, a much more doable population for genocide, as Hamas proved last month. So, tearing down decorations is far from the worst that the so-called palestinians have done to Christians!
One of the comments lost in the text is the fact that Christians birth-rate is much lower than that of Muslims. If we face genocide we have to look in the mirror at what we have done to ourselves and take responsibility for it. Once we had large families, now women have gone to work in order to pay for $1000 cell phones for each family member and a McMansion that sits 90% empty.