PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: Who’s afraid of Palestinian Christianity?
This transcript was generated using an AI transcription service and lightly edited for readability. Please consult the corresponding audio before quoting.
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Ghousoon Bisharat
Welcome to the +972 Podcast, your direct line to the journalists, thinkers, and activists struggling for justice in Israel-Palestine. I’m Ghousoon Bisharat, Editor in Chief of +972 Magazine, and your host for today’s episode.
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As Christmas approaches, images from Palestine once again circulate around the world— in particular the lighting of the Christmas tree in Bethlehem after two years without celebrations, and the famous midnight mass at the Church of the Nativity. The familiar language of peace and hope will be dominant. But for Palestinian Christians, as for all Palestinians, this season unfolds under immense pressure: Genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and rapidly accelerating discrimination and persecution inside Israel.
The existence and presence of Palestinian Christians is often invoked symbolically, yet their voices, struggles and history are frequently sidelined or instrumentalized—both locally and globally. To explore how these communities themselves navigate these pressures, and how they are imagining a future beyond them through the lens of a Palestinian christian liberation theology, I’m joined today by John Munayer, theologian, lecturer, and co-editor of the recent anthology The Cross and the Olive Tree: Cultivating Palestinian Theology Amid Gaza. John, thank you very much for joining the +972 Podcast.
John Munayer
Thank you so much for having me on the podcast and also for all the work that you do at +972.
Ghousoon Bisharat
Obviously the Christian community has deep roots in Palestine and we could spend many hours speaking about the history. But for the purposes of this conversation, let’s start with a brief overview of Palestinian Christians, their history, and presence in the land.
John Munayer
Christianity has existed here since its birth, which started here and there’s always been a Christian presence. And therefore the Christian community here are deeply, deeply rooted in the land. And in the past, in the 1900s, around 16% of Palestine was Christian, about 16%, but before the Nakba it was around 10-12% of the population was Christian. Jerusalem itself was 20% Christian, but today we are less than 2% of the population. Figures go around 140-150,000 Palestinian Christians in the state of Israel and then the estimates are around 30-50,000 in the West Bank and there used to be around 1,200 Christians in Gaza and today, the last figure I heard, was 642.
Ghousoon Bisharat
So there are less than 2% Christian Palestinians in Israel-Palestine?
John Munayer
Correct, less than 2%. And one of the reasons for this decline is some of it is attributed to the decline of the Ottoman Empire and some of it is economic troubles and political instability. The biggest decline that we see is when 70% of the Christian population gets dispossessed and displaced during the Nakba. And since then, with the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza we have seen the numbers dwindle more than that and that is because of the very direct policy of the Zionist movement in the state of Israel which is to get rid of Palestinians whether they’re Christian or Muslim.
Another factor is also that a lot of Christians usually have small families. So our birth rate within Israel is 1.6. That’s not a high birth rate for a very small minority. So that has been another reason. And of course, because of the occupation and also racial segregation and discrimination, a lot of Christians here also have a lot of connections in the Christian majority world. Therefore it’s usually easier for us to leave.
Ghousoon Bisharat
So the experience of Palestinian Christians during the Nakba is not different from the Muslim Palestinians?
John Munayer
Correct. Perhaps though, the only difference is that with the Christians, military officials were slightly more hesitant with Christians and churches in some cases because of the potential diplomatic backlash that they would have experienced from the West.
Ghousoon Bisharat
Can you speak a bit more about the experience of your family in Lydd, which is now inside the 48 borders inside Israel?
John Munayer
Yeah, so this is actually connected to the story of how might the Zionist movement think twice when it comes to the churches, is that in Lydd, when they displaced the big population, it was around 30,000 people from Ramle and Lydd, to march to the West Bank or to other areas like Gaza, the community who managed to stay hid in the church and also in the mosque. The Israeli soldiers — the Zionist soldiers — they bombed the mosque but they didn’t bomb the church precisely because of the reason I mentioned.
But after that, basically they allowed for the community to live within the area of the church and the mosque and really the old city of the Lid. And for a while they were forced to work. So my
grandparents, Ya’ub and Sameera, had to sort of rebuild themselves. And actually their wedding was the first Palestinian Christian wedding after the Nakba in the city. So they had to sort of negotiate this new reality of living under an Israeli state — who they are, and how they live their lives now. And since then, I think there’s been a big identity crisis for the community.
