RE: KAIROS DOCUMENT – JANUARY 2013

Palestinian Christians – ongoing forcible displacement and dispossession…until when?

Response by The Emmaus Group including the views of Palestinian Christians.

Front Cover: Our first observation is simply about the title. Where is the evidence to support this statement? To the best of our knowledge, Christians don’t build illegally and therefore do not get dispossessed. There is no circumstantial evidence contained within the document to substantiate this claim.

Page 4: It is noted the cover photo is described as: Graffiti on Israel’s Annexation Wall in Bethlehem. This is misleading. The wall was built as a direct response to terrorist activity by the Tanzeem (freedom fighters/mafia and radical Islamists) during the 2000-4 uprising, since when all terror attacks have ceased. All agree the wall is unsightly and no-one likes it, but it stopped Palestinians blowing themselves up and hurting others in the process. Many Palestinian Christians are frustrated by it because it stopped them enjoying their good relationships with Israeli friends. Both Jew and Palestinian endure restriction of movement. Prior to the 2000-4 intifada the relationship between many Palestinian Christians and Israelis was good.

Page 5: The first paragraph is highly misleading. If it was Israel’s intention to, “fracture the connection” and stop Palestinian Christians entering Israel, then why does Israel issue most Christians with one month permits at Christmas, Easter and other feasts? As Christians reject violence, most Palestinian Christians and peace loving Moslems acknowledge (privately) that the wall was built as a direct response to suicide bombers from within the Palestinian community.

Para 3: states figures and percentages but omits to point out the Christian population of Bethlehem has plummeted from 85% to 9% in 25 years mostly due to internal persecution and discrimination by radical Islamists. In Gaza the population has dwindled to a mere 1500, some of whom are now seeking refuge in Israel, the only state in the middle-east in which Christianity is growing. The collapse in numbers of Gazan Christians occurred between 2006-7 after Hamas ousted Fatah and took control. The then population of just 2500 came under attack, many were chased out at gunpoint and some were even kidnapped or killed, such as Pastor Rami Ayyad in 2007.

Para 4: draws attention to the alleged forced displacement of Christians from Bethlehem and East Jerusalem. The Bethlehem Christians with whom we have regular contact have no knowledge of this occurring. One stated: “none of us have ever had their houses demolished because we don’t build our houses illegally.” In East Jerusalem it is well known, although never discussed publicly, that the Israelis are buying Palestinian Arabs out of the homes given to them on a three generation tenancy agreement, by the previous King of Jordan, when the territory was under Jordanian control. They are paid full market price, given 50% of the agreed sale value in advance, allowed time to protest and create the facade of false eviction to save their lives, then the balance paid on moving. This is because in their culture, selling such property to Israelis will almost certainly result in death.

Page 6: This again is an abuse of the scriptures and misleading. The first passage about God creating man and the land for man’s benefit is true. However, the second paragraph is not found in Scripture. In both the Old Testament and the Quran, it is quite clear the land was given to the Jews by God as an everlasting covenant.

This fact can be found in multiple references from Genesis through Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and well into the New Testament. In the Quran you can find the references in Surat 17v104 – Surat 5.v20-21 and others. God did indeed create the earth and everything in it and because He did, He had the right to apportion it to whomever He wished. He therefore gave what we know as Israel and the Palestinian territory, and more, to Abraham and His descendants. We submit the theological reflection is distorted by including man’s words alongside God’s.

Page 7&8: Again we submit this is a misuse of the scriptures. To take one isolated example and use this as the foundation for an entire campaign against Israel is erroneous. God tells us not to judge. The Church should not judge nor take sides, nor should it take the Palestinian’s enemy and make it its own. Paragraph 2 implies a violation of Biblical commands has occurred yet Jesus clearly taught us to pray for our enemies and bless them – not curse them. This command has, it seems, been lost in the Kairos document.

