“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.”
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”.