A rarely told story of the 1948 war that founded Israel concerns Nazareth’s survival. It is the only Palestinian city in what is today Israel that was not ethnically cleansed during the year-long fighting. Nazareth was not only an anomaly; it was a mistake. The reason Nazareth survived is because of the actions of one individual: Ben Dunkelman, a Canadian Jew.
Nazareth has the largest concentration of Christians in the Holy Land but also a two-thirds Muslim majority after the city became a place of sanctuary for many refugees in 1948. That has made it especially vulnerable to Israel's divide-and-rule strategies. Benjamin Netanyahu sought to foment discord here in the late 1990s, during his first term as prime minister, by backing a plan to build a huge mosque overshadowing the city's main holy site. Now back in power, he is up to the same kind of mischief.
The violence rocking the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and now Gaza is on the verge of spilling into Israel, Palestinian leaders in Israel warned.
A wave of unrest has swept Palestinian towns in Israel over recent days, with repeated clashes with Israeli police in Nazareth, Jaffa, Lod, Ramle, Taibeh, Sakhnin, Rahat, Kfar Qassem and elsewhere. Dozens of protesters have been arrested.
Unrest grows among Palestinian citizens of Israel, outraged by restrictions on access to al-Aqsa and causalities in the occupied territories
by Jonathan Cook
(Al-Jazeera ) – The violence rocking the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and now Gaza is on the verge of spilling into Israel, Palestinian leaders in Israel warned.
The Israeli government has declared war on a Palestinian TV channel that launched last month from a mobile studio-truck near the city of Nazareth in Israel.
The station, which broadcasts six hours a day to Israel’s 1.5 million Palestinian Arab citizens, focuses on news, arts, food and celebrities, as well as offering children’s programmes and quiz shows.
Despite the channel’s modest budget and ambitions, however, Israel’s public security minister, Gilad Erdan, ordered its closure last week, describing its operations as a “breach of Israel’s sovereignty”.
Photo: Courtesy Global Research
Established decades ago to ‘Judaise’ the Galilee, Upper Nazareth fights back as Arabs from surrounding communities try to buy homes
by Patrick Strickland
Palestinian civil society groups in present-day Israel have rejected a discriminatory bill passed into law by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, on 24 February, which defines Palestinian Christian citizens of Israel as “non-Arab.”
Mounting efforts by Israel to divide its large Palestinian minority along sectarian lines have heightened fears that the Biblical city of Nazareth may be about to return to the scenes of violent clashes witnessed 15 years ago.
Tensions in the city, the hometown of Jesus and a destination for hundreds of thousands of tourists each year, have risen sharply in recent months after the Israeli government unveiled plans to encourage Christian school leavers to serve in the military.
Two months ago officials from Israel and Texas made an unexpected announcement, unveiling an ambitious plan to build in Israel the first branch of an American university, at a probable cost of $100 million.
The greatest surprise of all was the location: Texas A&M University, one of the biggest in the US, is set to open its new campus in Nazareth, a town of 80,000 in the Galilee, home to the largest community of Christians in Israel and the unofficial capital of the country’s Palestinian minority.
By Richard Edmondson | Fig Trees and Vineyards | October 27, 2013
Christian Zionists are apparently planning to bring “enlightenment” to the poor, benighted indigenous inhabitants of Occupied Palestine. Governor Rick Perry of Texas, with help and assistance from John Haggee of Christians United for Israel, has struck a deal whereby Texas A&M University will open a branch campus in Israel.
