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 Waiting for War?
Christians in the Holy Land continue to struggle desperately to avoid being
caught between—or crushed beneath—two ancient enemies.

By Nicholas Jubber and Michael Hirst

Less than a week after 22 Arab nations had voted to grant Israel official recognition, the Mideast region was once again on the brink of all-out war.

In response to a wave of attacks that culminated in the “Passover Massacre,” in which a suicide bomber killed 26 Israelis in the coastal town of Netanya, Israel launched its largest offensive in the Occupied Territories since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The military effort was intended, as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon put it to his people in a televised address on March 31, “to root out the terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian territories.” IDF (Israeli Defense Force) tanks rolled into every major West Bank metropolis apart from Jericho.

In Ramallah, the Palestinian Education Ministry and Legislative Council were struck. The offices of CIA-trained Preventative Security Officer Jibril Rajoub, probably the Palestinian official best equipped to assist Israeli security, was pounded by tanks and helicopter gunships. Yasser Arafat was isolated to one floor of his crumbling presidential compound, bereft of food, water, electricity, medicine, or telephone lines. As far as Palestinians were concerned, the IDF intended to destroy all vestiges of Palestinian statehood. Ariel Sharon told European Union envoy Miguel Moratinos that Arafat would only be enabled to leave Ramallah on a “one-way ticket” out of the country. For the Israeli leader, the gloves had come off.

Caught in the crossfire
For Christians caught between Islamic militants and the Israel military, there was immediate concern for the holy places and the humanitarian crisis; particularly in Bethlehem, where even the bell-ringer of the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Christ, became a target of IDF gunfire.

As part of a delegation representing all the Christian communities in the region, Bishop Riah Abu al-Assal, the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, led more than 300 rain-drenched demonstrators, representing the full range of Christian denominations present in the Holy Land, outside Sharon’s official residence on April 2. The bishop’s purple cassock was soaked, but he said that he had refused to be disheartened by the lack of response from the Israeli government. Yet he said:

For the first time, Arab countries unanimously resolve to make peace with Israel; I thought that Israel would jump at the idea. Instead of welcoming it, though, they stormed Ramallah, and they continue now to lay siege to President Arafat—which in no way will bring peace or harmony to this area.

The bishop’s views were echoed by the leader of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, Latin-rite Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem: “We think that the fight is over and the Israelis have won,” the Patriarch stated during a demonstration the next day at the heavily fortified Tantur checkpoint, outside besieged Bethlehem. “They have no more reason to remain in Bethlehem. They can go back peacefully.” Patriarch Sabbah went further than other Christian leaders by offering the services of the Catholic Church as a negotiator between the warring factions. “We are offering our mediation, without any condition,” he explained; “we will try to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

Patriarch Sabbah’s comments highlighted the role of the Catholic Church as a leading voice of the Christian position in the Holy Land. While the Easter Sermon delivered at Saint Peter’s Basilica by Pope John Paul II signaled the Pontiff’s deep concern about the spiraling violence in the Holy Land, his representative in the region has played an increasingly pivotal role as spokesman for the region’s wider Christian community.

A Church to serve
A Palestinian born in Nazareth, Patriarch Sabbah has often been criticized for his pro-Palestinian stance. Great efforts have been taken by Palestinian spokesmen to justify ongoing Palestinian violence, but the Patriarch believes that “it is not a problem of justification, but of explanation.” He cites the Jewish resistance to the British Mandate, the American War of Independence, and the French Revolution as “violent struggles for freedom.” He continues:

These were all bloody, and mankind does not learn its lessons from history. If violence is there, it is because political governors do not take measures to give dignity to all people.

Although he condemns the suicide-bombing tactics employed by hard-line Islamist factions, Patriarch Sabbah does not enjoy the personal contact with such groups as Hamas that would enable him to dissuade them from such attacks. However, he is adamant that his position should not be misunderstood. “He who makes violence,” the Patriarch states, “must be responsible for it.” Then he adds: “But the responsibility also lies with the one who causes this act by imposing injustice against the individual. Stop the occupation and there will be no more violence.”