Ghousoon Bisharat
Christian Palestinians were deeply involved in the liberation movement in its early decades. Where are they now and how has the rise of Islamic Palestinian factions changed their role?
John Munayer
So Christian Palestinians played a huge role in the formation of Palestinian and Arab nationalism and consciousness. And this is partially because of the Christian schools that the Russian Orthodox established in the Middle East, because they insisted on actually teaching in Arabic as opposed to sort of the language of the empire, of the Ottoman Empire.
Also a lot of these thinkers would go study in Europe and hear about nationalism and they would bring these ideas back home. And indeed, they played an instrumental role in both political leadership and also in the media. So some of the famous Palestinian newspapers at the time were owned by Christians.
Nowadays, there is a perception that some of these Christian influences no longer exist. But this is something that I would contest, that actually Palestinian Christians, whether they be very religious or less religious, are still very important and key within the Palestinian national struggle. And we also have very key figures in the West Bank, such as Reverend Dr. Mitri Raheb, who manages an art school, but is also very much in conversation about writing the new constitution for Palestine.
Another huge figure is Reverend Dr. Munther Isaac, who has been one of the main spokesmen for stopping the genocide, and they are deeply Christian figures. Within the West Bank context, have more influence in sort of the relations with the Palestinian Authority, whether we do or do not like the Palestinian Authority, they have a say there. So the Palestinian Christians, I think presently are still deeply involved, perhaps not as much as they used to be. But as you mentioned, this is also partially because of the Islamic character that a lot of Palestinian movements and the Palestinian national struggle has taken sort of with the Second Intifada. So these are changes, but still I feel and think and observe that these Christians are extremely key figures.
Ghousoon Bisharat
And how would you sum up or analyze, let’s say, the situation of Palestinian Christians today between the River and the Sea?
John Munayer
A lot of the questions are very similar to those of Muslims: it is how do we survive in this current reality? Either the genocide in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, or the continued sort of apartheid system within inside the state of Israel. Perhaps the only difference is the question of identity. Because we’re such a small community, there’s a lot of sort of question marks about where do we fit in within all of the Muslim and Jewish majority. And there’s some question marks about if we live under the state of Israel, there’s a certain sort of reality that that will entail. But also if we eventually see a Palestinian state or one state and we live in a Muslim majority state, also if it’s a two state, what does that look like for Christians? So that’s another conversation.
Another consideration is that we have a lot of contact with the West and with Christian majority countries. That too sometimes gives a feeling that Christians are slightly more Western, either to ourselves or even to the Muslim and Jewish communities around us. Another very important factor is that Israel has tried to what we call “Druzify” the Christian population to make them like the Druze community in the sense to separate them from the Arab and Palestinian national movements, to get them to serve in the army, and to kind of build a new identity. There’s even a movement and an official identity today called the “Aramaic” identity trying to encourage Palestinian Christians not to identify as Palestinian or Arab but as Aramaic similar to how certain Lebanese Christians identify as Phoenician and not Lebanese or Arab or certain Egyptian Christians will identify as Coptic and not as Arab. So all of these factors I think also speak to a huge crisis amongst the Christian community which is an identity one.
Ghousoon Bisharat
Now, I would like to share a personal experience or reflection. I also come from a Palestinian Christian family. I am also very, very secular. And I find it hard sometimes dealing with my Christian background. As a Palestinian citizen of Israel, just like you, I get asked a lot by Israeli Jews, whether I’m Muslim or Christian. Now, being not religious, I often refuse to answer. But when I do sometimes, the response is most of the time, “you are different,” “on our side.” But when they hear my political views, they often say, “but you sound like them,” meaning like Muslim Palestinians. Now, there are many, many other faces for this divide and rule policy. Do you think that highlighting the Christian Palestinian identity plays into this?
John Munayer
So this is a great question and many of us, Palestinian Christians have experiences with an encounter with an Israeli Jew that finds out we’re Palestinian and then they ask, “are you Christian or Muslim?” And then when I say “Christian,” many of the time they say, “oh, so you’re the nice ones, you’re the good ones.” On the other hand, if you meet religious Jews, they will be slightly more suspicious because of perhaps the complicated history between Christians and Jews in Europe.
I think for us Palestinian Christians, we’ve always in many cases retained our Palestinian Christian identity in a way that’s slightly separate from a Palestinian Muslim. I don’t necessarily think it plays into this sort of, you know, divide and rule for the West or for Israel because I think we can still be Palestinian Christian but still hold a very strong Palestinian-ness. And also we need to face the reality that a lot of the factions and movements around us are deeply motivated by Islam and that immediately makes us as an “other” whether we like it or not, and therefore our identity is highlighted.
