00:03:48.320To a casual observer, it seems that Christians in North America, United States and Canada, are broadly sympathetic to Israel, to the Jews.
00:04:06.820Why do you think the Jews are not reciprocating with the Christians who live among them?
00:04:14.240what's what's this about land or money or loyalties what's going on well it's a complex history uh as
00:04:25.120as you would know nigel uh i think that um what is going on is that um the western church has decided
00:04:33.760um not to see um the through not to see christianity and the faith through the eyes of the
00:04:40.720uh living stones of christianity itself uh the western church has decided um to align itself
00:04:48.240really with a particular ideology a dangerous ideology in christian zionism that really
00:04:56.000practices the theology of supremacy over the theology of tolerance and over the theology of
00:05:01.920compassion and mercy and you see that being intertwined really in a um entire infrastructure
00:05:10.640in American evangelism that is grounded in an expansionist worldview that seeks to replace
00:05:19.880theology with foreign policy, something that I saw very much firsthand as an Australian diplomat
00:05:26.700where I served in Egypt and in Pakistan. And even in Australia, that was something that was
00:05:33.040influencing Australian foreign policy and indeed influences Western diplomats all over. So what
00:05:39.980you have is a wrong framing, if you like, of Christianity itself, a framing that sees God as
00:05:50.060a real estate agent that hands out land to one group of people, but not another, and that really
00:05:55.900misplaces the message of the gospel. Well, that, of course, to a cynic, and I am not a cynic, but
00:06:01.740to a cynic, that might seem like a reading of the book of Joshua, very much a handing out of land.
00:06:07.900But what you're talking about there is some kind of liberation theology, and I understand what that's about, but for the benefit of people who—we've only got 20 minutes—for the benefit of people who want to cut to the chase, what do the Christians in that part of the world want?
00:06:30.580Do they want their own little piece of sovereign territory? Is that the game?
00:06:36.140well i think uh i can speak for palestinian christians and in that way i also speak for
00:06:43.100palestinians more broadly including palestinian muslims what they want is not a religious state
00:06:50.040they want to live in a pluralistic civil society that allows them to practice their own religion
00:06:57.380something that they're not able to do currently under the auspices of the state of israel which
00:07:03.220they've not been able to do that for the last 76 years and that is something that they hold dear
00:07:12.380they want the right to raise their children safely to raise their children in a way that
00:07:21.800they're equal with other children regardless of where they where they live or how long their
00:07:27.580ancestors had been there. I myself am lucky enough to live in Australia, a country that I was proud
00:07:33.880to serve as a diplomat in, where I am treated equally in front of the law, regardless of how
00:07:41.340long my parents have been here and how long my family has been here. And I think that's a
00:07:46.700common shared desire that Christians in the Middle East have with people in the West.
00:07:52.180it is a desire to live a free safe and secure life with rights to be citizens and to exercise
00:08:00.460political and economic rights well let me let me push you a little on that within the borders
00:08:07.860of israel and i'm not including the west bank here which obviously is a contentious point
00:08:12.520for anybody who believes in that christian zionist message that you were speaking of
00:08:18.980But for those who live within the accepted borders of Israel, more than a million of them, I do believe, are Palestinians.
00:12:11.280Palestinians living in Bethlehem are unable to move and go to Jerusalem
00:12:17.260without a permit, without direct permission by the State of Israel.
00:12:24.360They're unable to access economic opportunities.
00:12:27.880Many Palestinians in the West Bank are unable to travel
00:12:31.160to their ancestral homes in what was once Palestine,
00:12:34.620what is now termed the State of Israel.
00:12:37.660And so just taking freedom of movement, you can imagine the sort of restrictions that that places on people, being unable to reunite with families, being unable to access properties that were taken under the Israeli Absentee Act right after the State of Israel was formed, being unable to access, in some cases, medical services, in some cases, being unable to study, being unable to reach universities.
00:13:05.920are taking vast amounts of time to get between town and town,
00:13:42.800The Israelis, if they were here on this program to speak for themselves,
00:13:47.160would probably say, well, to the extent that what you're saying is true, John,
00:13:52.560we just got tired of people wandering across borders wearing suicide vests
00:14:00.140and taking the bus and taking everybody on the bus with them.
00:14:03.780So, of course, we introduced restrictions and built the walls and had the permit system, but nevertheless, there are more than a million people who are not Jews living within Israel, and they're not having to go home every night across the border.
00:14:22.200They just stay there. They're citizens. They kind of like it that way, because they got blown up as well.
00:14:27.280So do you not concede that the state of Israel had some legitimate reason to be careful who they let in?
00:14:38.960The core of the problem really is that there's the proposition of creating a Jewish country in a non-Jewish majority country.
00:14:49.240And so the core of the issue from a Palestinian perspective is that if you are to create a state which is an exclusively Jewish state in a country that had a 90% plus non-Jewish population, that that would necessitate the expulsion and indeed, as we've seen the International Court of Justice term recently, a genocide and plausible case of genocide against the inhabitants that live there that aren't Jewish.
00:15:17.780And so I think it's important to put that context around your question.
00:15:22.460Well, to that point, genocide, I mean, the Jews know a little bit about genocide,
00:15:26.900but I don't think they're running concentration camps.
00:15:30.480So the courts may well have said that.
00:16:05.680There is genocide that's been confirmed by the International Court of Justice.
00:16:10.920There is systematic torture and sexual violence.
00:16:13.660arbitrary detention i mean all of these things are well documented um by many international bodies
00:16:20.300including the united nations amnesty international other groups um and so um what you are experiencing
00:16:27.740in as a palestinian living in the borders of the ever-expanding state of israel
00:16:35.820It is a complete system of domination and control. Israel's 2018 nation state law codifies apartheid and Jewish supremacy. And so Jewish rights are not the same as non-Jewish rights.
00:16:53.940And, of course, that's to be expected in a country where you hope to establish a Jewish character in a country that didn't originally have a Jewish character.
00:17:08.220And so its emblems, its flag, its national symbols, its parliament are all Jewish.
00:17:16.260And for that reason, and for that reason, the Palestinians are excluded because they are not Jewish.