The various Christian groups within the Palestinian community, discarding their traditional suspicions and hostilities toward one another, are presenting a more united front than ever before, as indicated by the wide range of ecclesiastical regalia on display at recent demonstrations. The Patriarch claims that ecumenical relations have been unchanged by the intifada. And indeed it is true that the tradition of working together for political goals, by organizing joint demonstrations and group statements, was inaugurated back in January 1988, during the first intifada. But now ecumenical solidarity appears to have reached a new peak. “All of us came with one heart,” exclaimed Father Shimoun, a representative of the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate, at the April 3 demonstration outside Bethlehem. “All the heads of the churches came together on this occasion to show their spiritual mind to the Israeli government.”

The election of Kerios Kerios Irineos I as Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem in August 2001 represented a significant step for the region’s most populous Christian denomination. Mired in allegations of sexual and fiscal impropriety, and accusations of land sales to Israel, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate elected a leader who reserved the right to speak out forcefully on behalf of his community. The Israeli authorities showed, even before his election, that they feared such an approach. Government officials cited “security concerns” as they employed an old Byzantine decree enabling them to veto his candidacy. However, the ruling that barred Irineos from entering Israel was later overturned: Patriarch Irineos became the new spiritual leader of 200,000 Arab Christians and the country’s most important Christian real-estate owner.

Relations between Patriarch Irineos and Patriarch Sabbah are warmer than the traditionally frosty relations between the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches have ordinarily allowed, because of unity in a common cause. “All the churches,” explains Patriarch Sabbah, “exist in relation to the people. Here the Church is part of the Palestinian people.”

Relations with other Christian groups, notably the Western-led Anglican and Lutheran churches, are also unusually cordial. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. George Carey, joined Patriarch Sabbah on the traditional Palm Sunday procession down the Mount of Olives this year. “Both Michel Sabbah and I,” he informed the crowd gathered under olive and palm trees outside the Church of Saint Anne, “are working to bring peace to this land, and I want to praise him for the leadership he gives.” Such support from prominent Western figures is crucial in maintaining credibility with potential sponsors and with potential partners in peace efforts, both in Europe and in the US.

Relations with Muslims
Although the Patriarch remains realistic about underlying tensions between Palestinian Christians and the Muslim majority in the region, his message regarding interfaith relations is resolutely upbeat:

Relations between Christians and Muslims are based on two principles; a natural historical basis, as all Palestinians are Arabs, and a theological basis, as Christians are destined to witness to Christ in the Muslim world.

It is upon these two realities, insists the Patriarch, that relations between Muslims and Christians should be seen. For those who understand these realities—Christians and Muslims alike—the path to interfaith understanding is fairly smooth, and consequently “relations on a governmental level, and in education, business, and friendships, are good.” The tensions that still do undeniably exist between the two communities, Patriarch Sabbah says, “are only on the level of the street—because of ignorance, prejudices. . . .”

The Patriarch concedes that there have been some clear recent examples of religiously motivated crimes. One such example occurred at the end of January, near the tense military checkpoint at Qalandia, on the outskirts of Ramallah. As recalled by Father Ibrahim Hijazin, the Catholic parish priest in Ramallah:

It was an individual problem, between first two Muslims and one Christian, then ten Muslims and one Christian. The Christian killed one Muslim and injured another, and then a fanatic sheikh shouted, “The Christians are killing us.” So they attacked shops and destroyed as-Sariyya club. The problem was that the chief of security in Ramallah was the brother of this sheikh, so the police did not intervene as quickly as we would have liked.

However, Father Ibrahim insists that this incident was isolated. Moreover, he believes that the blame rests with the Israeli occupation:

The argument started at the checkpoint, because the Muslim man pushed the Christian out of the way to get through the checkpoint. Nerves were tense. But as a whole, relations between Christians and Muslims are pretty good.

