Custody Must Be Doubled in the Holy Land

by Sandro Magister

ROME, 7 September 2005 – With harsh and unexpected words, the Custodian of the Holy Land, Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, has called everyone's attention back to the increasing violence and humiliation that the Christians of Cisjordan suffer at the hands of Moslems.

He made the remarks to the Jerusalem correspondent of the "Corriere della Sera," Lorenzo Cremonesi, in a conversation that took place on September 4:

"What do you mean by difficulties between Israel and the Vatican? We Christians in the Holy Land have other problems. Almost every day – I repeat, almost every day – our communities are harassed by the Islamic extremists in these regions. And if it's not the members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, there are clashes with the 'rubber wall' of the Palestinian Authority, which does little or nothing to punish those responsible. On occasion, we have even discovered among our attackers the police agents of Mahmoud Abbas or the militants of Fatah, his political party, who are supposed to be defending us."

Fr. Pizzaballa is an authority. He represents the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, the institution to which the Holy See has for seven centuries entrusted the care of Church property in the land where Jesus lived.

He speaks Hebrew and understands Arabic. And he told the "Corriere" that he has "a list of 93 cases of injustice of various kinds committed against Christians in the region of Bethlehem between 2000 and 2004."

And on the very day this public protest appeared, another case of anti-Christian violence was reported in Taibeh, the ancient city of the Bible known as Ephraim, a village east of Ramallah.

In Taibeh on Sunday, September 4, thirteen homes inhabited by as many Christian families were attacked and burned, the streets devastated, a statue of Mary demolished.

The reason for the destruction: the love relationship between Hiyam Ajai, a young Moslem woman of the nearby village of Deir Jreer, and Mehdi Kouriyee, a Christian from a prominent family of Taibeh that owns a brewery that bears their name.

When her family learned that she was expecting a child, they shut her up inside the house and beat her. On Thursday, September 1, Hiyam was found dead. The parents explained: “That Christian raped her, and she tainted herself.” Vengeance was called for, and the assault prepared. The Christian families of Taibeh found safety by fleeing their homes. By the time the Palestinian police arrived, the damage had already been done.

These and other incidents reported in the dossier confirm a reality already emphasized by other observers: the distinct increase in Moslem hostility toward Christians in the Holy Land that has taken place since the outbreak of the second intifada at the end of the year 2000.

A recent and direct documentation of this crescendo of hostility is found in a book by Elisa Pinna, an expert on international religious questions for the news agency ANSA: "Tramonto del cristianesimo in Palestina [The Twilight of Christianity in Palestine]," published in March of 2005.

The turning point – Elisa Pinna explains – came with the introduction of a new element into the second intifada: Islamic fundamentalism.

Previously, the Palestinian movement was of a predominantly nationalistic character. And this character was due in large part to the contribution of Christian Arabs belonging to a refined and Westernized élite, which was not without tinges of Marxism. The guerilla leaders George Habbash, Wadi Haddad, and George Hawatmeh were Christians. But the leading proponents of the moderate and pragmatic wing, which supported the Oslo accords, were also Christian: Hanan Ashrawi, Hanna Seniora, and Afif Safia.

But now the latter of these figures are in the shadows and under threat. Even the death of Yasser Arafat has worked to the disadvantage of the Christians.

And they are emigrating. In the historic "Christian triangle" formed by Bethlehem and the two adjacent villages of Beit Jala and Beit Sahur, three quarters of the population were baptized Christians half a century ago. Today the Christians in Bethlehem have been reduced to 6,500 out of 35,000 inhabitants, and they have fallen by half in Beit Jala and Beit Sahur. Everywhere the sound of the church bells is drowned out by the blaring loudspeakers of the muezzins.

One strong indication of this turning point came with the armed Moslem occupation of the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, in 2002. During these same days and weeks, other armed groups occupied other convents of men and women religious, but the world heard nothing about these.

Near Bethlehem, a little shrine owned by the Greek Orthodox Church and dedicated to Al Khadr, a saint venerated by Christians, Moslems, and even Jews, was until a few years ago a peaceful destination for devotees of the three religions. Today it is in a state of neglect. "The Christian priest keeps the church closed because he is afraid that the Moslems will take it and turn it into a mosque," the Arab custodian of the shrine whispered to Elisa Pinna.