Para 3: fails to point out that more Jews were displaced in the aftermath of the 1948 war than Arabs. During the late 1940s and early 1950s more than 850,000 Jewish refugees were expelled from the surrounding Arab states. The document fails to point out that it was the United Nations that determined the borders: borders Israel accepted and the Palestinians rejected.

The maps are misleading. Is it physically possible to fit 2.4 million people on these few remaining green islands? We work, travel and have lived in the Palestinian territory and the 2012 map is simply highly misleading.

PAGE 9: The matter of 93,000 Palestinians being forced to build illegally in areas not designated for them raises several questions. Who is forcing them to build and why? East Jerusalem has six building inspectors to supervise some 28,000 illegal developments. None are accessible because if inspectors seek to enter, they are attacked, so require police or army support. The reality is the properties do not get demolished as a consequence. Israeli sources state they have destroyed (at July 2012) 42 houses. Many are however bought secretly, but the exchange goes under the façade of illegal eviction and destruction, so it is impossible to say which may fall into each category. Our Palestinian Christian sources in East Jerusalem state no Christian homes have been illegally demolished.

PAGE 10: The matter of marriages is raised between Israelis and Palestinians. This statement is correct that Palestinians cannot simply marry and move to Israel. (It may be worth noting that the UK also has strict tests to establish the integrity of foreign nationals marrying a UK national). This page raises the question as to why many Palestinians would wish to live in Israel – a state they allegedly despise?

PAGE 11&12 Boutros’ story. This is a difficult situation and sad story. However, from our own research undertaken by Palestinians in Jerusalem, we know it is possible to get a residence permit. It is a lengthy process (and one reflected in the UK Border Agency laws and tests). So whilst highly frustrating for Boutros and his wife, Israel needs to be sure who is coming to live within its own borders, as does any state in the world. Boutros has the option of living in Beit Jala with his wife, from where he can use his Israeli ID to commute daily the six miles to Jerusalem, taking his wife with him to their respective jobs. He will not lose his Israeli ID unless he lives in Beit Jala for more than seven years.

PAGE 12: In the centre of life doctrine paragraph it states: in the 1967 War, Israel illegally annexed some 70 sq. km to the municipal boundaries of West Jerusalem, imposed Israeli law there and conducted a census in these areas giving permanent residency status, not citizenship, to the residents within the annexed areas. Israel treats Palestinian residents there as immigrants who live in their homes at the beneficence of the authorities and not by right. The Kairos document fails to address how and why Israel ended up annexing land. Israel was attacked by its neighbours: the allied Arab forces which included many Palestinians. In any war there are winners and losers. If the Arab states had not attacked Israel then perhaps this situation would not have happened? However, Kairos omits to recognise that Palestinians can at least live as residents in West Jerusalem without be killed, whereas it is impossible for any Israeli to live safely in the Palestinian territory, hence it is illegal for an Israeli to enter the Palestinian Territory for their own safety.

The document states: “Jerusalem is the heart of our reality. It is, at the same time, a symbol of peace and sign of conflict. While the separation wall divides Palestinian neighborhoods, Jerusalem continues to be emptied of its Palestinian citizens, Christians and Muslims.” This statement seems at odds with their previous admission that Palestinians do live in West Jerusalem as well as East. The document fails to point out, for example, how in north Jerusalem the wall had to be built to stop Palestinian militia shooting at aircraft landing and taking off from the city’s small airport (now closed). It also fails to point out that thousands of permits allow workers into Israel daily, or that 170,000 Palestinian children received medical attention in Israel in 2012, or that 8 emergency helicopter airlifts took place transporting seriously injured Palestinians to Israel for treatment. There are many Christians and Moslems living peacefully in Jerusalem. This statement about Jerusalem being emptied is simply untrue and misleading.

PAGE 13: Boutros, a Palestinian, continues his story: He states that returning to the Palestinian Territory would be like living in a “big prison.” He obviously does not like it. However, the big prison he speaks of has now been awarded Observer Status in the United Nations. To be awarded this status means the Palestinian State and its Government must have met certain criteria – would such criteria include its citizens living in deprivation or circumstances akin to a big prison? Does he know that the West gave $2.5 billion in aid in the year 2010-11 alone? Statistically they should all be millionaires! Boutros can live in the West Bank without losing his Israeli ID until seven years have passed, whereas a British Residence permit can be revoked after just 2 years of absence.

PAGE 14: Fida’s story is sad. It is difficult, frustrating and we agree that the system is too complicated and unfair, especially when opportunities for her to work in the West Bank as a Christian are limited. But it is one story out of thousands and needs to be kept in context. It is not representative of all cases. With independence comes many responsibilities and inevitably, international border restrictions. For example, overseas workers wishing to gain employment in the UK have many hurdles to clear to be granted permission to remain.

PAGE 15: “Reality is the daily humiliation to which we are subjected at the military checkpoints, as we make our way to jobs, schools or hospitals.” Although we are sorry they have to do this every day in order to access proper health treatment and jobs, the system is no different to the security measures at British air and seaports. When one crosses any international border (save the EU zone) one must endure checkpoints. The British have to endure being searched, x-rayed, our bags searched and taking off shoes – because radical terrorists decided to commit mass crimes; not entirely different to the reasons why Israel built the security wall.

PAGES 16&17: Rula’s story. We sympathise having spent many hours/days at checkpoints ourselves. It is deeply frustrating. But we must remember why was it built and why the checkpoints exist. Rula’s true enemy is not the Israelis; it is those who caused the security wall to be built in the first place. Many Israelis hate it as much as Palestinians – it is a necessary evil.

The document states the wall does not follow the green line. We agree. In fact the new tramway follows the green line as it passes the Old City. The document states the green line was to delineate the future Palestinian state from Israel, a state the Palestinians refused 19 years earlier. We submit that had the Palestinian leadership accepted the original offer, and the allied Arab forces not sought to destroy Israel in 1967, then perhaps none of this would have happened? Access to Christian holy sites is not prevented as permits are issued for both major and minor feasts. Most Priests are issued year round permits.

PAGE 18. The Wall and the International Court of Justice. We agree with the Palestinian claim that Israel has taken designated Palestinian territory. However, whilst Israel may not have responded to the directions of the ICJ neither has the Palestinian Authority sought to negotiate with Israel, but attempted to force settlements through the UN. These two matters are inextricably linked. Israeli sources have told us they know that they have to return some land once a settlement is agreed through proper negotiations: that 94% is undisputed but 6% will have to be re-negotiated in a like-for-like swap.

PAGE 19: shows the wall annexing Rachel’s Tomb. This again is a sad situation and had Palestinian youth and freedom fighters not thrown stones and petrol bombs, or shot at Jews visiting what is for them a holy site, the wall might not have gone this route. In January 2013 more Jews were attacked with stones and petrol bombs being thrown over the wall. Visitors have to travel by bullet proof coaches to visit this site. Ironically when Palestinian police try to stop stone throwing they are attacked by their own people and called traitors.

PAGE 20: Border Controls. As regular visitors to Israel we know well the levels of security at Ben Gurion. However, we suggest that if the UK faced similar existential threats from its neighbours we too would expect escalated security at our air and seaports. It is a strategy any nation on earth would exercise if presented with the same risks and threats. Because the threats emanate predominantly from Arab sources it is inevitable passenger screening will look more closely at Arab nationals.

The document states: “It is God’s land and therefore it must be a land of reconciliation, peace and
love. This is indeed possible. God has put us here as two peoples, and God gives us the capacity, if we have the will, to live together and establish in it justice and peace, making it in reality God’s land: The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it”.

We find this text block misleading as again the document amalgamates man’s words with God’s word in the last line. What we do agree with is when it says if we have a will to live together in justice and peace. This is an admirable statement which we support. However, the harsh reality is this is not happening. The Bible clearly states we reap what we sow. If God’s people sow discord against their neighbours what do they expect to reap? God clearly states in Genesis 12 that He will bless those who bless Israel and curse those that curse her. The Apostle Paul said we should “pursue the things that make for peace and the things by which we may edify one another.” Does the demonization of Israel edify? Is this attitude and mind-set in accordance with God’s will for his family? Did not Jesus say we should pray for our enemies and those who persecute us? That we should love our enemies and not repay evil for evil?

PAGE 21-23: Yasmin’s Story. This is tragic and an example of where it all went wrong. There is no excuse for this and we are very sorry to hear her story.

PAGE 24: The document encourages actions of various sorts. But we as a Christian family must question: what would Jesus say? Would Jesus endorse a BDS programme? Would He be happy with His church promoting discriminatory activity of any sort? Do two wrongs make a right? Jesus preached messages of repentance and forgiveness – not revenge – not to repay evil with evil. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” He taught us. The Emmaus Group submits that these suggested action points are unbiblical and should not be engaged in by Christians.

The narrative about holding Israel accountable for crimes is akin to taking the speck out of a brother’s eye while a plank remains in one’s own. The Emmaus Group recognises that Israel is not a perfect State any more than Britain is. It makes mistakes, demonstrated well by the awful experience of poor Yasmin and her children at Ben Gurion airport. But in fairness, perhaps we should ask the one million Israelis who spent days last November in bomb shelters what they feel? Perhaps we should ask how the 14,000+ rockets that have landed on Israel have affected their lives.

The Emmaus Group would like to remind the authors of this latest Kairos document of the systematic persecution and discrimination of Christians by radical Islamists within the Palestinian territories. Many Christians are fearful for their lives, have been threatened, shot and harassed by fellow Palestinians. Does the Kairos team plan to address these matters?

Can the authors explain why the Bethlehem Council of Churches issued a statement in April 2012 denouncing any relationship with anyone or any organisation that stands with Israel? It would appear the church of Jesus Christ has taken the Palestinian enemy to be their own enemy, when we are clearly called not to take sides or judge, lest we also be judged. Can the Kairos team explain why church pastors have had to leave Gaza at gunpoint – a territory where there is no Israeli presence? Or why churches in the west bank have to time the start of their services to coincide with the broadcasts form the mosques to drown out the sound of worship?

We encourage anyone, the authors of the Kairos document included, who stand for the protection of human rights, the right to life, dignity and freedom of worship. But before we seek to take the speck out of Israel’s eye we humbly suggest the Kairos team seek to remove the plank from the Palestinian eye. Forever blaming one’s neighbour will never lead to settlement – there must be open and honest dialogue by both sides and a desire to forgive, leave the past behind and press ahead to a better future.

It was Albert Einstein who once stated: problems cannot be resolved by thinking within the same framework in which the problems were created. He also said: peace cannot be kept by force – it can only be achieved by understanding.

The Emmaus Group UK
February 2013.

Kairos Palestine is a group of Christian Palestinian who comment upon the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Its latest report Palestinian Christians – Ongoing forcible displacement and dispossession… until when? focuses on what it characterises as Israel’s attempt to rid the Holy Land of Palestinian Christians. A Christian group might be expected to reference the Bible and its principles. This one is no exception. There is a commentary on the Jewish Scriptures in which the Jewish state is likened to the weak and wicked King Ahab robbing the Palestinian Naboth of his vineyard. At the conclusion of the report we are exhorted to promote disapproval and isolation of Israel.
Given the damning Biblical comparison at the start and the very serious nature of the final recommendations, one would expect the authors to be very careful in setting out evidence, considering that there may be more than one perspective and endeavouring to do justice to the facts.
Yet this report raises troubling questions about the commitment of its authors to the peace and justice they claim to stand for. Focusing only upon perceived Israeli crimes, blind to hindrances to peace emanating from the Palestinian territories, one is reminded of Jesus’ story of the man trying to remove a speck from someone’s eye whilst ignoring the log in his own.