The Patriarch agrees with that analysis. “Sometimes one man hits another,” he explains, “and, when this is a Muslim against a Christian, a religious conflict might break out.” In an ordered society, the Patriarch believes, such incidents are avoided, because there are “mediating people” to help arbitrate the disputes. He acknowledges that the current political crisis can lead to a confusion that increases the frequency of disputes, but argues that citizens need to be “prudent, wise, patient, and strong to deal with them.”

The Patriarch remains optimistic about inter-religious relations in the Holy Land, even between Christians and Jews. “As human beings in a society,” he explains, “there is no problem between Christians and Jews. The confrontation between a soldier with a gun in his hand and a Palestinian who is oppressed is not a religious one. This is transitory.”

Asked if these realities had changed since September 11, the Patriarch sighed: “There has been more military action on the part of Israel, more houses demolished, more trees uprooted, more people killed. And there has been more Palestinian response.”

This response provides the crux of Patriarch Sabbah’s difficulties in the current climate: trying to lead a peaceful community at a violent time. However, his preferred solution points toward the steadfastness of his faith in Christ’s teaching. At the Tantur checkpoint on April 3, he led the Church leaders who declared: “On this barrier of war, we proclaim the Gospel of Peace, the Gospel of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace. We invite all the churches of the world to proclaim it with us.”

Patriarch Sabbah draws out the implications of that message: “The Church, wherever she is, is tasked with serving human beings. Within the Church, there is only one commandment: Love each other and preach the Good News to everyone.” In practical terms, regarding the situation in the Holy Land, he continues:

The principal cause of the conflict is the Israeli military occupation of land. In response you can resign your human dignity, freedom, and sacrifice all human rights in order to have material benefits, or you can resist, violently or non-violently. When you are constantly faced with death and are being trampled underfoot, the Gospel is still the Gospel and speaks of love, but the perception of this love is very different to when you are sitting in comfort. The same commandment is valid, but the perception is different.

For Patriarch Sabbah, the essence of the current conflict is “the occupation of a tiny piece of land—only 22 percent of Palestine—that Israel doesn’t want, because of the Palestinian demography. It would be very easy to give the land back to the Palestinians, to allow them to have normality.”

All that is required, the Patriarch believes, is a “sign from Sharon. If he has a true will to make peace, he can do it.” It is only by enfranchising the Palestinian population, the Patriarch believes, that peace will be secured: “When they have land and homes they will have no need for violent means.” And the Israeli leader should understand that “this is the only way of giving security to the Israeli people, and freeing them from their fear of Palestinian actions.” But the Patriarch doubts that Sharon wants peace, “because what he wants is a vision of war—of defeating whoever he is in confrontation with.”

Spiritual claims
One of the most volatile issues in the search for peace remains the status of Jerusalem. The Patriarch’s position matches that of the Holy See: that Jerusalem should have a special status, ensuring free access to religious believers of all faiths. “This means that every believer has the right to come, in time of peace and war,” the Patriarch explains; “so that no one can be considered as an enemy. Jerusalem should be above all circumstances of war.” The city should be shared, he said, among “the three axes of believers who have this spiritual bond with Jerusalem.”

However, these “three axes” have different ideas about the holy sites that are the city’s most prestigious assets, as well as the sources of its most volatile disputes. These different ideas have made Jerusalem an intractable issue for negotiators, for whom concessions are all but impossible to offer.

To Christians, Jerusalem’s principal importance is derived from the events surrounding Christ’s Passion and Resurrection. Since the days of the Roman Empire, pilgrims have mapped out their own Stations of the Cross, which were standardized by the Franciscans in the 14th century. Long before then, pilgrims knelt in prayer in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, while competing Christian sects clashed over ownership of the places in which they were worshipping.

To Jews, it is the Western Wall that represents the principle source of veneration. Rocking back and forth as they pore over the Torah or push slips of paper containing written petitions into the cracks in the moss-covered stonework, Jews contemplate the retaining wall built in 20 BC to support the plaza of the Second Temple. Over the centuries, and particularly since Jewish control was asserted after the 1967 war, the wall has become a symbol of national identity and of the glories of the larger temple complex, first built during the glorious reign of King Solomon.

