Like many non-religious people around the world, I use the Internet to express my thoughts. It provides a relatively safe way of speaking freely, especially in a country where the vast majority believe in one religion and do not like to hear criticism. Or so I thought.

I used to run a blog in Arabic called “Nour Alakl” and ran a satirical Facebook page under the pseudonym “Allah.” But in October 2010, Palestinian security forces stormed into an Internet cafe and arrested me. Until then, I had been under the impression that I had a right to freedom of speech and to the freedom of belief. But in jail, I was told that my online statements about religion and Islam were illegal. I was told that society didn’t accept such criticisms.

I was beaten by prison guards who demanded to know who had made me write against Islam. In their minds, I could only say these things as the result of some plot, some conspiracy. The idea that I might simply want to express my independent thoughts was alien to them.

The 10 months I spent in Palestinian prison were the worse of my life. I faced constant pressure to retract my statements. I was told they had removed my blog and that I must apologize for publishing it. Even once I was freed, I was told I should never again use the Internet, nor meet with the media.

For months after my release, I was harassed by the security services, who further interrogated me and detained me without cause. I received letters from people saying they wanted to kill me.

My views, however, cannot be changed by a prison sentence or by persecution. I still believe that Islam often stands in opposition to human rights and women’s rights. I believe that the Qur’an relays that Muhammad demanded death for non-believers. Many Muslims may disagree with my view, or interpret Islam in a more moderate way, but I cannot accept this religion myself. That is what my conscience tells me.

I am an atheist. I believe in human rights. I have the right to say these things.

Whose fault was it that I was treated so unjustly? Islam is religion, but it is also a culture. Certainly some people simply cannot stand to live alongside someone who does not conform to their views.

I eventually left the West Bank for Jordan with a visa I obtained from the French embassy. I am now in Paris, and have applied for asylum. After six months, I am still waiting for an answer, and it has become harder and harder as time goes on.

From here I have the chance to blog in Arabic and in English as “Proud Atheist,” but I am now effectively in exile. I am living alone in a foreign city, cut off from friends and family, all because of my words.

I still do not feel safe. If I cannot stay here, and if I am not protected, then there’s a chance the Palestinian Authority will arrest me again. That is my fear. I want to be active, but safety is my priority.

My hope is that the international community cares for those like me who are persecuted simply for speaking their minds, to stand against the laws in any country which limits basic freedoms of thought and expression. We are human, and freedom means living our lives without hurting others. Sadly, laws throughout the Middle East—from North Africa to the Gulf—limit the rights of religious minorities and non-believers.

The international community should do more to protect the plight of these people. There are many of us who need to talk and be reached out to, even if we use fake Facebook accounts for our safety. We must express our thoughts and ourselves. We simply must be allowed this basic freedom.

Are you entirely certain that these oppressive excesses weren't the result of their life in an infiltrated, terrorized, starved and brutalized Palestinian prison population, trapped into reservations inside a recently synthesized colonial enterprise called 'Israel'?
Where life for a Christian or Muslim is a living hell of constant terror from their Israeli overlords?
What puffery.

The only place in the Middle east where the Christian population is increasing is Israel, incidentally. Its in area of palestinian control where there are huge issues- the Christian community in Gaza is down to 1,500 people since Hamas took control. Even Bethlehem, the birthplace of our Lord, went from 100% Christian to 80% Muslim. The issue is not and has never been Israel. The real issue are the fundementalists who believe that their way is the only way, and yes, that means Hamas.

this kind of *'helpful'* information from our Israeli *'friends'* is so much like the "food flowing into Gaza" parrot talk from these same *'trustworthy'* sources.

I’ve been an easy target for Arab MKs such as Ahmed Tibi of Ta’al, who call me a traitor and accuse me of being “a crazy, attention-seeker out to make personal gains.”

It’s easy for people who’ve occupied Knesset seats since the late 1990s and whom the Israeli elites blindly support for the simple reason that they label themselves “oppressed Palestinian freedom- fighters” to accuse me of being a warmonger who is aiding the “enemy.” Only they don’t seem to understand that this “enemy” is the same “enemy” that’s paying their bills and sending their kids to the most prestigious European universities. They don’t seem to understand this because it serves their selfish interests and continues igniting the fires of hatred and animosity.

