• August.09. 2006 Palestinian Christians and Al Nakba... exile from the Holy Land.

   by Xavier Abu Eid

“It is not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them, they DID NOT EXIST” (Golda Meir, Sunday Times, June 1969)

By Xavier Abu Eid.

Note of the author: First of all, I have to be frank: For sure, I am not the religious person that my grandfather wishes. It is his bad luck that I did not go to pray to Mar Emcula (Saint Nicholas) every day, and that I don’t go to pray in Mar Geries (Saint George) Church on Sundays...I am not even the religious relative my dear cousins Basheer and Waleed, who are active members of the Christian communities in Saint Mary church of Beit Jala and Saint George church of Al Khader, dream of.

The idea of writing about Palestinian Christians and Al Nakba came from my dear friend Mira Nabulsi, a courageous inhabitant of Nablus who, being Muslim, has the same goals, dreams and wishes as  me: We are both Palestinians.  Yes, I am a Palestinian Christian because my parents were Christians. In fact, if my parents were Muslims, I could be a Muslim too. But the only certain thing is that I am Palestinian. For that, I consider Christianity to be part of my history, but I do have more things in common  with my Palestinian Muslim sisters and brothers, than with a foreigner.

Personally, I don’t like a political analysis based on religion (like the Zionist History). Politics is one thing and faith another: Politics are facts, religion not always.

For our study, religion will be just the excuse that the Zionist Movement used to take Palestine, and it is not important if the refugees were Muslims or Christian, because just the very act of expulsion is against human rights and International Law: The Palestinian refugee problem is also political, and cannot be solved under religious terms.  However, as a Palestinian born and living outside, I just think that some “Christian friends” of Israel and the Zionist Movement must see what the Israelis did to their sisters and brothers on faith, and to understand that the transfer of the Palestinian population was not just against Muslims, but against an entire group called ‘Palestinian people’.

One day, 58 years ago...

For Palestinians, the tragedy began 58 years ago. The same day that Zionism celebrates the beginning of the State of Israel, Palestinians remember the destruction of their society and the exile of almost 60% of its people: May 15 of 1948, two different views for just one fact - the destruction of Palestine and the birth of Israel.

One of the main goals of the Zionist propaganda during the last 58 years, was to show that Palestine before 1948 did not have a people living in.  Not only Golda Meir or David Ben Gurion, but also other leaders like Shimon Peres used to sustain the thesis that there wasn’t “something called Palestinian people”, but “Arabs” in the “land of Israel” (Eretz Israel)[1].  Then, trying to explain the Palestinian resistance to the settlement of a Zionist entity in Arab land, several Israeli leaders tried to give the impression that the hostility towards Zionists in Palestine was because of religion: Muslims v/s Jews.  However, the Palestinian people was never a single religion group, and the characteristics of language, culture, history and land was for centuries common to all the Arabs in Palestine, Muslims, Christians and even native Jews.

That is why now I want to talk about one of the forgotten sides of the Palestinian nakba, or catastrophe; it is the specific situation of Palestinian Christians and the birth of the State of Israel. Why is it important to talk about Palestinian Christians? Not only because of the important role that many Christians took since the origins of Palestinian nationalism, but also to show to many Christian friends of Israel in the West, that the birth of Israel in Palestinian lands also destroyed part of the significant legacy that Christians conserved in Palestine for centuries.

All over Palestine.

Palestinians Christians were settled all over Palestine under the British Mandate. In fact, from the 17 principal Arab towns that Palestine had before 1948[2] (Beir Al Saba, Khan Younis, Gaza, Majdal, Ramleh, Lydda, Hebron, Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Ramallah, Tulkarem, Nablus, Jenin, Shafa Amr, Akka (Acre), Beisan and Nazareth), at least 4 had a considereble Christian majority (Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Ramallah and Nazareth), while others like Gaza, Ramleh, Lydda, Beisan, Shafa Amr, Akka and Beisan had important Palestinian Christian concentrations.  Also, among the mixed cities, there were important percentages of Christians, like Jerusalem (50% of the Arab population), Haifa, Jaffa and Safad.

It is important to remark that the bigger concentration of Christians were not in the West Bank or Gaza, but in Galilee, the Coast (especially Haifa and Jaffa) and Jerusalem (and its western side like Upper Bakaa, Talbiya and Katamon). For that reason, when we talk about the decrease in percentage of Palestinian Christians since 1948, we have to take into consideration the fact that most of the Palestinian Christians were concentrated in areas that Israel cleansed from its Palestinian native population.

The Christian rural populations were damaged by several Zionist operations that expelled many of their inhabitants and destroyed some of their villages, like Al Bassa, Suhmata, Ikrith, Al Mansoura and Kuf Biram. The presence of Christian villagers was normal in Palestine, especially around Jerusalem (Ein Karem, Beit Hanina), Bethlehem (Beit Sahour), Ramallah (Bir Zeit, Taybeh, Jifna and Ein Arik) and the upper Galilee (Suhmata, Tarshiha, Kufr Yassif, Fassouta, Jish, etc). However, just 30% of the Palestinian Christian population was rural up until 1948, compared with the 75% of rural population among the whole Palestinian people to that period.

The Christians were considered an urban-class (more than 70% of them up until 1931), well educated and more than 70% of the Palestinian Christian males over age twenty one, were literate[3]. Those are important characteristics that made them a strong presence among the Palestinian national movement, civil society and governmental institutions.

The good level of education among Palestinian Christians made them become prominent in the Palestinian media and schools. A good example is the well known Palestinian intellectual Khalil al Sakakini who opened the first important secular school in Palestine in 1909[4].

The education, also impulsed by several religious initiatives like the schools that were opened in all Palestine by the Latin Patriarchate or the Russian Orthodox (especially, the well known “Al Moscowiya” in Beit Jala, the first school for girls in Palestine established in 1780[5]), was of benefit for many Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike.  This is one of the reasons why Christians being always a minority among the Palestinian people used to get good positions as notables in most of the Palestinian national institutions and media.

The presence of strong Christian communities on tourist sites, like Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem, also helped them to speak foreign languages and to get a stable economical situation. As Mohammad Muslih quoted “In Bethlehem, the manufacture of souvenirs and articles of ornament was mainly controlled by such Christian families as Qattan, Hazboun, Qawwas, and Bandak”[6].

The two major newspapers in Palestine prior to World War I were “Al Karmel” in the Mediterranean port of Haifa and “Filastin” in Jaffa.   Both were owned by Christians - The first (Palestinian nationalist) by the courageous journalist Najib Nassar and Filastin by Issa al Issa (linked to the movement of Arab nationalists)[7].  Najib Nassar was the first Palestinian journalist to publish the dangerous Zionist project for Palestine, even before the Balfour Declaration. In 1913, he wrote “Should we allow the Zionists to revive their nationalism at the expense of our nationalism? Have we agreed upon selling them our land piece by piece until they expel us from our land in groups and on an individual basis”.  From that time (around 1910), Nassar founded an association to persuade the Ottoman Government to stop land sales to Zionists, and to persuade the local population to boycott the Jews economically[8].

It is important to remember that the first important Palestinian political groups were the Muslim-Christian Associations that were organized in the main cities of Palestine, including Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem. Together with feminist and workers’ organizations, they impulsed the realization of the First Palestinian National Congress in 1919.   For example, the Muslim-Christian Association of Jerusalem, formed in 1918, had 28 Muslim representatives and 10 for the Christians (5 for Orthodox and 5 for Catholics), while in Jerusalem the inhabitants were 40.000 Muslims and just 14.000 Christians; as in Jaffa, from 15 representatives, 6 were Christians (in 1920. the city had 20.699 Muslims and 6.850 Christians[9]). The over-representation of Christians was because of their better education and economical situation.

One year later, the Muslim-Christian Association in Jerusalem sent a bulletin to ambassadors and political authorities, particularly British, to show the anger of the Palestinian population after the Balfour Declaration and Zionist plans for Palestine:

“We totally reject the transference of Palestine to a Jewish homeland. We do not allow for any Jew to immigrate to our country. We also strongly protest against Zionism. With regard to local Jewry who inhabited Palestine earlier, they should be considered full citizens and enjoy rights that are similar to those of Palestinian Arabs (Muslims and Christians)”.