But Jews are split over their intentions for the Temple Mount. To many strict Jews, the compound is sacred, and to step onto it is to risk desecrating the Holy of Holies. Others, like the right-wing Temple Mount Faithful (TMF) movement, regard the mosques that currently stand on the site as “pagan” atrocities. “We have very good engineers,” exclaims Gershon Solomon, the TMF’s founder, “who will take them stone by stone, with all respect, to Mecca.”

Solomon explains why, in his opinion, the demolition of the Islamic sites should be allowed, and Jerusalem should be recognized as a Jewish capital:

Jerusalem is not sacred to Muslims. It is not mentioned once in the Qur’an. It is holy only to Christians and Israelis. But for Israelis it was our holy capital—before London, Baghdad, or Washington was a capital city. This is the eternal capital of Israel. When the Pope controlled Jerusalem, why did he not make it a capital? Jerusalem was only in one case a capital: under Israel.

Solomon cites the Prophet Zephaniah as evidence that “the Third Temple is going to be built soon. All nations will come to take and destroy Israel, and the prophets are saying that God will fight to defeat and judge them—not only for now but for all history, and then Jerusalem will be recognized by all the nations as the capital of the land of Israel.” Although Solomon’s perspective is usually classified as representing the right-wing extreme of Israeli public opinion, it is important to note that such views are becoming increasingly popular as the escalation of the conflict radicalizes Israeli society.

Despite Solomon’s claim, Muslims insist that Jerusalem, and especially the Temple Mount complex, are fundamental to their faith. According to Sheikh Muhammed Hussein, head preacher at the Al-Aqsa mosque:

The Western Wall we call the wall of Buraq, because it is where Mohammed went up to heaven. Buraq was his horse. This wall is part of the Islamic Waqf. In 1929, there was a dispute on the Western Wall between Jews and Muslims because the Jews were visiting the place at the time. The League of Nations appointed a committee to study it and listened to both sides and said this wall is part of the Al-Aqsa area and Jews are only allowed to visit. And they issued a royal decree to that effect.

Sheikh Hussein also cites the Mosque of Omar, opposite the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as a significant shrine. “The Caliph Omar,” he explains, “when he came to Jerusalem, refused to pray in the Holy Sepulchre, because he wanted it to stay for the Christians. This is when he came in what we call the Fatah—which is not a conquest, because Allah ordered it.”

Again, caught in the middle
Sheikh Hussein and Gershon Solomon make radically different, contradictory claims. But their arguments are similar in one very significant respect. Each claims that his position puts him in solidarity with Christians, united against the third party’s claims on the Holy City.

However, Patriarch Sabbah not only insists on the importance of Jerusalem to all of the monotheistic faiths, but widens the religious significance of the city even beyond the more than 2 billion people encompassed within those three great traditions. He explains:

Besides and because of being this holy place, Jerusalem is part of the human heritage—not only for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, but for all mankind. That makes its spiritual importance even greater.

On the political side, two peoples are living in Jerusalem, so the two peoples have an equal political right to govern Jerusalem. Two forms have emerged so far in formal talks about Jerusalem. First, to divide Jerusalem into two parts—one Palestinian, one Israeli—and to go back to the borders of 1967, when East Arab Jerusalem was occupied by the Israelis. Second, to keep Jerusalem undivided, unified, Old and New Jerusalem, and to have a double sovereignty on the city. With this, everyone would be present in Jerusalem and everyone would have Jerusalem as his capital.

On this point the Patriarch’s stance apparently varies somewhat from the Pope’s desire “for a special statute for Jerusalem, internationally guaranteed,” as set out in the Basic Agreement that the Pontiff signed with the Palestinian Authority in 2000. The main issues covered by that accord are freedom of access to the holy places and “equality before the law of the three monotheistic religions and their institutions and followers in the city.” The Vatican’s primary concern is that Christian interests should not be hampered by unilateral actions by either side, Israeli or Palestinian. Such a concern would be most easily overcome under a UN-administered corpus separatum, as envisaged in the 1947 UN partition plan for Palestine under the British Mandate.

