Michel Moushabeck
Over the past 14 months, I have watched in horror as
fellow Palestinians in Gaza have been subjected to Israel’s relentless
bombardment — targeting refugee camps, residential neighborhoods, schools,
hospitals, universities and bakeries — and forced to live the nightmare of
homelessness in leaky tents without food, water or medical care. I have
listened to friends and family in the West Bank and East Jerusalem talk about
their despair and describe the daily terror they are subjected to at the hands
of the Israeli military and armed settlers, whose aim is to get them to leave
their homes and land.
Palestinians
partake in the yearly Christmas procession towards the Church of the
Nativity in Bethlehem town in the Israel-occupied West Bank on December
24, 2024. HAZEM BADER / AFP via Getty Images
Meanwhile in the U.S., our elected officials are now
on holiday recess, celebrating Christmas with their families, friends and loved
ones in the warmth of their cozy homes — despite their direct responsibility
for facilitating the massacres and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, the
displacement of over a million residents in southern Lebanon, and the recent
Israeli bombardment of Syria and Yemen.
Palestinian families in Gaza will be huddling in
freezing cold tents shivering as they mourn the loss of loved ones and await
their turn to be killed by a U.S.-supplied bomb or burned alive in their tents.
As President Joe Biden celebrates his last Christmas in the White House with
his son Hunter, Palestinians will still be searching with their bare hands for
their children that remain missing under the rubble.
Under the watchful eyes of U.S. lawmakers, Israeli
forces have killed more than 17,000 Palestinian children in Gaza and 169
children in the West Bank since October 7, 2023. According to the Gaza
Government Media Office, nearly 26,000 children are now without one or both
parents. A recent report by the United Nations says that Gaza is home to the
largest number of amputee children in modern history.
Defense for Children International-Palestine said in
its report, “Targeting Childhood: Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces
and settlers in the occupied West Bank,” since October 7, 2023, Palestinian
children in the West Bank are being killed by the Israeli military at the rate
of one child every two days. During the past 14 months, nearly 800 West Bank
Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military and armed settlers and close
to 12,000 arrested and imprisoned, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club,
a prisoners’ rights group.
Palestinians wonder: What would it take to stop
the massacres and end this nightmare? What did Palestinians do to deserve the
horror being inflicted daily on their families? Why do Palestinians have to pay
the price for Europe’s war crimes? And does Israel really think it can erase
us; annihilate our cities; steal our lands; torture, imprison and kill our
children; obliterate our cultural heritage; and wipe us off the face of the
Earth?
Christmas in the Holy Land Is Magical
I am a descendant of Palestinian Christian Nakba
survivors from the Old City of Jerusalem. Although I have deeply rooted
Palestinian Christian Eastern Orthodox ancestry, and I wholeheartedly embrace
the holidays and traditions of my ancestors, I am mainly a cultural Christian.
I feel very much at home with my Palestinian sisters and brothers, regardless
of whether they follow any religion.
Before the 1967 War, I spent my childhood in the Old
City of Jerusalem. Each year, I would await the arrival of Christmas with great
anticipation. I have vivid memories of the last magical Christmas I had with my
grandparents in Jerusalem, when I was barely 11 years old.
My grandfather was the Mukhtar (literally, the
chosen), the head of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Arab community in
Jerusalem, which he dutifully served for over 50 years, as his father had done
before him and his eldest son after him. In 1948, after my grandparents’
expulsion from their home in the Katamon Quarter of West Jerusalem, and because
of my grandfather’s position in the church, my family was given residence
inside the Greek Orthodox Convent, which abuts the walls of Mar Ya’coub (St.
Jacob’s Orthodox Church) and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. From the
convent’s rooftop the view of the Mount of Olives, the Dome of the Rock, the
al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher overwhelmed my 11-year-old
eyes every time I gazed in the distance.
In 1966, in the run up to Christmas, I remember
accompanying my grandfather as he went about performing his official duties and
preparing for the celebrations and festivities of the season. With him, I lit
candles at Jesus’s tomb inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and I visited
church dignitaries, family members and even the Batrak, the grand old Patriarch
of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, whose hand I had to kiss after he
placed around my neck a gold chain with a black and gold cross. Inside it was a
wood splinter that my grandfather told me came directly from the cross of Jesus
Christ.
I remember being mesmerized by the chanting, the
carols on Christmas Eve, the incense, and the prayers in Arabic and ancient
Greek. And I will never forget the Christmas dinner that my grandmother
prepared: keftas and kababs, hashwet jaaj (chicken with rice and pine nuts) and
koosa mahshi (stuffed zucchini), and mezze plates as far as the eye could see,
including hummus, baba ghanouj, stuffed vine leaves, glistening black olives,
braided white cheese, glossy vegetables, plump nuts and lush, juicy fruits.
Christmastime in the Old City of Jerusalem was one
of the most beautiful experiences imaginable. But the next year, the 1967 War
broke out.
It was the last Christmas I spent in Jerusalem, and
the last time I saw my grandparents.
Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land
Are Not Okay
The Palestinian Christian community in the Holy Land
— the oldest Christian community in the world, with ancestors dating back to
the first followers of Christ — face numerous challenges, including daily
harassment by settlers, bans on public Christmas trees, spitting on priests,
bombings of churches and attacks on Christian clergy. Several family members
have asked the same question: “Where’s the outcry from Christians in the West?”
Palestinian Christians are angry at the World
Council of Churches and its “Statement on the Escalating Crisis in Gaza,”
released this past June at a meeting in Bogota, Colombia. Kairos Palestine, a
Christian Palestinian Movement, called the statement “neither accurate, nor
adequate” for refusing to use the word genocide and failing “to mention
Israel’s 7-decades settler colonial regime, apartheid and prolonged occupation
with total impunity as the root cause and the context that laid the grounds for
the events of 7 October and the ensuing genocide against the Palestinians in
Gaza and the grave escalation of Israel’s atrocities in the West Bank,
including East Jerusalem.”
Palestinian Christians are furious at Evangelicals
and decry the more than 10 million Christian Zionists in the U.S. who believe
that their support of Israel at any cost is a fulfillment of a divine promise,
even if it means committing genocide against the Indigenous Palestinian
inhabitants of the land. And they dread the arrival of Donald Trump’s appointee
for the U.S. ambassadorship to Israel — ultra-Zionist evangelical Christian
former-Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. Huckabee, an advocate of West Bank annexation
and a proponent of Greater Israel, has said there was “really no such thing as
a Palestinian” and that “God gave historic Palestine to the modern state of
Israel.”
In a November 9 interview in Al Jazeera, Khalil
Sayegh, a Palestinian Christian resident of Gaza City who was able to leave and
now lives in Washington, D.C. said, “Everyone I speak to who’s currently
sheltering at the St. Porphyrius Church is looking to leave Gaza.” He added,
“The majority of the houses in the north, where the Christians lived, have been
bombed. Everything is destroyed. People have no reason to stay.”
Lamenting the silence of Christians in the West,
Sayegh said, “We’re used to our brothers and sisters in the West totally
ignoring us. It’s not new.”
Gaza City’s Greek Orthodox Church of Saint
Porphyrius, which dates back to the 5th century CE, was hit in October 2023 by
an Israeli strike, killing 18 of the 450 or so parishioners who took refuge in
the church’s compound. Two months after that, two Christian women — Nahida and
Samar Anton, a mother and a daughter — were shot dead by an Israeli military
sniper as they crossed the courtyard of the Catholic Parish of the Holy Family
on the other side of town. Since then, Israel’s atrocities continue to decimate
the Christian community in Gaza, while destroying their historical roots in
their homeland.
Christmas Is a Story About a Family
Seeking Refuge
Now more than ever, Palestinian Christians see a
close resemblance between their story of forced displacement from their homes
and the story of Advent and Christmas — the injustice, oppression and
displacement of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem from Nazareth. Palestinian mothers
today identify with Mary, the tragic loss of her son, and her resilience when
confronted with discrimination against her newborn child.
The Rev. Munther Isaac, the Palestinian Christian
pastor for the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, powerfully
proposed during Christmas last year the idea that “Jesus is born this Christmas
not in a stable in Bethlehem, but among the wreckage of war in Gaza. ‘God is
under the rubble,’” he proclaimed.
On December 8, Reverend Isaac repeated last year’s
plea in a post on X:
This Christmas, once again, we find ourselves
reflecting on the meaning of Christmas through the image of Christ in the
Rubble. Christ is still under the rubble in Gaza, as children are still being
pulled from under the rubble in Gaza. It is heartbreaking that we are still
calling and pleading for a ceasefire. Decision makers seem to be content with
this war continuing as long as it has. They have decided that Palestinians are
dispensable. … It is literally hell on earth in Gaza. … We insist: we see the
image of Jesus in every child killed. They are precious to God.
How can we have a joyous Christmas when our people
are being massacred and are grieving the deaths of their loved ones?
Leaders of Christian churches in the Holy Land have
released a joint Christmas message that calls for an end to the war in Gaza.
They called on the faithful to celebrate in a modest way and to keep the focus
on the religious ceremonies and the true meaning of the birth of Jesus Christ.
Sami El-Yousef, the CEO of the Latin Patriarchate of
Jerusalem, said in a statement: “Advent is certainly a time of waiting and
preparation for the celebration of Jesus’s birth at Christmas. Celebrating an
advent is a season of prayer, fasting, and repentance followed by anticipation,
joy and hope. How can we still have hope amidst all the destruction, killing,
and hatred?”
Pope Unveils Solidarity Nativity Scene,
Removed After Backlash
In the Holy Land, where Palestinian baby Jesus was
born in a manger and where Christ’s message of love, compassion and caring for
the oppressed was first heard, Palestinians live their lives in daily fear
under the gun of Israeli soldiers and armed settlers.
Last year, the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem
canceled its Christmas festivities, put away its Christmas decorations, and
instead of the church’s normal nativity scene, it placed baby Jesus on top of a
pile of rubble inside the church.
On December 7, 2024, in a message of solidarity,
Pope Francis unveiled the annual nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square, which
this year featured baby Jesus laying on a Palestinian keffiyeh. The scene was
created by Palestinian artists Johny Andonia and Faten Nastas Mitwasi from
Bethlehem.
