Mackinnon offered an anemic explanation for the barrier’s purpose which read more like an afterthought: “The eight-metre-high barrier around the city - which Israel says it built for security reasons, but Palestinians call the "apartheid wall.""

He also incorrectly referred to "the wall around Bethlehem," even though the security barrier is mostly fence and does not fully encircle the city. If this report seems familiar to you, it should, because Mackinnon made the same erroneous claims in a December 28, 2005 report entitled “Wall Cast Shadow Over Bethlehem.”

Times Online columnist Michael Gove recently commented on the wonky news coverage secured by Banksy’s Bethlehem:

• “This year we’ve already had our first exercise in demonizing Israel for its treatment of Bethlehem with the graffiti artist Banksy enjoying extensive coverage for his trip to decorate the security barrier near the town with his work. The message of Banksy’s work and the coverage it has generated is the same: oppressive Israel has snuffed the life out of the town where the Prince of Peace was born. Herod’s spirit lives on, even as the spirit of Christmas is struggling to survive. The truth is very different. The parlous position of Palestinian Christians, indeed the difficult position of most Christians across the Arab world, is a consequence not of Israeli aggression but of growing Islamist influence.”

Mackey-Frayer’s report on CTV (watch online here) relied heavily on pan-shots of the barrier for dramatic effect. Although she mentioned that the barrier was meant to stop suicide attacks, like Mackinnon, she also falsely claimed that “the barrier surrounds the town.” But Janis’ cardinal sin was her misrepresentation of one of the most successful tourist seasons in Bethlehem since 2000 and her failure to acknowledge Israel’s easing of security restrictions and scaling back of security operations in the Bethlehem-area.

According to Mackey-Frayer “Where it should be festive now, it isn’t. Shops are shuttered, more than half the town unemployed because so few tourists venture beyond the barrier.”

In an apparent contradiction in a follow-up report only two days later, Mackey-Frayer (watch online here) acknowledged that “foreign tourists are welcome and after several lean years they’re back. More than 70,000 pilgrims are expected to mark Christmas in Bethlehem this year, with hotel rooms at rare full capacity.”

What evades the media year after year is both simple and obvious: the systematic persecution of Palestinian Christians by their Muslim neighbours and rulers.

For many foreign correspondents, the plight and flight of Palestinian Christians under siege by Muslim extremists didn’t merit mention, and this proverbial elephant in the room was altogether ignored.

A report by the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs concluded that the Christian population in the West Bank and Gaza is likely to dissipate completely within the next 15 years as a result of increasing Muslim persecution and maltreatment.

The Ottawa Citizen, to its credit, published a column by David Warren on December 23 commenting on this suffering minority:

• “Bethlehem, for many, many centuries an entirely Christian town, has now been largely depopulated of Christians. While this is generally explained, in media accounts, as the result of "harsh Israeli security measures," other factors may well have contributed to the exodus, such as violent impositions of the Shariah code, the takeover of their church by Palestinian gunmen in 2002, and the hideous desecration that followed, the use of Christian homes by "militants" of both Fatah and Hamas as cover for the shelling of Jewish targets in south Jerusalem, and sundry murderous attacks on Christians around the town during the Al Aqsa Intifada and since. Against which background, the loss of the pilgrim trade has deprived the dwindling Christian community of their chief source of income. The town is now overwhelmingly Muslim, and may be Christian-free very soon.”

CBC News reporter Nahlah Ayed and CTV’s Mackey-Frayer also featured coverage on the demise of Palestinian Christians in Gaza, but not of those in Bethlehem in the West Bank.

According to Ayed: (see her two reports produced on December 23/24 online here and here) “Christians feel isolated by militant group Hamas… Christmas under Hamas rule will be somber.”

Likewise Mackey-Frayer’s December 23 report (see online here) stated:

• “Christians privately admit an uneasy relationship with the Muslim majority. During the fighting that saw Hamas wrest control, a convent and Christian school were ransacked. And fears grew in October, when the owner of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore was murdered, people whisper about death threats and intimidation... Some 3,000 who live in the Gaza Strip pray here among 1.5 – million Muslims – Many Christians fled to escape the uncertain born of Hamas’ bloody rise to power here.”

Yet prominent media outlets like the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, and the National Post failed to even address this obvious red herring which has contributed to the exodus of Christians from the West Bank and Gaza.

Conclusions:

Several Canadian media outlets missed an important opportunity to report on the complex interactions of Christians, Muslims and Jews at this unique moment in history. Christmas in the Holy Land, a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, was instead used by the Canadian and international media as an opportunity to malign the state of Israel.

We saw our public broadcaster, the CBC, get manipulated by staged Palestinian demonstrations, while Canada’s paper of record, the Globe and Mail, falsely misrepresented the security barrier and ignored the rampant Muslim persecution of Christians in the region. Meanwhile, CTV News downplayed Israeli efforts to boost Bethlehem's tourist trade and to streamline access to the city's holy sites.

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