As both Eastern and Western Christians prepare to celebrate Easter, the divide between Palestinian Christians and those in the West has never been larger. The core of this divide is the racist theology of Christian Zionism.
Palestinian Christians suffer from a crisis of representation, as some church leaders and community members disassociate from the Palestinian struggle and perpetuate the perception that they are a “minority.”
The twin Israeli offensives on Palestinians in Jerusalem during Ramadan and Easter made one thing clear: the war to assert the Zionist presence over the city has entered a new phase.
Recent attacks on Christian and Muslim worshipers in Jerusalem reflect Israeli efforts to consolidate control over the holy city. “The occupation, through such policies, claims that Jerusalem is theirs,” Archbishop Atallah Hanna tells Mondoweiss.
Church leaders denounced Israel’s “heavy-handed restrictions” limiting access to Jerusalem for Orthodox Easter. “All who wish to worship with us are invited to attend,” they said. “With that made clear, we leave the authorities to act as they will.”
“We deplore the Israeli government’s decision to introduce senseless violence to a prayer space. There was no need for the violence we witnessed. This situation
could have been defused peacefully. This Ramadan/Easter/Passover Israel betrayed its trust with the world’s Muslims, Christians and Jews.” From JVP rabbis’ statement on the fourth day of Passover.
Jerusalem’s Greek Orthodox Patriarchate condemns restrictions imposed by Jerusalem police on the numbers of Palestinian Christians that may enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre this Saturday, one of the holiest days on the Christian calendar. “The Patriarchate is fed up with police restrictions on freedom to worship,” the Patriarchate statement reads, “with its unacceptable methods of dealing with the God given rights of Christians to… have to access their holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem.”
Palestinian Christians and their supporters are urging Pope Francis and the World Council of Churches to intervene in more than a dozen evictions in Jerusalem “scheduled to take place on Sunday, May 2, which happens to coincide with the Greek Orthodox celebration of Easter.”
Archbishop Atallah Hanna’s Easter Sunday sermon: “We pray to God that the whole world will come together to fight the pandemic and then continue to be united in facing all the other pandemics in our universe—especially racism, hatred, injustice, occupation, oppression, and degradation of human dignity.”