But I think for many Palestinian Christians, it’s been complicated to connect to our Christian identity because of the role of some of the church leaders and also how Christianity has continued to justify our colonization.
So first I’ll break a bit the point about our Christian leadership. There are a variety of Christian churches here, but most of the Christians who live in Palestine are Eastern Christians. They’re either Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic, and the leaders of those churches are not Palestinian. So for instance, for the Catholic Church, the head of the Catholic Church at the moment, the Cardinal, he’s Italian. Or for the Greek Orthodox, they’re Greek. And therefore, they don’t always care about the same things that we care about. And actually the Church, for many Palestinian Christians,is a symbol of yet another form of oppression and colonialism.
So for those who know Khalil Sakakini, he said there’s three forms of occupation or colonialization: The British, the Zionists, and then he would say the Church. So for us Palestinian Christians, we found some of our churches and our leaders as an obstacle for our liberation and human rights, but part of that problem.
Adding to this, is the history of how colonial theology and western Christianity has supported our oppression and suffering. Whether that be Balfour, who was a devout Christian, and it’s because of his devout attitude towards Christianity and his theology — his Christian theology — that he ended up supporting the Zionist movement. Or today we see a lot of American Evangelical Christians who are deeply in support of Israel and that’s really the strongest Zionist lobbying group in America. So for us Christians we both face a local attempt against us and also from abroad we find that a lot of our Christian communities are actually against us. It’s those two factors that sometimes make it very difficult for us to connect to that identity.
Ghousoon Bisharat
We will go to the abroad issue a bit later, but I would like to stick to the internal Palestinian discussion. There are also internal tensions between the Christian minority and the Muslim majority that appear on the surface sometimes, and it’s under the carpet many other times. How do you deal with it? How do we fight it as a people?
John Munayer
For many Palestinians we’ve ignored it. We see that the Zionist threat is too big so we just say to each other, “shab wahid,” “we’re one people. Let’s put our differences aside.” I think on one hand that is in some cases a very important thing to do because we are one people and we need to have the same goal. But on the other hand, we do need to face these big tensions and questions about what does it look like for Palestinians to organize society, economics, politics in a way that is nurturing and allowing for the flourishment of everyone’s welfare?
I think here we need to have difficult conversations with our Muslim brothers and sisters. I think eventually, I think Palestine eventually will be liberated in one way or another and we can talk about what I mean by liberation, but I think at one point we will have to ask these very difficult questions. So I’m trying to engage, and part of my work as a theologian is to engage with Muslim thinkers on how we are going to organize society that does not oppress minority groups. So that’s one thing that I personally am involved in.
Ghousoon Bisharat
Now moving outside, in much of the West, dominant narratives about Palestine and Israel are often filtered through certain Christian theological ideas like the Holy Land, the Jewish diaspora, and even end times thinking, whether people realize it or not. How do you see the ideas and assumptions of Christian Zionism shaping broader Western narratives about civilization, democracy, moral order, beyond religious context?
John Munayer
Yeah, so I will just say that really, this idea of a nation state, is a very Christian concept. The people who came up with it used deeply Christian theological language and they looked at the Bible as a model for a nation state. In the Old Testament, they looked at the story of Israel and said, “look, it’s a nation with a specific territory. We can do sort of something very similar and also that we’re chosen and so on and so forth.” So all of these nations that are developed in Europe have this sort of element of chosenness.
So it’s this intertwinement within Western Christianity and eventually colonialism that has deeply shaped the world we live in today. That is from the get-go something that everyone I think really needs to think about seriously. And that’s why in order to untangle it, we really need to engage with theology and spirituality.
Ghousoon Bisharat
But what was the impact of this group, Christian Zionism, on how the West and many, let’s say many in the West, see Israel-Palestine?
John Munayer
What we see specifically when it comes to Palestine-Israel is a very, very strong movement around the world that sees the State of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. This is the core sort of theological position within the Christian Zionist movement.
So from its earliest beginnings, one can trace it back to Theodor Herzl. Theodor Herzl had a right-hand man called William Heckler. William Heckler was a Christian Zionist. He believed that Jews are at some point going to come back to the land and it will start the process for the second coming of Jesus and sort of Armageddon and End Times. And he’s the one who brings Herzl to Jerusalem in the 1890s to meet Kaiser, the Austrian Empire leader, to try and convince him to support Zionism. And it’s actually there that he realizes that he has no chance and he moves towards the British.
