Sunday, April 17, 2011

Who/What is " the Christian community in the West Bank"?

In this LATimes blog post of Maher Abukhater in Ramallah:

As Christians get ready to celebrate Easter, Palestinian Christians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are envious of fellow Christians from all over the world who are able to visit Jerusalem’s holy Christian sites and worship freely while they cannot...[restricted] from reaching their holy sites in Jerusalem and its Old City.

“For Christians, Holy Week in Jerusalem has a special spiritual connection,” said a statement issued by the Christian community in the West Bank. “The Old City, its gates and roads, the Mount of Olives, Via Dolorosa and the Holy Sepulchre Church, where pilgrims from all over the world journey to, are equally important to the Palestinian Christians of Gaza and the West Bank, who want to join their Jerusalemite Christian brethren in the liturgical events leading to the resurrection, the holiest celebration in Christianity.”

...“In every country that respects and implements freedom of worship, worshipers of different faiths live their faith and express their prayers without restrictions from the governing authorities,” said the Christians' statement. “In Jerusalem, and for the past decade, this has not been the case.

...“The permit system instated by Israel is in obvious violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international covenants and treaties to which Israel is a signatory,” said the Christian community.

Who are those "Christians"? Have they a name, an identity?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

From a local perspective, the Christian community 'in the WB' is given voice in the US by Naim Ateek and to some degree Mitri Raheb. Ateek and his Sabeel, liberation theology have had an immense impact on mainstream Protestant clergy. Raheb from ELCA in Bethlehem is attuned to Marc Ellis and the 'Holocaust exploitation' movement which feeds back into the Friends of. Sabeel. The impact of the aforementioned cannot be overestimated. MF

Anonymous said...

The christians are the natives of the West Bank. They weren't born in New York like many of the settlers. They have real roots in the area and they don't need any dud biblical justification for their presence. Natives can never be revenants.

Anonymous said...

Oh boy, another mouthpiece for imperialist zionism. Like we needed more of those...

Anonymous said...

Please stop opressing the palestinians, kthxbye.