But such an idea has no appeal to the Patriarch. Moreover, he says that his ideas match those of the Pope. Any apparent difference, he said, is due to “local exegesis.” He explains that the Vatican stance, calling for protection of Jerusalem’s status under an international authority, does not necessarily conflict with his own plan for local control:

For the Holy See, there is the double aspect of politics and religion. To guarantee free access, free worship, equality for all citizens—these are the ideas of the special status, a status guaranteed by the international community, but governed by the local powers. So if one power closes Jerusalem, saying “You are the enemy,” the international community will intervene. But the local people will and must govern the city. They do not need other people to govern the city.

The complexity of this issue—which was one of the stumbling blocks at the Camp David Summit two years ago, and which was left conveniently obscure in the terms of the recent Saudi peace initiative—reflects the complex religious and political significance of Jerusalem. Both the Israeli government (based at the Knesset in West Jerusalem) and the Palestinian Authority (whose President Arafat recently reiterated his dream that “one day a child, a little boy or little girl, will place a flag of Palestine on the churches and mosques of Jerusalem”) consider Jerusalem the only viable capital of their nations.

In order to strengthen their claim to the city, the Israeli authorities have conducted a policy of “Judaization” in Jerusalem. The World Council of Churches fears that the city has been made “vulnerable to a series of unilateral actions which have radically altered its geography and demography in a way which violates especially the rights of Palestinians and poses a continuing threat to peace and security.” Groups like the Temple Mount Faithful are actively attempting to buy property in Arab East Jerusalem, in order to strengthen the Israeli concept of a “united” and predominantly Jewish Jerusalem.

According to Roupen Sahakian, a prominent Jerusalem-born Armenian commentator:

The Judaization of Jerusalem is increasing as Israeli society becomes increasingly intolerant of other groups. Israelis are offering very high prices for property in the Old City, knocking on doors. And when you have debts, and when business is as bad as it is now, it is very tempting to accept. The Israeli government, more than the Mamalukes, the Turks, or any previous government, has its eye on property. If you look at Arab suburbs, the roads are potholed, there are faults with the electricity and phone lines, the houses are crumbling. The municipality does nothing for them, because it wants them to leave. But the Jewish districts are always being renovated.

The pronouncements of the Mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, a Likud Party leader and self-avowed advocate of the Israeli concept of “United Jerusalem” (rejected by UN Security Council Resolution 476 in 1980), only serve to reinforce this bleak outlook.

Galvanized by the disparity of this situation, tension is always simmering in Jerusalem. It is significant that it was Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000 (in his former capacity as leader of the opposition) that triggered the current intifada. The intermittent riots that began that day in and around the Temple Mount had fizzled out over the following 18 months. But on Good Friday, the conflict briefly returned to its source, as Muslims emerged from midday Friday prayers and demonstrated against the Israeli military incursions in the West Bank, before being dispersed by tear gas and gunshots. This was, however, a rare moment. There have been many suicide bombs and car bombs since the outbreak of the intifada. But there have been few street clashes in Jerusalem in recent months.

Manger Square deadlock
Instead, the focus of the intifada has gravitated toward major West Bank towns like Ramallah and Bethlehem. The former, known locally as “The Bride of Palestine,” houses Yasser Arafat’s presidential compound. It is also the West Bank’s major business and entertainment center, once as famous for the cosmopolitan restaurants on its streets as it is now for the corpses strewn across them.

Bethlehem’s importance is more bewildering. Best known in the West as the birthplace of Jesus, its sloping streets wind between limestone box-shaped buildings with turquoise shutters. The impression is tranquil, matching the “little town” of Christian verse. However, a closer inspection reveals a more sinister underbelly. Many of the buildings are plastered with posters of local “martyrs”—children shot breaking curfews, militants brandishing the Kalashnikovs that they wielded in their final moments; all glorified by a background of the Dome of the Rock. Some of the walls are scrawled in Hebrew graffiti and Stars of David, left by the Israeli troops whose frequent appearances have inspired comparisons with revolving doors. Bullet holes can be spotted in the walls of souvenir shops and churches. A stroll through the city’s alleyways reveals gutted houses, the targets of IDF missiles. Even before Ariel Sharon’s Operation Protective Wall focused international attention on the beleaguered city, Bethlehem was in ruins.

