Christians in the Holy Land: Our future as Christians in the Holy Land

Many studies done by westerners are pessimistic about our future. They see us disappearing in few generations. Appearances support this pessimistic view. It seems as though the Christian presence is in the last stage of its struggle for survival within the Muslim Arab world: it seems to be in the stage of its final disappearance.
Emigration began during the last century. Today, Arab Palestinian Christians in Latin America, who emigrated there in the 19th century, are far more numerous than they are in their original homeland. The same is true of Arab Palestinian Christians in North America, the United States and Canada. The same reasons that led to their emigration at that time are still present today, though in a different way: economic and social difficulties compound the current political instability.
Some American observers and congressmen insist on a “presumed” Muslim persecution of Christians as the main cause of the emigration. It is true that difficulties exist in our Palestinian society, but the main reason is that the Occupation prevents the creation of a strong public authority. By way of comparison, in Jordan where there is a strong government, the same incidents do not occur.
Moreover, the lack of even-handedness in relations between peoples on the international level, inequality in the distribution of wealth, and international wars and interventions in other peoples’ affairs, in which the Muslim world feels that it is oppressed by the Western (= Christian) world, have all given birth to various Muslim resistance movements, extremists and moderates alike, that have a direct effect on relations between Muslims and Christians.

+ Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem

Linz, September 29, 2006