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Exclusive Part 1: After the latest Israeli settler attacks, Christians in the Holy Land ask American Catholics for help
Christians in the Holy Land expressed hope and quiet defiance last week after a string of internationally reported attacks by Israeli settlers, one of which left three Palestinians dead.
One of the villages reportedly attacked was Taybeh, about 10 miles north of Jerusalem. Taybeh is “100% Christian,” Nadim Khoury told CatholicVote via phone on Friday. A resident of Taybeh, Khoury is the founder of Taybeh Brewery, colloquially known as Taybeh Beer.
This week’s attack in his town was far from an isolated incident, according to Khoury. He fluently listed from memory a number of similar instances of violence and intimidation against local Christians by alleged Israeli settlers.
“Last month, they went inside 14 homes and they broke the doors while people were sleeping,” he said. “Last harvest … they didn’t allow the people to go into their groves to harvest their olive oil.” Last week, he went on, settlers brought sheep to graze on the crops of hardworking locals, ruining their business. They “ate all the wheat and barley that the farmers were growing on the mountains of Taybeh,” Khoury said.
Wednesday night, he went on, they broke into people’s homes to “kick them out,” and when the residents resisted, the attackers “burned the homes.”
Footage of some of the violence was widespread on social media this week.
Asked about Israeli soldiers arriving to police the violence, Khoury expressed a sentiment that several other local Christians who spoke with CatholicVote also volunteered: “Soldiers are usually with the settlers.”
“They’re protecting the settlers, and they’re not doing anything” to protect those under attack, he explained. “There’s nothing we can do. It’s a peaceful village, very quiet. I have a family tree of 600 years in Taybeh. I’m not gonna leave.”
Asked what his hopes are for the future, Khoury answered simply: “Nothing is left for us except hopes. We pray so hard for peace and prosperity in this area. We have deep roots in this area. We cannot give it up. We must keep fighting for it.”
Khoury’s friend and pastor, Father Bashar Fawadleh, spoke along similar lines. In a phone call with CatholicVote Friday, Father Fawadleh expanded on his parishioner’s allusion to settlers aiming to get locals to leave their hometowns.
The priest said he knew of “more than 140 families” who have left their cities in the West Bank. “In Taybeh we are also bleeding from emigration,” he said, with 10 families having left since October 7, 2023.
“We have to stop this bleeding,” he said, and asked that CatholicVote spread the word to American Catholics that “we need support.” What is needed, he said, is the creation of good jobs, and — ultimately — a peaceful end to the violence and intimidation.
Father Fawadleh expressed gratitude to American Catholics who stand in solidarity with the Christians of the Holy Land. But the hope he encourages in his flock, he said, “is very deep for our side – because it’s built on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the now-empty tomb in Jerusalem.”
“We are still awaiting the third day,” he went on, “to have the new life, to have liberty and freedom for our society, our country, and our population. And we hope that one day we have justice, and from justice we can have the fruit of justice, [which] is peace.”
The pastor is confident, however, that Christians are not alone in that hope.
“That is the
dream that we are all dreaming here in the Holy Land,” he said, both “the Jews
and the Palestinians. We are all dreaming that we can live together without any
problems, without any occupation, without any killing, so that we can all live
together in this very important and very holy place — the homeland of Jesus.”.... READ MORE https://catholicvote.org/exclusive-israeli-settler-attacks-christians-holy-land-ask-american-catholics-for-help/
[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies
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