Outrageous anti-Israel article in The Independent

An unbelievable column from Mira Bar Hillel in The Independent:

The Prince of Wales has often spoken of aspiring, when he is King, to be known not as Defender of the (Anglican) Faith, but “Defender of Faiths”. His open attitude towards other religions has been established long enough for him not to need to worry of being accused of Islamophobia.

But recent events in the Middle East have forced him into an intervention he would have been happy to avoid.

“Christianity was, literally, born in the Middle East and we must not forget our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters in Christ”, he said at an interfaith gathering in Clarence House. And he urged Christians, Muslims and Jews to unite in “outrage” as he warned of the elimination of Christianity in much of the region in which it developed.

The problem is becoming especially acute in Syria and Iraq, where the West appears powerless to help beleaguered Christians. But is the Prince aware of what is happening in the actual places where Christ was born and grew up, and where international pressure could be very effective?

Oh boy - here it comes:

When I was in Israel a year ago there was talk of an passing urgent bylaw which would have criminalised the placing of anything resembling a Christmas Tree in or near restaurants or places of entertainment. This did not actually happen, but it is typical of the Jewish State’s attitude to Christians.

Someone proposed a law, it was defeated, and this is evidence of Jewish hate for Christians!

But now Mira needs to make it sound scientific:

In 2012 there were 125,000 Palestinian Christians in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem (excluding the West Bank and Gaza), or 2 per cent of Israel’s population, down from 8 per cent in 1946, just before the end of the British Mandate in 1947.

See her sleight of hand? She is comparing the Christian population as a proportion of the British Mandate areas - 8% in 1946 - to the percentage of Christians in the Green Line today! This makes it sound like Israel has decimated its Christian population by 75%!

The truth is that the Christian population of Israel has always been in the 2% range. This is the worst kind of misuse of statistics.

In that year, Christians made up 85 per cent of the population of Bethlehem, but by 1998 the figure had declined to 40 per cent. Most left for the lack of economic and educational opportunities, exacerbated by draconian Israeli travel restrictions, and the exodus continues.

The majority of Christians have left Bethlehem while it was under Arab rule, both Jordanian and Palestinian. But Bar Hillel blames only Israel, as if it treats Palestinian Christians differently than Palestinian Muslims in Bethlehem.

Bar Hillel goes on to say that Israel is threatening Christians in Nazareth, using bizarre evidence. Here's the truth:

A senior Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land says the Christian community is in danger of dying out in Nazareth, an Israeli Arab city where Christians believe Jesus spent his youth. Bishop Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo says many of Nazareth's minority Christians began emigrating more than a decade ago largely because of tensions with local Islamists who tried to build a mosque next to the city's main church. ....

The bishop says the main cause of that emigration is a campaign by Islamists to boost their political power in Nazareth at the expense of Christians and moderate Muslims.

Then, Bar Hillel talks about illegal African immigrants and implies that Israel persecutes them because so many are Christian!

In a sane world, such a column would be laughed out of the editor's office. But we live in a world where basic fact checking is nonexistent when the Jews are the ones who can look like racists.