Israel imposes curbs on Palestinian Christians

Palestinian Christians suffered yet another year of restrictions and unrestricted police action on the occasion of Sabbath of Light on Saturday. Palestinian Christians, priests and the lay congregation were prevented from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem. William Khoury, former deputy head of the Palestinian Orthodox Club and a member of the Arab Orthodox Christian community, said: “For more than 10 years we’ve been suffering from occupation authorities placing metal barriers, police, and armed soldiers on the day of the Holy Fire. This is the holiest day for Christians in this holy land. As Orthodox Christians and Arabs, we tell the world that this city is ours, this church is ours and this holy occasion is ours as well. No one has the right to disrupt our celebrations on this day. We are Palestinians and we take pride in this identity.”

Jerusalem-based security analyst Fadi Halabi said 80 per cent of Palestinian Christians were prevented from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At the same time, Palestinian Christians were not issued permits as required to visit the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the Nativity Church in Bethlehem. Says Khader Nasrawi, 45-year-old graphic designer and father of two and resident of Gaza: “Every year we face difficulties in leaving the Gaza Strip and obtaining permits from the Israeli side to go, whether to Bethlehem, the Church of the Nativity or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to attend the Holy Light ceremonies.”

It is seen as a clear policy on the part of Israeli authorities to marginalise Christians and Muslims in the Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine to establish that Palestine historically belongs to the Jews and no one else, which is, to put it politely, a historical fiction. And it has been a view that all Israeli government had been trying to promote, and it has taken a more virulent form under the present far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It has been pointed out that once Christians formed 20 per cent of the population of Jerusalem, but they are reduced to a minuscule 2 per cent today. Says security expert Halabi, “Israel’s restrictions on Palestinian Christians are not new and are part of the unfortunate decisions taken by the country’s right-wing government. They are part of the deliberate decades-long policies to erase other local communities in Jerusalem in an effort to try and show that Jerusalem is exclusive to a Jewish identity.”

It will be difficult even for the most aggressive and militant Israeli government to demolish the historical legacy of the presence of Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land. The Jews can make their rightful claim to be part of the historical legacy, but they cannot say that old Palestine, which includes the present-day Israel, West Bank and the Gaza Strip, belongs only to Jews and no one else. The pre-eminence of Jews in Israel becomes a questionable proposition if Israel chooses to remain a democracy. The Israeli Arab have already emerged as a major segment of the Israeli population, and there are many kinds of Jews living in Israel, stretching from the very secular and leftist ones with their kibbutz idealism, the orthodox Jews who do not believe in the Zionist state, and the different factions of Sephardi Jews and the Ashkenazi migrants from Europe. To impose a single, unimaginative identity on the diverse population of Israel would be a political blunder with grave implications for the unity of Israel. No country in the world claims an uncomplicated ethnic identity as the ruling politicians in Israel seem to do because the world has changed dramatically through the 200th century. Israeli leaders are caught in a time-warp and they need to break out of it.