{"id":350243,"date":"2018-02-28T22:58:05","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T21:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/money-not-protection-of-palestinian-christians-was-at-the-root-of-holy-sepulchre-protest\/"},"modified":"2018-02-28T22:58:05","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T21:58:05","slug":"money-not-protection-of-palestinian-christians-was-at-the-root-of-holy-sepulchre-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/money-not-protection-of-palestinian-christians-was-at-the-root-of-holy-sepulchre-protest\/","title":{"rendered":"Money, Not Protection of Palestinian Christians, Was at the Root of Holy Sepulchre Protest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There were plenty of opportunities \u2013 more honorable ones \u2013 over the past decade to shut the Holy Land\u2019s major Christian pilgrimage sites in protest<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>It was a protest long overdue \u2013 and one that produced rapid results.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, for the first time in living memory, Jerusalem\u2019s Church of the Holy Sepulchre <a href=\"http:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/news\/jerusalems-church-holy-sepulchre-shuts-protest-proposed-law-changes-134252555\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">slammed shut its doors<\/a> to worshippers and tourists. In justifying the closure of the site where it is believed Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected, Church leaders accused Israel of launching a \u201csystematic and unprecedented attack against Christians in the Holy Land\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>By Wednesday the church had reopened after Israel, bombarded with bad publicity, appeared to climb down.<\/p>\n<p>Shuttering the church had threatened economic damage too. More than a quarter of Israel\u2019s nearly 4 million visitors each year are Christian pilgrims. They and many other tourists come primarily to follow in the footsteps of Jesus \u2013 and the Holy Sepulchre is top of their sightseeing list.<\/p>\n<p>The churches are right that the survival of a meaningful Palestinian Christian presence in the Holy Land hangs in the balance. Christians now comprise just 10 per cent of the large Palestinian minority in Israel \u2013 or about 2 per cent of Israel\u2019s total population.<\/p>\n<p>In the Palestinian territories, which are under belligerent Israeli occupation, Christian numbers have similarly plummeted.<\/p>\n<p>But however serious the problem, the joint statement from Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/2018\/02\/money-not-protection-of-palestinian-christians-was-at-the-root-of-holy-sepulchre-protest\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There were plenty of opportunities \u2013 more honorable ones \u2013 over the past decade to shut the Holy Land\u2019s major Christian pilgrimage sites in protest It was a protest long overdue \u2013 and one that produced rapid results. On Sunday, for the first time in living memory, Jerusalem\u2019s Church of the Holy Sepulchre slammed shut [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-350243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}