But another Greek Orthodox, an entrepreneur named Samir Qumsieh, is moving against the tide. In 1996, he founded a television station called "Al Mahed" (The Nativity) in Bethlehem. Apart from a station in Lebanon, it is the only Christian television outlet in the entire Arab Middle East.

Its broadcast area includes Jerusalem, Jericho, Ramallah, and Hebron, with a potential audience of one million. It distinguished itself in 2002 with continual coverage of the forty days of occupation and siege at the basilica of the Nativity. "And so, when the occupation was over, the Palestinian Authority thanked us by cutting off our electricity and telephone service," Samir Qumsieh says today.

And Fr. Pizzaballa confirmed for the "Corriere": "In these last weeks, a group in Beit Sahur, where his home and office are, is trying to steal from him the land where he wants to install a repeater that would expand the station's coverage area."

Samir Qumsieh is the principal author of the dossier in the possession of the Custody of the Holy Land. He also sent it to the Palestinian National Authority when Arafat was still alive.

He had informed Elisa Pinna of its contents a year ago: "For the Christians here, life is full of abuses of power and humiliations. Those in charge are the ones who steal the land. The Moslems appropriate our goods and property through what can really and properly be called fraud, which is committed with the complicity of functionaries connected to the Palestinian Authority and its militias, the tanzim. Lawlessness reigns in Bethlehem. Let's take the case of Dr. Samir Asfour. He had inherited from his father nine thousand square meters near the Tomb of Rachel. But then a Moslem appeared with a falsified document, laying claim to the land. And naturally, the register for the district of Bethlehem sided with him."

And again: "There are frequent instances of vandalism against the churches, from which they carry away the crucifixes. They destroyed the statue of the Virgin Mary in the convent garden of the Salesian sisters. They have violated some of the tombs in the Christian cemetery of Bethlehem. Graffiti have appeared defaming Hanan Ashrawi, the former spokesman of the OLP, who is guilty of being a Christian and a woman."

But that's not all. The dossier reports the case of Rawan William Mansur, a 16-year-old girl from Beit Sahur, who in the spring of 2003 was raped by four Fatah militiamen. None of them was arrested. The family was forced to emigrate to Jordan.

In 2002, two sisters of the Amre family, 17 and 19 years old, were executed by gunshot by a group of men close to the Palestinian Authority. The accusation was prostitution. But the autopsy revealed two things: first, they were virgins; and second, they had been tortured by having lit cigarettes applied to their genitals before they were executed.

In Bethlehem, there is a Christian institute called "La Crèche" (The Manger), which cares for newborns abandoned by their parents. "They are the offspring of illegal relations cut off violently by the sharia, the Islamic law that reigns supreme in the refugee camps," the institute's directors explained to Elisa Pinna. "Their number is growing. None of these children can be adopted by couples outside the country. It is prohibited; the Palestinian Authority doesn't want it. They must remain here, in Bethlehem. They must remain Palestinian and Moslem."

CFPA: So much for Christians being treated fairly under Moslem rule. The outrages committed by Moslems against innocent Christians such as the torture and murding of virgins and the desecrations of Churches and Shrines will one day be avenged....either by God or by men. One can only turn the cheek so many times before one strikes back with a fist. What we see happening to the Christians in so-called Palestine is happening to Christians throughout the Moslem world and it will one day happen here in America if we allow it. AMERICANS WAKE UP, FIGHT ISLAM! (†)

And meanwhile, between the Vatican and Israel…


At the end of July, a firestorm broke out between the Vatican and the Israeli government.

The first skirmish came on July 12. That day, Pope John Paul II was commemorated in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. And on that occasion, apostolic nuncio Pietro Sambi delivered a speech that was reprinted in its entirety by "L'Osservatore Romano" six days later.

