Western Standard - As Easter approaches, Israel's Arab Christians face hardship

00:00:00.000 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Hannaford, a politics show of the Western

00:00:21.020 Standard. It is Thursday, March the 26th. In a week's time or so, it will be Easter,

00:00:26.900 when many Canadians reflect on the death of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem

00:00:30.880 and how his resurrection from the dead made possible the same ascension

00:00:35.220 for anybody who places their trust in him.

00:00:38.660 But one of the ironies of life in the Holy Land today

00:00:41.540 is that there are fewer and fewer Christians walking where Christ walked 2,000 years ago,

00:00:48.600 calling people to repentance and that reconciliation with God.

00:00:52.440 That is to say that 100 years ago,

00:00:54.440 about 10% of the people living in that whole area of Israel, West Bank and Gaza, were Christians.

00:01:01.060 Now, there are more Palestinian Christians living outside the area than in it. There may be perhaps 0.99

00:01:08.280 400 Christians left in Gaza, who really knows for sure. Bethlehem is virtually a Christian-free 0.98

00:01:14.520 zone. And in the West Bank, Israeli settlers in the last couple of weeks have been attacking

00:01:19.880 Palestinian Christians. What has happened? What is the outlook for these people? With me tonight

00:01:26.480 is John Naeem Snowbar. He is the Director of Advocacy for Palestinian Christians in Australia.

00:01:34.940 He's also the first grandson of the first Palestinian Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem and

00:01:39.960 until recently was a member of the Australian Diplomatic Corps. John, welcome to the show.

00:01:46.520 thank you for having me nigel john so many questions have i overstated the situation

00:01:53.400 of despair for middle eastern christians not at all not at all i think it's important to situate

00:02:01.440 uh where middle eastern christians sit in terms of world christianity firstly to say that

00:02:06.960 palestinian christians are the first christians um it is from them that the gospel came and it

00:02:13.760 through them and the Palestinian Christian, who were at that point Palestinian Jewish

00:02:19.060 apostles of Christ, that Christianity came to the world long before Brohn became Christian

00:02:26.960 and certainly long before America, Canada and Australia became Christian.

00:02:31.440 Their situation is a particularly terrible one, particularly in the Holy Land where

00:02:39.100 christ once walked uh palestinian christians face settler attacks almost daily around 10 a day

00:02:48.780 palestinian christians are unable to access the holy sites including the church of the holy

00:02:55.020 sepulcher they are unable to pray much like their palestinian muslim brothers and sisters

00:03:00.620 Their homes are attacked regularly, demolished by settlers, and many of them languish in Israeli prisons.

00:03:11.440 The situation, sadly, is not as bad, but still quite terrible for Christians in the Middle East more broadly.

00:03:23.420 I'll mention, for instance, before the Iraq war,

00:03:27.500 Iraq had a vibrant community of over one million Christians

00:03:30.880 and now has just a fraction of that.

00:03:34.160 So the situation for Christians in the Middle East,

00:03:37.100 particularly in the Holy Land, is a terrible one

00:03:41.440 and requires and deserves the attention that you're giving it.

00:03:45.880 Now, John, let me ask you this.

00:03:48.320 To a casual observer, it seems that Christians in North America, United States and Canada, are broadly sympathetic to Israel, to the Jews.

00:04:06.820 Why do you think the Jews are not reciprocating with the Christians who live among them?

00:04:14.240 what's what's this about land or money or loyalties what's going on well it's a complex history uh as

00:04:25.120 as you would know nigel uh i think that um what is going on is that um the western church has decided

00:04:33.760 um not to see um the through not to see christianity and the faith through the eyes of the

00:04:40.720 uh living stones of christianity itself uh the western church has decided um to align itself

00:04:48.240 really with a particular ideology a dangerous ideology in christian zionism that really

00:04:56.000 practices the theology of supremacy over the theology of tolerance and over the theology of

00:05:01.920 compassion and mercy and you see that being intertwined really in a um entire infrastructure

00:05:10.640 in American evangelism that is grounded in an expansionist worldview that seeks to replace

00:05:19.880 theology with foreign policy, something that I saw very much firsthand as an Australian diplomat

00:05:26.700 where I served in Egypt and in Pakistan. And even in Australia, that was something that was

00:05:33.040 influencing Australian foreign policy and indeed influences Western diplomats all over. So what

00:05:39.980 you have is a wrong framing, if you like, of Christianity itself, a framing that sees God as

00:05:50.060 a real estate agent that hands out land to one group of people, but not another, and that really

00:05:55.900 misplaces the message of the gospel. Well, that, of course, to a cynic, and I am not a cynic, but

00:06:01.740 to a cynic, that might seem like a reading of the book of Joshua, very much a handing out of land.

