A recent attack on an 80-year-old Christian woman in Gaza City raised fear among Gaza’s Christian community not only of subsequent assaults, but also the fate of long-held peaceful relations with their Muslim neighbors. Claire Farah Tarazi was the latest victim of anti-Christian attacks in Gaza since Hamas took control of the area in June, reported The Jerusalem Post this past week. Tarazi’s house was invaded by a masked man who, during the course of the robbery, beat her hands with a club and also hit her head with a tool causing her to bleed. “As soon as I opened the door, he pushed me inside and shouted: ‘Where is the money, you infidel?’ I shouted back: I’m not an infidel - I’m a proud Palestinian Arab,” Tarazi recalled to the Post. The assailant locked her in her bedroom as he searched for money, but Tarazi was able to escape through another bedroom door and went to a neighbor for help. Tarazi’s relatives pointed out that she was attacked because of her faith.Just how many times is the "peaceful" relationship between Gaza Muslims and Christians going to be endangered for the first time by an anti-Christian attack? Because the AP said last June that a Muslim attack on a Gaza Church "signaled the end of a relatively peaceful... relationship" between Gaza Christians and Muslims. And that was already pretty generous, since at that point the firebombing of Christian bookstores had been going on for months. It's like there's always this mythical state of Muslim-Christian harmony, which is perpetually being almost-disrupted by incessant, organized campaigns of anti-Christian violence.
Oh well. At least Reuters isn't blaming the Jews this time. Yet.
[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]
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