By Walid Shoebat (Shoebat Exclusive)
Christy Anastas, a Christian girl from Bethlehem was featured on CBS 60 minutes a while back in a program that was slamming Israel with all the hoopla about Israelis mistreating Palestinians (watch beginning 5:00):
But Christy couragously defied her family, Palestinian society, CBS and the entire false media and slammed back:
Even Youtube banned her video which the Israeli government successfully made them post it back.
According to her the world is “telling lies about Israel”.
After traveling to Sweden in recent weeks where she gave a candid speech to students at Uppsala University, Christy said that her uncle threatened to kill her for endangering their family, which still resides in Bethlehem.
So what did Christy do that was so shameful?
She read one verse in the Bible that promised Israel was to regain the Promised Land.
Arguing with her community in Bethlehem, she responded that the land was promised to the Jews even in the Quran.
The word went around, of course, and her “Christian” uncle threatened to shoot her dead. And as what happened to our Lord, Christy had to flea her beloved Bethlehem and was granted political asylum in Britain due to continual threats, not only by the Muslims, but also by her entire Christian family since she criticized Palestinian terrorism and expressed support for Israel’s right to exist.
As soon as we heard her story, Shoebat.com investigating the Arabic sources to only find what was expected: Christy had to endure great slander.
The Christian Radio in Bethlehem instantly denounced her, and as Christ promised that “a prophet is not honored in his own village”, her own Christian family denounced her publically stating to an Arabic news source that “The Zionists and the Mossad did a thorough brainwashing operation on her because for years they wanted her family’s home in Bethlehem since it was situated by Rachel’s Tomb, the matriarch of Israel”.
Christy Anastas home in Bethlehem
Christy, as it is usual amongst Palestinians was sentenced to the Hall of Shame. Her uncle Jeries Bandak denounced her accusing her of collaborating with the Zionists to “cause a rift between Muslims and Christians in the community”.
Christy committed the unpardonable sin, she gave many factual observations about the realities in the Palestinian areas such as that under the Israeli occupation, Christians in Bethlehem were 80% and now under Palestinian control they were reduced to only 7% pointing that Muslims steal Christian lands and that her own family could not retrieve their land since the local judge was Muslim. Also that the separation wall substantially decreased the numbers of Palestinian youth committing suicide bombings.
Palestinian Christians of Catholic or Orthodox and even Evangelical affiliation are usually vehemently anti-Israel. But not Christy, who as a result of her conversion is Zionist to the core.
And if they only understood their history, things would be much better. Shoebat.com has done a research on the Christians in Bethlehem. What is known by the elderly (but kept hidden) that the majority of Bethlehem Christians aren’t even Arabs and many still take pride in their Italian-Jewish heritage.
Andre Dabdoub, on his website which traces his family’s legacy from Bethlehem, posts a May 1, 2000 email from Abraham Dabdoub to Marcel Dabdoub, telling him the story which had been passed down through the generations of his family. Abraham said he was told the Pope during the Crusades sent two Italian noblemen, brothers from the Monteforte family, to take back the Holy Land from the Muslims. After Christian soldiers conquered Bethlehem, the brothers allegedly stayed there on order of the Pope to safeguard the holy places. The two were said to have married Jewish women and lived in Bethlehem in a two-story house, located at the front of the Church of the Nativity.
The brothers’ descendants became the very large clan of Tarajmeh (which means “translator”) because the brothers worked as translators, as did many generations of their family after them, speaking Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Greek and even Russian.
From the Tarajmeh clan stemmed many of the families still living in Bethlehem today.
The children of the Italian brothers are said to have built houses next to their parents, but the entire complex was demolished in 1957 and turned into a parking lot when the Jordanians took over control of Bethlehem.
Andre Dabdoub’s website also relays another story of his family’s roots in Bethlehem, a slightly different variation of what Abraham Dabdoub’s email had said. Andre says he was told two brothers from Monteforte, Italy came to Bethlehem in the fifteenth century. (He’s not specific about which “Monteforte” and there are at least three cities in Italy which have that in their name.) The brothers allegedly wanted to learn Arabic and began work as translators. The rest of the story is the same as Abraham’s: they married Jewish women, had kids, lived in front of the Church of the Nativity and became the forefathers of the Tarajmeh Clan.
And from the Tarajmeh came most of Bethlehem’s Christian clans.
So Shoebat.com sends this message to Christy: Welcome to your true spiritual and family roots. The day will come when you all fly on the clouds with Messiah to return home and then the whole world will be Zionist.