I remember listening to a Franciscan priest about 40 or 45 years ago preaching at St Helen's Basilica, Birkirkara, about the Jews and the Palestinians. He was part of the community of Franciscans working there. The occasion was the annual collection for missionary work in the Holy Land. His speech was fiery.
"Ara x'qed jagħmlulkom," (Look at what they are doing to you) he repeatedly said while outlining stories of discrimination against Palestinian Christians. For me, the homily was revealing in many ways. I came to know that most Christians in the Holy Land were Arabs; Palestinians to be exact. And that Jews were committing many injustices against Arabs.
This story must have remained impressed in my subconscious. It came to the fore during my visit to the Holy Land in December 1999. I could then see first-hand the truth of what the Franciscan had said so many years ago. It came to mind once again recently when I read a document entitled 'A moment of truth'.
A group of Palestinian Christians, including Archbishop Michel Sabbah, the retired Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, penned and published it. The current patriarch and other dignitaries of Christian ecclesial communities in Jerusalem, endorsed it.
The document describes itself as "a cry of hope, with love, prayer and faith in God", and was projected as "the Christian Palestinians' word to the world about what is happening in Palestine... The Palestinian people have faced oppression, displacement, suffering and clear apartheid for more than six decades. The suffering continues while the international community silently looks on at the occupying state, Israel."
The injustices that the Palestinians suffer are myriad. The wall built by Israel on confiscated Palestinian territory "has turned our towns and villages into prisons, separating them from one another". People in Gaza live in inhuman conditions. Israeli settlements "ravage our land in the name of God and in the name of force, controlling our natural resources, including water and agricultural land".
The group of Christian Palestinians say the reality they experience includes "the daily humiliation to which we are subjected at the military checkpoints... and the separation between members of the same family, making family life impossible for thousands of Palestinians".
Religious liberty is severely restricted; the freedom of access to the holy places is denied under the pretext of security. Jerusalem and its holy places are out of bounds for many Christians and Muslims.
Mgr Sabbah and the other signatories refer to the plight of refugees and prisoners. The former have been living in camps for decades, while the latter are languishing in Israeli prisons with little or no hope of freedom.
The call for resistance characterises the 'action' part of the document. However, it is a resistance of a different kind.
"We say that our option as Christians in the face of the Israeli occupation is to resist. Resistance is a right and a duty for the Christian. However, it is resistance with love as its logic. It is thus a creative resistance for it must find human ways that engage the humanity of the enemy.
"Seeing the image of God in the face of the enemy means taking up positions in the light of this vision of active resistance to stop the injustice and oblige the perpetrator to end his aggression and thus achieve the desired goal, which is getting back the land, freedom, dignity and independence."
The document is as strong as the sermon of the Franciscan priest 45 years ago. One of the differences is that since then, the injustices perpetrated have grown and multiplied.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt