CHRISTIANS IN THE HOLY LAND

When I write about the Holy Land I am referring to that strip of land largely between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, from the southern border of Lebanon and western border of Syria extending south to the Gulf of Aqaba and the border with Egypt and Jordan, including a little of Jordan east of the river and Dead Sea.

When I write of Christians here, one could refer to them in two ways – those of the past and those of the present.

Christians, of course, have been here from the beginning. The first ones were of Jewish background, as was Jesus. I am not sure whether any of their descendants remained after Rome was done with the Jews in AD 135. However, there are Palestinians who appear to trace their origins to those beginning days. Interestingly, some of these seem to have maintained the same non-violent way of life all along that our Lord demonstrated during his time on earth. Just the same, their life has never been that easy. There was persecution from the Jews, then from Rome. When Rome adopted Christianity as the state religion in the 4^th century, the new Christians began to come and assert their authority in these lands, building churches at holy sites and controlling access. Then, in the 7^th century, the Muslims came. There was not always persecution during Muslim times. Much of the time the two faiths lived a peaceful coexistence. When the Crusaders surfaced from the 11^th to 13 centuries, things did not always go well for local Christians either. The European invaders really respected no one. Since they were especially after the Muslims, and understood to be Christians, there was sometimes negative fallout for the local Christians from their Muslim neighbours because of Crusader action. Subsequently, things went back more to the status quo under the ongoing Muslim domination until the first half of the 20th century. Clashes with newly arriving Jews began to occur.

Then, there was what the Palestinians call ‘the Catastrophe,’ the Naqba. In many instances the Jewish terrorists who spread through the countryside in anticipation of the formation of the Jewish state and immediately after, in their campaign to force the Palestinians out to make way for Jewish settlers, did not discriminate between Muslim and Christian occupants of the land. Thus, Christians and Muslims equally suffered everything from being massacred in some instances to having their homes destroyed in many cases. If their homes were left standing, they were still forced out, or ran in fear. Some 450-500 villages of 900 or more were ‘depopulated’ in these ways by the end of 1948, creating some 750,000 refugees, most in neighbouring Lebanon and Jordan. When Israel drove Jordan and Egypt out of the West Bank and Gaza respectively, a further 460,00 souls were made refugees. To be sure, a minority of these were Christian, but the same fate befell them as their majority Muslim compatriots, not to mention the much smaller Druze and Samaritan minorities.

Presently, the Christian population in Palestine is unfortunately declining. It is not, as some would like to have you believe, because of persecution by Muslims. It is more because of oppression from the Israelis. So, whereas in the past we talked of a Jewish Diaspora, now we have a large Palestinian Diaspora. In fact, there are many more Palestinians abroad than in the Middle East. According to the UN, in 2010 there were nearly 790,000 refugees in the West Bank, over a million in Gaza and close to 2.9 million in surrounding Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. This does not include the hundreds of thousands living abroad. And, just as with many of those displaced Jews who yearned for their ‘promised land,’ many of these Palestinians would love to return home. Indeed, at one time they were promised they could do so. Many still clutch the keys to their homes. However, that promise is going on 70 years old and there is no sign of it being fulfilled any time soon. Nor have they ever been compensated for their losses.

One source [Sabeel 2011, Contemporary Way of the Cross] states that 9% of Arabs in Israel are Christian, making up only 2% of the overall population of the country. Most of these are Orthodox, members of the Melkite Church. Melkite refers to ‘royal’ and indicates that this church remained loyal to the Byzantine Monarch when there was a split in the church. A sizeable portion are either Roman Catholic, Lutheran or Anglican. In Israel itself, there is also a small faction of Christians, some of whom are Messianic Jews.

There is a division amongst the Christians in terms of their understanding of the place of the Jews in God’s plan, just as there is in The West. However, here it is basically only a small portion of Messianic Jews who subscribe to the Zionist understanding, contrary to the large numbers who do so in The west. The majority of Christians, especially the Palestinians, only see Zionism as a source of trauma and oppression. They have difficulty understanding how the Church in The West can swallow the Zionist narrative and abandon them to the mercy of the Israeli forces, government, courts and bureaucracy.  So, what, fellow believers in The West, is our response?

10 Things about the Holy Land You Probably Did Not Know

Having just returned from an extensive 8-day learning tour of The Holy Land, I thought I would share with you the following:

1.    The Holy Land is comprised of two nations: Israel and Palestine. To be sure, Israel and its number one ally, the US, do not recognize Palestine as a state, but almost every other nation in the world does.

2.     The Christian Church has been present in The Holy Land since the time of The New Testament and is still very much alive there. And some of you thought it was all Jewish or Muslim.

3.   We have The Christian Church to thank for sparing the so-called holy sites, some of which are in Israel (e.g. Jerusalem and in Nazareth) and some of which are in Palestine (e.g., Bethlehem).

4.  Ramallah, the seat of government in, and Bethlehem, also in The West Bank of Palestine, have Christian mayors by law, as established by former PLO leader, Yassir Arafat.

5.     Buildings in Palestine or Palestinian areas of Israel can be distinguished by large black water tanks on their roof. This is because Israel controls the water in The Holy Land and only turns it on for Palestinians several hours a day, often beginning at 4 AM. This causes sleep problems for many Palestinian mothers who get up at that hour to do the laundry before the workday begins.

6.    The Palestinians, Jews and Christians who lived in The Holy Land since the time of Jesus coexisted peaceably for the most part until the formation of the nation of Israel in 1948.

7.     The Christian churches you see in The Holy Land today only date back to the fourth century AD/CE at the earliest.

8.   Against the wishes of Britain, who was in control of The Holy Land at the time, and the United Nations, Israeli terrorists at the time of the founding of the state of Israel, evicted the residents of over 500 Palestinian towns and villages from their homes, often at gunpoint. Despite promises given at the time, none have been allowed back home since then - 1948.

9.    There are still a number of refugee camps to house these Palestinians, e.g., in Jerusalem itself, and Bethlehem (three in that area), with all the limitations that refugee camps have with infrastructure and resources (i.e., not connected to the hydroelectric or water and sewer networks that surround them), run by the United Nations in The Holy Land, in which Palestinians have lived since 1948 when they were expelled from their homes by Israel. Some are large enough to qualify as cities in their own right.

10.  On the other hand, since 1967, when Israel took over control, i.e. “occupied” Palestinian territory, over 500 Jewish communities have been established illegally, according to international law, on these occupied territories. These are often referred to as "settlements," which for many may suggest small pioneer-type communities, when in fact many qualify size-wise as cities in their own right and have all the infrastructure and benefits of any modern city, including a network of obviously illegally built highways connecting them, which are often entirely off-limits to Palestinians, or at least only open with severe restrictions, as in “checkpoints.”