Arab MKs have had an easy way in. Fighting “prejudice” and alluding to themselves as second-class citizens, they’ve gotten a free pass from the media and the Israeli elites.

Not so with me. Over the last month, I’ve been interviewed by almost every major local news source, and almost every one of them has had a hand in distorting my image to make me look like an ignorant warmonger.

An example of this is the full-day interview I gave Channel 1. Its news crew consciously included the worst possible parts of the interview, leaving out things that could have served my campaign.

This scenario has played out during almost every interview I’ve given the press.

Not so for Arab MKs. Ahmed Tibi recently went on Channel 10 and demanded that the picture of an Israeli flag in the background be taken down while he was discussing ways of putting an end to the “Zionist occupation.” Of course, the news crew acquiesced to his demand. Tibi is a “poor, downtrodden Palestinian,” while I’m a proud Israeli Zionist who will not make excuses for Israel’s defense of its borders. This is why the press treats Tibi like royalty and Haskia like extra baggage they’d rather not have to deal with.

Arab MKs have it good.

They live in posh, multi-story mansions built from the proceeds from wealthy leftwing donors and radical-left NGOs like Peace Now, B’Tselem, Machsom Watch, J Street and the New Israel Fund. They have no trouble raising money, whether for their Knesset campaigns or for trips to enemy countries such as Qatar, where MKs Haneen Zoabi, Jamal Zahalka and Basel Ghattas visited in a fund-raising effort while Operation Protective Edge was still under way.

Then there’s me: a law-abiding citizen, founder and CEO of The True Voice organization that helps Arab-Israeli youths volunteer for national service (I don’t expect everyone to be as patriotic as my own children and do the army), and supports battered women in the Arab sector.

I don’t get handouts. I’m what I consider a self-made woman, but I lost my hairstyling business when my Jewish customers abandoned me one by one claiming they loved Arabs more than I did. That’s what I call hypocrisy.

My Knesset campaign isn’t sponsored by rich left-wing philanthropists who have no idea they’re serving the cause of hatred, incitement and continued segregation in our society – the very things I’ve been fighting against for the last four years without getting a penny’s worth of help from the B’Tselems and Peace Nows (not that I’d go to them for help). The little money I have received for basic needs such as getting from one place to another has come from individual supporters.

The Arab MKs represent a fifth column; these are people bent on Israel’s destruction just as much as Hamas and Fatah. Only they’re parading – perhaps not even parading anymore – as democratic representatives of Israel’s Arab constituency. They call me a traitor for taking up the cause of true peace; a peace whereby Jews and Arabs can live side-by-side with mutual respect and understanding for each other’s culture, religion and heritage; a peace where Israel isn’t forced to betray its national interests in the name of being “forgiven” by the world community (anyone remember the Holocaust, or do you need an Arab Muslim to remind you?!) or a peace that will last exactly two weeks.

For there to be true and lasting peace, there’s absolutely no need to create a Palestinian state where one has never existed, endangering Israel’s security and placing Israeli Arabs loyal to the Jewish state in an awkward position whereby they would have to feel pangs of guilt (and perhaps rightfully so) every time another bombing took place.

On the contrary, this would only further the goals of the extremists. Those Israeli Arabs truly interested in a peaceful solution to the conflict would be left out and there would be a backlash from Israeli Jews similar to what happened following Oslo and Wye.

People often ask me: “But how many other Israeli Arabs support Israeli like you do?” All one needs to answer this question is to take a look at the latest polls on how many Israeli Arabs would live in a Palestinian state as opposed to Israel, to realize that if given the opportunity, the silent Israeli Arab majority would openly come out in support of Israel. Nearly every Israeli Arab would prefer to live in Israel over a Palestinian state and just 30 percent come out to vote for Arab parties in Knesset elections. The Arab-Israeli electorate has lost all faith in Arab MKs who do not represent their interests (when was the last time an Arab MK supported a bill to protect battered Arab women trying to flee their abusive husbands or took up the rights of child brides?!).