Since the intifada started, the area of Bethlehem, Beit Jala, and Beit Sahour, home to the highest concentration of Palestinian Christians, has been central to the conflict. Militant organizations like the local Hussein Abayyat Brigades, or the Tanzim who take potshots at Gilo settlement from Beit Jala, have attracted the attentions of IDF tanks on streets where souvenir shops once drew pilgrim currency. It was to Bethlehem that the IDF turned last October after the assassination of the right-wing Israeli politician, Rehavam Ze’evi. Local Christians like Johnny Thaljieh—who was shot down in Manger Square—and Christian institutions like Bethlehem University—which is funded by the Vatican and struck, according to its vice-chancellor, by “45 tank shells and hundreds of bullets”—were among the victims of the incursion. On April 1, having been kept in the spotlight by the soap opera of Yasser Arafat’s Christmas activities and a popular uprising that released seven activists from its prison in late January, Bethlehem was thrust firmly to the forefront.

As Merkava tanks rolled into Manger Square on April 1, turning cars into crushed hulks while warnings conveyed over loudspeakers injected fear into the local population, Bethlehem was closed to the outside world. Water pipes were pierced, electricity and telephone grids destroyed, and civilians beaten in their homes. Nearly 200 Palestinians sought refuge in the Church of the Nativity, the city’s most famous site and a place of sanctuary where citizens had hidden in the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars. However on this occasion, the situation was complicated by the identity of some of the new residents of the fortress-shaped basilica. They were reportedly militants, members of the Tanzim and Fatah, and wanted men like Ibrahim Abayyat of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade that has been responsible for several suicide bombs.

The gunmen’s incursion into the church, achieved by breaking the locks off one of its doors, was condemned by Franciscans International and the spokesman for the Franciscan Custos of the Holy Land. But the Franciscans also condemned the IDF’s refusal to allow food and medical aid into the basilica compound, where supplies were running out and several civilians were in need of medical attention. The stand-off seized the imagination of the outside world, and prompted anger and concern from Christian leaders that culminated in a tense meeting between Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Rabbi Michael Melchior, and the Latin, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian Patriarchs, as well as the Franciscan Custos and the papal nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi.

At the Tantur checkpoint, Christian leaders gathered to condemn the city’s closure. “We wish to enter Bethlehem,” explained Syrian Orthodox Archbishop Serverios, holding an olive branch, “to see our churches and our people. Because yesterday we heard our church had received bullets and our people maybe need food and water. So we come here to have solidarity with our people.” Bishop Riah, berated the Israeli soldiers who had parked military jeeps across the road to prevent access, exclaiming that “we are here to tell the world that occupation will not bring peace.” As the rain lashed the 50-strong gathering, Bishop Riah pointed out that “Church leaders are in a strong position to mediate, because we are caught in between. Some of us are Arab Palestinians, but also Israeli citizens. And we are obliged to help peace, because Christ said ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’”

But the soldiers didn’t budge. Inside the city, soldiers shot around journalists, and shot at peace activists (such as Australian Kate Irving, who underwent a 2-hour operation to remove shrapnel from her stomach and abdomen), while reports of damage to the Church of the Nativity could be neither confirmed nor (if true) quickly remedied. When a fire was started in the second-floor parish hall in the Nativity compound, a Palestinian man was shot trying to put it out. The IDF insisted that he was a militant, and that Palestinians had fired at them from a bell-tower. Palestinians countered that he was a monastery worker, and that no offensive actions had been undertaken from the church compound. According to Father Magdi as-Syriani, a local Catholic priest, “nobody is shooting inside the church. When they got into the church, they put their weapons down.”

