|
|
|
|
|
« Return
|
|
Arab Christians urge Israeli compatriots to mend divisions
2003-109-5
5/16/2003
|
[Episcopal News Service]
Arab church leaders and academics in the Holy Land have appealed to Israelis to stop highlighting the divisions between Muslims and Christians and instead to seek a common vision with all Palestinians.
The emotionally charged plea was issued in Jerusalem at a conference on contemporary Christianity in the Holy Land, held under the auspices of Hebrew University's Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace.
Dr. Bernard Sabella, of Roman Catholic Bethlehem University, told the participants Israeli policy on relations between Palestinian Muslims and Christians was politically motivated. 'Instead of working to see the common vision with Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians, they seize on the contradictions and the dividing factors, hopefully to prove to the world that Israel is the protecting factor for minorities,' he said. 'I think that is an awful approach.'
Sabella, a Roman Catholic and an expert on the Christian population in the Holy Land, said Israelis needed to change their tack. 'For me as a Palestinian Christian, my prospects are to see my people making peace with your people,' he said to Israeli Jews in the audience. 'And if we don't work for that, there is no hope. Not for Palestinian Christians, Muslims or Israeli Jews.'
The Anglican archbishop in Jerusalem, Riah Abu El-Assal, who also addressed the conference, argued that Arab Christians in Israel like him were in a unique position. The bishop, who hails from Nazareth in northern Israel, described himself as an 'Arab, Palestinian and Christian Israeli.' That means that he 'can speak to the Palestinian leadership better than any [other] Israeli,' he said. 'We are a branch of the Arab national tree. The homeland of the Arab nation is our homeland. The [Arab] culture is our culture.'
At the same time, Arab Christians were also Israelis, and as such had rights within Israel, he noted. While Israelis often refer to their country as a Jewish state, Riah described it differently. 'Israel is not only the state of the Jewish people, it is the state of all its citizens, among them the 1.3 million [mainly Muslim Arabs] who are not Jews,' he said.
'The Christians have remained one of the less-researched topics in the Israeli academy and are hardly known to the Israeli public,' said Dr. Daphne Tsimhoni, one of the coordinators of the conference. 'The conference makes a contribution to fill that gap.'
|
|
|
|
|
|