It comes down to this: the Arab MKs are the real traitors – not me. While I’m running for the Bayit Yehudi candidates list first and foremost in order to serve the best interests of Israeli Arabs, they’re creating further divisions in our society. We’re really no different from anyone else.

We want to lead quiet lives, earning a dignified living to support our families. The vast majority of us want to live in peace with the Jews without suffering from prejudice and discrimination. The Arab MKs want something entirely different.

The writer is the founder and CEO of The True Voice, a grassroots organization helping Arab-Israeli youths give back to Israeli society by signing up for national service. This organization also offers assistance to battered Arab women trying to flee abusive relationships.

Haskia’s three children served in the IDF. Her son Hussam participated in Operation Protective Edge and her daughter Suha was the first Arab Muslim woman in the army. She is running for the Bayit Yehudi candidates list with the hope of reforming the political narrative among the Israeli-Arab constituency.

There is plenty of food in Gaza, since you asked. Gaza, in fact, has Western levels of obesity.

Why don't we have a report about exactly what foods are allowed into the occupied territories?
The ones not made to rot upon the shipping docks while the
Israeli occupation decides whether or not the relief supplies are 'ripe' enough.

and you know something, people?
These little digs at a population that has been rat fucked in this, their native home land, since it was invaded, after some rat faced degenerate English 'lord' gave it to the Zionist assholes, are just too much over the the top.
Particularly since none of these European assholes ever had any blood ties to this land, even if they did 'adopt' the Jewish faith.
( big damned "if" because these assholes have never read the Ten Commandments )

The food in Gaza seems as diverse and plentiful as in most Western Nations. These photos, taken in September of this year are from a restaurant in Gaza

The Grocery stores in Gaza appear well stocked

The grocery stores of Gaza appear to be well stocked

The Grocery stores of Gaza appear to be well stocked

Sure, a few generic photos that mean nothing, from anywhere or any time, as the occupation slowly strangles its prisoner population. When it's not shooting, burning or crushing them.
These assholes think we are soooo stupid.

If you believe the lies of starving Gaza, then you are stupid. Not that long ago, Paul Larudee, disgraced head of the California international solidarity movement brought a Headmistress from a Gaza school to America to speak. She spoke about the starving children, but she had zero credibility, because she herself was roughly the size of a barge. Everyone attending the talk went away with the impression that she personally was stealing food from the children of Gaza

As a defender of the occupation and blockade, any creditability is not on your side.
Israel lies as a matter of course to maintain any shred or tattered wisp of legitimacy in the naked view of the world beyond the standard rhetoric of its liars.
There is not enough powered sugar in the world to cover a turd the size of Israel.

I celebrated Christmas this year with entirely new intention and understanding. Earlier this month I visited Israel as part of a delegation of Hispanic American leaders, under the auspices of a private educational organization called The Face of Israel. During our trip I had the privilege to travel the country, and to meet with one Father Gabriel Naddaf, a native Arabic-speaking Israeli Greek-Orthodox priest from Nazareth, the city where Jesus Christ began his own ministry.

As Father Naddaf spoke to us, we began to grasp that his presence in the Holy Land is more than a symbolic nod to the origins of Christianity. It is, in fact, one of the world’s most powerful and hopeful testaments to the continuity and living potential of Christian identity in the Middle East today. Father Naddaf’s very existence is a statement of courage and resolve in the face of an increasingly hostile and volatile region. What he told us has transformed my understanding of the Middle East, and of my responsibility to it as a Christian—and as an American—living in the 21st century.

At least since September 11, 2001, when I served in the White House —and perhaps even more so in the past year with the emergence of ISIS—the world has been forced to reckon with the spread of Islamic extremism. Perhaps less obvious, however, are the implications of this new violent threat for non-Muslims in the Middle East. Christians in particular have a rich and beautiful history in the region, extending all the way back to the life of Jesus. But according to Father Naddaf, in the last century Christians have gone from representing twenty percent of the regional population to just four percent today. Demographic changes may have many causes, but this dramatic downturn for Christians in the Middle East is owed in part to the rise of Muslim extremism.