So that’s already sort of the beginning of this alignment of some Western Christians with Zionism. It’s also really important to mention that these people not only are they Christian Zionists, but they’re also at the same time deeply anti-Semitic. Because according to a lot of their interpretations, they believe that when all the Jews will be here, there will be a big war where two-thirds of them will be killed and one-third will be converted to Christianity. So it’s both very Zionist and anti-Semitic at the same time.
We see this type of movement until today. So Mike Huckabee, who’s the current Ambassador of the US to Israel, is a Christian Zionist and uses this type of language and sees it as part of this End Times that is about to come here and all these wars are confirming it to them as they read the Bible. So it’s a very dangerous theology.
Ghousoon Bisharat
And what impact does Christian Zionism have on Palestinian Christians, practically and theologically?
John Munayer
So their direct practical involvement means the elimination of Palestinian Christians. There’s an organization called Christians United for Israel and they have more than 10 million members, which is the backbone of the lobby movement in the US. And now they’re also deeply, deeply sort of married to the Republican Party. So a lot of the decisions around Jerusalem moving the embassy was specifically in order to please these communities.
Theologically, it’s challenged some Palestinian Christians to think, “wait, does God really not like me? Is God actually on the side of Jews or on the Jewish side? Does he think that only they are special and chosen? What’s happening here?” Or they read the Bible and they see that Jesus is a Jew. How do you relate to Jesus’s Jewishness if the only Jews you meet are soldiers and settlers? How do you connect?
Or the term Israel appears a lot in the Old Testament. How do you relate to it if the current modern state of Israel is the one that oppresses you but then you read about Israel in the Bible, what does that mean? So that’s challenged a lot of Christians to engage with either the Bible very seriously or completely distance themselves from the Bible because they don’t know what to do with it. There’s also specific attempts by Christian Zionists to bring Palestinian Christians on board with them and then to use them as spokespeople.
So we could even separate Christian Zionism into two categories. One would be sort of the Evangelical Christian who’s conservative and Republican, think in those terms. They would try and recruit Palestinian Christian Evangelicals. They would fund different pastors to lead congregations. They would fund their organizations and say, “here, look, we’ll give you money, we’ll give you support, but don’t speak out against Israel. Blame everything on Muslims and we will support you.” They basically buy out religious leaders. That’s one situation.
On the other hand, you also have Christian Zionists who would be sort of the progressive liberal mainline Protestant churches or even in the Catholic Church who come out of sort of the post-holocaust theology where they are Christians who don’t believe that Israel is a fulfillment of prophecy but believe that there’s some type of divine act here or at least, as Christians, they have to be Zionist in order to sort of repent for their sins of anti-Semitism in Europe. So you see this form of Christian Zionism both on the right but also on the left. And it’s oftentimes the left that is more problematic because you know what the right think. But on the left you have suddenly Christians who are progressive on everything, except Palestine, who have been a main obstacle within liberal progressive spaces. So these are sort of two influences on Palestinian Christians and Palestine in general.
Ghousoon Bisharat
And how do Palestinians and Christian Palestinians in particular compete with the narratives that leave so little room for their own history, narrative, and voice?
John Munayer
Palestinian Christians have been writing since the 1980s about this, about how our Christianity is very different from Christianity in the West. We have a thinker called Munir Fasheh, he wrote a book titled, “The Christianity of My Mother and the Christianity of the West,” and he writes about how there’s a contradiction between them.
Palestinian Christians don’t believe that one group is chosen and are given a specific land, and this is why Palestinian Christian advocacy is so important. Palestinian Christians have been advocating for a just liberation and reconciliation between the communities and provided a vision and language for it. So you see this pushback by Palestinian Christians, theologically and politically, within many Christian spaces.
So I mentioned Reverend Dr. Munther Isaac, who was actually mentioned in the ICJ court. Some of his language and political work was cited in it. So I think Palestinian Christians provide an alternative vision and a helpful vision for Western Christians to get rid of some of their colonial and Zionist tendencies that are both harmful for Palestinian Christians and Palestinians in general and also Jews.
Ghousoon Bisharat
How can we understand the struggle of Palestinian Christians through a decolonial lens?
