http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1178708593339&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
May. 14, 2007 1:38 | Updated May. 14, 2007 3:58
'Christians will be first to leave city'
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
As the number of Christian residents in the Holy Land continues to
drop, an adviser to Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski called on the government on
Sunday to ease restrictions on family reunification for Christian Arabs living
in the capital.
"The first ones who will disappear from the city are the
Christians," Motti Levy, the mayor's adviser for Christian and Arab affairs,
told The Jerusalem Post in a telephone interview.
"Our task as a municipality is to ease matters for the dwindling
Christian population, and not to make things harder for them," he said.
About 10,000 Christians live in Jerusalem.
Levy noted that the ongoing exodus comes as the
increasingly-educated and professional Christian residents emigrate to the West
for better job opportunities and a higher quality of life.
"They are victims of their own success," he said.
In unusually frank language, the former Foreign Ministry official
conceded that the economic situation in the capital was "not good" and equated
the exit of middle-class Christians to that of Israelis leaving the city for
better jobs in central Israel, or a better quality of life in the suburbs.
"So long as our situation in Jerusalem deteriorates, the Christians
are the first who are willing to leave," Levy said. "Jesus is not going to make
them stay in Jerusalem."
He noted that restrictions on family reunification for Palestinians
made it difficult for Christians who found a spouse in the West Bank to live
with them in the capital.
Levy said there was room for Israel to show flexibility on the
issue because of the low number of Christian Arabs in the city.
Jerusalem has 720,000 residents, 66 percent of whom are Jews and
34% are Arabs.
Around 420,000 Jerusalemites - 57% of whom are Arabs and 43% of
whom are Jews - live in areas that were added to the city after the Six Day
War, according to city statistics released Sunday by the Jerusalem Institute
for Israel Studies.
Meanwhile, the two-decade-old trend of Israelis leaving Jerusalem
continued last year.
Some 17,200 Israelis left the capital last year, compared to 10,900
people - including 2,500 new immigrants - who moved to the city.
More than half of those who left moved to Jerusalem's suburbs, the
survey found.
Over the last five years, the suburbs of Beit Shemesh, Betar Ilit,
Ma'ale Adumim, Modi'in Ilit, Mevaseret Zion and Givat Ze'ev attracted the
largest number of former Jerusalemites.
A recent study by Hebrew University demographer Prof. Sergio Della
Pergola predicts that if the situation - and Jerusalem's borders - remains
unchanged, only 60% of Jerusalem's residents will be Jews by 2020, with the
remaining 40% Arab. Another survey forecast that the number of Jewish and Arabs
in the city will reach parity in a quarter century.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
