Sunday and Monday, Israel's army retaliated with bombing and machine-gun fire from tanks and helicopters, punishing an otherwise benign Palestinian village for serving as a perch for snipers. We are Christians. They know Beit Jala does not want to hurt anyone. This front of the Holy Land's latest bloody confrontations involves the three major religions that consider Jerusalem their spiritual capital. Palestinian Muslim snipers have been using this Palestinian Christian village near Bethlehem to fire on the Jewish development of Gilo, built on land captured from the Arabs during the 1967 Israeli-Arab war.
Christians are a dwindling minority in the region.
While Palestinian Christians express solidarity with the Muslim majority and hold the same ambitions for independent statehood, historically they have not been combatants in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. Fortunately, the family had heeded warnings and fled the house just minutes before the ordinance hit. I was out of breath and the children were crying. Israel has vowed to respond with whatever force is necessary to suppress the shooting from the village into the populous Jewish suburb built and expanded over the last 20 years. Beit Jala is in the crossfire, and what Najarian wants most is for her daughters to be able to sleep in peace again.