The First Palestinian National Congress held in Jerusalem (February, 1919) was based on Palestinian delegates from different cities and regions, members of notable families. Among the Christian representatives, they came in the delegations of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Nazareth, Haifa and Tiberias. Good to note that all of them came from zones that Israel occupied during Al Nakba in 1948-49.

For Palestinians, the only solution at that time was the independence in a single Arab state for Muslims, Christians and Jews. The Zionist terror operations in Palestine under the complicity of the British army, together with the constant Jewish immigration from Europe, gave origin to several insurrections, during the years 1922, 23, 26, 29, 33 and 1936. Once again, Christians were involved in those movements. In the late twenties, Jerusalem had municipal elections under British role that imposed a quota for the three religious communities of the city: 5 Palestinian Muslims, 3 Palestinian Christians and 4 Jews. The city became the centre of Palestinian national activities, including a brutal intervention of British authorities in local Arab affairs, among others, the demotion of Palestinian mayor Musa Kassem Husseini, for opposing the British pro-Zionist policies[10].

During the last general strike of six months (1936), the main Palestinian political movement was the Arab Higher Committee, a union of the main three Palestinian Arab parties. Al Arabi Party appointed Jamal al Husseini and Alfred Rock (Christian). Ad Difa Party appointed Ragheb a Nashashibi and Yacoub Farraj (Christian), while al Istiklal party had Awni Abdul Hadi and Ahmad al Balqi: The new committee had six members on its board, two Christians among them (1/3), and was considered the official speaker of the Palestinian People.

The involvement of Palestinians Christians continued alongside Muslim notables in the Palestinian national structures. In the period close to the partition, other Christians like the intellectual Henry Kattan and the historian Samy Hadawi became spokespersons of the Palestinian national movement, including the United Nations and several commissions.

For March 1948, the Haganah[11] ordered all units to target and kill several Palestinian leaders linked to the Palestinian leader Mufti Amin al Husseini. Among them we find Christians like Issa Bandak from Bethlehem and Emil Ghawri from Jerusalem[12]. Some time later, Ghwari commanded Palestinian forces in the defence of the Old City, repelling the Zionist invasion.

The remembered attack on Zionist´s Headquarters in Jerusalem made up by the Bethlehemite Anton Daoud, was also part of the well known history concerning  Palestinian resistance during those days. “In March 1948, a man called Anton Jamil Jeries Daoud, who was from Bethlehem, went to Jerusalem and bombed the police station in King George´s Street. That was the reason why he was wanted and followed by the Israelis for many years. He died in Kuwait in 1969”[13].

Most of the Palestinian villages had their own local militias that were coordinated by several initiatives like “Al Jihad al Muqaddas” (led by the well known Mufti Amin al Husseini) and the Arab Liberation Army, among them, many Christian Arab villages and towns, like Beit Jala (headed by Khalil Abu Ghattas[14]), Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, Mi´ilya and the Maronite village of Eilabun[15]. In mixed towns and villages, Palestinian Christians were active or even leading the resistance in Jerusalem, Ein Karem, Jaffa, Haifa, Shafa Amr, Haifa, Ramah and Nazareth.

Palestinian Christians were mostly considered not only a strategic, but a political objective: among urban Christians, the Palestinian elite had many of them among its names, particularly in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem. Meanwhile, for rural Palestinian Christians, the fact that many of them were inhabitants of the borders (with Lebanon especially) determined a specific plan of cleansing by Zionists, where the main victims were the inhabitants of Maronite villages like Al Mansoura, Eilabum and Kufr Biraim, the mostly Greek Catholic Iqrith, and the mixed Christian town of Al Bassa[16].

From citizens of Palestine to strangers in their own land.

Jaffa was not only famous for its oranges before the Zionist invasion[17], or for its magnificent buildings, its famous Clock, the cinemas or theatre or maybe the “Palestinian Paris”[18]. Jaffa also had an active and dynamic Christian Arab community.

