c. 1998 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ A report by a leading Palestinian human rights group concludes that _ contrary to allegations _ Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority does not systematically persecute Christians, but Palestinian evangelical Christian converts do face”religiously motivated harassment”from their Muslim neighbors.

The report, draft copies of which were made available here Thursday (Feb. 12), was published by the Palestine Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG). While the group has repeatedly charged the Palestinian Authority with committing widespread human rights abuses, it rejected allegations Arafat’s Muslim-dominated government has any policy of persecuting Palestinian Christians solely because of their religion.

About 40,000 Palestinian Christians _ largely Greek Orthodox and Catholic _ live under Palestinian Authority rule. The report said claims that Palestinian Christians have suffered religious persecution under Arafat’s rule have originated with the Israeli government, evangelical Christian groups and members of Congress associated with the effort to pass the proposed Freedom from Religious Persecution Act.

The act is intended to identify foreign governments that engage in religious persecution and would penalize them by cutting off most U.S. economic aid. Evangelical and other conservative Christians have been in the forefront of the campaign to pass the bill.

Anne Husikes, an aide to Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-Va., one of the lead sponsors of the Freedom from Religious Persecution Act, said at no time has testimony on behalf of the bill centered on persecution of Palestinian Christians.”I don’t know what the report is talking about,”she said.

However, Rep. J.C. Watts Jr, R-Okla., who supports the proposed act, has written that”official harassment sponsored by the (Palestinian Authority) against Christians”has included”the use of torture, threats and surveillance to monitor and control the activities of preachers and others active in the faith.”Watts said Thursday he stood by his comments”100 percent.” Bassem Eid, PHRMG’s director, said the charges by Watts and others are part of a broader effort by Israel and its supporters to discredit the Palestinian Authority as it seeks to create an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

His group’s report also said that the”myth of Christian persecution”by the Palestinian Authority is also part of an attempt by conservative Christians to discredit Islam in general.”Christians are suffering much more under Israeli occupation than under the Palestinians,”Eid said at a Washington briefing on the report. He cited Palestinian Christians often being denied access to churches and other holy sites in Jerusalem and elsewhere because of Israeli security concerns.

Muslim Palestinians make similar complaints.

While exonerating Arafat’s government of official religious persecution, the PHRMG report did conclude that the relatively few Muslim Palestinians who have become evangelical Protestants face widespread, if unofficial, harassment.”Evangelical converts from Islam have faced harassment, but there is no evidence that this harassment is organized from above, or that it differs from other cases in which people (land dealers, collaborators) have suffered from the hostility of their local community,”said the report.”Furthermore, their problems may well stem from the political beliefs which accompany their theology rather than their faith itself.” Conversion out of Islam, noted the report, is looked upon with great disfavor by conservative Muslims, who believe it contradicts Islamic religious law.

Conservative Muslims also often regard Christianity as an arm of Western imperialism and are angered by evangelicals who embrace the view that the state of Israel is part of God’s plan for Jesus’ return.”In our conversations with Palestinian evangelical converts, the PHRMG discovered that most have accepted the political implications of this theology,”the report said.”Missionaries who convert Palestinians from Islam to evangelical Christianity therefore also convert them to a religious Zionism embodied by the far right-wing of Israeli politics.” The report concluded by lamenting”the spread of reports of Christian oppression (because) they distract attention from the real human rights issue in Palestine”_ the arrest without trial of”thousands”of Palestinians under Arafat’s rule and the abuse of power by members of his security forces.

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