People enter to the Grotto at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, West Bank.
Eddie Gerald, Alamy
‘Coming from the Christmas city, it is my plea that you look upon Bethlehem, the place of Christmas, and advocate for the recognition of the state of Palestine that has been verbalised to actually become action on the ground.’
Revd Dr Jack Sara, a Christian from Jerusalem and president of the Bethlehem Bible College, addressed members of the House of Commons and House of Lords at a briefing held by the Britain-Palestine All-Party Parliamentary Group in Westminster on 15 December.
Dr Sara said, “The humanitarian devastation in Gaza and violence in the West Bank point to deep failure of accountability. Humanitarian aid is necessary but not enough: systemic change is needed. The UK carries responsibility: morally, legally, historically. This is not about blame, but responsibility for peace founded in justice.”
He called for “a commitment to human dignity everywhere” and added, “We mourn the lives of the Jewish people massacred yesterday in Australia and pray for their families; this despicable act should never happen again.”
He thanked the UK Government for their “belated recognition of the state of Palestine”, speaking “as a voice for the Christian minority but also for the whole Palestinian context”. He said, “On the ground, we feel that it is becoming hopeless. There is a gradual erosion of hope in the possibility of a just peace. But the recognition meant that governments worldwide recognise our plea for freedom, our plea for dignity.
“Recognition is important but it is not enough: it must be the beginning, not the conclusion. How can the UK now support Palestinians in their self-determination, not only in words, but also in reality in the ground?
“We urge the UK to call for international law to be upheld, to protect citizens, to uphold a viable Palestinian state, to invest in civil society, healthcare, education, faith communities, to work towards long-term justice. We ask for equality, freedom, partnership. Peace will only take root when Palestinians can live freely. I call upon you and the UK Government to turn recognition into reality. Peace needs to become a reality, not only a statement.”
Dr Sara described the daily challenges of Christians in Israel and the occupied West Bank: “The conflict in the Holy Land is commonly understood as Muslim-Jewish but it’s actually Israeli-Palestinian: Israel restricting Palestinians, whatever their faith. Palestinian Christians experience occupation not as a conflict between faiths or a theological issue, but as a daily reality of restriction and persecution shared with their Muslim neighbours.”
“Every Palestinian town is totally locked: locked by electronic doors, so that thousands of people can have no access to their houses at the click of a button. Checkpoints, restrictions, unequal access to places and resources shape every aspect of Palestinians’ lives.
“Families cannot move freely, earn a living, and plan for the future, and so congregations shrink. Christians are very much affected. Access to Bethlehem and Jerusalem is controlled. Young Christians leave because life has become unsustainable.
“It’s arbitrary when the electronic doors will open and close. When the lights were lit on the Christmas tree in Bethlehem this year, the checkpoint closed because it was drizzling. Cars ended up waiting for an hour and a half. You have to face this unpredictability on a daily basis. How long can you maintain such psychological impact on your life?
“The longest trip you can drive without meeting a wall is two miles. Who wants to raise their children in such a volatile context? From a church perspective, the central concern is community vitality. Communities do not survive on aid alone: they survive when children can imagine a future. They want to live as active citizens, not as a humanitarian problem to be managed.”
A politician at the meeting observed: “Christian churches in the UK don’t understand the plight of Palestinian Christians. Some constituents have no understanding that there is a diversity of religions in Palestine, that Christians exist in Palestine and have the same experience of occupation and discrimination as Muslims.”
Dr Sara responded, “Before 1948 Christians were 10 per cent of the total population, and now it’s less than 1 per cent. This is alarming. Some people think that it is because of the growing numbers of Muslims, but it is not. Christians, like Muslims want to live a normal life, to raise their children in peace, without worrying that they will be ostracised, attacked, or even killed for saying the wrong word.
“I have a son and two daughters and they go to a school with both Arabs and Jewish children. Every once in a while, the children say they were cursed because they speak Arabic. My son was beaten because he was speaking Arabic in a street in Jerusalem. This is going unchecked by the Israeli Government: it happens again and again.”
Asked what more the UK Government should do, Dr Sara said, “We need more action to be taken on the state of Israel, and more advocacy from around the world. Even just talking about human rights. Almost every other day, Christians are being discriminated against in Israel itself, aside for the West Bank. In the West Bank, church properties are being torched and confiscated. It’s hard to walk in the street in Jerusalem without being spat at or discriminated against.”
He said that Christians around the world do not understand the reality faced by Christians in the Holy Land: “The state of Israel is targeting evangelical Christians to bring them into Israel to feed them one side of the story. A lot of the evangelicals don’t even see many of the Palestinian Christians as valid Christians. The evangelical movement needs real information; they need to be helped. As an evangelical pastor, I’m talking to them.
“A Christian Zionist organisation brought 1,000 American pastors to Israel, feeding information to them. They did not meet a single Palestinian Christian. Four of them saw my article and came to Bethlehem to apologise. I said to them: ‘What are you doing here? This is a political brainwash.’”
Christian Zionist groups, especially in the United States, offer financial and political support to the state of Israel because they believe that the return of the Jewish people to Israel will fulfil biblical prophecies and trigger the Second Coming of Christ. Many Christian Zionists also believe that at the end times, Jews will only be saved if they convert to Christianity.
Dr Sara said, “People like this use scriptures and theology to justify genocide. As a theologian my task is to counter this abuse of scripture that turns it into a weapon to justify violence against Palestinians.”
He appealed to Christians around the world to “listen to the clergy in Palestine and try to understand their reality. As well as helping through advocacy and aid, Christians also should pray for Palestinians: prayer can always change things.”
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