Underpinning the skewed perspective of the authors is the assumption that Palestinians are the ‘indigenous inhabitants’ of the Holy Land, while Jews are not. Is this really true? Palestinians are a rich mix of families who have lived there for generations and much more recent economic migrants and asylum seekers from different parts of the Ottoman Empire who trace their ancestry back to, say, Armenia, Syria, Iraq or Egypt. One Bethlehemite told of his grandmother who arrived in Bethlehem after a forced march out of Armenia in 1912 at the hands of the Turks. That many Palestinians are, like him, relatively recent arrivals in the Holy Land, is a truth that Kairos ignores.

Likewise Israeli Jews are made up of some families who form part of the 3000 year continuous history of Jews in the Holy Land, together with others who moved from ancient communities in the Near and Middle East and North Africa and still others from the wider diaspora of Europe, the Americas and Far East. Far from being the alien interlopers of the ‘Palestinian narrative’, Jews played a key part in shaping and defining the region, and it is sad that the Kairos authors cannot acknowledge this.

Jerusalem itself was divided only in 1948. Jews were forced from East Jerusalem as Jordan illegally occupied Jerusalem. The 1948 Armistice Line was precisely that – an Armistice line. No international borders have ever been agreed. Talk of Israel illegally occupying Jerusalem is highly misleading, though useful to those wanting to expunge Jews from Jerusalem’s history.

From this faulty premise the Kairos document proceeds to turn the truth upon its head. Take the central claim that Israel wants to drive out Palestinians. Actually exactly the opposite is true. The Palestinian population in Jerusalem has actually grown. Jewish leaders consistently accepted the two state solution, and Palestinians could have had their own state in 1937, 1948, 2000 and 2008. That they have not is due to Arab leaders who cling onto the hope that one day Israel will disappear and a Palestinian state will occupy the land ‘from the River to the Sea’. It is disappointing when justice is not done to this fact.

Instead, the Kairos report completely ignores the real obstacle to peace, which is Arab rejection of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and the ensuing terror repeated encouragement of Palestinians to believe that one day they will have a state extending ‘from the River to the Sea. We can all read about and watch the ways in which Palestinian schools and state-sponsored media incited children and adults to Jew-hatred and encourage martyrdom and murder in the name of the Palestinian cause. Christian leaders living in the Territories cannot be unaware of this, yet they do not condemn it. Why not? Do they really think that God is concerned only with Israeli wrongdoing?

Instead the Authors again turn the truth on its head, misrepresenting Israeli defensive actions to defend their citizens from state-encouraged terrorist as aggressive measures intended ‘humiliate’ and ethnically cleanse Palestinians.

Israel’s security barrier was a direct response to a sustained Palestinian terror campaign in which hundreds of Israeli civilians were murdered as terrorists travelled unhindered into Israel towns. Kairos dubs it a ‘Wall of Annexation’ and bewails the time taken by Palestinians to pass through it.

Noone denies that it takes time to get through checkpoints and, human nature being what it is, there will be instances of deplorable behaviour by checkpoint staff. However the existential threat to Israeli citizens from Palestinian Jihadists is real and the Barrier and checkpoints spectacularly successful in preventing terror attacks as the Jihadists themselves admit. And one must not forget that the checkpoints are often dangerous places to work. Within the past 2 weeks pipe bombs, grenades, knives and guns, all destined for use against Israel and her Jewish citizens have been intercepted at checkpoints.

Should not a sense of justice prompt the Kairos authors at least to acknowledge the existential threat to Israel and her citizens? When they do not, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that as far as they are concerned, Israeli lives count for nothing.

However, the most flagrant violations of truth and justice in the Kairos document occur as they omit the foundational causes of Palestinian Christian suffering. It has been left to courageous Palestinians such as the journalist Khaled Abu Toameh to raise a prophetic voice to Palestinian rulers. And gradually other Palestinian Christians are risking their lives to draw the world’s attention to injustices Palestinians inflict upon each other.

