What you know about Palestine is probably wrong

So much of what we read about Palestinians in Israel is wrong.  Dexter Van Zile, an intrepid journalist who digs deep, uncovers plenty of mythology in a no-holds-barred exposé appearing today at The Times of Israel.

You may have heard about the recent criticism of American evangelicals by the president of Bethlehem Bible College.  His name is Jack Sara, and he has written three op-eds at the Christian Post complaining that American evangelicals don’t care about Arab evangelicals in Israel or Arabs generally.  What’s the evidence that American evangelicals don’t care?  The fact, he says, that most support Trump’s decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, which Israel has declared as their capital since the beginning of the modern state in 1948.

Here are some true facts that Van Zile has unearthed to combat the usual fake news about Palestine:

“Despite what Sara says about Evangelical Protestants in the U.S., they have a robust (not ‘feeble’) concern for Arabs in the Middle East. They give millions of dollars of year to help them . . .

“Why would Sara, an Evangelical himself, do such a thing? Because he has to. Sara is the leader of a Christian college operating in the Muslim-majority West Bank. And every Christian institution — Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant — has to make nice with the corrupt Palestinian Authority in order to keep operating. . . .

“For this reason, you will not see Christian institutions in the West Bank or Gaza Strip offer prophetic warnings about the PA’s violence, dishonesty and thievery.  They will, however, condemn Israel, because not only is it the safe thing to do, it helps ingratiate Christians into the good graces of the thieving bullies who control the West Bank and Gaza Strip. . . .

“It helps explain why you will not see Palestinian Christians condemn the anti-Semitic and genocidal rhetoric coming out of the mouths of jihadists on The Temple Mount and why you will not see Palestinian Christians forcefully and directly confronting the genocidal monotheism broadcast by groups like Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Palestinian society. . . .

“My guess is that the Palestinian Authority is doing everything it can to squeeze every last bit of public submission from Sara and his colleagues at the Bethlehem Bible College before the school hosts its biannual ‘Christ at the Checkpoint’ conference in May, 2018. . . .

“And even though Israel allows for religious freedom in ways that the PA and Hamas do not, an announcement at the Christ at the Checkpoint in Bethlehem about how Mahmoud Abbas has finally recognized Evangelical churches will be public relations gold for the PA. . . .

“It will not represent any meaningful change in the lives of Christians, but like I said, it will be a real PR coup for Sara and his colleagues — and for the PA itself. . . .

“My advice to American Evangelicals?   Don’t take it personally.  It’s Dhimmitown.”