Biografi Singkat George Habash, Pejuang Kristen Palestina

By: Helmi Djunaidi

 

The texts are there. I invented nothing. The Jewish State of Israel is considered legally racist by the United Nations.  (Alain Menargues, vice-director of Radio France International)

George Habash  lahir pada tanggal 2 Agustus 1926 di Lydda, Palestina. Ia berasal dari keluarga Kristen yang cukup berada. Mereka tinggal di tengah-tengah lingkungan umat Islam Palestina yang sangat toleran dan inklusif, di mana semua umat yang berbeda agama dan keyakinan bisa hidup dengan penuh kedamaian selama berabad-abad lamanya. Suasana yang penuh perdamaian dan toleransi ini berubah total setelah meletusnya perang Arab-Israel tahun 1948. Habash sekeluarga diusir oleh tentara Zionis yang picik dan rasis, yang tak menghendaki bangsa selain Yahudi, baik yang beragama Islam maupun Kristen hidup di Palestina. Dan bukan hanya keluarganya, hampir semua orang Kristen Palestina juga diusir oleh kaum Zionis Yahudi dari tanah airnya. Sikap picik kaum Yahudi ini, yang selalu menonjolkan sikap anti inklusif dan anti pluralisme dan mau benarnya sendiri, akhirnya membangkitkan perlawanan dari Habash.

Setelah melihat penderitaan bangsanya, baik yang Islam maupun Kristen, akhirnya Habash  membentuk organisasi bersenjata yang bertujuan untuk menumpas kaum rasis Zionis dan berjuang membebaskan tanah Palestina, mengembalikan Palestina sebagai tanah yang penuh kedamaian dan toleransi seperti saat dihuni kakek buyutnya dulu.

Habash  adalah seorang dokter. Semasa masih kuliah di Beirut ia bertemu Wadi Haddad yang juga penganut Kristen. Mereka kemudian mendirikan ANM (Arab Nationalist Movement) pada tahun 1951. Setelah berakhirnya perang tahun 1967, banyak orang Arab yang merasa kecewa dengan kepemimpinan Nasser. Habash  juga merasakan perlu adanya reformasi. Ia kemudian membubarkan ANM dan membentuk PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). Pada masa kejayaannya, PFLP merupakan faksi terbesar kedua di PLO setelah Al-Fatah yang dipimpin oleh Arafat.

Ia termasuk tokoh yang sangat keras menentang kaum Zionis dan segala upaya perdamaian dengan mereka. Sepanjang hidupnya ia mengambil sikap oposan terhadap Yasser Arafat yang dianggapnya lebih lunak. Karena sikap kerasnya terhadap kaum Zionis, bahkan rekan-rekannya anggota PLO yang muslim sering mengkritik Habash. Bersama dengan rekan setianya Wadi Haddad, ia mempelopori perjuangan bersenjata melawan kaum rasis Zionis dan sponsornya, terutama negara rasis Amerika, yang pada saat itu juga giat menindas orang kulit hitam di negaranya, yang sampai-sampai menewaskan Martin Luther King Jr. pejuang hak asasi kulit hitam.

Hingga tahun 1960-an, keadaan di Amerika Serikat memang tak jauh berbeda dengan di Afrika Selatan, terlebih lagi di negara-negara bagian di Selatan. Tak ada itu kata inklusif dan pluralisme di dalam kehidupan bernegara dan bermasyarakat di sana. Kenyataannya adalah orang hitam dilarang bersekolah di sekolah kulit putih, naik bis umum dipisah bangkunya, makan di restoran, di kantin universitas dipisah ruangnya, ruang tunggu di bandara dipisah. Bahkan beribadah kepada Tuhan pun wajib di gereja yang terpisah. Suatu hal yang mustahil terjadi di dunia Islam. Negara rasis dalam artinya yang paling tulen, persis seperti di Afrika Selatan zaman Pieter Botha. Bacalah misalnya biografi Martin Luther King Jr. dan Malcolm X. Hingga tahun 1990-an pun, setelah selesainya perang dingin, ratusan gereja orang kulit hitam dibakar di Amerika setiap tahunnya. Dan investigasi untuk menangkap pelakunya selalu macet diblokir di tengah jalan karena banyak di antara aparat hukum dan pemerintahan yang bersimpati. Bahkan organisasi semacam The Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative watchdog group based in Washington, DC. secara terbuka mendukung pembakaran-pembakaran tersebut. Karena memang sealiran, maka dengan nyaman saja Amerika hingga kini tetap dengan total mendukung Israel.