How did Palestinian Christians live in Jaffa at that time? “My name is Wadih Saliba Mousa Salman. I was born in Jaffa on 1 July 1929. At the time Britain occupied Palestine. I studied at Terra Sancta School in Jaffa. I finished school until the seventh class, then I worked with my father in his business. We had a bakery called Alroumy. We were living a normal life and had properties in a place beside the Jewish area. Every day 120.000 people used to come to Jaffa to work. There was more work during the orange season. People also worked in olive wood and mother-of-pearl, and there were fishermen, too. Jaffa was the only place where you could fish well”[19].  Eight churches and three monasteries belonged to Greek Catholics (their church was desecrated by Zionist terrorists, throwing away the icons of Jesus and Virgin Mary[20]), Latins, Greek Orthodox, Armenians, Maronites, Anglicans and Coptics, the Christian communities inhabitants of Jaffa before 1948. Today, just a few Christians remain in the city. There is participation of Christian Arabs in educational and political activities, as well media.

That is why, when Jaffa fell on 13^th May of 1948, the two leaders of the Palestinian resistance were Abdel Najim al Din and Michael al-Issa, a local Christian[21]. The pictures that UNRWA has about the fall of Jaffa show dramatic scenes of families running from the Zionist terrorist groups, while the British army still in Palestine did nothing to stop the terror in the Mediterranean port, that according to UN Resolution 181, belonged to the Arab State.

For centuries, there was a religious peaceful connivance in Palestine, which was broken only for a short period o time with the Crusaders. Palestinian Muslims and Christians lived together in most of the bigger Palestinian cities - not only Jaffa or Haifa, but also Jerusalem.  Palestinian intellectual Ghada Karmi lived in the Jerusalem Neighbourhood of Katamon, mostly inhabited by Palestinian Christians. From her neighbours and the relationship between them, she remembers in her book “In Search of Fatima” that “they usually had a Christmas tree and made a special cake, ma´moul (...) Zihad (her brother) and I went next door to the Jousehs house and offered to help decorate their tree (...) It was the custom in Palestine for Muslims to call on Christians on their feast days and the other way around”[22] 

The notable Palestinian intellectual Edward Said, came from an Anglican Palestinian family. The author of “Orientalism”, “The Palestine Question”, “Out of Place”, “Culture and Imperialism”, etc, was baptised in the Saint George Anglican Cathedral of Jerusalem, and also studied in the Saint George School, both close to the American Colony. He was born in the Jerusalem Neighbourhood of Talbiya, famous for its mansions now inhabited by Jewish. His own home now is occupied by a group of Christian fundamentalists, radical American sects with a strong loyalty to the state of Israel.

“There were four prosperous and new Arab quarters largely built during the Mandate period (1918-1948): Upper and Lower Baqaa, Talbiya, and Qatamon. I recall that during my last weeks in the fall of 1947 I had to traverse three of the security zones instituted by the British to get to St. George's School from Talbiya; by December 1947 my parents, sisters, and I had left for Egypt. My aunt Nabiha and four of her five children stayed on but experienced grave difficulties. The area they lived in was made up of unprepared and unarmed Palestinian families; by February Talbiya had been taken over by the Hagganah”[23].  

The surprise for Said came when he saw the new “owners” of his home. “It took almost two hours to find the house, and it is a tribute to my cousin's memory that only by sticking very literally to his map did we finally locate it. Earlier I was detained for half an hour by the oddly familiar contours of Mr. Shamir's unmistakably Arab villa, but abandoned that line of inquiry for the greater certainty of a home on Nahum Sokolow Street, 150 yards away. For there the house was, I suddenly knew, with its still impressive bulk commanding the sandy little square, now an elegant, manicured park. My daughter later told me that, using her camera with manic excitement, I reeled off twenty-six photos of the place which, irony of ironies, bore the name plate "International Christian Embassy" at the gate. To have found my family's house now occupied not by an Israeli Jewish family, but by a right-wing Christian fundamentalist and militantly pro-Zionist group (run by a South African Boer, no less, and with a record of unsavoury involvement with the Contras to boot), this was an abrupt blow for a child of Palestinian Christian parents. Anger and melancholy took me over, so that when an American woman came out of the house holding an armful of laundry and asked if she could help, all I could blurt out was an instinctive, "no thanks."[24]”.

