By Catherine Pepinster
Taybeh, the last Christian village in the West Bank is “bleeding people” after increasing attacks by illegal Israeli settlers, says its Roman Catholic parish priest.
In the past three years, 16 Christian families, comprising 75 people, as well as dozens of individuals have left the village — at least 10 per cent of its 1,200 population.
According to Father Bashar Fawadleh, parish priest of the Roman Catholic Church of Christ the Redeemer in Taybeh, people are fleeing the continuing attacks on their homes and their land by illegal settlers who have targeted residents harvesting olives.
“People will go from this land. One day it will be empty of Christians and Christianity will lose its roots,” Fr Fawadleh said. “We are bleeding people”.
“We don’t ask for any privilege for Christians. We ask for basic human rights. Our problems are the threats, that we are stuck in our homes and can’t get to our land, and migration.”
He was speaking during a visit to London organised by the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a Catholic order of knighthood, and was due to meet clergy and to make a speech in parliament. He hoped to meet MPs and peers to talk about the plight of Christian Palestinians in Taybeh, near Ramallah and 10 miles north of Jerusalem.
His visit coincided with the general election in Israel but when he spoke to journalists during his visit, he was reluctant to speak about the election, other than to say he was waiting for the result.
His concern, he said, “were the fanatics, and the fanatic mentality”, which is driving attacks on Taybeh’s Christian population.
The attacks received media attention around the world when, on 17 October, masked assailants, said to be illegal Israeli settlers, attacked residents trying to collect olives from their land and a party of European diplomats and officials who were visiting on a solidarity mission.
The diplomats from Belgium, France, Poland and the Catholic church were visiting after almost daily attacks on the Palestinians trying to bring in the olive harvest. Video footage has shown the attacks where a Belgian consulate car was damaged and a French mayor was injured. The Israel Defense Forces condemned the incident and the police are investigating.
A statement from the patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem said that a recently published religious ruling allowing Jews to take the olives of Palestinians was “unfounded, very worrying and dangerous, and absolutely unacceptable”. They appreciated, they said, that “several rabbis and Jewish voices have publicly rejected it”.
“In the past weeks,” they said, “the Palestinian villages of the West Bank have been exposed to a wide-scale terror by settlers, which is reaching a peak during this time of the olive harvest, when families go to their lands to collect what they need to live and renew their generations-long bond with their lands.”
According to Fr Fawadleh, “fanatical settlers” have been trying to prevent Palestinians for years from getting to their land to harvest their produce; they have forced out Bedouins living in the area; moved cattle and sheep on to land they have taken over, set fire to Palestinians’ vehicles, and targeted Palestinians’ homes and daubed graffiti on buildings. Detailed records have been kept of the incidents, he said.
The problems the Palestinians face, Fr Fawadleh said, are over security and safety. Taybeh has been declared a closed military zone by the Israeli army which they say is designed to prevent attacks on residents by the illegal settlers but security means that the local population struggles to move around.
“I can’t spend seven hours a day just getting to and from my home”, said Fr Fawadleh, who has been parish priest of Taybeh for seven years. Other Christians in Taybeh are Greek Orthodox and members of the Melkite Eastern Catholic Church.
The existence of the zone is also preventing people from reaching their land, he said, and people lived in a state of fear. “We cannot sleep. We have watchers by night.”
Western nations have growing concern over Israel’s settlements in the West Bank which many say are illegal under international law. In September, the foreign secretary Ed Miliband said the Israelis were committing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and announced sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements.
Jonathan Powell, the prime minister’s national security adviser, had visited Taybeh to see what was happening, said Fr Fawadleh. Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, has also been there he said.
Mr Huckabee, who is also a Baptist minister, has been outspoken in his support of Israel and Binyamin Netanyahu’s hard-line policies but Fr Fawadleh said the ambassador had also voiced support for the Palestinian Christians. He understood the discrepancy, Fr Fawadleh believed, “but he did not say anything”.
During his visit, Fr Fawadleh encouraged people to support the Palestinians by backing investment in the region which will help people survive through new jobs and housing. “This is your responsibility”, he said.
