Perhaps that is permissible.
The Sheep's Crib quotes from portions of the following press release, reproduced here in its entirety.
PROTESTANT LEADERS SILENT AGAIN
Judeo-Christian Alliance
For Immediate Release
Sept. 6, 2005
Protestant leaders in the U.S. are silent again. After years of blaming Israel for the suffering of Christians in the disputed territories, leaders of mainline Protestant churches are keeping mum about the Muslim riot in Taybeh that destroyed the homes of 14 Christian families on Sunday, Sept. 4. The riot is part of a long string of attacks on Christians in areas under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority that have been ignored by Protestant leaders in the U.S., says Dexter Van Zile, director of the Judeo-Christian Alliance, an initiative of the David Project Center for Jewish Leadership and Advocacy.
“The PA has failed to protect the rights of its Christian minority from Muslim oppression for years. Mainline Protestant leaders in the U.S. have said nothing,” he says.
A growing number of mainline Protestant denominations have approved resolutions that blame Israel for the suffering in the disputed territories, but they have said nothing about the role Muslim extremists have played in making life unsafe in the disputed territories, said JCA president Dennis Hale.
“Mainline Protestants in the United States will be shocked to learn that Muslims are attacking Christians on the West Bank. Their leaders assert Palestinian Christians are being oppressed by Israel. The riot is proof the mainline Protestant story about the Middle East is full of holes,” Hale said. “Mainline churches are getting their information from Palestinian Christians who must remain silent about their Muslim tormentors in order to stay alive. They are rewarded for their dishonesty by anti-Israel activists in the US. The true story of the Palestinian Christians is almost completely unknown among the mainline denominations.”
Protestant leaders have failed to condemn boycotts of Christian business owners in Bethlehem and the campaigns of harassment suffered by Muslim converts to Christianity, Van Zile reports.
“Leaders of mainline Protestant churches complain when they believe the Jewish state of Israel is responsible for the suffering of Palestinians, but they remain silent when the Palestinians themselves are to blame,” Van Zile says. “It’s disturbing. Until denominational leaders condemn Muslim violence against Christians and Jews with the same force they condemn Israel, their motives will be suspect, with good reason.”
Contacts:
Dexter Van Zile (617) 428-0012 (dvz@davidproject.org)
Dennis Hale (617) 552-4165
www.judeo-christianalliance.org
So what is this Taybeh deal? Here's what Haaretz says:
Last update - 09:59 05/09/2005
Muslims torch 14 Christian homes near Ramallah
By Arnon Regular
At least 14 houses belonging to Christian residents of Taybeh, a West Bank village northeast of Ramallah, were torched by Muslims from neighboring Dir Jarir yesterday, to avenge what they termed the dishonor of a Muslim woman.
According to Taybeh residents, several dozen young men from Dir Jarir descended on their village before dawn, torched the homes and destroyed a great deal of other property.
"The young men, who were holding Molotov cocktails, threw them at the houses, which began to go up in flames, one after another," said Buthaina Sha'aban, a Taybeh resident and the sister of the town's mayor. "They vandalized parked cars and beat village residents who went out into the streets. Entire families were thrown into the street after their homes were torched. Not much remains of their property. We urge all international, Israeli and Palestinian actors to intervene and protect village residents from the Muslim rage."...
Palestinian Authority policemen who arrived on the scene also managed to save the village's famous beer factory.
The two villages are located in Area B, meaning that they are under Israel security control. Access to the villages from Area A, where the PA police is located, is only possible by going through Area C, under full Israeli control. Residents said that several hours passed until the Israel Defense Forces agreed to allow the PA police to leave Ramallah and enter the village to stop the rampage.
Later, the Palestinian governor of the Ramallah area visited the scene to try to soothe tempers, as did several senior Christian clerics. Most Taybeh residents are either Catholic or Greek Orthodox.
PA security sources said that the rampage was triggered by an incident last week in which a 23-year-old woman was killed by her relatives because they suspected her of carrying on a romance with a Christian man from Taybeh. The woman was quickly buried, but last Tuesday, the PA police exhumed the body for an autopsy.
So you dig a bit, and find accusations that the Israeli government is also at fault because they didn't allow Palestinian police into the area. (Although at present I'm still confused - if Area B is under Israeli security control, why didn't the Israeli security forces stop the violence? Muddier and muddier?) Needless to say, the Judeo-Christian alliance didn't mention Israeli inaction.
This article mentions a connection between the male lover and the beer factory, and also some "routine" beating of the male lover (Mahdi Abu Houria), who is in protective custody:
The only brewery in the Palestinian territories escaped an attack yesterday by a mob that razed a dozen homes over an alleged affair between a Christian man whose family owns the beer factory and a Muslim woman from a neighbouring village who was then murdered by her own family.
The attack on Taybeh, a wholly Christian village which gives its name to a popular Palestinian beer, came despite appeals from residents to their neighbours in Deir Jarir to refrain from violence while the body of the murdered 25-year-old woman, identified only as Haim, was disinterred for DNA tests to try to ascertain if she had sex with the accused man, Mahdi Abu Houria.
"Because we were afraid of what would happen, we got permission from Abu Mazen [the Palestinian president] to dig her up from her grave and have DNA testing," said Maria Khoury, the wife of Taybeh's mayor who co-owns the brewery. "You can't just accuse someone without evidence. They buried without testing. We are very suspicious that this family raped their daughter and buried her and they want to find an excuse to destroy our village."
The accused woman was murdered by her family last week in an "honour killing" after the alleged affair was made public. Palestinian women's groups say that women are sometimes killed after being raped by relatives who then attempt to shift responsibility for pregnancy to an innocent man.
Abu Houria was arrested by the Palestinian police after he was accused of the affair and is being held in "protective custody" in prison where his family says he is routinely beaten....
The brewery was founded by Nadim Khoury a decade ago when he returned to the Palestinian territories after living for nearly 20 years in Boston. He and about 25 other residents of the village are naturalised American citizens. The family says it attempted to enlist the help of the US consulate in Jerusalem during the attack but it said that the only action it could take was to inform the Israeli army....
The Israeli army said that when it arrived at the scene it concluded there was no imminent danger to life and, in accordance with agreements, waited for Palestinian forces to arrive and quell the disturbance.
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