Palestinian Christians
Lift every voice and sing
I noticed that among all the resolutions at General Convention many had to do with the Israel - Hamas War. The nations await the word from General Convention (sorry for the snark).
One issue that I hadn’t heard of before was about the decline in the number of Palestinian Christians in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. So, I went off on a learning adventure. Which means this posting will offer you what I picked up from a variety of sources. Also my own guesses about what’s really going on. And yes, I realize that some of the information will end up being wrong and my wisdom — well, what can I say.
So, I found a lot on Wikipedia and a number of other sites, including -Why Many Christians Want to Leave Palestine. And Why Most Won’t, Five things to know about Israel’s Christian population (Jerusalem Post), 5 facts about Israeli Christians (Pew Research), Christians in Israel - Statistics for 2022, and FACTBOX: Christians in Israel, West Bank and Gaza. You can read all that if you wish. Below I’ll highlight a few things that caught my attention.
I found it difficult to find exact comparisons. So, I’m settling for a very rough picture of the number of Palestinian Christians in the region.
Ninety percent (90%) are Greek Catholic or Greek Orthodox. The majority (56%) of Palestinian Christians live outside the area. Many in the USA, Central and South America, Australia and Canada.
The Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem includes Israel, Palestine (Gaza, West Bank), Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. It has a membership of around 7,000 people, with 35 service institutions, 29 parishes, 1500 employees, 200 hospital beds, and 6,000 students. I live in the Diocese of Olympia which has 31,000 people in more than 100 churches.
I came across this chart on the number of Anglicans in the area
Chart from The Anglican Church in Palestine and Israel: Colonialism, Arabization and Land Ownership January 2011
About Christian Palestinians
Have the highest rates of educational attainment. 63% of Israeli Christian Palestinians have had college or postgraduate education. They are proportionally more likely to have attained a bachelor's or higher academic degree. The rate of medical students was also higher when compared with all the students from other sectors. Most Christians in Israel attend church-sponsored private schools.
Christians serve in positions in Israel’s government, medical, law enforcement and judicial systems.
Many have left the region because of the stress of living with an ongoing conflict. Some have left because of persecution by extremist Israeli or extremist Islamic pressure. There is a degree of self censorship in regard to the Islamic pressure as many don’t want to undercut the Palestinian cause or out of fear they will be harmed. Some have left in hope of bettering their economic condition. Muslim Palestinians may desire to emigrate, but Christians manage to do so in larger numbers because of their relative wealth. There’s a lot of debate about this as groups work to cast the blame on one side or the other.
“Those with a stronger religious identity feel a sense of mission: willing to pay the price to remain.” Only 1 in 4 “religious” Palestinian Christians (24%) are considering emigration, compared to 41 percent of the “somewhat religious” and 45 percent of the “not religious.”
One poll found that About 8 in 10 worry about attacks from Jewish settlers and being driven from their homes (83%). About 7 in 10 worry about Israeli annexation (67%). And about 6 in 10 believe Israel’s goal is to expel Christians from their homeland (62%). … But high percentages also reveal concerns about their fellow Muslim citizens: 77 percent are worried about the presence of austere Salafi Muslims, 69 percent are worried about armed factions like Hamas, and 67 percent are worried about Palestinian Basic Law referring to sharia (Islamic law). (The 2020 poll by the Philos Project, a US-based initiative promoting positive Christian engagement in the Middle East).
A resolution
There’s a resolution before General Convention that acknowledges “the threat to the Christian presence in the Holy Land from “Israeli radical groups who are actively seeking to undermine the Christian communities of the Holy Land,” and who “seek to change fundamentally the historic multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious character of the region,” recognize the significant contribution of Christian Zionism to that threat.” It also shares the deep distress of Palestinian Christians “regarding the dramatic diminishment of that community.”
I wonder …
Why the focus on just “Israeli radical groups?”
This is just one of many resolutions critical of Israel. Some seeking to label the Jewish state as committing genocide and being an apartheid state. Is it an attempt to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish homeland? Is that an intention of those proposing the resolutions? Or is it simply the impact that results from such action?
There is a political manipulation method that tries to influence public debate by focusing attention on an aspect of a situation that favors the cause of those using the method. Fairly standard stuff that is done by all sides. So for example, in the Israel-Hamas War we are offered a number of Palestinian deaths (currently around 37,000). It doesn’t include how many are Hamas fighters. The numbers come from Hamas. The standard report goes something like this “According to Gaza Health Authorities 37,000 have been killed. The authority doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.” It is the 37,000 number that registers. So, our emotions are captured by the inflated number. Sometimes the distortion is glaring. This morning’s Philadelphia Inquire had a ceasefire editorial with this “More than 37,000 non-combatant Palestinian men, women and children have been killed.” We begin by accepting a Hamas number and its construction and we find ourselves engaged in a somewhat false narrative. Just to be clear, if it turns out that third or half of those killed were Hamas soldiers and that Israel has “taken more care to prevent (civilian casualties) than any other army in human history.” (John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, Newsweek, 1-31-24) — we might still argue that the toll is too high. However, it will remain that we have been manipulated. Is that what is happening when we are asked to focus on just one element of the story about a diminishment of the Palestinian Christian community in the region?
Please feel free to disagree or add information in your comments.
This abides,
Brother Robert
The Feast of James Weldon Johnson, Poet, 1938