Western Standard - March 29, 2026


HANNAFORD： As Easter approaches, Israel's Arab Christians face hardship


Episode Stats

Length

24 minutes

Words per Minute

140.36697

Word Count

3,417

Sentence Count

55

Hate Speech Sentences

14


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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,
00:00:26.920 when many Canadians reflect on the death of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem
00:00:30.900 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,
00:00:48.620 calling people to repentance and that reconciliation with God.
00:00:52.460 That is to say that 100 years ago,
00:00:54.460 about 10% of the people living in that whole area of Israel, West Bank and Gaza, were Christians.
00:01:01.020 Now, there are more Palestinian Christians living outside the area than in it. There may be perhaps
00:01:08.300 400 Christians left in Gaza, who really knows for sure. Bethlehem is virtually a Christian-free zone,
00:01:15.420 and in the West Bank, Israeli settlers in the last couple of weeks have been attacking
00:01:19.980 Palestinian Christians. What has happened? What is the outlook for these people?
00:01:25.420 With me tonight is John Naeem Snowbar. He is the Director of Advocacy for Palestinian Christians
00:01:33.660 in Australia. He's also the first grandson of the first Palestinian Anglican Bishop of
00:01:39.100 Jerusalem and until recently was a member of the Australian Diplomatic Corps. John,
00:01:45.580 welcome to the show thank you for having me nigel john so many questions have i overstated
00:01:52.700 the situation of despair for middle eastern christians not at all not at all i think it's
00:01:59.900 important to situate uh where middle eastern christians sit in terms of world christianity
00:02:05.660 firstly to say that palestinian christians are the first christians um it is from them that the
00:02:12.380 gospel came and it is through them and their the palestinian christian who were at that point
00:02:17.900 palestinian jewish apostles of christ that christianity um came to the world uh long before
00:02:24.940 brohn uh became christian um and certainly long before america canada and australia became
00:02:30.380 christian uh their situation uh is a uh particularly terrible one um particularly in the holy land
00:02:38.860 where christ once walked uh palestinian christians face settler attacks almost daily
00:02:46.380 around 10 a day palestinian christians are unable to access the holy sites including the church of
00:02:54.760 the holy sepulcher they are unable to pray much like their palestinian muslim brothers and sisters
00:03:00.600 um their uh homes are attacked uh regularly demolished by uh settlers and uh many of them
00:03:09.440 languish in israeli prisons uh the situation sadly is um not as not not as bad but still uh
00:03:17.600 that's still um quite terrible for uh christians in the middle east more broadly um i'll mention
00:03:25.000 for instance before the iraq war iraq had a vibrant community of over 1 million christians
00:03:31.240 um and now has just a fraction of that uh so the situation for christians in the middle east
00:03:37.080 that particularly in the holy land um is uh is a terrible one um and requires and deserves uh the
00:03:44.040 attention that you're giving it now john let me ask you this um to a casual observer it seems that
00:03:54.600 Christians in North America, the United States and Canada, are broadly sympathetic to Israel, to the Jews.
00:04:07.400 Why do you think the Jews are not reciprocating with the Christians who live among them?
00:04:14.280 What's this about? Land or money or loyalties? What's going on?
00:04:20.200 well it's a complex history uh as as you would know nigel uh i think that um what is going on
00:04:29.140 is that um the western church has decided um not to see um the through not to see christianity and
00:04:38.800 the faith through the eyes of the uh living stones of christianity itself uh the western
00:04:44.280 Church has decided to align itself really with a particular ideology, a dangerous ideology
00:04:52.260 in Christian Zionism that really practices the theology of supremacy over the theology
00:04:59.960 of tolerance and over the theology of compassion and mercy.
00:05:04.060 And you see that being intertwined really in an entire infrastructure in American evangelism
00:05:12.980 that is grounded in an expansionist worldview
00:05:17.080 that seeks to replace theology with foreign policy,
00:05:22.060 something that I saw very much firsthand as an Australian diplomat
00:05:26.720 where I served in Egypt and in Pakistan.
00:05:29.600 And even in Australia, that was something that was influencing
00:05:33.600 Australian foreign policy and indeed influences Western diplomats all over.
00:05:38.920 So what you have is a wrong framing, if you like, of Christianity itself, a framing that sees God as a real estate agent that hands out land to one group of people but not another, and that really misplaces the message of the gospel.
00:05:58.060 Well, that of course, to a cynic, and I am not a cynic, but to a cynic, that might seem