Dari PFLP tadi terlahir juga organisasi sempalan DFLP yang beraliran lebih militan lagi, yang dipimpin Nayef Hawatmeh. Sebagaimana Habash, Hawatmeh ini seorang pejuang Palestina yang beragama Kristen juga. Meski demikian, PFLP yang dipimpin Habash  tadi lebih populer karena perjuangannya yang sangat gigih melawan kaum Yahudi. Selama masa kepemimpinan Habash sebagai Sekjen PFLP, faksi ini dikenal sebagai salah satu organisasi bersenjata Palestina yang paling berbahaya karena sikap mereka yang sangat militan menentang kaum Zionis dan segala kebijaksanaan rasis mereka. PFLP melakukan banyak serangan bersenjata ke berbagai belahan dunia, dengan sasaran utama kaum rasis Yahudi beserta para sponsornya. Dalam perjuangannya mereka juga sering menjalin kerjasama dengan para pejuang dari Amerika Latin, seperti dengan Sandinista misalnya.

Semenjak tahun 1980-an, kesehatan Habash  mulai memburuk, dan pengaruhnya di PLFP mulai berkurang. Pada tahun 1990-an PFLP juga mulai kalah pengaruh dengan organisasi seperti Hamas dan Jihad Islam yang juga tak kalah militannya. Pada tahun 2000 posisi Habash sebagai Sekjen akhirnya digantikan oleh Abu Ali Mustafa. Walau pengaruhnya saat ini sudah semakin menyurut, nama Habash tetap populer di banyak kalangan rakyat Palestina yang menghargai ideologi revolusionernya, prinsipnya yang kuat, serta gaya hidupnya yang mencerminkan sikap kaum intelektual. Pada pemilu Palestina tahun 2000 PFLP masih sempat merebut angka 4,2 persen. Pemerintah Iran juga merupakan pendukung PFLP, organisasi yang didirikan dan dipimpin oleh orang Kristen Palestina tersebut.

Meski demikian, bagi musuh bebuyutannya, yakni Israel dan Amerika, tentu saja Habash sangat tidak populer. Bagi kedua negara tersebut Habash adalah one of the most lethal terrorists of the 20th century. Hal yang saat ini ditujukan ke berbagai organisasi Islam. Dan tahukah Anda apa salah satu tujuan utama organisasi-organisasi Islam itu melakukan berbagai serangan ke posisi Amerika dan Israel? Sama dengan Habash, yakni membebaskan tanah Palestina dari kaum  rasis Yahudi beserta sponsornya. Mengembalikan Palestina ke masa yang penuh toleransi dan perdamaian seperti sebelum berdirinya negara Zionis Israel, di mana umat Islam dan Kristen dan juga semua agama yang ada di Palestina lainnya bisa hidup berdampingan dengan damai satu sama lain selama berabad lamanya. Dan kita tahu bahwa berdirinya negara Yahudi itu telah merusak suasana perdamaian dan penuh toleransi tersebut. Kekacauan di Timur Tengah pun tetap terjadi hingga sekarang.

Habash beserta anak buahnya pun sangat mendukung perjuangan umat Islam tersebut. Demikian pula Edward Said. Demikian pula semua orang Kristen di Palestina, termasuk Hanan Asrawi, juga Suha Tawil, istri Arafat, yang juga beragama Kristen. Istri Arafat memang beragama Kristen, suatu hal yang tentunya sangat mustahil terjadi di Israel sampai kiamat. Apakah mungkin seorang PM Israel mempunyai istri orang Palestina yang beragama Kristen? Mustahil ia akan bakal dipilih oleh rakyat Israel yang rata-rata picik dan rasis itu. Apalagi bila istrinya beragama Islam.

Semakin menyurutnya dukungan kepada PFLP pada saat ini antara lain karena jumlah orang Kristen di Palestina menyusut drastis semenjak masa pendudukan Israel. Mereka yang kebetulan studi di luar negeri dilarang pulang kembali dan dicabut kewarganegaraannya. Banyak pula yang mengalami tekanan dan intimidasi sehingga mereka lalu mengungsi. Pada tahun 1930-an, penduduk Palestina sekitar 20% adalah umat Kristen, sekarang tinggal 1,6%. Sedangkan penduduk Yerusalem dulu malah mayoritas adalah orang Kristen, di atas 51%, sekarang mereka tinggal 2%. Jadi, sebelum berdirinya negara Israel, secara de facto Yerusalem sebenarnya sudah dikuasai orang Kristen, yakni Arab-Kristen. Apalagi, dalam bidang pendidikan, sosial dan ekonomi umat Kristen Palestina lebih makmur dibandingkan dengan umat Islamnya. Oleh karena itu, orang Yahudi biasanya lebih suka merampas tanah dan menyita rumah-rumah milik umat Kristen Palestina karena tentu saja lebih bagus dan besar. Juga merampas tanah-tanah milik gereja untuk dijadikan pemukiman Yahudi. Tentang masalah ini lihat antara lain Jonathan Cook, Israel’s Purging of Palestinian Christian dan Donald Wagner Palestinian Christian: A Historic Community at Risk? Tulisan Donald Wagner itu dibuka dengan tewasnya Johnny Thaljiya, seorang remaja Palestina yang baru berusia 17 tahun, sesaat setelah ia pulang menghadiri misa di gereja. Lihat kedua artikel tersebut di bawah paragraph terakhir tulisan ini.

Karena kebodohan mayoritas orang Kristen di Amerika dan Eropa yang tak paham apa-apa tentang Timur Tengah, maka mereka malah mendukung negara Israel yang rasis, mendukung pembantaian saudara seagamanya sendiri. Rata-rata umat Kristen di Indonesia juga mendukung Israel yang membantai saudara sesama Kristen mereka sendiri, sebuah kebodohan yang sama. Karena kurang info dan menelan mentah-mentah propaganda di TV dan media. Akibatnya, umat Kristen Palestina sekarang sudah hampir punah, setiap tahun semakin berkurang jumlahnya. Walau umatnya sudah berkurang drastis, semua pemimpin gereja di Palestina dari beragam aliran tetap solid mendukung perjuangan PLO, Hamas, PFLP dan organisasi-organisasi Palestina lainnya. Bahkan, para pendeta Kristen Arab Palestina itu dengan terang-terangan mendoakan para pejuang Hamas agar bisa masuk surga, walau jelas-jelas mereka itu beragama Islam. Suatu hal yang tentunya membuat sengit pemerintah Israel dan kaum fundamentalis Amerika, termasuk juga kalangan persnya, kepada para pemimpin gereja tersebut. Lalu memfitnah mereka dengan beragam dakwaan, antara lain menjuluki Patriarch Yerusalem, Michel Sabbah, sebagai Islamic Patriarch.

Oh ya, tentu saja jangan pernah berharap berita tentang dukungan Patriarch Yerusalem kepada para pejuang Palestina itu akan diulas oleh di tivi-tivi. Yang akan diulas besar-besaran oleh mereka tentu saja adalah intimidasi dan teror orang Islam kepada umat Kristen Palestina.  Hanya orang dungu yang akan percaya dengan berita-berita propaganda semacam itu. Buat apa Arafat meneror Suha Tawil istrinya sendiri beserta keluarga besarnya? Mereka keluarga yang harmonis. Sialnya, ratusan juta orang dungu di Eropa dan Amerika pada umumnya dengan patuh akan mengangguk-angguk takzim menelan mentah-mentah propaganda tersebut.

George Habash meninggal di Amman, Yordania, tanggal 26 Januari 2008 pada usia 81 tahun. Upacara pemakamannya diadakan di sebuah gereja di kota Amman. Ia meninggal dengan tenang di antara umat Islam yang selama ini dengan setia berjuang bersamanya. Pada saat meninggalnya, Presiden Palestina Mahmud Abbas, yang tentu saja seorang muslim, mengumumkan masa berkabung selama tiga hari untuk menghormatinya. Pemimpin Hamas di Gaza, Ismail Haniya, juga turut berkabung dan mengatakan bahwa Habash sepanjang hidupnya telah berjuang demi membela tanah Palestina. Ini tentunya membuktikan kebesaran hati dan sikap inklusif dari Hamas, organisasi yang oleh propaganda Amerika dan Yahudi selalu dikatakan sebaliknya. Rakyat di kota-kota di Tepi Barat juga turun ke jalan untuk turut mengenang perjuangannya. Sebaliknya, pemerintah Israel yang rasis itu malah melarang rakyat Palestina untuk mengadakan upacara berkabung.

Demikianlah sekilas riwayat hidup George Habash beserta perjuangannya menentang kaum rasis Zionis. Jadi, ternyata prinsip jihad ini bukan hanya terdapat di kalangan umat Islam Palestina, tetapi juga umat Kristen di sana, berjuang bahu-membahu melawan kaum Zionis beserta para sponsornya. Dan satu hal lagi, saya yakin Ahmadiyah yang anti jihad itu tidak akan pernah laku di Palestina. Baik di kalangan umat Islam maupun Kristennya. Dan tentunya mustahil juga laku pada zaman revolusi 1945 di mana para pemuda kita, termasuk Bung Tomo, sibuk berjihad angkat senjata melawan Belanda. Dan perlu Anda ketahui, penganut Ahmadiyah di Indonesia zaman 1945 dulu pada sembunyi  tak ikut berjuang angkat senjata karena menurut mereka jihad itu haram. Mereka pengkhianat bangsa semuanya. Silakan tanya orang Ahmadiyah sendiri saja apakah mereka dulu ikut berjuang. Walhasil, bila kita bangsa Indonesia pada zaman 1945 dulu menganut Ahmadiyah semua, maka bangsa kita hingga saat ini masih terbungkuk-bungkuk sampai sakit encok menyembah para meneer Belanda. Ingat semboyan yang diajarkan para ibu dan bapak guru kita saat di sekolah dulu: Kita bangsa yang cinta damai, tapi lebih cinta kemerdekaan.

Yogyakarta, 25 Juli 2008

Baca juga dua artikel di bawah tulisan ini yang saya jadikan referensi:

1. Palestinian Christians: An Historic Community at Risk? By Don Wagner

2. Israel's Purging of Palestinian Christians by Jonathan Cook
3. Haaretz: Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
4. It’s “Normal” for Jews to Spit on Christians in Jerusalem, says Top Catholic

 

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Palestinian Christians: An Historic Community at Risk?

by Don Wagner

On a moonlit December evening in BethlehemÕs Manger Square, seventeen-year-old Johnny Thaljiya was outside his cousin’s souvenir shop. He had just finished the evening mass at the historic Greek Orthodox Church of the Nativity where he served as an altar boy. Suddenly, Johnny let out a scream and grabbed his throat as he fell to his knees and collapsed. Family and friends rushed to his side and realized that Johnny had been shot through the throat by an Israeli sniper, not an unusual fate for young Palestinian men these days. Rushed to the hospital, it was too late to save him. Johnny died within an hour as the number of Palestinian deaths crept toward 800 over the previous 16 months of the al-Aqsa intifada.

Sadly, the international community has done nothing to protect Palestinian youths and other civilians from a fate like that of Johnny Thaljiya. A U.S. veto at the United Nations (UN) has blocked impartial international observers who would function as buffers between the Israeli army and the Palestinians. Today every Palestinian is at risk under this occupying army and increasingly every Israeli is at risk as the violence continues to escalate in the occupied Palestinian areas and inside Israel.

Often overlooked in this descent into war in the Holy Land is a community whose presence may not survive the next 25-30 years in Israel and Palestine: the dwindling Palestinian Christian community. Many Palestinian scholars believe that Palestinian Christians could disappear in the Holy Land within a generation if the present war and emigration patterns among Christians continue. It is ironic that as Palestinian Christianity celebrates its anniversary of 2,000 years in Palestine and Israel, the community is on the verge of extinction. Perhaps more troublesome is the fact that little is being done by the West or the international Christian churches. Most striking is the fact that the Middle East policies of the nation with the largest and most powerful Christian majority is underwriting the destruction of Palestinian Christianity through its uncritical support of Israel’s war machine.

The British Mandate and al Nakba:

The British census of 1922 placed the Christian Palestinian population in Jerusalem at just over 51 percent, the majority being of the well-educated mercantile class. Gradually, Zionist settlement increased the proportion of Jews in Palestine, but the Jewish presence in Jerusalem remained relatively small. However, the hostilities that followed the UN partition vote of 28 November 1947 had a devastating effect on the Palestinian population with between 725-775,000 refugees being expelled from their ancestral lands.

Historian Sami Hadawi estimated that over 50 percent of Jerusalem’s Christians were expelled from their West Jerusalem homes, the largest single numerical decline of Christians in Palestine in history. Hadawi’s study concluded that in Jerusalem a higher proportion of Palestinian Christians became refugees after 1949, a ratio of 37 percent of Christians to 17 percent of the Muslims. The higher ratio of Christians was due in part to the fact that the majority lived in the wealthier western Jerusalem districts seized by Israel during 1948-49. Further, approximately 34 percent of the lands seized by Israel were owned by Palestinian Christian churches, and they were simply taken by force with no compensation given to the previous owners.

Bethlehem University Sociologist Bernard Sabella reports that by 1966 Palestinian Christians had declined to 13 percent of the total Palestinian population in Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, a significant decline from the 18-20 percent that had held until 1947. However, following the 1967 war and continuing until the signing of the Oslo Accords on 13 September 1993, the population decline was more dramatic. Sabella places the ratio of Palestinian Christians to Muslims at 2.1 percent in 1993. This decline was a direct reaction to the severity of the Israeli occupation and the lack of an economic, educational, vocational, and secure life in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank.

Had the 18 percent of the 1922-47 period remained, the Palestinian Christians would have numbered close to 300,000 by the early 1990s. Inside Israel, the Palestinian Christians grew to approximately 160,000 by 1993, compared to a Muslim population of 650,000. However, by the turn of the century and the second intifada, the emigration patterns continued to the extent that Christians now number only an estimated 1.6 percent of the Palestinian population in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

If these rates continue over the next generation, Palestinian and western scholars observe that the indigenous Palestinian Christian population will be on the verge of extinction within a generation. Some call this the “museumification” of the indigenous Christians of Palestine and Israel, indicating that there will only be a small number of elderly Christians left to show churches to western tourists, but the churches will be empty, having no local community to worship and inhabit them.

Many Palestinian Christians are now stating, perhaps as an appeal to the conscience of the West, addressed especially to the people and the government of the United States, that Palestinian Christianity may die within a generation if a just peace is not implemented in Israel-Palestine soon. The fundamental crisis for Palestinian Christians is the same as that for all Palestinians—the occupation and the brutality of Israel’s measures against the entire Palestinian community. Until the United States implements policies with full accountability which will bring Israel into compliance with UN resolutions 242 and 338, all Palestinians and Israelis will continue to suffer insecurity, economic deprivation, and death from the inhumane status quo of occupation.

What Palestinian Christians Want:

Perhaps the most succinct and accurate articulation of the Palestinian Christian position is found in the Jerusalem Sabeel Document of 2000, produced by the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem. Led by the Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, former Canon of St. Georges’ Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem and Director of the Sabeel Center, this document summarizes what the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Christians accept as the basis for a just peace in the conflict. The document begins with a biblical and theological rationale for their position and then turns to the moral basis for their “Peace Principles.”

Once a moral framework has been articulated, the document outlines the legal and political framework for a just peace. Citing UN resolutions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Fourth Geneva Convention, this framework essentially reiterates the international consensus held by every nation with the sole exceptions of Israel and the United States.

These moral, legal, and political principles state the unambiguous basis for a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Since 1948, it is estimated that approximately 50 peace proposals have been brought forth and all have failed. In some cases the United States, (often under pressure from Israel) has opposed the principles outlined in the Sabeel Document, despite the fact that the United States has been a signatory to these very principles.

Fortunately, most Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox church bodies in Europe, Canada, and the United States have now adopted official policy statements that are in complete accord with the Sabeel Principles.

The task now is to translate these national policies into active moral, spiritual, and even political advocacy by the clergy and laypersons. The mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches can make a significant difference in the near future if there is a concerted effort at education and organization, and there are some indications that the pendulum is swinging in that direction. The struggle for Palestinian rights remains a distant hope, but the official policies are now in place and the infrastructure for significant action is coming into view.

Don Wagner associate professor of Religion and Middle Eastern Studies, and executive director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at North Park University. The above text may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the author and to the Palestine Center. This Information Brief does not necessarily reflect the views of Palestine Center or The Jerusalem Fund.

This information first appeared in Information Brief No. 89, 12 March 2002.

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Israel's Purging of Palestinian Christians

by Jonathan Cook

 There is an absurd scene in Palestinian writer Suad Amiry's recent book Sharon and My Mother-in-Law that is revealing about Israeli Jews' attitude to the two other monotheistic religions. In 1992, long before Israel turned Amiry's home city of Ramallah into a permanent ghetto behind checkpoints and walls, it was still possible for West Bank Palestinians to drive to Jerusalem and even into Israel – at least if they had the right permit.

On one occasion Amiry ventures out in her car to East Jerusalem, the half of the city that was Palestinian before the 1967 war and has since been engulfed by relentless illegal and state-organized Jewish settlement.

There she sees an elderly Jew collapsing out his car and on to the side of the road. She pulls over, realizes he is having a heart attack and bundles him into the back of her own car. Not able to speak Hebrew, she reassures him in English that she is taking him to the nearest hospital.

But as it starts to dawn on him that she is Palestinian, Amiry realizes the terrible problem her charitable act has created: his fear may prompt him to have another heart attack. "What if he had a fatal heart attack in the back seat of my car? Would the Israeli police ever believe I was just trying to help?" she wonders.

The Jewish man seeks to calm himself by asking Amiry if she is from Bethlehem, a Palestinian city known for being Christian. Unable to lie, she tells him she is from Ramallah. "You're Christian?" he asks more directly. "Muslim," she admits, to his utter horror. Only when they finally make it to the hospital does he relax enough to mumble in thanks: "There are good Palestinians after all."

I was reminded of that story as I made the journey to Bethlehem on Christmas Day. The small city that Amiry's Jewish heart attack victim so hoped she would hail from is today as much of an isolated enclave in the West Bank as other Palestinian cities – or at least it is for its Palestinian inhabitants.

For tourists and pilgrims, getting in or out of Bethlehem has been made reasonably straightforward, presumably to conceal from international visitors the realities of Palestinian life. I was even offered a festive chocolate Santa Claus by the Israeli soldiers who control access to the city where Jesus was supposedly born.

Seemingly oblivious to the distressing historical parallels, however, Israel forces foreigners to pass through a "border crossing" – a gap in the menacing grey concrete wall – that recalls the stark black and white images of the entrance to Auschwitz.

The gates of Auschwitz offered a duplicitous motto, "Arbeit macht frei" (Work makes you free), and so does Israel's gateway to Bethlehem. "Peace be with you" is written in English, Hebrew and Arabic on a colorful large notice covering part of the grey concrete. The people of Bethlehem have scrawled their own, more realistic assessments of the wall across much of its length.

Foreign visitors can leave, while Bethlehem's Palestinians are now sealed into their ghetto. As long as these Palestinian cities are not turned into death camps, the West appears ready to turn a blind eye. Mere concentration camps, it seems, are acceptable.

The West briefly indulged in a bout of soul-searching about the wall following the publication in July 2004 of the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion condemning its construction. Today the only mild rebukes come from Christian leaders around Christmas time. Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was foremost among them this year.

Even those concerns, however, relate mainly to fears that the Holy Land's native Christians, once a significant proportion of the Palestinian population, are rapidly dwindling. There are no precise figures, but the Israeli media suggests that Christians, who once constituted as much as 15 per cent of the occupied territories' Palestinians, are now just 2 or 3 per cent. Most are to be found in the West Bank close to Jerusalem, in Bethlehem, Ramallah and neighboring villages.

A similar pattern can be discerned inside Israel too, where Christians have come to comprise an ever-smaller proportion of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. In 1948 they were nearly a quarter of that minority (itself 20 per cent of the total Israeli population), and today they are a mere 10 percent. Most are located in Nazareth and nearby villages in the Galilee.

Certainly, the continuing fall in the number of Christians in the Holy Land concerns Israel's leadership almost as keenly as the patriarchs and bishops who visit Bethlehem at Christmas – but for quite the opposite reason. Israel is happy to see Christians leave, at least of the indigenous Palestinian variety.

(More welcome are the crazed fundamentalist Christian Zionists from the United States who have been arriving to help engineer the departure of Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike, in the belief that, once the Jews have dominion over the whole of the Holy Land, Armageddon and the "End Times" will draw closer.)

Of course, that is not Israel's official story. Its leaders have been quick to blame the exodus of Christians on the wider Palestinian society from which they are drawn, arguing that a growing Islamic extremism, and the election of Hamas to lead the Palestinian Authority, have put Christians under physical threat. This explanation neatly avoids mentioning that the proportion of Christians has been falling for decades.

According to Israel's argument, the decision by many Christians to leave the land where generations of their ancestors have been rooted is simply a reflection of the "clash of civilizations," in which a fanatical Islam is facing down the Judeo-Christian West. Palestinian Christians, like Jews, have found themselves caught on the wrong side of the Middle East's confrontation lines.

Here is how the Jerusalem Post, for example, characterized the fate of the Holy Land's non-Muslims in a Christmas editorial: "Muslim intolerance toward Christians and Jews is cut from exactly the same cloth. It is the same jihad." The Post concluded by arguing that only by confronting the jihadis would "the plight of persecuted Christians – and of the persecuted Jewish state – be ameliorated."

Similar sentiments were recently aired in an article by Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily republished on Ynet, Israel's most popular website, that preposterously characterized a procession of families through Nazareth on Eid al-Adha, the most important Muslim festival, as a show of strength by militant Islam designed to intimidate local Christians.

Islam's green flags were "brandished," according to Klein, whose reporting transformed a local troupe of Scouts and their marching band into "Young Muslim men in battle gear" "beating drums." Nazareth's youngsters, meanwhile, were apparently the next generation of Qassam rocket engineers: "Muslim children launched firecrackers into the sky, occasionally misfiring, with the small explosives landing dangerously close to the crowds."

Such sensationalist misrepresentations of Palestinian life are now a staple of the local and American media. Support for Hamas, for example, is presented as proof of jihadism run amok in Palestinian society rather than as evidence of despair at Fatah's corruption and collaboration with Israel and ordinary Palestinians' determination to find leaders prepared to counter Israel's terminal cynicism with proper resistance.

The clash of civilizations thesis is usually ascribed to a clutch of American intellectuals, most notably Samuel Huntingdon, the title of whose book gave the idea popular currency, and the Orientalist academic Bernard Lewis. But alongside them have been the guiding lights of the neocon movement, a group of thinkers deeply embedded in the centers of American power who were recently described by Ynet as mainly comprising "Jews who share a love for Israel."

In fact, the idea of a clash of civilizations grew out of a worldview that was shaped by Israel's own interpretation of its experiences in the Middle East. An alliance between the neocons and Israeli leaders was cemented in the mid-1990s with the publication of a document called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." It offered a US foreign policy tailor-made to suit Israel's interests, including plans for an invasion of Iraq, authored by leading neocons and approved by the Israeli prime minister of the day, Binyamin Netanyahu.

When the neocons rose to power with George Bush's election to the White House, the birth of the bastard offspring of the clash of civilizations – the war on terror – was all but inevitable.

Paradoxically, this vision of our future, set out by American and Israeli Jews, is steeped in fundamentalist Christian religious symbolism, from the promotion of a civilized West's crusade against the Muslim hordes to the implication that the final confrontation between these civilizations (a nuclear attack on Iran?) may be the End Times itself – and thereby lead to the return of the Messiah.

If this clash is to be realized, it must be convincing at its most necessary confrontation line: the Middle East and more specifically the Holy Land. The clash of civilizations must be embodied in Israel's experience as a civilized, democratic state fighting for its very survival against its barbarian Muslim neighbors.

There is only one problem in selling this image to the West: the minority of Christian Palestinians who have happily lived under Muslim rule in the Holy Land for centuries. Today, in a way quite infuriating to Israel, these Christians confuse the picture by continuing to take a leading role in defining Palestinian nationalism and resistance to Israel's occupation. They prefer to side with the Muslim "fanatics" than with Israel, the Middle East's only outpost of Judeo-Christian "civilization."

The presence of Palestinian Christians reminds us that the supposed "clash of civilizations" in the Holy Land is not really a war of religions but a clash of nationalisms, between the natives and European colonial settlers.

Inside Israel, for example, Christians have been the backbone of the Communist party, the only non-Zionist party Israel allowed for several decades. Many of the Palestinian artists and intellectuals who are most critical of Israel are Christians, including the late novelist Emile Habibi; the writer Anton Shammas and film-makers Elia Suleiman and Hany Abu Assad (all now living in exile); and the journalist Antoine Shalhat (who, for reasons unknown, has been placed under a loose house arrest, unable to leave Israel).

The most notorious Palestinian nationalist politician inside Israel is Azmi Bishara, yet another Christian, who has been put on trial and is regularly abused by his colleagues in the Knesset.

Similarly, Christians have been at the core of the wider secular Palestinian national movement, helping to define its struggle. They range from exiled professors such as the late Edward Said to human rights activists in the occupied territories such as Raja Shehadeh. The founders of the most militant wings of the national movement, the Democratic and Popular Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine, were Nayif Hawatmeh and George Habash, both Christians.