John Munayer
I think from a decolonial perspective and especially the settler colonial framework for Palestine, what it can help us understand when it comes to theology and so on, is that colonial forces seek to divide people from people, people from land, and people, I would argue, from God or their spirituality. And therefore, if we want to decolonize these processes, these spaces, these movements, or even identities, we need to promote the opposite of that. The opposite of that is precisely the connection between people to people, people to land, and people to God. And that’s why I think as a theologian, theology and spirituality is so important for the decolonization of Palestine.
Ghousoon Bisharat
And when it comes to liberation from your perspective, how can the Christian liberation theology be implemented?
John Munayer
The settler colonialism framework allows us to identify the problem, but it doesn’t give us a solution. I also ascribe to a Palestinian liberation theology. That is to say that God has a preference for the oppressed people — for the poor, for the marginalized. Therefore, as a Christian, I should have that preference too, so to be a Christian means to fight for the rights of people who do not have rights.
And at the same time, I also believe in the commandment within the Christian tradition to love our neighbors and to love our enemies. So in other words, that gives me, or begins to give me, a language of liberation that is connected to reconciliation. And this is this idea that Palestinians need to be liberated, but not at the expense of Israeli Jews. We don’t want to simply liberate ourselves and change the position so that we’re the oppressor and they’re the oppressed, but to create a reality where the entire relationship is changed. So I’m no longer a victim and they are no longer a settler. I think within the Christian tradition, it actually gives us very interesting and helpful political language for envisioning how we are going to, (a) liberate Palestine, but (b) build an alternative that is good for all people.
Zahran Mamdani won the elections, the mayor elections in New York, but I knew his father before I knew him because he wrote a book called “Neither Settler Nor Native.” And he looks at settler colonial conflicts and what are the alternatives to them. And the one that he builds off is South Africa, where the South African model allows for the different ethnic groups to be within a wider South African identity. So I think it’s a challenge, first of all, for Palestinians to kind of build that inclusive political vision where Jews can get rid of their settler identity and join the indigenous communities as immigrants essentially, right? Because the difference between a settler and an immigrant is that an immigrant joins and a settler destroys and replaces — an exclusive vision.
And the harder task will be for Israeli Jews to get rid of that sort of settler identity and for them to not want this exclusive political vision. They can still be very much Jewish, but also engage with themselves as Palestinians if they decolonize themselves. Because religion, on one hand, it’s not the reason for this conflict. But the position that it has nothing to do with the conflict is also one that I disagree with. You can’t really separate religion and politics, whether in the reality in Palestine or elsewhere that has led to our current context. And in order to push back against certain colonial thinking and imperial thinking, we also have to engage very seriously with different forms of spirituality.
If you think also of some of the successful liberation movements around the world, and I’ll just take two — the Civil Rights Movement in the US and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa — these movements were deeply, deeply spiritual in the sense that they were rooted within a spirituality that allowed for a creative and inclusive political vision. And I think that we have to do that kind of work in order to untangle some of the colonial logics here that on one hand, seek to erase spiritual spaces and religious spaces, but also to deeply get rid of religion as a whole, which also serves sort of a hegemonic sort of vision of colonialism.
Ghousoon Bisharat
So in political terms, not theological terms, you’re talking about one state for everybody? For Jews and Palestinians living between the River and the Sea to be living in one state with equal rights, right?
John Munayer
Yes, but in order to successfully get there we need an identity and a political vision — without the identity and political vision it won’t hold that reality. And the second thing I’m saying is that we need to also think beyond the nation state. So I’m wondering whether we should even be using certain terms that no longer fit, or were coming from theology, as I mentioned, but actually we need to think theologically and spiritually about broader and deeper connections with the whole Mashrak maybe. That will look very, very different to a typical nation state as we see today. It also allows for creativity beyond the one state because we’re seeing how the colonial drawing of the Middle East is failing in nearly every single country. I’m also thinking decolonial beyond Palestine.
Ghousoon Bisharat
You are the co-author of a recently released anthology, “The Cross and the Olive Tree: Cultivating Palestinian Theology Amid Gaza.” Today, Christians in Gaza are facing genocide along the Muslim population, while also experiencing a systematic targeting of churches and Christian institutions.
And as someone who’s deeply involved in documenting and theorizing Palestinian Christianity, but you also work extensively within the community, how has your own perspective changed over the course of editing this book and maybe during the genocide?