00:06:03.980 like a reading of the book of Joshua, very much a handing out of land. But what you're talking
00:06:09.660 about there is some kind of liberation theology, and I understand what that's about. But for the
00:06:19.340 benefit of people who, we've only got 20 minutes, for the benefit of people who want to cut to the
00:06:25.020 chase what do the christians in that part of the world want do they want their own little piece of
00:06:32.940 sovereign territory is that the game well i think i can speak for palestinian christians and in that
00:06:41.740 way i also speak for palestinians more broadly including palestinian muslims what they want
00:06:48.300 is not a religious state they want to live in a pluralistic civil society that allows them to
00:06:55.980 practice their own religion something that they're not able to do currently under the auspices of the
00:07:02.060 state of israel which is they've not been able to do that for the last 76 years and that is something
00:07:10.300 that um they hold dear uh they want to the right to uh raise their children uh safely um to raise
00:07:19.180 their children um in a way that they're equal with other children regardless of where they
00:07:25.980 where they live or how long their ancestors have been there um i myself am lucky enough to live
00:07:31.660 in australia a country that i was proud to serve as a diplomat in where i am treated equally in
00:07:39.180 front of the law regardless of how long my parents have been here and my how long my family has been
00:07:45.340 here and i think that's a common shared desire that christians in the middle east have with
00:07:51.180 people in the west uh it is a desire to live a free safe and secure life with rights to be
00:07:58.860 citizens and to exercise political and economic rights well let me let me push you a little on
00:08:05.740 that within the borders of israel and i'm not including the west bank here which obviously is
00:08:11.500 a contentious point uh for anybody who believes in that christian zionist message that you're
00:08:18.300 speaking of but for those who live within the accepted borders of israel um more than a million
00:08:25.260 of them i do believe are palestinians they are arabs they are not jews they prefer to be there
00:08:32.940 sorry am i am i wrong on a point of fact i think all palestinians prefer to be in the holy land
00:08:41.620 in palestine or the state of israel um all palestinians uh wish to have a connection
00:08:47.460 with the land in which their ancestors walked in which the lord when he was here in human flesh
00:08:53.860 walked and so um you'd be right in saying um that there are christians uh who live in the state of
00:09:01.720 israel who are palestinian um and who are able to live there um as citizens although okay that's
00:09:09.880 actually where i was going with this uh john if the if the muslims can get along in israel
00:09:15.800 why can't the christians well i think the issue really is about um an apartheid system so you've
00:09:24.200 asked me a question about the people that live within the state of israel um however there are
00:09:31.000 millions of palestinians christians and muslims who live in the occupied west bank or in gaza or
00:09:39.000 indeed in the hundreds of refugee camps that are spotted around that region that house palestinian
00:09:46.920 christians and palestinian muslims and none of them have the rights that are extended to citizens of
00:09:53.480 the state of israel none of them can practice their religion freely or can move freely or in
00:09:58.840 factor even documented um the west bank would be the you know for those who live in the west bank
00:10:04.600 which is uh would it not be the palestinian authority that they would appeal to well they
00:10:12.440 would appeal to a broad political consensus among the palestinian people that the only body that
00:10:21.640 truly represents the palestinians um is the plo and um the uh and that is a broad consensus um
00:10:30.920 within the palestinian national movement and uh the palestinian authority of course arose out of a
00:10:39.080 much later set of agreements um that were done and so many palestinians would feel that the
00:10:45.720 the Palestinian Authority does not represent them. Well I'm sure they would feel that but
00:10:51.040 in terms of actually living out your life day to day being free to worship in particular
00:10:55.400 is the Palestinian Authority actively against them? I think it's important to put things into
00:11:03.500 context so what is happening in the occupied West Bank is that many Palestinians live under
00:11:11.340 the thumb of Israeli occupation.
00:11:13.720 Israeli occupation is administered by a department
00:11:18.040 of the Israeli state called Korgat.
00:11:22.100 Korgat administers the ability to move,
00:11:25.720 the ability to move, to work, to have work rights.
00:11:33.520 And so it really is the state of Israel
00:11:36.200 that exercises a system of domination and control
00:11:39.300 over Christians and Muslim Palestinians,