Sitting in Nazareth, our delegation learned that in the past ten years 100,000 Christians have been killed each year because of their faith many of them in the Middle East. Father Naddaf spoke to us about how less than a quarter of the millions of Christians who once lived in Iraq and Syria remain. These people trace their roots back to the inception of some of the world’s oldest and most storied Christian communities, but now they are subjected by Islamic extremists to the most heinous of threats and crimes imaginable. Those who can escape, flee for their lives, while those who remain face all manner of degradation and discrimination, including not only financial and political disenfranchisement, but also forced conversion, rape and even execution.

Within the borders of Israel, however, according to the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics, the Christian population is growing. Israel provides Christians with not just security and freedom of worship, but also excellent education, employment, healthcare, and other freedoms and opportunities beyond what is available in many parts of the Muslim world. Father Naddaf and other Christian priests of various denominations, both within and beyond Israel and the Middle East, are clear: one of the safest places for Christians in the Middle East today is Israel.

Even as a lawyer, former judge and law professor at a Christian university, seeing the status of Christian citizens of Israel in the context of their plight across the broader region has given me a whole new appreciation for the blessings of liberty and rule of law. I cannot help but feel grateful that my Christianity has never made me a target of persecution in my home—which is more than many Christians in the Middle East can say.

At the same time, as the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive government to date, I have carried my minority identity with me my entire life. I do not take for granted the significance of prominent Christian Arabs in Israeli society like Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran and Member of Knesset Hana Sweid. These and similar examples from Israel, combined with the dire straits facing Christians across the Middle East, remind us of why the United States and other countries where freedom and equality rein must stand by Israel on the frontlines against the terror and intolerance of Islamic extremism.

In the spirit of Christmas let us consider how we celebrate while others cannot. If Father Naddaf’s message is not to be delivered in vain, then we must strive to do more—especially in honor of the birth of Christianity—to ensure that Christian life in the Middle East does not disappear on our generation’s watch.

And I suppose this 'Rabbi' is a Sephardic Jew.

Otherwise this is just another invader, wearing a cloak of many colors. And an adoption of a perverted cult of Judaism.
Most of the Israeli 'settlers' have absolutely no claim upon the land, except through the reign of terror they have visited on the people of Palestine.

"to ensure that Christian life in the Middle East does not disappear on our generation’s watch. "

Do you have ANY idea of the abuse Christians as well as Muslims receive under the hands of this "Jewish Only" 'democracy'?
Unbelievable.
This is like the IDF accusing the Hamas of using human shields.
Reality twisted inside out, upside down and backwards.
Wow.

20% of the population of Israel is not Jewish. Your notion of "Jews only" is mistaken

Democracy for Jews only Israel News | Haaretz

www.haaretz.com/ print-edition/ opinion/ democracy-for-jews-only-1.221810

May 30, 2007 ... Democracy for Jews only. Israeli law defines the state as Jewish and democratic. The Shin Bet is now trying to turn the "and" into an "or." Israeli

An op-ed is an opinion piece, not a news source.

From Israel's declaration of Independence

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

THE STATE OF ISRAEL is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.

WE APPEAL to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel into the comity of nations.

WE APPEAL — in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months — to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

WE APPEAL to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream — the redemption of Israel.

when has Israel EVER followed the law?
Even its own laws.
Or anyone's?

AFP in English reported:

Protest graffiti was sprayed outside the French cultural centre in Gaza before dawn Saturday following the publication of a new cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

“You will go to hell, French journalists,” read one of the slogans daubed on the walls of the cultural centre compound, which has been closed since it was damaged in a fire last October.

“Anything but the prophet,” read another.

But the Arabic AFP article includes one more graffitum that did not make it into the English version.

It said "God damn you, O worshipers of the cross."

you mean the Islamopobic website of the lunatic fringe of Zionism is making comments?

We know where their agenda lies.
Christians are treated like garbage in Israel, just like Muslims by the deluded citizenry of Zionism...
Israel is being set up for a fall. None too soon.

Long identified as part of the country’s minority Arab population, Israel’s Christian community has recently begun asserting its own unique identity—one that is deeply tied to the Jewish State of Israel. Meet the Arameans.