Xmas in Palestine as Israel bans Pilgrimages but allows Birthright Tours to Enter
In 1947
as part of Christian
Palestinians Resolution 181 partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Arab
states, the UN proposed the internationalisation of Jerusalem under a separate
regime. The UN sent Count Folk Bernadotte, the Swedish statesman to Jerusalem to
make arrangements. The Zionist terrorist group Lehi/Stern Gang, a commanded by
future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, assassinated
him on 17 September 1948 with the connivance of the main terrorist group Haganah.
Bernadotte
had personally saved 11,000 Jews at the end of the war from Nazi concentration
camps. As Donald Macintyre observed ‘no
blue Israeli plaque marks the spot, as it does for so many military and Jewish
underground exploits of the period’.
The statement
by the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem less than 2 weeks ago,
about the harassment of the Church and the threat posed to its continued presence
in Jerusalem was met by a predictable Zionist response. ‘What about Christians in other parts of the Middle East’ they cried
as if that had anything to do with the treatment of the Christian Church in Jerusalem.
Of course
the plight of Christians throughout the Middle East is a subject worthy of
discussion in its own right. It might for example have something to do with the
Western and Israeli attack on secular regimes throughout the region and their
own promotion of fundamentalist Islamic regimes. For example it was the attack
on Iraq which led to the demise of Christians in that country. Likewise the
Saudi sponsorship of jihadi militias in Syria, aided
and abetted by Israel and the United States, also led to attacks on
Christians.
Justin Welby
The statement
was endorsed in an article
by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby together with the Anglican
Archbishop of Jerusalem Hosam Naoum in the Sunday Times.
Naturally
the statement was “heavily
criticised
by the Board of Deputies” as “deeply
troubling”even though it’s none of their business. It has nothing to do
with British Jews. But the Board’s main function today is to operate as an
Israeli propaganda group. What didn’t trouble the Board was the attempt to
displace Christians in the Christian Quarter or the attacks on Christian clergy.
The
Zionist defence
boiled down to the fact that ‘Israel’s
182,000-strong Christian population grew by 1.4 per cent in 2020’. Which
was entirely irrelevant since the statement was issued on behalf of the Jerusalem
churches in Occupied Jerusalem, where the number of Christians is declining,
not on behalf of Israel’s Palestinians.
Instead
of dealing with the actual complaints of harassment, violence and the expulsion
of Christians from the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem, the statement
from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs resorted to the usual blank denials:
They termed the statement ‘baseless, and
distort the reality of the Christian community in Israel.’ They went on to
say that:
The statement
by Church leaders in Jerusalem is particularly infuriating given their silence
on the plight of many Christian communities in the Middle East suffering from
discrimination and persecution.
Israel describes
itself as ‘the only democracy in the
Middle East’. Why then does it insist on comparing itself with all the
dictatorships it’s in alliance with in the region rather than say Europe?
The overall number of Christians in Israel has risen but in east
Jerusalem there is a steady decline GETTY IMAGES
What
Israel’s defenders did not do was to address any of the points in the statement. It’s
worth enumerating them.
Throughout the Holy Land,
Christians have become the target of frequent and sustained attacks by fringe
radical groups. Since 2012 there have been countless incidents of physical and
verbal assaults against priests and other clergy, attacks on Christian
churches, with holy sites regularly vandalized and desecrated, and ongoing
intimidation of local Christians who simply seek to worship freely and go about
their daily lives. These tactics are being used by such radical groups in a
systematic attempt to drive the Christian community out of Jerusalem and other
parts of the Holy Land.
Arson at the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves & Fishes
There has been a wave of attacks on both
churches and moques in Israel. For example the arson attack at the Church of Multiplication of Loaves and
Fishes. As the National Geographic reported:
The June
assault was the latest and most dramatic sign of tension between Christians
in Israel and a growing movement of Jewish extremists who seek to cleanse their
nation of religious minorities.