All Palestinians suffer from the precarious economic system. But is Israel solely responsible for these, as this report would have us believe? Billions of aid dollars have been poured into Palestinian coffers over the decades. So why is Palestinian infrastructure still so dilapidated? Why must thousands of Palestinians still use Israeli hospitals (often for no charge) rather than new ones that the aid was intended to build? Where are the jobs that would mean Palestinians don’t have to pass through checkpoints to get coveted work in Israel?

Of course the answers lie in personal bank accounts swollen with cash intended to benefit ordinary Palestinians, and bribes to the mafia families who dominate economic life in the Territories. In the money spent on arms and terror infrastructure rather than education and state infrastructure, in the chaos and corruption that dominates Palestinian government. Palestinians demonstrating on the streets of the West Bank last autumn knew this, and it is unjust and untruthful for the Kairos report to ignore it just because it can’t be blamed on Israel.

Kairos’ silence about the effect of radical Islam – the principal problem for the minority Christian community in the Palestinian Territories – once again turns the truth on its head. Contrary to what many Palestinian Christians-particularly prominent clergy- say, the Islamist slogan ‘First the Saturday people then the Sunday people’ has become a sinister reality for Palestinian Christians living in the West Bank and Gaza.

Kairos maintains anonymity for those who contribute the anecdotes in its piece, citing fear of possible Israeli reprisals. But some of the Palestinians who have told the stories which follow to Anglican Friends of Israel are already living under threat or have suffered violence from fellow Palestinians, sometimes from their own families, for telling the truth.

As long ago as 2005 the American State Department reported that Palestinian Christians have property and land confiscated without effective intervention by the authorities. Christians report that this continues, with Christian families being offered derisory amounts of money by Muslim neighbours for houses or land, accompanied by thinly veiled threats. Examples before them convince Christian ‘vendors’ that those threats are not idle.

Anglican Friends of Israel learned some years ago about huge sums of protection money demanded from Christian businesses by mafia- style gangs with connections to terror groups. One Palestinian Christian described how two members of the family were murdered because they resisted paying armed gangs monthly protection money.

Neither are Churches exempt from criticism. AFI has received reports of Palestinian Christians dissatisfied with their leaders who have allegedly connived with local mafia to have Christian land and property confiscated.

There are widespread reports of Christian women being sexually harassed by non-Christian neighbours, for example when using public transport to get to Schools and colleges. There are even examples of Christian girls being photographed in compromising positions, then blackmailed into marrying Muslim men rather than facing the wrath of their parents. Shockingly, religion makes little difference in parental attitudes towards the murder of daughters deemed to have besmirched family honour.

Expression of Bible-based Christian faith is increasingly suppressed. The burning down of Bible Society and YMCA buildings in the West Bank and Gaza has been widely reported, as have the murders of prominent Christians such as Pastor Rami Ayyad, murdered in Gaza in 2007.

These are the real reasons why many Christians are leaving the Palestinian Territories for other parts of the world. Indeed one could argue that Israel appears to be the only place offering meaningful protection to Arab Christians, as evidenced by recent reports that several hundred Palestinian Christians have sought asylum in Israel, the only Middle Eastern state where Christian numbers are rising. Yet most Palestinian Christian leaders persist in denying that their community experiences any threats from non-Christian neighbours.

Given the threatening climate for the Christian minority in the Palestinian Authority it is understandable that Christians should be hesitant to air their grievances. But it is inexcusable for Christian leaders to attribute blame for Palestinian problems solely to the existence of Israel, as this document does, when the truth is far more complex and nuanced.

Anglican Friends of Israel believes that the Kairos report is dangerously misleading.

It turns the truth on its head and misrepresents both sides in the dispute. Christians have allowed misrepresentations such as this a free pass for too long. It is time for us to challenge anti-Israel myths such as those which underpin this paper, and to expose the principal causes of Christian suffering in the Palestinian Territories. The problems in the Middle East cannot be solved unless they are faced up to honestly and reports like this are part of the problem rather than the solution.

Anglican Friends of Israel recently had this guest post published on Cranmer.

Israel’s Christian opponents have long contended that Palestinians, whether Christian or Muslim, speak with one voice. Certainly many Palestinian Christian leaders insist that relations between themselves and their Muslim neighbours are cordial and that all Palestinians are united in believing that their greatest problem is Israel, and their greatest enemies (Jewish) Israeli.

To listen to the favourite Palestinian Christians of, say, the Anglican, Methodist or Quaker establishments one would think that all Palestinian Christians have embraced a particularly Palestinian version of Liberation Theology, such as that developed by Naim Ateek. In this theological system, the God of the Old Testament is downgraded Marcion-style, His covenant with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is airbrushed out and – recalling the discredited Christian theology of deicide – today’s Jewish state is re-cast as Herod or Pilate trying to crucify or murder a Jesus who has become ‘the first Palestinian’. Ateek and other members of his ‘Sabeel’ organisation command almost god-like respect as they parade around Britain’s cathedrals spouting their faulty theology.

Read the full article here »

AFI Co-director Simon McIlwaine recently wrote the following article, which was published on the Times of Israel website.

Having had a school friend killed by Israeli soldiers in the cross fire in Bethlehem, it would have been all too easy for Christy-a young Palestinian Christian- to have gone through life feeling bitter towards Israel. Christy has been threatened with death by her uncle and disowned by her family because she has grown to understand Israel’s predicament, and for safety reasons, prefers not to be photographed or identified by her surname.

She is now on a speaking tour in the UK with Howard Stern, a Christian mediator who supports Israel but many, perhaps most, of whose friends live in the Palestinian territories. As such she is providing audiences with a rarely heard perspective.

As a Christian, I am painfully aware that Palestinian Christians are suffering on many fronts. It is disturbing for a child to be dragged out of bed by gun toting soldiers searching for gunmen even if, as Christy reflects, they were “not much older than me, 18 year old kids, scared”, and you would have to have a heart of stone not to feel sorry for a youngster who came home from school one day to find a security wall being built on three sides of her family home.

As a Christian, however, Christy has access to the Bible which teaches us of the special Covenant with the Jewish people, without whom there could have been no Christian religion.

As an educated young woman, she has the intellect and empathy that enable her and-increasingly-other young Palestinians to stand back a bit, question their accepted narrative and look at the bigger picture. Making the transition, however, to open discussion is much more perilous and exposes those who question the accepted Palestinian “line” to great personal danger or death.

Activists like Jeff Halper and ICHAD energetically campaign on the issue of alleged Israeli expropriation of Palestinian land; instead of testing their protégés claims in the courts, however, they prefer, curiously, to complain to Church groups overseas. Less well known is the massive theft of private Christian land by Muslims or PA officials in the territories, for which little redress seems to be available.

Unlike Israel, which has a robust legal system, jurisprudence in the territories governed by the Palestinian Authority is, to put it mildly, confused and arbitrary. As a law student, Christy explained the problems caused by overlapping and competing legal philosophies, with Sharia law, tribal custom, Jordanian law and Ottoman law being applied at various times by Palestinian tribunals with little regard for consistency or precedent. More often than not, tribal custom is allowed to prevail, leaving citizens, especially women and Christians, with little prospect of redress.

Although domestic violence is a terrible problem in all societies, under Sharia law, wives and daughters are considered the property of the males, and Christy’s account of honour killings-an almost entirely Islamic phenomenon-were clearly unsettling to two “youth workers in the West Bank” who attended one of Christy’s presentations. It was not long before there was the ostentatious head-shaking and placing of hands over the eyes that is so frequently observed when “blame Israel“activists are confronted with difficult truths.