00:06:07.900 But 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?

00:06:30.580 Do they want their own little piece of sovereign territory? Is that the game?

00:06:36.140 well i think uh i can speak for palestinian christians and in that way i also speak for

00:06:43.100 palestinians more broadly including palestinian muslims what they want is not a religious state

00:06:50.040 they want to live in a pluralistic civil society that allows them to practice their own religion

00:06:57.380 something that they're not able to do currently under the auspices of the state of israel which

00:07:03.220 they've not been able to do that for the last 76 years and that is something that they hold dear

00:07:12.380 they want the right to raise their children safely to raise their children in a way that

00:07:21.800 they're equal with other children regardless of where they where they live or how long their

00:07:27.580 ancestors had been there. I myself am lucky enough to live in Australia, a country that I was proud

00:07:33.880 to serve as a diplomat in, where I am treated equally in front of the law, regardless of how

00:07:41.340 long my parents have been here and how long my family has been here. And I think that's a

00:07:46.700 common shared desire that Christians in the Middle East have with people in the West.

00:07:52.180 it is a desire to live a free safe and secure life with rights to be citizens and to exercise

00:08:00.460 political and economic rights well let me let me push you a little on that within the borders

00:08:07.860 of israel and i'm not including the west bank here which obviously is a contentious point

00:08:12.520 for anybody who believes in that christian zionist message that you were speaking of

00:08:18.980 But for those who live within the accepted borders of Israel, more than a million of them, I do believe, are Palestinians.

00:08:28.500 They are Arabs. They are not Jews. 0.54

00:08:31.920 They prefer to be there.

00:08:34.060 Sorry, am I wrong on a point of fact?

00:08:36.980 I think all Palestinians prefer to be in the Holy Land, in Palestine or the state of Israel.

00:08:44.040 All Palestinians wish to have a connection with the land

00:08:48.600 in which their ancestors walked, in which the Lord,

00:08:52.420 when he was here in human flesh, walked.

00:08:54.760 And so you'd be right in saying that there are Christians 1.00

00:08:59.600 who live in the state of Israel who are Palestinian

00:09:03.460 and who are able to live there as citizens.

00:09:08.880 Okay, that's actually where I was going with this, John.

00:09:11.740 If the Muslims can get along in Israel, why can't the Christians? 1.00

00:09:18.780 Well, I think the issue really is about an apartheid system.

00:09:23.540 So you've asked me a question about the people that live within the state of Israel.

00:09:29.780 However, there are millions of Palestinians, Christians and Muslims who live in the occupied West Bank or in Gaza

00:09:38.600 or indeed in the hundreds of refugee camps

00:09:41.920 that are spotted around that region

00:09:44.820 that house Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims.

00:09:49.100 And none of them have the rights

00:09:50.840 that are extended to citizens of the State of Israel.

00:09:54.940 None of them can practice their religion freely 1.00

00:09:57.540 or can move freely or, in fact, are even documented.

00:10:00.960 The government of the West Bank would be the,

00:10:02.940 you know, for those who live in the West Bank,

00:10:04.620 which is would it not be the Palestinian authority that they would appeal to well they would appeal

00:10:13.100 to a broad political consensus among the Palestinian people that the only body that

00:10:21.660 truly represents the Palestinians is the PLO and the and that is a broad consensus

00:10:30.220 within the Palestinian national movement.

00:10:34.460 And the Palestinian Authority, of course, 0.72

00:10:37.180 arose out of a much later set of agreements that were done.

00:10:43.280 And so many Palestinians would feel

00:10:45.480 that the Palestinian Authority does not represent them.

00:10:49.440 Well, I'm sure they would feel that.

00:10:50.840 But in terms of actually living out your life day to day,

00:10:53.820 being free to worship in particular,

00:10:55.760 is the Palestinian Authority actively against them?

00:11:00.220 I think it's important to put things into context.

00:11:04.040 So what is happening in the occupied West Bank is that many Palestinians live under the thumb of Israeli occupation.

00:11:13.740 Israeli occupation is administered by a department of the Israeli state called Kogat.

00:11:21.620 Kogat administers the ability to move, the ability to move, to work, to have work rights. 0.93

00:11:33.500 And so it really is the State of Israel that exercises a system of domination and control over Christians and Muslim Palestinians.

00:11:42.380 and really it sits with the state of Israel

00:11:45.520 as the occupying power to remove those restrictions

00:11:49.560 in order to allow Palestinians to live freely.