A nun surveys the damage after an arson attack
The Church statement went on to say:
the failure of local politicians,
officials and law enforcement agencies to curb the activities of radical groups
who regularly intimidate local Christians, assault priests and clergy, and
desecrate Holy Sites and church properties.
The statement called on Israel’s leaders to:
1. Deal with
the challenges presented by radical groups in Jerusalem to both the Christian
community and the rule of law, so as to ensure that no citizen or institution
has to live under threat of violence or intimidation.
2. Begin
dialogue on the creation of a special Christian cultural and heritage zone to
safeguard the integrity of the Christian Quarter in Old City Jerusalem and to
ensure that its unique character and heritage are preserved for the sake of
well-being of the local community, our national life, and the wider world.
Suffice to say there was no response to this
call. Responding
to the statement, the World Council of Churches (WCC) acting general secretary
Rev Dr Ioan Sauca said Christians in the Holy Land were a "threatened minority". They went on
to say that:
"The
statement issued by the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem
highlights the increasing threat to the Christian presence in the Holy Land
posed by attacks and incursions by radical groups who seek to destroy the
religious and cultural diversity of the region," he said.
There
was no response to this statement either. When they referred to ‘radical
groups’ what they meant is the efforts of Ateret Cohanim which aims to build a
3rd Temple in Jerusalem by demolishing the Al Aqsa Mosque and Golden
Dome and ethnically cleansing Jerusalem’s Palestinian inhabitants. These settlers
are supported by the Israeli state itself. See Warnings of
'systematic attempt' to drive Christianity out of the Holy Land
There is an ongoing threat to evacuate two large buildings in the
Christian Quarter, the Imperial Hotel and Petra Hotel. According to Ha’aretz
After
a long legal battle, the hotels were transferred to the ownership of a Jewish
organization that had bought the buildings, and which is now trying to evict
the Palestinians who are running the hotels – and bring in Jewish families to
live there. The heads of the Christian communities now fear that the change in
ownership of the hotels – which were bought in a controversial deal by Ateret
Cohanim 15 years ago using shell companies – could change the character of the
Christian Quarter.
Israel’s courts have also played their part. They have consistently upheld
the crooked land deals of Ateret Cohanim, often made with intermediaries who
hold forged documents. The land deals were riddled
with corruption yet Israel’s courts turned a blind eye.
According to Ha’aretz
one of the churches that suffers most from
this is the Armenian
Church, which is located near the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.’
“I’ve been in Israel since 1995 and
never before have there been so many incidents like this,” said Father Koryoun Baghdasaryan, the
chancellor of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
“Every day that I leave my
home for the Church of the Holy Sepulcher or to visit family, I’m afraid
something will happen to me. There were always curses and spitting, in recent
years physical violence also started.”
Ha’aretz described how “Christians in the Holy Land want Jews to
stop spitting on them”
‘A few weeks ago, a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman
in Israel attended a meeting at a government office in Jerusalem's Givat Shaul
quarter. When he returned to his car, an elderly man wearing a skullcap came
and knocked on the window. When the clergyman let the window down, the passerby
spat in his face.’
‘On
Sunday, a fracas developed when a yeshiva student spat at the cross being
carried by the Armenian Archbishop during a procession near the Holy Sepulchre
in the Old City. The archbishop's 17th-century cross was broken during the
brawl and he slapped the yeshiva student.’
In
February 2018 the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was closed
in a standoff with the city's municipality in protest at a proposed land
expropriation law. The closure was prompted by two developments: the Jerusalem
municipality's plan to tax the church's assets around the city and a bill to
expropriate land already sold by the churches to private companies which
violated a longstanding status quo.
“The systematic campaign ... reaches now its
peak as a discriminatory and racist bill that targets solely the properties of
the Christian community in the Holy Land is being promoted. This reminds us all
of laws of a similar nature which were enacted against the Jews during dark
periods in Europe.”