00:11:43.020 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.
00:11:52.920 What would that actually, what are they not able to do?
00:11:57.260 Never mind elsewhere, but in the West Bank,
00:11:59.520 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.
00:12:08.580 they're unable to move freely uh palestinians living in bethlem are unable to move and go
00:12:15.860 uh to jerusalem um without a permit without a um without direct permission by the state of israel
00:12:24.260 um they're unable to access economic opportunities many palestinians in the west bank um are unable
00:12:30.660 to travel to their ancestral homes in what was once palestine what is now uh termed the state
00:12:36.980 of israel and so just taking freedom of movement you can imagine the sort of restrictions that
00:12:43.620 that places on people being unable to reunite with families being unable to access properties
00:12:51.220 that were taken under the israeli absentee act right after the state of israel was formed
00:12:57.780 being unable to access in some cases medical services in some cases being unable to study
00:13:03.620 being unable to reach universities,
00:13:06.880 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,
00:13:31.560 and indeed it's a large example, Palestinians are really living
00:13:36.860 under the thumb of a brutal occupation.
00:13:40.900 Well, okay.
00:13:42.800 The Israelis, if they were here on this program to speak for themselves,
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. So, of course, we introduced
00:14:06.380 restrictions and built the walls and had the permit system. But nevertheless, there are
00:14:14.860 more than a million people who are not Jews living within Israel, and they're not having to go home
00:14:20.860 every night across the border. They just stay there. They're citizens. They kind of like it
00:14:24.700 that way so because they got blown up as well so do you not concede that the state of israel had
00:14:32.700 some legitimate reason to be careful who they let in the core of the problem really is that
00:14:43.660 there's the proposition of creating a jewish country in a non-jewish majority country
00:14:49.660 and so the core of the issue uh from a palestinian perspective is that um if you are to create a
00:14:56.860 state which is an exclusively jewish state in a country that had a 90 plus non-jewish population
00:15:03.580 that that would necessitate the expulsion and indeed as we've seen the international
00:15:08.620 court of justice term uh recently a genocide and plausible case of genocide against the
00:15:15.020 inhabitants that live there that aren't jewish and so i think it's important to put that context
00:15:20.060 around your question um because yeah well to that point genocide i mean the jews know a little bit
00:15:25.820 about genocide so but i don't think they're running concentration camps so the courts may well have
00:15:32.300 said that i don't recall the details i'm relying on you for the facts in this case but if that's
00:15:37.500 what they said that was a rather imaginative use of language most of us would say and you say
00:15:45.020 Well, I mean, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Gaza,
00:15:49.360 mainly women and children.
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.
00:16:05.700 There is genocide that's been confirmed by the International Court of Justice.
00:16:10.720 There is systematic torture and sexual violence, arbitrary detention.
00:16:14.640 I mean, all of these things are well documented by many international bodies, including the United Nations, Amnesty International, other groups.
00:16:23.820 And so what you are experiencing as a Palestinian living in the borders of the ever-expanding state of Israel is a complete system of domination and control.
00:16:40.180 Israel's 2018 nation-state law codifies apartheid and Jewish supremacy
00:16:48.280 and so Jewish rights are not the same as non-Jewish rights
00:16:53.940 and of course that's to be expected in a country
00:16:57.100 where you hope to establish a Jewish character
00:17:02.960 in a country that didn't originally have a Jewish character
00:17:08.080 and so um its emblems its flag its national symbols its parliament are all jewish
00:17:15.920 and for that reason and for that reason the palestinians are excluded because they are not
00:17:21.360 jewish some of the majority you know you 10 seconds ago you said something that probably
00:17:28.960 has people say huh and that would you said um in a country that never had a jewish character
00:17:35.520 well of course israel did have a jewish character it was began the program by talking about the
00:17:42.880 person of christ and the situation that he found himself when the jews were under roman domination
00:17:49.440 but they were a nation and uh of of course of course and that is and that is a history
00:17:55.600 um that um i as a palestinian christian descendant of nazarene jews um and proud of i never said
00:18:03.760 that Palestine did not have a Jewish history. Of course, there's been a continuous Jewish
