Palestinian Christian
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The Palestinian Christians are Palestinians who follow Christianity. Comprising some 10% of the Palestinian population worldwide, they make up anywhere between 1.1 - 2.4% of the population of Gaza and West Bank (Palestinian territories), and just under 2% of the population of Israel [link].
Most Palestinian Christians see themselves as Arab Christians, although some, in a similar way to the Lebanese Maronites, reject this label and claim to be descended from people who were present before the coming of the Arabs. The region called Palestine or Israel is considered the Holy Land by Christians, and major Christian holy cities like Bethlehem and Nazareth are located in Palestine and Israel respectively.
Prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, approximately 10% of Palestine's population was Christian. This is reflected in the large number of prominent Palestinians that are Christian, including Hanan Ashrawi, Emile Habibi, Edward Said, George Habash, Nayef Hawatmeh, Afif Safieh, and activist Raymonda Tawil, who is also the mother of Yassir Arafat's wife Suha. However, the Christians were also often found in the more affluent segments of Palestinian society which generally fled or were expelled from the country in conjunction with the 1948 Arab-Israeli War; in West Jerusalem, over 50% of Christians lost their homes to the advancing Israeli army, according to the historian Sami Haddad[link]. Many Christians also have left the region in recent years due to increasing pressure from hardline groups to Islamicize the region [link]. Through the years, Christians have emigrated mainly to Latin America, the United States, and Canada. Some explain the difference between Christians' and Muslims' rate of emigration not by personal preference but by the idea that Christian emigrants are usually more successful in being accepted in historically Christian Western countries than Muslim ones.
The majority of Palestinian Christians belong to the Greek-rite Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, one of the 16 churches of Eastern Orthodoxy. There are also Maronites, Melkites, Jacobites, Roman Catholics, Syrian Catholics, Copts and Protestants among them. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabah, is the leader of the Palestinian Roman Catholics. The Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem is Riah Abu Assal. The Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jerusalem and Jordan is Dr. Munib A. Younan.
There are incidents where Palestinian Muslims have attacked Palestinian Christians and there are some observers who claim that this represents a pattern of deliberate mistreatment by the Palestinian Authority; others hold that these are isolated incidents that reflect the beliefs of the individuals involved, but not the society in general [link]. Two American courts, one in Illinois and the other in North Carolina, accepted the threat of "religious persecution" as grounds for granting asylum to two Evangelical converts from Islam fleeing PA territory [link], although it is not clear if their reason for fleeing was solely due to the fact that they are converts. Converting from Islam is viewed very unfavorably in Islamic tradition and if Sharia law is stricly interpreted and applied, the punishment for apostasy is death.
There have also been anti-Christian incidents carried out in Israel by both private Israeli Jewish citizens and through policies enacted and implemented by the Israeli government itself. A recent letter from Congressman Henry Hyde to President George W. Bush for example notes that "the Christian community is being crushed in the mill of the bitter Israeli-Palestinian conflict," and that expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are "irreversibly damaging the dwindling Christian community." [link] [link] Israeli authorities have denied access to holy places, prevented repairs needed to preserve historic holy sites, and even the carrying out of physical attacks on religious leaders by Israeli security forces. [www.arabhra.org/publications/reports/PDF/sanctitydenied_english.pdf]
External links
- [Palestian Christians: A Historic Community at Risk?]
- [Al-Bushra] (an Arab-American Catholic perspective)
- [PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS: CHALLENGES AND HOPES] by Bernard Sabella
- [Salt of the Earth: Palestinian Christians in the Northern West Bank] (2004 documentary film series)
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