Christians in the Middle East

Madam, - In a long letter, Leo Varadkar (January 8th) contends that Israel's illegal practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories…

Madam, - In a long letter, Leo Varadkar (January 8th) contends that Israel's illegal practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have nothing to do with "the decline of Christianity in its Middle-Eastern cradle", claiming incorrectly that "the Palestinian Authority has tried to conceal" the fact of Christian emigration from the OPT.

He complains that "there are no Christian governors, mayors, police chiefs or college deans in Egypt". Had he looked more closely at Palestine, the "Middle-Eastern cradle", he would have noticed that in December 2005 a Roman Catholic woman, Janet Mikhail-Khouri, was elected mayor of Ramallah, the de facto capital of the occupied West Bank. She was elected with the support of Hamas councillors.

The truth is that Palestinian - and Lebanese - Christians have traditionally belonged to a comparatively affluent social stratum and hence have been more mobile than their poorer Muslim compatriots, while being allied to them in opposition to Israel's policies and actions. Their emigration from the land of their birth began with the conquest of that land by Zionist forces, and has continued in response to the increasingly merciless policies of the Israeli occupying forces.

To attribute this phenomenon to the wiles of Islam is perverse and propagandistic in the extreme. - Yours, etc,

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RAYMOND DEANE,
Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign,
Dame Street,
Dublin 2.