00:18:10.400 history in that land, but it does not serve to extinguish all the other histories that exist
00:18:17.120 there. One claim cannot serve to extinguish the rest. We're coming to, we don't have an awful
00:18:24.480 lot of time left, so I've got two questions. One is, what is it, you are the representative
00:18:32.080 in australia do you have direct links in that area of the levant at the moment
00:18:39.840 by whatever name you want me okay i'm i i was due to be there in may this year
00:18:48.480 however since since the israeli and u.s assault on iran and the flights situation um i'm reassessing
00:18:56.320 that but i do get there and i'm hoping in fact to be there this may what do you when you go
00:19:06.960 what is your purpose encouragement you bring you bring resources what what is your role well well
00:19:16.080 i i wear another hat and that is that i'm a theologian in training at bethlehem bible
00:19:20.480 college at present so um this particular trip uh my hope was really to uh attend uh the uh church at
00:19:28.160 the sorry i thank you pardon the christ at the checkpoint conference um happening in bethlehem
00:19:34.880 this year which is a conference of palestinian christian theologians um that brings together
00:19:39.920 christians um ecumenically um and so my hope was really to connect with um 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.
00:19:54.660 So the last question then is what does success look like?
00:19:59.740 If you had the power to do it and you did it, what would you do?
00:20:07.360 Well, we would not have a religious state.
00:20:10.740 We would have a civil, pluralistic, democratic state
00:20:14.800 with full sovereign rights over borders and water and airspace
00:20:20.260 and we would dismantle the apartheid system
00:20:25.120 that currently affects Palestine
00:20:28.780 and which some people call the State of Israel.
00:20:32.540 There would be a right of return for all Palestinian refugees
00:20:35.700 that have been displaced either in 1948 or 1967.
00:20:41.560 For me personally, and speaking as a Christian,
00:20:44.800 um i would like to see a faith-based stance um something that speaks truth to power and that's
00:20:51.120 a truth about um the uh history of anti-semitism a vile history um that occurred in the west
00:20:58.480 uh to non-palestinian jews um but also alongside that a history of what happened to the palestinians
00:21:05.520 who paid the ultimate price for that anti-semitism just to be clear on the borders of this what would
00:21:10.960 be the borders of this entity well palestinians unfortunately palestinians unfortunately don't
00:21:18.000 have uh you know we we're not in a present position to be able to negotiate that um this
00:21:25.120 is this is the perfect world i'm asking you to just blue sky here and say if you could make it
00:21:29.360 right this uh this this non-sectarian state that you described uh what would be the borders would
00:21:38.640 Would it include Gaza?
00:21:40.980 Would it include West Bank?
00:21:42.360 Would it include parts of Lebanon?
00:21:44.120 You know, how big is the area that would be, in a perfect world,
00:21:50.880 would be this homeland for everybody?
00:21:55.020 Well, in a perfect world, I think you would have to also take into account
00:21:59.760 the reality, and the reality of that question is that a border change
00:22:05.420 to palestine israel will probably result in a border change um to the region and so i think
00:22:13.420 the question really needs to be looked at holistically in terms of some of the other
00:22:18.620 issues that are affecting the region as well um so i don't have an answer for you that i can say
00:22:25.020 well it should be from here to here um but realistically speaking palestinians were
00:22:31.180 were expelled from the entirety of historic Palestine and most Alistinian Christians would feel
00:22:40.260 that it is their right to return to that whole area. Okay, this is the last, definitely the last
00:22:48.400 question. I hope it lends itself to a short answer. When you return to the area in May,
00:22:54.660 if in fact you're able to do so, do you expect to be able to worship
00:23:01.160 with other Palestinian Christians in either West Bank or in Israel,
00:23:08.380 wherever it is that you're landing up?
00:23:10.780 I would hope so, although I note that this coming week,
00:23:17.440 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
00:23:25.200 they have been closed since the israeli and u.s war on iran and so i would hope that the region
00:23:34.560 is settled down and that i will be able to pray with my brothers and sisters well i hope that for
00:23:40.660 you too sir thank you for joining us on the program i don't think we we could take several
00:23:48.600 hours and not get to the bottom of it but you have certainly offered us some insights from a
00:23:52.840 point of view that we don't often hear thank you again for that from perth australia thank you very
00:23:58.920 thank you very much nigel thanks for having me for the western standard i'm nigel hannaford
00:24:18.600 You