Another Palestinian notable was Abuna (father) Ibrahim Ayyad. A native of Beit Sahour in the Bethlehem District, for 1948 he was active in the resistance, making lobby whit the foreigners in Palestine trying to get support to the Palestinian cause. One of his most important jobs was to get the Italian Hospital, a strategic place in Jerusalem, for the Palestinians from the Italian consul in the Palestinian capital[25].

Nimra Tannouz, was also a well known Palestinian. This Christian woman intercepted radio-messages by the Haganah from her job as telephonist in Jerusalem. She also made the first telephonic centre for the Palestinian resistance in all Palestine[26].

One of the most remembered scenes of Zionist terror in Palestine was the terrorist attack to Seminaris Hotel in Katamon, owned by Abussuan Family. Just after Christmas, all the family used to sleep there, since Jerusalem was a risky place at that time. With them was the Spanish consul in Jerusalem Manuel Allende Salazar, as a guest of this Palestinian Christian family.

On January 5, the terrorist attack by the Haganah killed 35 Palestinian Christians, most of them from the same family, and the Spanish consul. The Zionist group failed to apologize for that criminal act, as well other terrorist actions like the destruction of the King David Hotel (by Menahem Begin, then elected as Israeli Prime Minister), the massacre in Deir Yassin village, Tantoura and the hundreds of war crimes made in the catastrophe of 1948[27].

When the Zionist terrorists left the Hotel, they began shooting in the neighbourhood, killing 18 people, 13 of them Christians and most of them children and women like Mary Masoud, Georgette Khoury, Nazira Lorenzo, Mary Lorenzo, Amber Lorenzo and Raof Lorenzo[28].

Palestinian Jerusalemites were always the centre of the Palestinian life. Palestinian Christians among them were a strong urban class. Not only Talbiya and Katamon, but also Talpiyot was among those neighbourhoods with important Palestinian Christian communities, especially Armenians. On the morning of 16 May, the Zionist forces took complete control of this Palestinian location, without significant resistance. “nearly every house was empty: set tables with plates of unfinished food indicated that the occupants had fled in disarray, haste and fear (...) those who were arrested marched away single file to the Katamon Quarter[29]”.

In Rama, a northern mixed village of Muslims, Christians and Druze, Christians and Muslims were deported, while the Druze, betraying the Palestinian Higher Arab Committee, changed their loyalty towards the Zionist movement. One of the local priests, Abuna (father) Yacoub al Hanna, was a well known supporter of guerrilla leader Fawzi Al Qawki, something that had influence on the Zionist decision to expel local Christians. However, the Druze pressure to expel Christians was also an important element in the Zionist policy making[30].

During Al Nakba, some villages fell without even a shot, but some others resisted until the end. One of these villages was Mi´ilya, on the road from Haifa to Safad, with local militia together with the Arab Liberation Army. Other cases in the northern villages were the Maronite Eilabun and Jish.

Zionists occupied and damaged churches and religious institutions (as well, of course, Mosques), and killed several people inside religious institutions, like eight Palestinian Armenian refugees in their own Patriarchate, and catholic Father John Salah, while he was going to begin the Holy Mass on his church, as well Syriac (Assyrian) monk Peter Savmi[31].

Palestinian researcher Issa Nakhle, included in his “Palestine Encyclopedia” a full list of Christian institutions that were destroyed or damaged by Israeli forces in Jerusalem, such as:

The Hospice "Notre Dame de France," a large part of which was destroyed as a          result of the Jewish occupation

2. The Convent of Reparatrice Sisters was set on fire and almost completely destroyed.

3. The tower and church of the Monastery of the Benedictine Fathers were damaged as a result of having been occupied.

4. The Seminary of Ste. Anne was hit by two mortar bombs: the first on May 17, 1948, the second on May 19, 1948, destroying walls and wounding the refugees sheltered therein.

5. The church of St. Constantine and Helena which is contiguous to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was damaged on May 17,1948, by a bomb, the fragments of which damaged also the dome of the Holy Sepulchre.

6. The Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate was hit by about one hundred mortar bombs thrown by Zionists from the Monastery of the Benedictine Fathers on Mount Sion, and the bombs damaged St. Jacob's Convent, the Archangels Convent and their two churches, their two Elementary and Seminary schools and their library. Eight persons among the refugees were killed and 120 wounded.

