Palestine & Christianity : The strong bond between the two

Huwaida Arraf

When one imagines land of Occupied Palestine, thoughts of the current
situation leads some to believe that the conflict is solely between
Muslims and Jews.

How many Christians are aware that Bethlehem is surrounded by the Apartheid
Wall? This wall is 8 times longer and twice as high in comparison to
the Berlin Wall which was built in Germany. If one had to travel from
Jerusalem to Bethlehem one would need to cross many check points
resulting in the total travel time to increase by upto four fold.

Christians (should) also value this blessed land as Jesus (PBUH) was
born in Bethlehem, at the present day Church of Nativity, and the
Virgin Mary was born in the Old City in Jerusalem (see attached
pictures).

The following are three common myths regarding the land of Occupied Palestine.

Rafeef Ziadah - Palestinian Activist

Rafeef Ziadah is a Palestinian activist, academic and spoken word artist. 
She is currently a Phd. candidate in Political Science at York University in Toronto. 
She is a founding member of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) promoting the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestement and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in Canada, and an organizer of the international Israeli Apartheid Week. 
She is a member of the steering committee of the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott Initiative (PACBI).

Her debut CD Hadeel is dedicated to Palestinian youth, who still fly kites in the face of F16 bombers, who still remember the names if their villages in Palestine and still hear the sound of Hadeel (cooing of doves) over Gaza.

This is a transcript of her poem "We teach life, sir"

BDS is key to a just peace

BDS key to a "just peace," says Palestinian Christian boycott activist

3 October 2012

“Kairos Palestine addresses all Christians in the world, asking them to stand against injustice embodied in Israel’s multi-formed oppression of Palestinians, Christians and Muslims,” he said.

Kassis also stresses unity between Christian and Muslim Palestinians, a topic he has researched extensively. “In 2008, two colleagues and I conducted a study,” he said. “We found that the main reason for Christian emigration was the lack of political stability (around 35 percent) and the very least significant reason was religious persecution and discrimination (less than 0.8 percent). Muslim-Christian relations were strong and solid for the last 1,500 years” (“Palestinian Christians: Facts, Figures and Trends,” Diyar, 2008 [PDF]).

A letter from Thaer Halahleh to his daughter

A letter from Thaer Halahleh, on day 75 of hunger strike against his
detention without charge, to his two-year-old daughter Lamar, who he
has never seen. Translated by Jalal Najjar.

"My Beloved Lamar, forgive me because the occupation took me away from
you, and took away from me the pleasure of witnessing my first born
child that I have always prayed to God to see, to kiss, to be happy
with. It is not your fault, this is our destiny as Palestinian people
to have our lives and the lives of our children taken away from us, to
be apart from each other and to have a miserable life, nothing is
complete in our lives because of this unjust occupation that is
lurking on every corner of our lives turning it into eeriness, a
continuous pursuit and torture. Despite that I was deprived from
holding you and hearing your voice, from watching you grow up and move
around in the house and in your be, and that I was deprived of my rule