00:11:53.300 What was that actually, what are they not able to do?

00:11:57.260 Never mind elsewhere, but in the West Bank,

00:11:59.540 what are they not able to do

00:12:01.180 that is specifically prohibited by the government of Israel?

00:12:06.120 Well, let's take freedom of movement, for instance.

00:12:08.760 They're unable to move freely.

00:12:11.280 Palestinians living in Bethlehem are unable to move and go to Jerusalem

00:12:17.260 without a permit, without direct permission by the State of Israel.

00:12:24.360 They're unable to access economic opportunities.

00:12:27.880 Many Palestinians in the West Bank are unable to travel

00:12:31.160 to their ancestral homes in what was once Palestine,

00:12:34.620 what is now termed the State of Israel.

00:12:37.660 And 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.

00:13:05.920 are taking vast amounts of time to get between town and town,

00:13:12.220 between city and city.

00:13:14.000 Even small villages are unable to access one another.

00:13:17.940 There are villages and cities that are completely surrounded

00:13:21.180 by Israeli settlements where there are roads that can be used

00:13:24.520 by Israeli Jews that are not allowed to be used by Palestinians.

00:13:28.460 So even just taking that as one small example,

00:13:32.080 and indeed it's a large example,

00:13:34.820 Palestinians are really living under the thumb of a brutal occupation.

00:13:40.920 Well, okay.

00:13:42.800 The Israelis, if they were here on this program to speak for themselves, 0.92

00:13:47.160 would probably say, well, to the extent that what you're saying is true, John,

00:13:52.560 we just got tired of people wandering across borders wearing suicide vests

00:14:00.140 and taking the bus and taking everybody on the bus with them.

00:14:03.780 So, 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.

00:14:22.200 They just stay there. They're citizens. They kind of like it that way, because they got blown up as well.

00:14:27.280 So do you not concede that the state of Israel had some legitimate reason to be careful who they let in? 0.81

00:14:38.960 The core of the problem really is that there's the proposition of creating a Jewish country in a non-Jewish majority country. 0.83

00:14:49.240 And 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.

00:15:17.780 And so I think it's important to put that context around your question.

00:15:22.460 Well, to that point, genocide, I mean, the Jews know a little bit about genocide, 0.61

00:15:26.900 but I don't think they're running concentration camps.

00:15:30.480 So the courts may well have said that.

00:15:32.900 I don't recall the details.

00:15:34.480 I'm relying on you for the facts in this case.

00:15:37.000 But if that's what they said, that was a rather imaginative use of language,

00:15:41.840 most of us would say.

00:15:43.380 And you say?

00:15:44.900 Well, I mean, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Gaza,

00:15:49.340 namely women and children. 0.99

00:15:50.940 Nearly two million have been displaced.

00:15:53.140 There's been a total destruction of infrastructure,

00:15:56.600 including of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital,

00:15:59.780 which my grandfather brought under the auspices of the Diocese of Jerusalem

00:16:03.340 when he was Bishop of Jerusalem.

00:16:05.680 There is genocide that's been confirmed by the International Court of Justice.

00:16:10.920 There is systematic torture and sexual violence.

00:16:13.660 arbitrary detention i mean all of these things are well documented um by many international bodies

00:16:20.300 including the united nations amnesty international other groups um and so um what you are experiencing

00:16:27.740 in as a palestinian living in the borders of the ever-expanding state of israel

00:16:35.820 It 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. 0.63

00:16:53.940 And, 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.

00:17:08.220 And so its emblems, its flag, its national symbols, its parliament are all Jewish. 0.93

00:17:16.260 And for that reason, and for that reason, the Palestinians are excluded because they are not Jewish. 0.99

00:17:21.820 some of you

00:17:22.820 you know

00:17:25.640 10 seconds ago you said something

00:17:28.240 that probably has people say huh

00:17:30.180 and that would you said

00:17:31.720 in a country that never had a

00:17:34.320 Jewish character well of course

00:17:36.480 Israel did 1.00

00:17:38.060 have a Jewish character

00:17:39.220 began the program by talking about

00:17:41.940 the person of Christ

00:17:43.820 and the situation that he

00:17:46.220 found himself when the Jews were under 0.62

00:17:48.320 Roman domination but they were a 1.00

00:17:50.300 nation and of course of course and that is and that is a history um that um i as a palestinian

00:17:58.280 christian descendant of nazarene jews um and proud of i never said that uh palestine did not

00:18:05.940 have a jewish history of course there's been a continuous jewish history in that land um but it

00:18:13.300 does not serve to extinguish all the other histories that exist there um one claim cannot

00:18:19.180 serve to extinguish the rest we're coming to we don't have an awful lot of time left so i've got

00:18:26.620 two questions um one is um what is it you are the the representative in australia do you have

00:18:33.820 direct links in that area of the levant at the moment by whatever name you want me okay

00:18:42.060 Absolutely. I was due to be there in May this year.