7. The entrance to the church of St. Mark belonging to the Syrian Orthodox, received on May 17, 1948 a mortar shell killing the monk Peter Saymy, secretary to the Bishop, and wounding two other persons.

8. The Convent of St. George of the Greek Orthodox which is contiguous to the Greek Catholic Cathedral received on May 18,1948 a mortar shell breaking the tiles and damaging the windows of the cathedral

9. The convent of St. John of the Greek Orthodox, contiguous to the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, received on its roof a mortar shell on May 23,1948, and St. Abraham convent nearby was hit as well as St. Spiridon Convent.

10. The Convent of the Archangel belonging to the Coptic Patriarchate, situated over the grotto of the Holy Cross, forming part of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, received on May 23, 1948 a mortar shell damaging its roof.

11. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate was hit by mortar shells on May 23 and 24, 1948, wounding many refugees sheltered therein.

12. The big Franciscan convent (St. Saviour) situated near the Holy Sepulchre received mortar shells on May 19,23,24, and 28, 1948, causing damage to the orphanage, general secretariat, and hitting nearby houses, killing and wounding children sheltered therein

13. The Latin Patriarchate received on May 23,26,27 and 28, 1948, mortar shells causing damage to the Patriarchal Palace, especially to the Cathedral.

14. The Greek Catholic Patriarchate was hit by mortar bombs on May 16 and 29,1948, damaging the building and wounding some persons.

Most of these institutions were also occupied by Zionist groups.

For most Palestinian Christian villages and towns in the West Bank, Al Nakba was a big change in their lives. Zababdeh, Burqa, Rafidia, the villages and the city of Ramallah, Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour received thousands of refugees that changed their demography and economical order, as well Palestinian Christians in Gaza City (where 70% of its population are refugees). It is important to remember that the problem of overpopulation was not only for Palestinian Christians, but every Palestinian region after Al Nakba, including those that remained Arabs inside Israel[32].

Iqrith and Kufr Bir´am.

The Zionist and Israeli propaganda argued two main reasons why there is now a refugee problem: One is that Arab armies ordered the Palestinian refugees to flee. The second myth was that there was “revenge” against some Arab villages which were involved in the resistance.

The idea of transferring the indigenous population was always studied by the Zionist Movement, even by commissions prior to the birth of Israel. In fact, transfer was “portrayed as a noble, moral, and indeed humanitarian act, whereby Palestinians would be resettled among their own people (i.e. Arabs)”[33].

That is why we don’t accept this argument. We find in New York Times documents the existence of thousands of Palestinian refugees prior to any Arab invasion[34].

In the case of the “hostile villages”, the argument for some people could make sense. However, were Palestinian villages a real danger to the Zionist project? Let´s see the cases of two Palestinian Christian villages in the northern border whit Lebanon, Iqrith and Kufr Bir´am.

On 7 November of 1948, the Oded brigade entered Iqrith without a fight. The inhabitants received them with white flags and the priest led the people. Then, and for “public security” reasons, the Israeli soldiers ordered all the inhabitants of Iqrith leave the village for Rama.

The soldiers explained that they (the villagers) had to move just for “15 days”. The people agreed and just the priest and some men remained in the village, but soon they were expelled too[35]. The town was later destroyed by Christmas, 1951.

The Greek Catholic Archbishop of Galilee, Monseigneour Hakim, saw Ikrith after the destruction: “I return from my visit to Ikret, a 100% Catholic village, and it grieves me to say, I return heartbroken. The scenes of demolished houses, streets blocked with stones and timber, and tottering walls - these atrocities, added to the memory of my previous visits to this village which was in the past alive with its inhabitants, have filled my heart with anguish and distress. When I reached the summit of the village and stood in its Churchyard, I felt the tears in my eyes as I saw the Vicarage in rubble, that beautiful residence that used to fill our hearts with joy and glory, and which was erected with its three spacious rooms above the school, all were demolished. The Church, I could not gain access to it since its entrances were obstructed with stones; but I do not doubt that the collapse of the adjacent houses has inflicted upon it serious damage. Climbing the ruins surrounding the church, I saw a deep cleft in the upper part of the eastern wall. The cross that was standing erect above the dome was smashed. I cannot tell whether it was accidental or deliberate. The belfry was void of its bell which was pulled down by the inhabitants of the adjacent Jewish colony to be used in announcing the times for their meals”[36].

