Thursday, January 25, 2007

PERSECUTING PALESTINIANS

The Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh reports from Bethlehem that a "number of Christian families have finally decided to break their silence and talk openly about what they describe as Muslim persecution of the Christian minority in this city."

Despite the headline "Bethlehem Christians claim persecution", Abu Toameh's story is unlikely to make it into Australian newspapers like the Melbourne Age. Could it be that the wrong people are doing the persecuting?

And on the subject of persecution that's going on unnoticed, it seems that Irak's Palestinian population is suffering badly at the hands of the thugs in Muqtada al Sadr's mainly Shiite Mahdi Militia. Since the Coalition of the Willing's invasion in 2003 hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Irak and yesterday Palestinian sources reported that 27 Palestinian refugees were kidnapped in several areas of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad on Tuesday morning.

It seems they some folks in Baghdad don't like the mainly Sunni Palestinians. They suspect some of them of being involved with other foreign insurgents who have bombed Shiite population centres and buildings including mosques and resent them because of alleged favourable treatment received under Saddam Hussein.

Although the cause of the Palestinians in Irak has been taken up by human rights organisations, their story doesn't rate in the western media which tends to focus more on the fact that the whole of Irak has become a quagmire for George W. Bush and his dwindling band of allies.

The reason for the lack of interest by the media?

Could it be that the wrong people are doing the persecuting?

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