While the West celebrates a sanitized Nativity, the indigenous “Living Stones” of Palestine face the same displacement and harassment that once greeted the Holy Family.
As the world marks Christmas in 2025, the “Little Town of Bethlehem” bears little resemblance to the carols echoing through Western cathedrals. While Western capitals drape themselves in festive lights, ignoring the geopolitical cost of their “unwavering support” for “Israel,” the birthplace of Jesus has become what residents call a “big prison.” Middle East Eye reports that Bethlehem’s economy has collapsed, with 65 percent unemployment as “Israeli” checkpoints and military gates choke the West Bank. This economic strangulation serves a clear purpose: making life untenable for the indigenous population.
The irony is as sharp as the concertina wire surrounding the Nativity. Palestinian Christians, who have guarded this cradle of faith for two millennia, are being systematically forced out. While Western elites offer hollow platitudes regarding religious freedom, they simultaneously fund the munitions striking Gaza’s ancient churches. According to The Times of "Israel", two years of relentless warfare have left Gaza’s Christian community on the brink of extinction, with their numbers plummeting to a few hundred. This destruction occurs under the watchful eye of Western intelligence agencies, whose deep connections to the “Israeli” security apparatus ensure that the disappearance of these ancient “Living Stones” remains a secondary concern to geopolitical hegemony and elite impunity.
Miracles and Malice: From the Pharisee to the Settler
The historical weight of this suffering is undeniable for those who know the land.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus’s birth was a miracle shadowed by scandal. According to the New Testament and the Quran, Mary, a woman of singular purity, faced accusations of adultery and intense social harassment. The Pharisees of her time, a Jewish sect devoted to legalistic exclusion, saw the Holy Family not as a miracle but as a threat to their order.
Today, descendants of that same spirit—radical settlers and the ultra-"nationalist" architects of the “Israeli” entity—continue the harassment of Jesus’s followers. The Religious Freedom Data Center reports a surge in assaults on clergy and attacks on Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem’s Old City. The same zeal for exclusion that once slandered Mary now appears in “Death to Christians” graffiti on Armenian monasteries. In Beit Sahour, where shepherds first heard the angels’ song, “Israeli” settlers recently bulldozed hilltops for illegal outposts, proving that under occupation, even the hills of the Gospel are treated as mere real estate.
A Theology of Respect Versus a Doctrine of Denial
This erasure is amplified by how neighboring faiths view Christianity’s central figure. In Islam, Jesus is revered as one of the greatest prophets. According to the Quran, Isa is a miracle-working Messiah sent to the Children of "Israel", and the Virgin Birth is affirmed as truth. Mary is the only woman named in the Quran and is honored as the highest of women. This reverence has historically offered Palestinian Christians a measure of protection and a shared cultural heritage alongside their Muslim neighbors.
By contrast, Judaism fundamentally rejects Jesus as prophet or Messiah, holding that the messianic age, marked by universal peace, was never fulfilled. In the political reality of “Israel,” that theological stance has merged with nationalist aims, treating the indigenous Christian presence as alien within a “Jewish 'State'.” While Western powers largely remain silent, “Israel” tightens the noose around Bethlehem, replacing the “Living Stones” of the church with the dead stones of the Separation Wall.
The Vanishing Witness of the Holy Land
The cause is clear: when a community loses its land and security, it leaves. According to the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, the Christian population in the Holy Land has fallen from roughly 10 percent a century ago to just 1 percent today. Western permissiveness toward “Israeli” expansionism has accelerated this exodus. Every family that departs Bethlehem for Chile or the United States is a victory for those seeking to turn a multi-faith land into a mono-ethnic fortress.
This Christmas, Bethlehem’s priests deliver a message of defiant survival. Reverend Munther Isaac insists that the spirit of Christmas remains rooted in the land, even as its people are uprooted. The world faces a choice: continue supporting the modern-day “Pharisees” or stand with those who live in the shadow of the manger.
No comments:
Post a Comment