Gaza, Palestine, Palm Sunday procession at Gaza’s Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius April 28, 2013 (Photo: Joe Catron)
Greek Orthodox Christians at Gaza’s Church of Saint Porphyrius, which recently commemorated its 1,606th anniversary, celebrated Palm Sunday yesterday according to the Eastern church calendar.
(Photo: Joe Catron)
(Photo: Joe Catron)
The liturgy and procession in the church’s ancient courtyard followed an annual gathering on Friday afternoon, when parishioners wove palm reeds into crosses and baskets for yesterday’s event.
(Photo: Joe Catron)
(Photo: Joe Catron)
(Photo: Joe Catron)
Unlike Christians in much of the world, those in the besieged Gaza Strip cannot attend religious celebrations elsewhere in Palestine without special authorization by Israeli occupation authorities.
(Photo: Joe Catron)
(Photo: Joe Catron)
The Israeli army’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit only issues a small number of these permits, to Christians younger than 16 or older than 35.
(Photo: Joe Catron)
(Photo: Joe Catron)
Christians between these ages, too old, young, or ill to travel without assistance by relatives in the prohibited age range, or arbitrarily denied permits, as well as all the Gaza Strip’s large Muslim majority, are prevented from accessing religious sites in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and elsewhere.
(Photo: Joe Catron)
(Photo: Joe Catron)
This year COGAT authorized roughly 540 Greek Orthodox Christians to travel to the occupied West Bank for Easter celebrations, out of a current population around 1,500.
Not many Orthodox Christians in Gaza. I was glad to see the young blond girl who — if Palestinian as I suppose — is a reminder that Palestine was a (military) invqasion/meeting place over many, many centuries, including north European Crusaders way back when.
With all the Christian churches of every stripe dotting America, how many know anything at all about what’s happened to Christian natives under Israeli control for so many decades?
Those kids are precious.
The Christians in Israel proper are doing well, for their circumstances
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9sY6jg5t68
http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_21321-1522-2-30.pdf?101208143510
In some areas, they outperform both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs up to high school.
I am sure the Christians see some discrimination post high school, but they tend to do very well.
So in Israel proper Christians do well inspite of social discrimination.
In the contested areas of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) I am sure it is different.
In both cases, Christians are hammered between competing religions.
Israel is a Jewish state, not a secular state.
Palestinian nationalism is becoming increasingly Islamicized.
Christians have no place in either of these. Hence they have extraordinarily high rates of immigration from both Israel proper and the contested areas.
They are Arab but many cannot identity with an Islamicized Palestianism. Israel, with its emphasis on Judaism, may not be as immediatly dangerous to them as a Muslim extremist, but will slowly wear them down with resistriction after restriction.
In the contested areas they are minority Christian.
In Israel, they are minority Arabs.
It is easy to see why they flee to the West, America or Chile (where the is a large amount of Palestinian Christians).
Until recently, the majority of prominent Arab politicians in Israel were Christian. Not that they had much power in the Knesset, but they had some power in their communities.
Druze and Muslims are starting to assert their demographic.
Like it or not, because of religion, the Christians of the Mideast – with the exception of the Copts – have tended to be Westward Looking.
There was a major migration to the West in the 19th and 20th centuries. Damascus was about 20% or more Christian in 1918.
Lebanon was over 50% Christian at one point. Now it is down to 38% and many are leaving.
And, whether you like to admit it or not, the Christians were often fleeing the dhimmi status they had under Islamic rule.
Right now the Christians in Syria mostly support Assad because, as bad as Assad is, he is secular. If the religious rebels win, the last of the Christians will flee Syria.
Actually, when it comes to the Mideast, it is not the Jews nor the Muslims who have suffered the most, but the Christians who were stuck in the middle. There numbers have plummeted drastically over the last 150 years.
That may be politically incorrect to say … but between a Jewish state, and Muslim extremism … Christians were often forced to flee.
You might want to look up the massacre of Christians in the 1860s in Damascus and Lebanon. The French had to intervene to stop a genocide.
@Joe, are you aware of the property boom in Gaza?
The presenter of a Channel Four documentary about Gaza has said that the local population would not recognize the portrayal of the area in much of the UK media as war-torn.
Seyi Rhodes travelled to the Gaza Strip in February to film an episode of Unreported World, which aired last week on Channel 4 in Britain.
You can watch the episode at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXwHyJbb6Sg
Rather than reporting on a region torn apart by conflict, the program focused on the property market and booming construction taking place in Gaza.
Mr Rhodes said the experience confounded his expectations. “Before I started researching, I thought the region was destitute – people living literally hand-to-mouth on aid, with constant security threats. I took it for granted that people would be living in temporary accommodation provided by the UN.”
In fact, he found “a growing wealth gap”, with ordinary families struggling even to rent but new flats being sold for up to $3 million to wealthy Palestinians with money from abroad or from jobs with the Hamas government.
“As a left-wing student, I was given one view of Gaza/Palestine,” said Mr Rhodes. “But I realise now that many of those representations were entirely politically motivated.
“Even Gazans wouldn’t recognise the image that is portrayed of them sometimes. The woman crying over her dead son, the man throwing stones at tanks.”
He added that such stereotypes were “frankly offensive as most of these people live their lives with the same concerns as you and me… getting on the housing ladder, educating your children. People didn’t even talk about Israel unless I brought it up.”<p?
Read the story at http://www.thejc.com/node/106410