Father Magdi—whose Church of Our Lady of Fatima, only a few hundred yards from the basilica, had also become a refuge (in this case, he said, “mostly young people who got stuck here, but live in villages outside”)—accused the IDF of “conducting a very successful psychological war against us. They used to come here with a couple of jeeps, now they come at midnight with 300 big tanks and bulldozers, with shooting and explosions, shouting on the loudspeakers.” This perspective was shared by Brother Kenneth Cardwell, one of the LaSalle Brothers who run Bethlehem University. The IDF occupied the university and used its compound as a headquarters for its military operations. “They blindfolded one of our neighbors,” explained Brother Kenneth, who comes from California, “and held him against a wall. Tanks have been firing away. It’s pretty terrifying, even if they do it only to terrify.”

Students at the Bethlehem University, now scattered in nearby towns, villages, and refugee camps, were kept from studies that have proven increasingly difficult to complete. A few days before the latest hiatus in their schedules, we discussed undergraduate life with a group of students at the university. Ra’ed, from Hebron, insisted: “No students are involved in the resistance. We came here to learn, not to resist. But we are frightened and frustrated because we can’t have security.” Some students supported Yasser Arafat as “the only leader in the world who enters the churches and prays with Christians and Muslims.”

Nadira, a literature student, spoke:

We all want democracy, but now there is no security. I can’t go to my house in Hebron. So how can we make elections? We don’t have any control over our own land. We don’t have real borders, real passports, or even real identity cards.

When another student complained that “the ones responsible for what we are suffering are the Israelis,” all agreed. Another student, from Beit Jala, described how her house had been occupied:

The soldiers came to the house, and knocked on the door; we opened, and they pointed their guns without words, pushed us to our grandmother’s house, and took over our house for 11 days. When we wanted bread or anything, we had to knock on the door and ask permission to buy something. When the soldiers left, they had destroyed everything.

Another Christian institution that became a target of IDF interest is the Lutheran Christmas Church, whose pastor, the Rev. Mitri Raheb, is the author of I am a Palestinian Christian and director of the International Center of Bethlehem, a cultural organization aimed at empowering the local community. According to Raheb, 45 soldiers stormed into the compound and searched files and drawers. When they heard him speaking Arabic on the telephone, “their attitude and actions toward me changed for the worse.” They forbade him from talking or using the telephone, and forced him to sit in a corner of his office, “cursing Arabs and making threats.”

Even before the latest escalation, Raheb lamented:

The region is getting more and more violent. There are so many young Israeli soldiers riding tanks and so many young suicide bombers, and this will impact on both communities. The hope for a peaceful solution has been destroyed, and people don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.

The Lutheran pastor was particularly concerned about the prospects for Bethlehem’s once prosperous Christian communities:

Bethlehem and the majority of its Christians rely on tourism. Now there is no tourism. And around 400 families have emigrated from the Bethlehem region.

Never in modern history did so many Christian institutions get attacked. Our schools have been vandalized. Tanks have invaded church property. Most of the homes and institutions that have been targeted in Bethlehem were Christian, and I wonder if there was a policy behind it. Perhaps the Israelis don’t want educated people with contacts in the Western churches.

But they will pay the price, because religion shouldn’t be underestimated. One Israeli goal is to have a civil war in Palestine, but they didn’t succeed. We will never surrender to feelings of hate and fear as Christians, and we will not give up on the idea that the enemy is a potential neighbor.

Blessed are those who suffer
As the casualties mounted across the West Bank, swollen by fierce fighting in the old kasbah of Nablus and the refugee camps around Jenin, there were few feelings untainted by hate and fear. The willingness of Palestinian fighters in Jenin to sacrifice their lives inspired some comparisons with the suicidal stand made by Jews at Masada in 73 AD. The scale of destruction had rendered Biblical era comparisons eerily appropriate.

