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Bethlehem Abused
(Daily Telegraph) - The siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem ends with the Palestinian national movement as the clear victor. The 13 gunmen got away unpunished. The Israelis' failure is all the more startling since one of the salient features of the current intifada has been its Islamization, resulting in the exodus of thousands of Palestinian Christians, especially from Bethlehem. Indeed, the seizure of the Church of the Nativity is part of a broader pattern of asserting a pre-eminent, if not exclusive, Islamic claim to the Holy Land - illustrated by the ransacking of such Jewish shrines as Joseph's Tomb and clashes with Christians over holy sites at Nazareth.