This intimate involvement of Palestinian Christians in the Palestinian national struggle is one of the reasons why Israel has been so keen to find ways to encourage their departure – and then blame it on intimidation by, and violence from, Muslims.

In truth, however, the fall in the number of Christians can be explained by two factors, neither of which is related to a clash of civilizations. The first is a lower rate of growth among the Christian population. According to the latest figures from Israel's Bureau of Census Statistics, the average Christian household in Israel contains 3.5 people compared to 5.2 in a Muslim household. Looked at another way, in 2005 33 percent of Christians were under the age of 19, compared to 55 percent of Muslims. In other words, the proportion of Christians in the Holy Land has been eroded over time by higher Muslim birth rates.

But a second factor is equally, if not more, important. Israel has established an oppressive rule for Palestinians both inside Israel and in the occupied territories that has been designed to encourage the most privileged Palestinians, which has meant disproportionately Christians, to leave.

This policy has been implemented with stealth for decades, but has been greatly accelerated in recent years with the erection of the wall and numerous checkpoints. The purpose has been to encourage the Palestinian elite and middle class to seek a better life in the West, turning their back on the Holy Land.

Palestinian Christians have had the means to escape for two reasons. First, they have traditionally enjoyed a higher standard of living, as city-based shopkeepers and business owners, rather than poor subsistence farmers in the countryside. And second, their connection to the global Churches has made it simpler for them to find sanctuary abroad, often beginning as trips for their children to study overseas.

Israel has turned Christian parents' financial ability and their children's increased opportunities to its own advantage, by making access to higher education difficult for Palestinians both inside Israel and in the occupied territories.

Inside Israel, for example, Palestinian citizens still find it much harder to attend university than Jewish citizens, and even more so to win places on the most coveted courses, such as medicine and engineering.

Instead, for many decades Israel's Christians and Muslims became members of the Communist party in the hope of receiving scholarships to attend universities in Eastern Europe. Christians were also able to exploit their ties to the Churches to help them head off to the West. Many of these overseas graduates, of course, never returned, especially knowing that they would be faced with an Israeli economy much of which is closed to non-Jews.

Something similar occurred in the occupied territories, where Palestinian universities have struggled under the occupation to offer a proper standard of education, particularly faced with severe restrictions on the movement of staff and students. Still today, it is not possible to study for a PhD in either the West Bank or Gaza, and Israel has blocked Palestinian students from attending its own universities. The only recourse for most who can afford it has been to head abroad. Again, many have chosen never to return.

But in the case of the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, Israel found it even easier to close the door behind them. It established rules, in violation of international law, that stripped these Palestinians of their right to residency in the occupied territories during their absence. When they tried to return to their towns and villages, many found that they were allowed to stay only on temporary visas, including tourist visas, that they had to renew with the Israeli authorities every few months.

Nearly a year ago, Israel quietly took a decision to begin kicking these Palestinians out by refusing to issue new visas. Many of them are academics and business people who have been trying to rebuild Palestinian society after decades of damage inflicted by the occupying regime. A recent report by the most respected Palestinian university, Bir Zeit, near Ramallah, revealed that one department had lost 70 per cent of its staff because of Israel's refusal to renew visas.

Although there are no figures available, it can probably be safely assumed that a disproportionate number of Palestinians losing their residency rights are Christian. Certainly the effect of further damaging the education system in the occupied territories will be to increase the exodus of Palestine's next generation of leaders, including its Christians.

In addition, the economic strangulation of the Palestinians by the wall, the restrictions on movement and the international economic blockade of the Palestinian Authority are damaging the lives of all Palestinians with increasing severity. Privileged Palestinians, and that doubtless includes many Christians, are being encouraged to seek a rapid exit from the territories.

From Israel's point of view, the loss of Palestinian Christians is all to the good. It will be happier still if all of them leave, and Bethlehem and Nazareth pass into the effective custodianship of the international Churches.

Without Palestinian Christians confusing the picture, it will be much easier for Israel to persuade the West that the Jewish state is facing a monolithic enemy, fanatical Islam, and that the Palestinian national struggle is really both a cover for jihad and a distraction from the clash of civilizations against which Israel is the ultimate bulwark. Israel's hands will be freed.

Israelis like Amiry's heart attack victim may believe that Palestinian Christians are not really a threat to their or their state's existence, but be sure that Israel has every reason to continue persecuting and excluding Palestinian Christians as much, if not more, than it does Palestinian Muslims.

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