In the speech, Sambi complained about Israel's failure to take practical measures to implement the accords with the Holy See reached in 1993 and 1994:

"The Fundamental Agreement, which was ratified by the state of Israel on February 20, 1994, and is recognized internationally, has not yet been incorporated into Israeli law by the Knesset. The same must be said of the Legal Personality Agreement ratified by Israel on December 16, 1998, and recognized internationally on February 3, 1999. The so-called 'Economic Agreement', prescribed by article 10 of the Fundamental Agreement, has not yet been concluded."

A meeting between the two parties to discuss the application of these agreements had been planned for July 26. But the meeting never took place, to the great disappointment of the Holy See and the Catholic community in the Holy Land.

On the day the ceremony was taking place in the Knesset, on July 12, Islamic terrorists carried out a serious attack in Netanya.

But at the Sunday Angelus on July 24, Pope Benedict XVI did not mention Israel as being among the countries recently struck by terrorist attacks: Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Great Britain.

Exploiting this omission, the next day the Israeli foreign minister summoned the Vatican nuncio, Pietro Sambi, to communicate a note of protest to him.

And at the same time, the minister released a furious instructional memo to the Israeli newspapers. According to the agency "Asia News," which reprinted the memo in its entirety, it "contained grammatical and syntactical errors." Among other things, the memo said:

"The Pope's deliberate failure to condemn this act cries out to the heavens; beyond the moral stain that this brings with it, it cannot but be interpreted as a legitimization of the terrorist attacks against Israel."

On Monday the 25th, in verbal statements, the spokesman for the Israeli foreign minister, Mark Regev, repeated the crudest passages of these instructions. And Israel's delegation abandoned the negotiations with the Holy See that had been planned for the next day.

The Holy See press office replied with a declaration that was released on the 25th by Vatican spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls, and then, on the afternoon of July 28, with a note that expressed great disappointment "over the declarations that Mr. Barkan, a functionary of the Israeli foreign ministry, released to the Jerusalem Post on July 26."

The note – which was accompanied by a supplemental document containing previous papal condemnations of terrorist attacks carried out against Israel – clarified that, if the Church of Rome had sometimes been silent, this "was because attacks against Israel were at times followed immediately by Israeli reactions that were not always compatible with the norms of international law. It therefore would have been impossible to condemn the former and pass over the latter in silence."

After this note from the Vatican, the public polemics ceased and gave way to private contact between the two parties.

On August 19, Pope Benedict XVI visited the synagogue of Cologne. He spoke of relations between Jews and Christians, but did not mention the state of Israel. And his remarks were met with widespread admiration.

On August 26, Lorenzo Cremonesi reported from Jerusalem in the "Corriere della Sera" that peaceful relations between the Holy See and the Israeli government had been restored, thanks to direct efforts by Ariel Sharon and Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano.

Sodano had pacified Sharon – according to what the Israeli ambassador to the Holy See, Oded Ben Hur, told Cremonesi – with these words:

"The ommission of Israel from among the countries stricken by terrorism was an unintentional oversight. It truly should have been included. The declarations by Navarro-Valls were a bit inappropriate."

Incident closed. The only fallout was a pointed reaction to Sodano from Navarro-Valls.

The Vatican spokesman made it a point to clarify, in a remark to the "Corriere della Sera" which was published on August 28: "I am not an enemy of Israel, and it wasn't my fault if a difficulty in relations between Israel and the Holy See came up at the end of July."

Navarro-Valls went on to say that "I did not write the note [of July 28], nor was it read to me." The spokesman was traveling with the Pope, who was returning from vacation, "while that declaration was published by the Secretary of State."

The main points of the negotiations between Israel and the Holy See for the application of the Fundamental Agreement of 1993-94 – negotiations which both sides engaged to continue – are two: the legal recognition of the Church's property in the Holy Land, and its financial management.

CFPA: The Jews are the natural allies of Christians and Christians are the natural allies of the Jews. It's way past time for both of our camps to realize this. The Moslems want us destroyed as stated in the Koran, they lump us together as if we are one. Then as one we should fight back and prevent our mutual destruction. Israel is a spearhead into the side of the Moslem world, we as Christians must do everything in our power to keep that sprearhead there. The Vatican needs to draw closer to Israel if for no other reason than it is the only country in the region that treat Christians fairly.(†)

30 Dec 2005