Kufr Bir´im, Maronite, was also a northern village. They did not fight against the Zionist militias; however, the instruction for the soldiers that occupied the village was clear: “Make sure that this wave will move northwards (Lebanon) only and not return to the interior of the state”[37].

For Israeli historian, Benny Morris, “the case of Bir´im, Iqrit and Mansoura (also Christian) illustrates how deep was the IDF´s determination from November 1948 onward to create and maintain a northern border security belt clear of Arabs. That determination quickly spread to the civilian institutions of state, particularly those concerned with immigrant absorption and settlement”[38].

Epilogue: Refugees.

Palestinians remember 1948 as the year of the catastrophe. And they have the right to think this way. During that year, Palestine was destroyed, occupied by foreign armies and sixty percent of their people were exiled.

In Ramleh, Palestinian Muslims went to Christian convents and were protected by Christian priests. However, they were not an authority for the soldiers that were led by Yitshak Rabin and after an order of David Ben Gurion, gave 3 hours for the inhabitants of Lydda and Ramleh to take their things and leave their cities[39]. A Palestinian Christian mother took her children’s and “went to the Catholic Convent to hide. There we met a lot of people, both Christians and Muslims. The children were afraid and cried because of the sounds they heard. There was no food and water anymore, so we were obliged to bring what we had in our houses. The Israeli soldiers told the boys and the men to visit a specific place if they wanted to get permission to walk in the streets. But the Israelis were lying; when the men came, they were all taken to prison. The Israeli airplanes shelled most of the houses. The snipers killed many boys, men, women and children, even dogs and cats in the streets”[40].

In 1968, his Beautitude Maximos Hakim, patriarch of Antioch and all the East, made a declaration in New York about the situation of Christianity in Palestine after 1948, where he expressed: “The Melchite (Greek Catholic) church has suffered many losses at the hands of the Israelis. We lost churches in Damound, Sohmata, Kafr- Bur'om and Ikret, a village which the Israeli army destroyed on Christmas Day 1952. Many churches were damaged in the 1967 war, and many churches were desecrated by soldiers and men and women entering these Holy Places indecently dressed and with their dogs. My encounters with the Israeli government officials, particularly since the last war, have been completely disheartening...”[41].

About 10% (60.000) of those Palestinian refugees in 1948, were Christians. Around 29.000 moved to Jordan Controlled Areas, including 7.000 to East Jerusalem, 4.500 to Bethlehem, 5.500 to Ramallah, and 9.000 to Amman, Madaba and all the East Side of the Jordan River[42].

Another significant group moved to Lebanon. Some of them got citizenship in that country, but some others, continue until now living in refugee camps, like the refugee camps of Al Dbayeh[43] and Al Bassa.

From that generation of refugees, some Palestinian Christians then took a prominent place in the Palestinian national movement. One of them, a refugee from Lydda, George Habash, who then together with Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani and another Christian, Wadi Haddad (a Christian refugee from Safad), founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Linked to the same group, the Popular Front´s candidate for Bethlehem District in the last legislative elections, Mary Rock, was also a Christian refugee from Ein Karem.

Prominent Palestinian leaders and activists from that time continued being activists, like Abuna Ibrahim Ayyad (close to Yasser Arafat and one of the founder members of Al Fatah). Others, just remained in exile and became businessmen in Lebanon, Jordan, the Arab Gulf, Europe and the Americas.  People like Edward Said became prominent Palestinian intellectuals and researchers, like historian Sami Hadawi, writer Elias Sanbar, professor Bernard Sabella, lawyer Issa Nakhle and professor Hanna Nasser, once Head of Bir Zeit University, continued making researches on Palestine Issues, and of course Al Nakba.

The list of prominent Palestinian Christians is long, but the most important is that the list of prominent Palestinians (Christians and Muslims) is so much longer. Palestinian Christians suffered in 1948 the same as Palestinian Muslims, and until now are waiting to achieve, their legitimate and inalienable rights to freedom, self determination and return.