Palestinian Christians - A minority among the minority

"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:10
There has been a lot of rain in Jerusalem these past few days, but our team has been keeping busy with visits to communities, making appointments with NGO's, standing at checkpoints, responding to demolitions, doing schools runs and walks around the Old City. As I expected, my time here holds moments of joy (like when a Palestinian child smiles and asks where I'm from) and deep sorrow (like seeing the rubble of a family home destroyed with a demotion order).

Not a picture of the coffee I was given,
but it was made with as much care as this one

This morning, as my Norwegian friend and I walked through the old city doing our best to dodge raindrops, we were invited in to a small cafe'. Since I craved a cup of American (filtered) coffee, we accepted. The shopkeeper spoke excellent English as he asked me what my views were on Donald Trump, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just yesterday. We had a lively political discussion, on the whole, Palestinians are quite well informed about the American political scene.

I noticed a large poster of the head of the Greek Orthodox Church, and we got to talking about faith. My new friend claims to be the only Palestinian (Arab) shopkeeper in the Muslim Quarter. When we finished, the shopkeeper said "God bless you", and it warmed my heart as much as his coffee had.

Today, Christians make up just 1% of the population of the Palestinian territories; in 1920 (the beginning of the British Mandate), they were at 10%. In the land where Jesus lived, there is a strong concern that a dwindling Christian population is turning churches from places of worship into museums. Furthermore, when international Christian pilgrims visit the places of Christ's birth, death and resurrection, they find the Holy Land and its people divided by a concrete wall.

Christians kissing the anointing stone
at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

In the United States, many Christians are reticent to criticize the Israeli government for fear of being labelled an anti-Semite. Others see support for Israeli security policies as the only way to defend against the incursion of a regional Islamic State. What they may not know, unless they spent time here, is that there is a shared Arab identity and solidarity between many (if not most) Muslims and Christians living in the Occupied Territories. As our director has said, "Sure we can live together in peace, why not?"

I believe that these preconceptions often obscure the reality that Muslims, Christians and other religious minorities in Israel/Palestine have valid concerns and legitimate human rights grievances. By ignoring the plight of their Palestinian coreligionists, American Christians both misunderstand the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and miss out on an opportunity to live out the message of peace that Jesus gave to this world.

I am very interested in learning how the Christians who remain in the Holy Land deal with the stresses of occupation, and I hope that I will be able to spend some time visiting churches and Christian organizations. What is the wider Christian Church’s responsibility to help our brothers and sisters achieve a just peace in Palestine? Where can hope be found?