Following the unveiling, Ibrahim Faltas, Angeli
Chapel deputy custodian of the Holy Land, praised Pope Francis’s message and
said, “These nativity scenes remind us of those who, in the land where the Son
of God was born, continue to suffer due to the tragedy of war.”
The nativity scene was removed by the Vatican five
days later due to pro-Israel backlash. No official explanation was given.
Interviewed on December 13, Bethlehem artist Mitwasi
explained, “The keffiyeh is not a symbol of violence. It is part of our
cultural heritage. I feel that those who see it as a symbol of violence need to
learn more about Palestinian history and culture.”
She added, “As a Christian Palestinian, I should
have the freedom to create my nativity scene and use any Palestinian symbol I
find suitable.”
Like all Palestinians — and people of conscience
everywhere — Palestinian Christians are overwhelmed by the unending cruelty of
the daily massacres and terror in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They
are outraged at people and governments in the West — from political leaders to
church leaders, and from mainstream media outlets to academia and the medical
establishment — who have been silent in the face of an ongoing genocide, but
openly and loudly show their support for Israel, a racist, nuclear-armed,
apartheid state with expansionist ambitions that has been terrorizing and
ethnically cleansing Palestinians and stealing their lands for over 76 years.
But Palestinians such as myself, irrespective of
their faith, direct the bulk of their anger towards the U.S. for its complicity
in the genocide and for its continued supply of the Israeli state with arms
shipments and bombs — in violation of U.S. and international law — that are
responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, the destruction
of 70 percent of homes in the Gaza Strip, and the displacement of nearly 90
percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants. They also hold the U.S. responsible
for shielding Israel from accountability by using its veto power to thwart and
derail UN Security Council resolutions that call for an immediate ceasefire.
But through all the daily hell that Palestinians are
experiencing, one thing that remains strong is their belief in a free
Palestine. So when you gather with family and friends this holiday season, talk
about the Palestinian struggle for freedom and equality — and remember those in
Palestine who can no longer celebrate with their loved ones.
Mosab Shawer
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank
city of Bethlehem marked a sombre Christmas for the second consecutive year in
solidarity with Gaza, where the Israeli onslaught has killed 45,000 people in
over a year.
No festive lights or Christmas trees
were put up in the city as the holy day for Christians was limited to religious
rituals and prayers.
Manger Square, the centre of Bethlehem
traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus, was unusually quiet.
“Every year, there are scouts, a
choir, decorations, a tree is raised, carols are sung, and celebrations take
place,” Father Issa Thaljieh, a Greek Orthodox parish priest in Bethlehem, told
Middle East Eye.
“But this year, Christmas arrives in a
sad and gloomy manner, without any signs of joy.”
The usual crowds of tourists and
pilgrims were also absent, said Thaljieh.
He added that the call from Bethlehem
to Gaza this year is one of “patience, steadfastness, prayer, hope, and
consolation”.
Munther Isaac, a Christian pastor from
Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, described the mood in the city as full of
sadness and anger but also solidarity and steadfastness.
"There is sadness and anger
because of the complicity of the world in allowing the war on Gaza to
continue."
However, he said holding Christmas
prayers was an important message of defiance.
“Our determination to continue with
Christmas, even without the tree and scout music, is our resistance,” Isaac,
who has been outspoken against the war, told MEE.
“It is our way of saying that we are
here, and we will not leave. The policy of the occupation is clear: it is to
displace us. But we are determined to stay here.”
Gaza's Christians face
erasure
The nearly 15-month-long Israel war on
Gaza has devastated the besieged territory and threatens to wipe out its
2,000-year-old Christian heritage completely.
With fewer than 1,000 Christians
remaining in Gaza, most currently live in either the Holy Family Church or St
Porphyrius, a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City.
These two churches are the last
sanctuaries for Christians in the war-torn territory.
The community faces a grim future,
threatened not only with physical destruction but also with the erasure of its
cultural legacy.
The number of Christians sheltering in
Gaza’s churches has dwindled this year, with many fleeing through the Rafah
crossing into Egypt before Israel seized control of it in May.
Those left behind - around 650 people
- are enduring dire conditions and are on the brink of annihilation, said
George Akroush, an official at the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem, speaking to
the Financial Times.
In his Christmas address last week,
Pope Francis condemned the killing of children in Gaza by Israel as
“cruelty" as he became more open with his criticism of Israel.
“Yesterday, children were bombed. This
is cruelty; this is not war,” he said.
Earlier this year, he told the CBS
network's 60 Minutes: “I speak every night at seven to the Gaza parish… They
tell me about what happens there. It’s very tough, very tough… Sometimes, they
go hungry, and they tell me things. There is a lot of suffering.”
Israel dismissed the pope’s remarks as
“particularly disappointing”, with a foreign ministry spokesperson accusing him
of “double standards” and claiming his comments ignored the “fight against
jihadist terrorism”.
The spokesperson further criticised
the “singling out of the Jewish state and its people”.
No comments:
Post a Comment