International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, Nov. 12

Fatah militiamen in the Bethlehem area are demanding an independent inquiry into charges that local Palestinian Authority officials have been stealing land, mostly from absentee Christians.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigades urged the PA to establish a commission to investigate "very serious offenses by a suspicious group of people." The terror militia accused unnamed officials of forging title deeds and "messing around with various documents regarding land," most of it belonging to expatriates.

The Jerusalem Post reports that sources in Bethlehem back the statement’s accusations of wide-scale land theft in the Bethlehem area since the arrival of the PA seven years ago. They said several senior PA officials, including high-ranking security officers, had forcibly grabbed plots of Christian-owned land in Bethlehem, Beit Jala, and Beit Sahur.

"Most of the land is owned by Christian families," a source said. "Top PA officials and gangsters are exploiting the state of lawlessness and chaos to lay their hands on the land. They are also seizing property belonging to Christian families that have fled the area since the beginning of the intifada."

Approximately 1,000 families have fled the Bethlehem area since the outbreak of violence, Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser told The Jerusalem Post in a recent interview.

Many Bethlehem Christians that left for Latin America, the US, and Europe have discovered that strangers have seized their houses and land, the sources said. They said the owners have filed many complaints with the PA, but to no avail.

There has been a steady exodus of Arab Christians from the Bethlehem region for several decades, largely due to pressure from hostile Muslim elements that they join the armed struggle against Israel. As a result, the Christian population in greater Bethlehem has dwindled over the past 40 years from an 80% majority to a minority estimated by some as less than 25%.

During the first intifada from 1987 to 1993, there were persistent reports that fleeing Arab Christians from Bethlehem and even Jerusalem’s Old City were forced to sell their homes and businesses to Muslims. Those who refused often had their properties firebombed.

In the present case, the Muslim militiamen from Fatah seem more concerned about corruption within the PA than the fate of local Christian Arabs.