Christy chronicled how terrorists-not Israelis-drew first blood and turned her street into a free fire zone. She grew to realize that the annoying, livelihood-disrupting security measures were only necessary because “16 year old Palestinian kids wanted to blow up young Israeli kids”.

What is very clear is that the “boycott Israel” movement is extremely uncomfortable with Palestinian Christians who do not “toe the line” completely. Ultimately, everything must be blamed on “the Occupation,” and, when confronted with evidence of persecution of Christians by radicalized Muslims, it was revealing to hear a pro-Palestinian activist interject:

“there is no clash of civilizations, the conflict is not at all about Islam, its about politics, its about the Occupation of Palestinian land”, and her colleague, quivering with self-righteous indignation, claim “there is absolute total equality of opportunity for Christians in the Palestinian job market”.

In front of an actual Palestinian Christian recounting horror stories of intimidation, murder and atrocities without recourse in the courts, it has to be said that this took a lot of gall.

This fiction rests on the idea that all cultures must be equal (except Christian and Jewish culture, I reflect, mischievously?) and that the phenomenon of radical Islam must be a Zionist or American invention, with followers of the Muslim faith selected for demonization, perhaps so their oil and/or land can be “stolen” or the arms industry made more profitable.

To talk of a clash of civilizations is not to blame all or most Arabs or all or most Muslims. In particular, Haj-Amin Al-Husseini must be more to blame than anyone else for subverting Arab society and poisoning it with such hate. Husseini’s thugs brutalized Arab Christians, as well as Jews, in order to silence them and ensure they paid a lethal price for sympathizing with the Jews.

Christy reminds us that Palestinian Christians know full well that terrorism and Islamist intolerance, as well as tribal “might is right” attitudes, provide the underlying dynamic without which their problems would be resolved and sometimes harsh security measures would be unnecessary.

Corruption in some of the established Churches-which has an unhappy pedigree in the Holy Land, all the way back to French monks beating up Jews in Jerusalem in the 19th century , through today’s bribery and embezzlement by some clerics, have left Palestinian Christians without moral leadership and with very few Christians willing to stand up and be counted.

Palestinian Christians are thus caught between the hammer and the anvil, despite the insinuation, increasingly overtly stated, that they are being pushed around by the Israelis because they are Christians rather than because the terrorists who would murder Israelis happen to be of the same ethnicity but often hard to distinguish from them.

A key part of Christy’s awakening was her first visit to Yad Vashem, the first time that she learned of the true magnitude of the horrors of the Holocaust, and an experience which left her and her sister distressed and tearful.

There is no real teaching of the lessons of the Shoah in Palestinian society, even in the Churches. Such as there is is cursory, superficial and tends to be of the “Hitler killed lots of Jews and now Israel is using it as an excuse to oppress us” kind-if it is taught at all.

This week, Jordanian teachers in UNRWA schools declared that they would refuse to teach the Holocaust at all, on the wicked basis that it “would deflect focus, from the main enemy, Israel”.

Radical Islamism and overt Jew-baiting are a tough sell to British churchgoers and European humanitarians, and we have, in a sense, allowed Israel’s most determined opponents to seize “ownership” of the issue of Palestinian Christian suffering in a way that, for example, was never the case with the Maronite Christians of Lebanon who really did have their country taken away from them.

In some ways, the Palestinian Christians are rather like the baby grabbed by the armed robber in the movies as a human shield so he can make his getaway, and most NGOS and Church organisations are only interested in their plight if it can be blamed on Israel. The truth is, of course more complex, and we have to recognise indeed, that some of their suffering has been at Israeli hands. However, most of it assuredly is not, and the key to defusing the BDS movement in the Churches must be found in a practical concern for our suffering brothers and sisters in the territories. Zionists have traditionally sought alliances with other minority groups in the Middle East-Circassians, Druze, Maronites, Kurds, and Armenians.

Christy’s courage and testimony remind us that the challenge is for us to be effective champions for the West Bank Christians, and strengthen bridges between Christians and Jews in the Holy Land.