00:18:48.340 However, since the Israeli and U.S. assault on Iran and the flights situation, I'm reassessing that.

00:18:56.680 But I do get there, and I'm hoping, in fact, to be there this May.

00:19:03.180 What do you, when you go, what is your purpose?

00:19:08.680 Encouragement?

00:19:10.240 Do you bring resources?

00:19:12.940 What is your role?

00:19:14.780 Well, I wear another hat, and that is that I'm a theologian in training

00:19:19.460 at Bethlehem Bible College at present.

00:19:21.560 So this particular trip, my hope was really to attend the church at the,

00:19:28.520 sorry, I beg your pardon, the Christ at the Checkpoint conference

00:19:32.840 happening in Bethlehem this year,

00:19:35.460 which is a conference of Palestinian Christian theologians

00:19:38.360 that brings together Christians ecumenically.

00:19:41.740 And so my hope was really to connect with some of the theologians

00:19:47.600 and some of the lecturers and some of the Palestinian leaders there

00:19:50.840 to continue my studies.

00:19:53.940 so the last question then is what does success look like if you could if you had the power to do it

00:20:02.860 and you did it what would you do well we would not have a religious state 0.92

00:20:10.160 we would have a civil pluralistic democratic state with full sovereign rights um over borders and

00:20:18.580 water and airspace and that and we would dismantle the apartheid system that currently affects

00:20:28.020 Palestine and which some people call the state of Israel there would be a right of return for

00:20:34.140 all Palestinian refugees that have been displaced either in 1948 or 1967. For me personally and

00:20:43.340 speaking as a christian um i would like to see a faith-based stance um something that speaks truth

00:20:49.980 to power and that's a truth about um the uh history of anti-semitism a vile history um that

00:20:57.460 occurred in the west uh to non-palestinian jews um but also alongside that a history of what

00:21:04.160 happened to the palestinians who paid the ultimate price for that anti-semitism just to be clear on

00:21:09.780 the borders of this what would be the borders of this entity well palestinians unfortunately 0.91

00:21:16.340 palestinians unfortunately don't have uh you know we we're not in a present position to be

00:21:22.500 able to negotiate that um this is this is the perfect world i'm asking you to just blue sky

00:21:27.860 here and say if you could make it right this uh this this non-sectarian state that you describe

00:21:35.060 what would be the borders would it include gaza would it include west bank would it include parts

00:21:43.400 of lebanon you know how how big is the area that that that would be in in a perfect world would be

00:21:51.280 this homeland for everybody well in a perfect world i think you would have to uh also take

00:21:59.220 into account the reality. And the reality of that question is that a border change to Palestine,

00:22:07.020 Israel will probably result in a border change to the region. And so I think the question really

00:22:14.420 needs to be looked at holistically in terms of some of the other issues that are affecting the

00:22:19.880 region as well. So I don't have an answer for you that I can say, well, it should be from here to

00:22:26.880 here. But realistically speaking, Palestinians were expelled from the entirety of historic

00:22:37.180 Palestine, and most Palestinian Christians would feel that it is their right to return

00:22:43.260 to that whole area. Okay, this is the last, definitely the last question. I hope it lends

00:22:50.320 itself to a short answer. When you return to the area in May, if in fact you're able to do so,

00:22:56.880 do you expect to be able to worship with other Palestinian Christians 1.00

00:23:03.980 in either West Bank or in Israel, wherever it is that you're landing up?

00:23:10.700 I would hope so, although I note that this coming week,

00:23:17.200 with the beginning of Holy Week, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

00:23:20.880 has been closed by the State of Israel, as has the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

00:23:25.220 They have been closed since the Israeli and U.S. war on Iran

00:23:31.460 And so I would hope that the region is settled down

00:23:35.620 And that I will be able to pray with my brothers and sisters

00:23:38.480 Well, I hope that for you too, sir

00:23:41.340 Thank you for joining us on the program

00:23:44.780 I don't think we could take several hours and not get to the bottom of it

00:23:50.440 But you have certainly offered us some insights from a point of view that we don't often hear

00:23:54.160 Thank you again for that from Perth, Australia.

00:23:57.700 Thank you very much, Nigel. Thanks for having me.

00:24:02.120 For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.

Western Standard - March 27, 2026

As Easter approaches, Israel's Arab Christians face hardship

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