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I am devastated about
what is happening to the HOLIEST PLACE IN CHRISTIANITY:
The Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, the BIRTH place of Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Christians of the WORLD have lost their dignity and lost the moral
courage it takes to
defend their holiest
places. Defending does not mean sending an army, it means to stand
with what is right, true
and fair for the Church and the people besieged in the church
without
food, water, electricity
and put pressure on their governments, on the USA and Israel. It is
taking too long. It is
unfair. It calls for people of conscience.
Unfortunately, Christians of the worlds have been duped by Israel
once again.
How Arab-Christian will be able to tolerate living under such a
brutal and violent
occupation? This
situation would create catastrophic consequences for Arab-Christians
of
the Holy Land. The
Palestinian-Christians have been fleeing in record numbers and this
is
precisely the desire of
the state of Israel.
Israel would like to force the Palestinian Christians out of the
Holy land because it is their
desire and their
ultimate goal to rid the land of all Christians. This will give them
the great
opportunity to say to
the world that the war in Palestine is a war against terrorism and
make
from our beloved
Palestinian Muslims the target of this war. The way USA is doing in
Afghanistan.
Yet, most American Christians and the Christians of the West are
ignorantly being fed lies
that they accept as a
God given truth--that Israel's war is simply against Muslim
Palestinians
using the same logic of
the Taliban/Afganistan. They are ignoring that the problem is the
ISRAELI OCCUPATION and
it is not a war against terrorism but a resistance against
Occupation. And
Palestinian resistance are Christians and Muslims.
Palestinian Christians of the Holy Land who have been living in
harmony with Muslims for
centuries feel abandoned
and alone. They feel angry against the Christians in the West and
specially the American
Christians.
There is little that their Muslim blood brothers and sisters can do
to console and defend the
Palestinian Christians.
Muslims from Qatar and Arab world offered to repair the destruction
that the Israelis have
done to the Holiest place of Christianity, the Church of the
Nativity.
In fact, in the Church of the Nativity, Palestinian Muslims and
Christians are sharing the
same food, water and
defending the place against the Israelis. They are not terrorists,
it is
their right by
international law to defend their city from occupation. The
Palestinians are
fighting against the
evils and frustrations of Israeli occupation for over 35 years. It
is a right,
it is not at all a
crime. That Christians of the world are unable to see this reality
and exercise
any pressure to save the
priests, the people, and the defenders of their Holy Place, or to
exert pressure on Israel
to deliver food, water, medicine for the besieged make
Arab-Christians in the
Middle East angry. This is an indifference based on a certain racism
and hatred for the
Arabs, regardless of his or her religion.
Palestinian Christians are angry at Western Christians who have
abandoned them.
Palestinian Christians
feel that Western Christians have left them alone to face this
brutal
Israeli occupation
simply because they are Arab Christians.
This at least what many Arab-Christians have said to me as their
pastor. If we were Italian,
English, Irish,
Americans, Germans, French would they do the same? Imagine if Jews
would
besiege Notre Dame of
Paris, or the Vatican, or St. Patrick in New York. Or imagine if a
group of any people
would besiege Jews for days inside any synagogue in the world and
deprive them from food,
water, electricity and kill them with snipers. Would it be
tolerated
and accepted, would it
take that long to save them and stand with the innocent Jews in a
place of prayer?
Wouldn't the whole world move to do immediately what is fair, right
and
just? Why they are doing
this to our Arab Palestinians people? Why the West hates us that
much? What did we do to
deserve all this, what did the Palestinians do to the world? Who
are we as
Arab-Christians for the Christians of the West? Aren't we the
Christians of the
first centuries? The Christians who translated the Bible into
different languages; the first
who have created
monachism, and religious orders; the first fathers of the Church;
the first
missionaries?
At his visit on March 2000 Pope Paul II was proud of the Palestinian
Christians and their
history and thanked them
for what they have given to the world and praised the harmony
between Muslims and
Christians in the Hoy Land.
How we can as Arab Christians recall with pride these words of the
Pope?
How we can recall the many other speeches of the Cardinals,
Archbishops, Bishops,
pastors preachers of the
Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant Churches?
They seem to many of the Arab Christians as just all these were
words to the public opinion.
But when there should be
some actions, everybody finds a way to step back and try to think
what to do and when to
act. What a shame?
There is a kind of acceptance between the people in the West that
killing Arabs, Muslims
or Christians is a good
things for the world. Our people say this and repeat it. And I can
understand, as an Arab
Catholic priest, their frustration and after months of destruction
and
massacres by Israel.
What the world is waiting for? For a holocaust against Arabs?
The Christian Palestinian population fleeing the Holy Land are
saying to me: When Sharon
visited the Al-Aqsa
Mosque, Muslims from around the world stood proudly to defend their
Holy Place and they were
so angry that Sharon had to leave immediately in front to the
world wide condemnation.
But what have the Christians of the world done for the holiest place
on earth, the place of
the Birth of our Lord
Jesus Christ? Nothing.
Never before in the history of the Church of the Nativity has it
been attacked in this way.
Even when the Persians
conquered Bethlehem in 622 they absolutely respected the
holiness of the place,
because they saw some mosaics that depict the magi coming from
Persia.
In 1948 20% of Palestinians in the Holy Land were Christian, today,
because of the Israeli
occupation and its
attendant violence, poverty and discrimination that number has
dwindled
down to 1.8%. Statistics
indicate that in a few years the Holy Land will become a Christian
museum with no LIVING
STONES. And what is the Holy Land without the Palestinian
Christians? Without the
true and oldest people of the land of Jesus Christ, descendants of
the Cananites, Jesbusites, Aramites. These Arab-Christians who have
been celebrating
Christmas for 2000 years
and the Holy week for 2000 years. What is the Holy Land without
its rightful people?
Palestinian Christians feel that the Christians of the West lack the
courage and morality to
stand united with them,
Christian Palestinians feel that the utter contempt and disregard
that Western Christians
have for Christian Palestinians stems from a kind of racism against
all Arab peoples.
I am so afraid that Christians of the Holy Land will be forced to
abandon the land because
they themselves feel so
alone, so depressed so unhappy to be called Christians at the
same level of the
Christian of the West.
I was sent to the United States to serve the Arab-American Christian
community by my
superior, the Latin
Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah. I have been a Pastor of the
Arab-Americans in
California for 10 years. I have witnessed the Arab-Christian
community
in San Francisco
continue to grow with Christian immigrants from Ramallah, Bir-Zeit,
Gifna,
Bethlehem , Jerusalem,
Taybeh ... coming to San Francisco to flee the ungodly Zionist
occupation.
Today there are more Palestinian Christians from Ramallah in San
Francisco than in
Ramallah itself. What a
shame?
Arab-Christians at the end are the losers, they lost their prestige,
their future and their
hopes. I am very
concerned for them, perhaps I am so concerned because I am also an
Arab Christian, I cannot
rely on the non-Arab world to give a damn about the
Palestinian-Christians.
I feel so ashamed of the Christians of the World.
Father Labib Kobti
San Francisco
LabibKobti@aol.com
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