devans
Mentor
There is a wave of attacks on Churches in Israel going on that is getting very little publicity. I stumbled across this on an African news web site...Christian leaders in Israel are up in arms over what they say is a string of relentless attacks on church properties and religious sites. The most recent being the desecration of a historic Protestant cemetery where vandals toppled stone crosses from graves and bludgeoned them to pieces.The attack in the Protestant Cemetery of Mount Zion, one of Jerusalem's most important historic graveyards, has struck a particularly sensitive nerve because some of the damaged graves belong to important figures from the 19th and 20th centuriesThe attack joins a list of high-profile Christian sites that have been vandalised within the past year. They include a Trappist monastery in Latrun, outside Jerusalem, where vandals burned a door and spray-painted "Jesus is a monkey" on the century-old building, a Baptist church in Jerusalem, and other monasteries. Clergymen often speak of being spat at by ultra-Orthodox religious students while walking around Jerusalem's Old City wearing frocks and crosses.Over the past three years, 17 Christian sites in the Holy Land have been reported vandalised, according to Search for Common Ground, a nongovernmental group that monitors press reports of attacks on local holy sites.Researcher Kevin Merkelz said a police detective in charge of Christian affairs told the organisation the numbers are actually higher, but Christian leaders chose not to report many attacks to the press."The Christians who are still here want to keep a low profile when attacked," said Merkelz. He said the group does not include sites in the politically sensitive Old City of Jerusalem in its survey, because many sites are in dispute, and the group does not want to be seen as taking sides in conflicting claims to important properties.from http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2013/10/09/christian-sites-being-vandalised-in-israel
