Destroyed Building in Bethlehem
(click on image to enlarge)
8 July 2001
Destroyed Building in Bethlehem
(click on image to enlarge)
It’s midnight. Time
for Arabic class. Well, not at the
university. For my flatmate Yassin
and I, it’s time to head to the 4K “supermarket” down the street to hang
out with some of our friends. Musa,
28, runs one of Birzeit’s six local Internet cafes, and by the stroke of
midnight he boots out all of the game-playing kids and jumps in his clunker of a
Subaru and heads for his family’s supermarket.
On his way he picks up Issa, 27, who exits his electronic and sound
system store wearing just two big chains around his neck dangling crucifixes.
There’s another cross on his key chain, and still another dangling in
his car (like many Palestinians he wears his religion on his rearview mirror).
These two good friends of mine are staples at the store each night,
though most often there are other friends (Christians and the occasional Muslim)
and several of Musa’s extended family members.
Issa immediately gets behind the counter of the deli to whip up some
toaster-oven chicken sandwiches, while Yassin (himself a Jordanian Christian,
though half German) and I grab a six-pack of Holsten out of the fridge to share
with the guys. The conversations
transpire in Arabic for everyone’s benefit, especially mine, and the topics
aren’t too dissimilar from any other conversations I have with men: gossip,
beer, women, politics, society, etc. And
this is where I study for Arabic class, in addition to everything else I learn.
If you don’t find me in the 4K, you might next look on
the roof of the building in which the bottom floor contains my favourite hummus
joint and the apartment above houses my good friend Ahmad.
Ahmad, 22, is a struggling student originally from Gaza who has hardly
left the village in ten months because, like all Gazan students at Birzeit,
getting caught at the checkpoint means an all-expenses-paid deportation back to
Gaza (technically speaking, it is illegal for them to study at Birzeit but
nobody bothered to enforce the rule extensively before the Intifada).
On his roof, we pop open a couple of beers (Ahmad is Muslim in name only)
and chat about life and love and everything in between.
He speaks in English when he can, and I do the same in Arabic.
Soon we are joined by Saamer (a Christian), one of Ahmad’s long time
friends in the business department of the university.
Saamer doesn’t drink, however, but likes to poke fun at the irony that
his religion permits it and Ahmad’s does not.
On Fridays, the largely Christian village of Birzeit is
hardly shut down like most Palestinian towns and cities.
But there’s usually less traffic on the roads and thus it makes a good
day for a long walk. Coming around a bend in the road on the outskirts of town, I
am suddenly passed by an obnoxious caravan of cars; drivers honking and people
hanging out the windows laughing and shouting, even a pickup truck with a film
crew capturing the raucous moment. I
see my friend Mahmoud walking on the other side of the street as the procession
finally passes. “It’s a
wedding,” he says to me in his shy English.
“It’s common for them to drive around the villages and announce the
big day.” Mahmoud works at a
local café and popular students hangout, and to date he is the only Muslim
convert to Christianity that I’ve met in Palestine, though he’s not as
flamboyant about it as someone like Issa.
If it’s a wedding, I think to myself, they must be
Muslim. Christians don’t marry on
Fridays. Twenty minutes later the
caravan passes me again, and I look for signs.
On most rearview mirrors hangs a masbaha, the Muslim prayer beads (from
which the Catholics derived their rosaries a thousand years ago) or a hanging
“Allahu Akbar” car ornament, also quite popular. But then in at least two cars, I see a rosary or a dangling
Jesus in some form or another. It’s
by no means an exclusive obnoxious parade.
Since they’ve been living side by side for more than a
thousand years, perhaps I’m a bit daft to question the Muslim-Christian
societal relationship in Palestine. But
during the Intifada, a casual look at society might reveal only a strongly
Muslim participation. My flatmate,
Yassin, and I are in a unique position in that we live in a principally
Christian area in region otherwise dominated by Islam (and Judaism, of course).
And over the course of several days we visited several Christian areas to
better decide for ourselves how they coexist in these turbulent times.
“Christian, Muslim, it doesn’t matter,” says one man
as we chat after the Lutheran Church service in Beit Jala, the sister town of
Bethlehem and one which has seen some of the worst devastation of Israeli
shelling since last September. “All
Palestinians have the same problem.” Another
churchgoer makes light of the fact that there are only 200,000 Palestinian
Christians (most estimates list between 170,000 and 220,000, but higher figures
are likely to include recent emigrants to other countries).
The Christian population could have been wiped out long ago, but
“we’ve lived at peace with Muslim neighbours for centuries.
Just look at those houses [the destroyed buildings lining the hill facing
the settlement of Gilo] and tell me that Christians aren’t touched by the
violence,” even if they don’t have as many martyrs.
The Christians of Bethlehem and Beit Jala have held
demonstrations in their streets to protest the violence, including one in
December after Dr. Harry Fischer, a 25-year local resident originally from
Germany, was killed by an Israeli shell. But
one resident of Beit Jala notes, “The Muslim demonstrators march through the
streets with pictures of [Hamas spiritual leader] Sheikh Yassin or Arafat or
even [Hezbollah leader Sheikh] Nasrallah, and this makes all the news and makes
us look like fanatics. What should
the Christians do? Go down to the
clash-point to throw stones and carry a picture of the Pope?”
His point is made, although I comment that I’d like to see a
ten-year-old kid carrying a big cross facing off against an IDF soldier and his
M-16, all caught on CNN. Perhaps
the way they resist may seem different, but it is all resistance.
And there are methodical divisions within the Christian community just
like their Muslim counterpart (i.e. there are those from either faith who do and
do not actively resist the occupation).
