Where is it really better to be a Christian - Israel or Palestine?
[5/14/2014 10:09:57 AM]
AMMONNEWS - Rarely has my email inbox come under great attack than in the run-up to Pope Francis visit. Israel's multiple self-professed lobbyists have donned the mantle of Christian saviors. They highlight the safe haven Israel offers the Middle East's – carefully not using the adjective "Arab"– Christians in contrast to their Muslim tormentors. Fleeing "persecution," Palestine's Christian population, they tell us, has fallen from 10 percent to 2 percent. Palestine's Muslim masters pursue a program of Sharia-ization in the West Bank as well as Gaza, and the little Christian town of Bethlehem is now a Muslim morass.
What they do not say is that Israel's population of native Christians has fallen by roughly the same amount. From 8% in 1947 in all of mandatory Palestine, it numbered 4% in 1948, and to less than two percent today. In part that is for much the same reason. Jewish, as Muslim, birth-rates are much higher. More importantly, while many Palestinians long to escape the yoke of occupation, Christian-led administrations from Beirut to Bueno Aires, prioritize Christian applicants over Muslim ones.
Nor do they say that in contrast to Israel, Christians remain heavy-weights in Palestinian politics and economics, and disproportionately so. The president's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, is a Christian. So are two cabinet members, for Finance and Tourism, and two members of the PLO's executive committee. The deputy speaker of the Palestinian National Council, Qonstantin Qurmush, is a priest. Christians abound on boards of banks and chambers of commerce, and head its largest company, CCC. Despite their falling numbers, nine municipalities, including Ramallah and Bethlehem, stipulate their council should have a Christian majority and a Christian mayor. Christmas and Eastern are official Palestinian holidays. President Abbas attends three Christmases (the Greek Orthodox, Catholic and Armenian) in Bethlehem and would celebrate Easter in Jerusalem, if Israel let him in. On St. George's Day, Muslims join Christians to commemorate his martyrdom at his shrine in al-Khadr, near Bethlehem.
By contrast, in its 66 years, Israel has had no Christian for presidential spokesman, government minister, or bank chairman. Where the Palestine has eight Christians in its parliament, Israel has two. Where Palestine has at least five ambassadors, including to London and Berlin, Israel has none (although its deputy ambassador to Norway is Christian). The Knesset bans Christmas trees which sprout all over Palestine from its premises. Israel's prime minister does not go to Church for Christmas, and in his first term in the late 1990s aroused Christian ire by backing construction of a mosque next to Nazareth's Basilica of Annunciation, while his Palestinian counterpart, Yasser Arafat opposed it.
Israel does give its native Christians citizenship, but when its leaders endlessly trumpet their status as a Jewish state, many feel it feel they have second class status. They are not spared strip-searches at Israel’s airports. Hate-graffiti – such as "Mary is a prostitute" - is daubed on church doors, and increasingly rife. Priests in Jerusalem say spitting on their habits has become commonplace. The country's most prominent Christian politician, Azmi Bishara, was hounded out of Israel amid cries of traitor after he dared to suggest that it should be a state for all its citizens. Ameer Makhul, founder of the Haifa-based umbrella group of NGOs, Ittijah, is in jail for spying for Lebanon's Shia group, Hezbollah. Nervously, Christians in Israel as elsewhere in a region sunk in rampant religious nationalism look for surer climes.
As they finalize plans for Pope Francis' visit, there's something slightly comical about both sides claiming Jesus as their own. Israel hails him as a Jew, the PLO proclaims him Palestinian, neither yet dare to muse that he might have been both. Palestine is preparing to greet him with hordes of well-wishers, Muslims and Christian alike, while Israel - less sure that Jews might not price-tag his convoy - is preparing to close the streets.
So before those Israel lobbies send me another email celebrating Israeli integration and Palestinian persecution of Christians, perhaps they might take a leaf out of a holy book. You hypocrite, first cast the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's. Or for those who find it hard to take non-Jewish scriptures seriously, try Proverbs – deceive not with thy lips.
Nicolas Pelham is a correspondent for The Economist based in Jerusalem, and a writer on Arab affairs for the New York Review of Books. He has been based in Cairo, Rabat and Baghdad and is the author of A New Muslim Order (2008) and co-author of A History of the Middle East (2010).