Across the Arab and Islamic worlds, from Beirut to Mauritania, street anger caused consternation for governments afraid that they would be sucked into the conflict. US embassies were targeted by angry demonstrators in Bahrain, Dubai, Dhahran, and Sana’a; the Israeli embassy was a target in Jordan, the United Nations in Baghdad. The Egyptian government downgraded its diplomatic relations with Israel, and Saddam Hussein picked up on the mood with a suspension of oil exports. The anger spread to Europe: a wave of arson attacks afflicted synagogues in France, while demonstrations occurred across the mainland.

Flooded by appeals to solve the crisis, the US government asserted itself with a series of press conferences, in which President Bush tried to juggle criticism of Israel and appeasement of Arab allies with appeasement of Israel and criticism of Arafat. With a potential strike on Iraq reportedly on his mind, the President sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to the region—on a slow route that detoured through Morocco and Madrid, and thus granted extra time for policy changes by a recalcitrant Israeli leadership. Expressing his “vision” for the Middle East, the President promised “to work to implement United Nations Resolution 1402, an immediate and meaningful cease-fire, an end to terror and violence and incitement, withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian cities, (and) implementation of the already agreed upon Tenet and Mitchell plans.” His successful mediation, it was optimistically claimed, would “lead to a political settlement.”

Certainly a political settlement could not be achieved by military means. That much was made clear when a suicide-bomber mocked IDF assertions of a successful operation by atomizing himself on a bus in the coastal city of Haifa on April 10, and killing at least eight civilians as well. However, a poll in the Jerusalem Post suggested that the Israeli population, fed up with the terror attacks that had emptied their streets and rendered them reclusive, thought otherwise; 72 percent supported Operation Protective Wall, while a Jaffee Center poll indicated that 46 percent of Israelis favored the “transfer” (that is, expulsion) of Palestinians from the occupied territories. The fact that such a large proportion of one of the region’s most free-thinking nations could welcome such an option reflects the radicalization of political thought caused by the relentless carnage.

However, Rabbi Arik Ascherman of the Jerusalem-based Rabbis for Human Rights movement argues that Israeli society is “confused.” “Forty percent of Israelis believe we’re acting immorally in the territories,” he believes, “and up to a third support the reservists who refused to serve. But, at the same time, if there were an election today, ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu [the right-wing former Likud Party prime minister] would probably win. We’re in a borderline state right now.”

The situation is only exacerbated by the personal animosity between Sharon and Arafat. References to Beirut in 1982 abound in their comments. It was in Beirut in 1982 that Sharon “missed his chance” to kill Arafat, who sailed off to Tunisia with US assistance. Now as then, Arafat finds himself trapped by Sharon, waiting for America to relieve him. European Union diplomat Javier Solana has cited this highly personal animosity as a major source of the diplomatic deadlock. Both Arafat and Sharon should step down, he suggested, and make way for more conciliatory candidates.

Others, such as the Pope, adopted a more gentle approach, reminding listeners of the historic links between the warring peoples. “How can one forget,” he informed his congregation in Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday, April 7, “that Israelis and Palestinians, following the example of Abraham, believe in one God? Only He can provide the energy that is so necessary to free oneself from hate and the thirst for vendetta.”

A few days before the Passover Massacre and Operation Protective Wall dragged the intifada to a new level of violence, we spoke to Ramallah’s parish priest about the most recent Israeli incursion in his city. Father Ibrahim reported:

The tanks entered the city, and they were shooting in the streets. Five young men came into the church and asked if they could hide in the convent; the IDF was after them because they were from the (militant Palestinian movement) PFLP. We stayed in the convent while there was shooting in the street outside. The electricity went out in parts of the city. A young woman who died on the Monday morning had to stay in the fridge until Friday, without any electricity. When we were finally able to do the funeral, there were wrecked cars all over the streets. There’s a teacher in our school who went to a small factory when the shooting started, and when he saw the tanks he closed the door and stayed there for five days, with no food or water.

Father Ibrahim sighed, as he reflected on the prospects for peace. “Myself,” he shrugged, “I am waiting for the worst. They will enter the villages and the camps, a lot more people will die. Of course it will get worse.” A few days later, he was proven right.

Nicholas Jubber and Michael Hirst are free-lance journalists who write regularly for CWR on the Middle East.