Tue 16th April 2013
By Patsy McGarry
Senior Palestianian churchmen blame Israel, the US, and Germany
Since the foundation of the Israeli state in 1948 at least
35 per cent of Palestinian Christians had left the Holy Land, a senior
Palestinian churchman said in Dublin yesterday. “It has been the greatest
de-Christianising influence there since the Ottomans,” Fr Peter Madros of the
Latin (Roman Catholic) Patriarchate of Jerusalem said yesterday.
“In 1945 there were 32,000 Palestinian Christians in
Jerusalem, now it’s 10,000 to 11,000,” said Rev Dr Naim Stifan Ateek, Canon
Emeritus of St George’s Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem.
Archbishop of Sebastia,Theodosios Atallah Hanna, of the
Greek Orthodox Patriarchiate of Jerusalem, pointed out “we are different
[Christian] denominations but all Palestinians. We’ve suffered a loss of freedom
and injustice that has led to the exile of many Palestinians.”
He described the decline of the Palestinian Christian
community to between 1 and 2 per cent of the population as “a disaster not only
for Palestinian Christians but for all Palestinians.” The three churchmen are
members of a delegation that arrived in Ireland a week ago on a trip sponsored
by the Sadaka group. It supports “a peaceful settlement in Palestine/Israel
based on the principles of democracy and justice, be that in two states or in
one state.”
Fr Madros said “the unconditional support of America [for
Israel] hurts us most. It wounds us most”.
Second-class citizens
This isolation was “an additional injustice” where Palestinian Christians were concerned, he said, “as nobody in the Holy Land can survive without support from abroad.”
This isolation was “an additional injustice” where Palestinian Christians were concerned, he said, “as nobody in the Holy Land can survive without support from abroad.”
Rev Dr Ateek said that within Israel Christians were being
treated “as second-class citizens.”
At “almost at every level of life there is
discrimination,” against Christians, he said. “The word ‘apartheid’ has been
used by some Israeli activists,” he added. Fr Madros said “the Christian faith
and its symbols is the most frequently attacked in the Israeli mass media”.
Since their arrival in Ireland the churchmen have had an
informal meeting with the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs. They’ve also
met Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin,
his Church of Ireland counterpart Archbishop Michael Jackson, and the Catholic
Bishop of Down and Conor Noel Traenor.
Yesterday they met officials at the Department of Foreign
Affairs where they discussed the labelling of goods produced by Jewish settlers
in Palestine.
They have also been encouraging “an economic boycott of
everything produced by the occupation”.
The delegation returns to Palestine tomorrow.
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