We’ve toured the destruction of Beit Jala countless times. Members of various Palestinian factions not native to Beit Jala have come down to the streets at night and fired across the valley at the settlement of Gilo (sometimes referred to as a “Jerusalem neighbourhood” but the land on which it stands belonged to Beit Jala before 1967) with Kalashnikovs. The IDF has responded with tank fire, destroying or damaging hundreds of homes and buildings and killing several local residents. Sometimes, the residents of Beit Jala together with internationals have been able to prevent the shootings from their side so as to not provoke the disproportionate response from the Israeli tanks. But they have “not always succeeded in preventing death,” laments a Beit Jala taxi driver, Muslim, who lost his sixteen year old cousin, Osama, inside the house he is now showing us.
Room where 16-yr-old Osama was killed
(click on image to enlarge)
Later, Yassin and I sit in the living room of Bishara and Salwa Awad at the Bethlehem Bible College. Bishara is the president of the school, which relies heavily on foreign Christian charity to operate, and Salwa is an Arabic teacher. Bishara is originally a Jerusalemite, but he lost his Jerusalem permit years ago when he chose to live in Bethlehem. He also holds an American passport, but he still must sneak into Jerusalem every Sunday to preach at the East Jerusalem Baptist Church.
Door of BBC with bullet holes
(click on image to enlarge)
Though far from the areas of conflict, the Bible College suffered greatly under a surprising IDF assault on Bethlehem on the night of April 18, three days after Easter. “We lost 69 windows, half of our water tanks on the roof, and shrapnel damage to the buildings.” The beautiful mural of nativity scenes in the parking lot was damaged, and one of the school’s teachers was hit in the leg with shrapnel as she walked to her car that night. “It was a nightmare. There’s a refugee camp across the street, and the children play outside all the time. Thank God no one was killed that night,” says Bishara.
Rooftop solar panels of BBC after shelling
(click on image to enlarge)
“They’ve lost their humanity, and you can quote me on that,” says Bishara when I ask him about the Jews of the modern state of Israel. And though he is one of perhaps only a thousand Palestinian Evangelicals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, he is not candid about how the massive support for the secular state of Israel by American Christians irks him. “They are misguided, unfortunately. These are not the Jews that the Lord promised His kingdom. How could one look at the way the Israelis treat us and think that. Christ’s kingdom will not be of this earth, but men have created it for the Lord.” Bishara’s final statement echoes the sentiments of many Christians and Jews worldwide, though not in the majority.
Mural at BBC with shrapnel damage
(click on image to enlarge)
“Make no mistake, this is a religious struggle of Jews against Muslims,” says Hamza, the leader of a Hamas martyrs museum in Bethlehem where Yassin and I arrive next. Inside we find pictures and posters of men and boys from the area who have died during the Intifada, as well as a book sale and a very interesting display of handicraft stitch work done by Palestinians in Israeli jails. “Hebrew and hatred aren’t the only things they learn in there,” I remark. This young man of 24, who looks much older in his pressed suit and vest and his unmistakable Hamas beard, speaks only Arabic and so Yassin does most of the talking. But I catch him ask Hamza about the Christian participation, highlighting what the old man in Beit Jala said about demonstrations and pictures of the Pope. Hamza manages a laugh at that, and agrees that such a move would be seen by the outside world as incomparable to carrying a picture of Sheikh Yassin. Hamza often marches with the Christians in their demonstrations, and though he’s obviously Muslim they don’t mind. He admits to Yassin that the Christian Palestinians also suffer, if not with as many numerical losses, at the hands of the occupation and do what they feel is necessary to resist. “And we [Muslims] do what we do.” Doesn’t that make the Intifada a national struggle, a political fight? we press him. But Hamza is stubborn. It’s religious, he maintains. After all, it’s called the ‘Al Aqsa’ Intifada.
Examples of Palestinian Artwork
(click on image to enlarge)
The Christian population of Palestine is declining at a
foreboding rate. More than fifty
thousand from the Bethlehem area have emigrated since 1948.
Christian Palestinians benefit from generally better education and deeper
Western contacts than their Muslim fellow countrymen.
Even the number of returnees since the 1993 Oslo Accords can’t compete
with the number of Christian leaving each year.
At this rate, there might be no more Christians in the Holy Land, save
the custodians of the holy sites and the token remnants of large landowning
families, in 25 years; and certainly this is the case if the occupation persists
much longer. As I glance at the
congregation in the Beit Jala Lutheran Church, seeing no one under the age of
forty except several small children, it is not difficult to grasp this reality.
“It’s a sad reality,” admits Bishara.
To many, the notion of the “suffering church” can be found mired in
domestic conflict in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the former Communist
Eastern Europe. And while the presence of several hundred thousand
Palestinian Christians is not always lost on American Evangelicals, Bishara
doesn’t deny the inference that to many of them, Palestinian Christians are
Palestinian first and Christians second, and thus not given as much
consideration in light of the state of Israel next door.
From simply being best friends to joining together in a struggle for justice and independence, Christians and Muslims in Palestine share deep roots, common bonds, and similarly pessimistic outlooks. “There’s no difference between us, we’re all being killed,” reflects Ahmad. “The occupation is the same for all Palestinians,” says Ashraf, an artist from Beit Jala famous for weaving biblical scenes with modern day realities into his paintings. Winding up the afternoon spent with Bishara and Salwa, the doorbell rings and Bishara goes to answer it. It is a member of the Palestinian Red Crescent society (the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross) who is asking for boxes of medicine and supplies (the Israeli closure prevented medicines from reaching Bethlehem from Jerusalem on this day). “This can be seen as the nature of the relationship [between Christians and Muslims],” says Bishara after he sits back down. “We just try and help each other survive.”