John Munayer
There is a complete attempt to destroy and get rid of — to erase — the native indigenous population here, and that means also our religious sites and our spiritual sites. And I think that is one of the main attempts — to get rid of that backbone of a society and of many communities is their religious and spiritual centers, as we see in Gaza and elsewhere.
But I think it’s really important for Palestinians and for Jews to engage with religion and spirituality in a very serious sense. This is why I co-edited that book. I think that during the genocide and also from engaging with Christians in both the West Bank and Gaza specifically, is how important actually our traditions are. Some of our Palestinian traditions are also deeply connected to our religious traditions.
In two days, many Palestinian Christians will be celebrating Saint Barbara, and many Palestinian Christians have no idea why we do it and where it comes from, but it’s a deeply indigenous concept for us. But it’s also what gives us life and what connects us to our families and connects us to our ancestors and connects us to the land. For those who are unfamiliar with Saint Barbara, Palestinian and generally Christians in the East, we make this sort of wheat type of dessert. I personally don’t like it, but it’s nevertheless something that we do, and it’s something that sustains our communities.
During the genocide, I’ve seen how many people have gone back and looked at how these traditions are very important for survival. At the same time, recent polls amongst Palestinian Christians suggest that the younger generation are going more to church than the older generation. There’s also a bit of a return to this rootedness within our Christianity. I’ve noticed how people return to these types of indigenous practices for their sustenance — that’s something that I’ve noticed.
Ghousoon Bisharat
I have to say something about Barbara: It’s my favorite, my favorite Christian holiday. I love Barbara, the dessert itself. But it is my favorite. You just said that in two days we will celebrate that, but that’s the Greek Orthodox, in two days.
John Munayer
Yeah, so I’ll just quickly mention for those who are less familiar with the Christian tradition here, the Greek Catholic community follow the Western calendar and the Greek Orthodox follow the Eastern calendar and therefore there’s two calendars and even though we’re all Palestinian Christians we will celebrate on different days, which can make things helpful or unhelpful if there’s mixed marriages between the different churches, which tends to be the case.
Ghousoon Bisharat
And can you tell me a bit about the title of your book?
John Munayer
I cannot understand my Palestinian identity without my Christian identity. And I can’t understand my Christian identity without my Palestinian identity. I remember being a child and picking olives from the trees that were taken from my family and my grandfather coming to join us and he told us the story of the Nakba and how he hid in the church, so connecting it to Palestinian Christianity.
So, the Nakba, our experience, our Christianity, our trauma, they all inform one another. That’s sort of the idea behind the title, of the cross representing Christian faith and identity and the olive tree which represents Palestinian identity, and how these two engage with one another. That’s why we decided on that title.
Ghousoon Bisharat
My final question is about Christmas, since it’s around the corner. With Christmas approaching, the world looks at Bethlehem lighting the Christmas tree for the first time in two years, and many Christians around the world will be watching the traditional midnight mass in the Nativity Church in Bethlehem. What do want people to see beyond the lights and the ceremonies? How do you understand the meaning of this moment?
John Munayer
That the Christmas story itself was within a context of occupation, it was in the context of oppression, and it was in the context of a massacre as well. I think the Christmas story reminds us that God is on the side of the oppressed, and that we too — for those who at least identify as Christian — should also be on the side of the oppressed, but also that hope can be found in a small town of Bethlehem. The hope that we are looking for can come from places that we least expect them and I think that is a key thing for us to reflect on in these very dark and horrific moments that we’re living in, is that hope still exists. We just might not be aware completely of where it’s coming from.
Ghousoon Bisharat
And where is hope coming from for you?
John Munayer
Hope, for me, as a Christian, is to be found in those places of deep suffering. A father with himself, his bare hands, is digging to find his child under the rubble. Or it’s a couple of grandparents that are now taking care of their 13 grandchildren because all of their kids were killed. It’s these acts of deep sumud, I think of Palestinians, to continue to reaffirm their humanity.
And it’s that sense I connected to the Christmas story because if I think Jesus was to be born today, he would be born in Gaza, in a place we least expect it. And I believe in that sort of deep spirituality of the people of Gaza that I’ve seen. Many people in Gaza have not questioned the existence of God, they’ve questioned the existence of humanity amongst a lot of people and countries because they’ve just allowed for this genocide to continue. It’s that type of deep, humanizing spirituality that I see as hope and something to learn from.
Ghousoon Bisharat
Thank you, John.
John Munayer
Thank you so much.
Ghousoon Bisharat
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