March 1, 2011
Two Christian families, who are actively involved with Friends of Sabeel in Nazareth, joined us for our evening meal at St. Margarit's Guesthouse. Habib and his wife live in Nazareth with their two teenage children. He is a software engineer and his wife works for an agency which is involved with human rights issues. They are Anglican Christians and helped us to understand what it is like to be a Christian living in Israel.
Habib's wife can trace her family and their Christian roots to the fourth century and to land in a village near Nazareth. Since Nakba, “the Catastrophe” in 1948 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were evicted from their homes and villages, her life has radically changed. She is an Israeli citizen and carries an identity card. Her father was educated in the United States. She met her husband when they were young children at church events and camps near Nazareth. They both attended college in the U.S. After working in the United States for a few years they longed to be with their families again so they returned to Israel.
She said that before 1928 all people who lived in Palestine were called Palestinians. There were three groups: Christians, Jews and Muslims. All of these groups were considered Palestinians. With the advent of Zionism, Palestinian Jews disassociated themselves from being identified as “Palestinian.”.
Since Nakba , Arabs who remained within the borders of Israel have become second class citizens. They experience significant discrimination even though they pay the same rates of taxes as Israelis. An Arab or Palestinian village receives about a quarter of the financial support of a Jewish village in funds returned to operate the municipality. They have difficulty buying property. Jews are encouraged not to sell land to them. Recently, 100 prominent rabbis in Israel produced a document stating it was a sin to sell to Palestinians.
On job applications the first thing asked is the person’s army number. Since the Arab/Palestinian young people are forbidden to join the Army, there is an immediate bias on hiring. In education, young Palestinians entering college are forbidden to take certain classes. This is done by restricting classes by age. Since Israeli young people must serve 2 or 3 years in the Army after high school, they are older when they start college. Classes in higher professional education are restricted by age, making it difficult for young Palestinians to take certain courses.
In schools, the Israeli’s forbid any mention of the Nakba. They are trying to wipe out the history of the brutal invasion of the Zionist forces in the 1948 which dislocated hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes. Large numbers of refugees fled the country to the United States, Canada, Jordan and other countries. In fact, a recent law makes it illegal for teachers to even mention the Nakba in the classroom. The penalty is that the school will lose government funding. This is very ironic in light of the great efforts of Jews to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust. The Palestinian families feel that the intent of the Israeli government is for Palestinian children to be unaware of their own history, thus tempering any resistance to Israeli policies.
Israeli policy also places limits on economic development of Palestinians. One way they do this is through their ministry of tourism. This is felt in Nazareth by the fact that roads are being built in such a way as to bypass Palestinian villages. Even in Nazareth, tour operators are advised not stay in Nazareth hotels as they are considered unsafe.
In the last twenty years the Muslim population in Nazareth has become the majority after it historically was a majority Christian town. Muslims and Christians have always lived together peacefully, but there have been recent efforts of local Israeli politicians to put a wedge between Christians and Muslims, encouraging more fanaticism among Muslims—something which is quite new to Nazareth.
We were told that there are some Palestinian villages which have existed for centuries which are not listed on Israeli maps. Those towns technically do not exist and the people who live there technically do not exist. They live in constant fear of their towns being bulldozed as they cannot obtain any permits to build on their centurys' old property.
Habib showed us his Israeli identity card. Until recently the term “Arab” was printed on it. But after pressure from human rights activists the term Arab was removed, but it was replaced by a star. (This reminded me of the star that the Nazi’s required of the Jews in the Warsaw ghettos prior to World War 2). Israelis have two birthdates on their identity cards—one using the Western calendar and one using the Jewish calendar year. Palestinians are always pulled aside and given a very thorough and harassing screeningat the airport.
When asked if they saw any hope for things changing, they said that the Israeli population is becoming much more rigid and to the right of center. The peoples' influence appears to be waning in what used to be a larger group of the population that supported the plight of the Palestinians. They also think that the present Foreign Minister is very open in establishing racist policies against the Palestinians or Arabs.
Clinging to faith that God will not abandon them like Christians of the first few centuries, they know that they face constant pressure and suffering. They are very anxious that Christian people around the world learn the fact that there are Christian Palestinians who are not Muslim or Muslim terrorists.
Obed
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