Islam poised to swallow Jesus’ boyhood home By Stan Goodenough The Islamic world’s ambition of forcing Judeo-Christian civilization into submission to Allah is steadily being realized in the Land of Israel – birthplace of both targeted faiths. According to a report in WorldNetDaily, Nazareth, the Galilee town marking the place where Jesus lived as a boy with His mother Mary and carpenter “step-father” Joseph, is on the verge of being submerged under the authority of a Muslim-dominated city council. Like Bethlehem in Judea, the population of Nazareth which was once overwhelmingly Christian, has long been replaced by a Muslim majority. As Muslims have grown in number, Christians have increasingly felt threatened by them, and are leaving. WorldNetDaily (WND) has Israel’s Bureau of Statistics today pegging the Christian population at 37 percent, and on a steadily downward trend. Sunday saw hundreds of Nazareth’s Muslims marching militantly through the streets, purportedly in “celebration” of the Islamic holiday of Eid but, in the eyes of many of the city’s Christians, in an act of intentional intimidation. According to a Muslim Nazareth city councilor quoted in the report tension between the Muslim and Christian Arabs is “very bad.” Nazareth was sitting on a powder keg, said Siham el-Fahum. Another round of anti-Christian riots could break out “at any time.” WND reported that tens of thousands of residents looked on while leaders of the Islamic Movement – the main Muslim political party in Nazareth – paraded down the main thoroughfare in battle gear, beating their drums and “brandishing their party's green flag … as a man on loudspeaker repeatedly exclaimed in Arabic, ‘Allah is great’ [and] hundreds of activists strutted screaming Islamist epithets, including ‘Islam is the only truth’ and ‘Islam shall rule all!’” Islam is well on the way to ruling Nazareth and Bethlehem, plum pickings indeed for the religion that has become (whether or not the politically-correct admit it) the arch enemy of Christians and Jews. Apart from being Jesus’ hometown, Nazareth is revered by millions of Christians as the place where the Angel Gabriel visited Miriam (Mary) and informed her that she would become the mother of the Messiah. Marking this event is the largest church building in Nazareth – the Church of the Annunciation. In 2002 the Israeli government, under pressure from a variety of Christian groups including the Vatican, prevented the city’s Muslims from building an enormous mosque right in front of the church. It is believed that the structure, in accordance with the Muslim tradition of expressing Islam’s “superiority” over Jewish and Christian sacred sites, would have had a number of minarets towering over the Church of Annunciation. Muslim members of Nazareth’s city council believe that as soon as they hold a majority they will be able to move ahead and build their mosque. They are currently just one councilor short of being able to do so. Unwilling even to wait until then, Muslims are already holding regular prayer services on the designated plot of land. Christians inside the church are able to clearly hear the imam’s loud proclamations of “Islam will dominate the world!” Meanwhile down in Bethlehem: The burial place of Rachel, Jacob’s wife and Joseph’s mother; the home of Boaz and Ruth and the birthplace of their grandson David, Israel’s greatest king; the town from which, according to the prophet Micah, the Ruler would come Who would shepherd the people of Israel; the city in which Jesus the Messiah (“Christ” in Greek) was born – that ancient Judean city which 60 years ago had a solid Christian majority, long ago ceased to be a Christian town and more recently ceased to be under Israeli control. Today Bethlehem has an overwhelming Muslim majority and in December 1995 it became one of the first of Israel’s heartland population centers surrendered to Yasser Arafat – a significant milestone on Islam’s quest that went almost completely ignored by Christians and Jews alike. Multitudes of Christians remain blind to the gravity of this takeover. Instead of asking themselves why Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, attended Christmas Mass at Bethlehem’s St Catherine’s Church on Manger Square (what business does a Muslim have at a Communion Service, unless he plans to convert to Christianity?) they blame the Israeli “occupation” for the exodus of Christian Bethlehemites and for the dearth in Christian tourists at Christmas time. Taking a look at the wider picture: Iranian mullahs and Arabian imams repeatedly describe the Jewish State as the “Little Satan.” The United States – the last real mainstay of Christianity – is the “Great Satan.” What tens of thousands of Muslim clerics teach their followers throughout the Islamic world is that Allah will first give them victory over the “Little Satan” in the Middle East, and then over the “Great Satan” in the west. They lead their people in chanting: “First we’ll fight on Saturday; then on Sunday.” Or a variation: “First we’ll kill the Saturday people; then we’ll kill the Sunday people.” In its fight against the “Little Satan” Islam is constantly gaining ground. The land-for-peace process has handed it many victories – and inflicted many defeats on the Judeo-Christian world. While the jihad is being fought on numerous fronts and using numerous means (including, for example, 9-11 and the Second Intifada) it is most effectively being fought here on the ground in the Land of Israel. There is no doubt that the Islamic world would see it as of major symbolic and spiritual significance if Muslims succeeded in bringing both the city where Jesus was born and the city where He spent His boyhood totally under their control. All they would need to get their hands on then is the city in which He died and rose again. They already have the heart of that city – Israel’s most sacred site and the only place on the planet which God calls holy, and where He has said He desires to dwell – the Temple Mount. Jews and Christians are already forbidden from praying, and even from taking their personal Bibles onto that Hill.