Will Future Generations Believe?
Professor Michel Abs
The Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)
A tribute to the Palestinian Christian Initiative – Kairos Palestine 2025
After one or two generations, or perhaps after a century, even a millennium, will future generations believe what has happened, and what continues to happen, for more than three quarters of a century on the soil of Palestine?
Will future generations believe that a people came, from who knows where, claiming that this land was theirs, invoking a mythical promise with no basis in truth, using it as a pretext for settlement, killing, and destruction?
Will future generations believe that so-called civilized nations occupied land that was not theirs, seized it from its native people who had lived on it for thousands of years, and granted it to those who had no right to it?
Will future generations believe that the colonizer who gave away land that was not his to people who had no claim to it, armed them, supported them, and offered them a false triumph and an even falser ownership over that land?
Will future generations believe that invaders attacked the peaceful, unarmed inhabitants of the land, in the stillness of time and under the darkness of night, massacring them, expelling them, and scattering them to the ends of the earth?
Will future generations believe that the invaders demolished villages, erased names, and altered geography in an attempt to obliterate the identity of the land and deny the existence and belonging of its indigenous people?
Will future generations believe that the rightful owner, the master of the land, became a refugee in camps of misery, displaced, impoverished, and yet resisting with persistent patience?
Will future generations believe that the war of extermination continues against this mighty people, depriving them of food, medicine, water, and even air?
Will future generations believe that those who proclaim democracy and human rights have denied these steadfast people their rights, and denied them even the right to resist their occupier?
Will future generations believe that destruction has engulfed the institutions, environment, and culture of this ill-fated people in a deliberate effort to erase all trace of them from the face of the earth?
Will future generations believe that some have betrayed the rights of this people, even though they are of their own flesh and blood?
Will future generations believe that all this takes place in an age that claims to uphold human fraternity, human rights, protection of the marginalized, inclusion of the alienated, compassion for animals, and every form of modern social solidarity?
Will future generations believe that the world stood as a spectator while thousands of children were slaughtered beneath the rubble of collapsing buildings?
Will future generations believe that governments suppressed their own peoples for standing with Palestine, trampling upon the will of their citizens while boasting of freedom?
Will future generations believe that what is called the “free world” supplies the occupying settler with weapons to refine his killing, while denying the oppressed people even the bare necessities of survival?
No, future generations will not believe, because all of this defies imagination, truth, and reason!
What is happening on the land of Palestine, this extermination, persecution, torture, and humiliation, has surpassed all comprehension.
Palestine has exposed every conspirator against it, every denier of its rights, everyone who turned a blind eye to its suffering, and everyone who legitimized its oppressors and its betrayers.
Is it an unforgivable crime if a man is murdered in a forest, but a matter of debate when an entire peaceful people is murdered in Palestine!?
Since the day of the Nakba, the Church has stood as one with Palestine. It was the first to give aid, to shelter, to help, and to support.
The Churches of the Middle East, and the global churches that stand with them, were the first loving hand extended to the displaced Palestinian people, walking with them on their Way of the Cross, and they still do so today.
The Church in the Middle East established five ecumenical relief institutions to serve the victims of Palestine: one in Jerusalem, another in Nazareth, a third in Gaza, a fourth in Amman, and a fifth in Beirut. These institutions have labored tirelessly to this very day.
When the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) was founded, these independent committees were united under one ecumenical department to serve the displaced Palestinians.
The Middle East Council of Churches, the Church of Christ united, has been the strong ecumenical Christian backbone supporting and defending the people of Palestine since the Nakba.
The MECC was the first to declare that what is happening in Gaza today constitutes genocide and ethnic cleansing.
When the Evangelical Hospital in Gaza was bombed, we prayed in the Council’s office in Ras Beirut; during the prayer, the Gospel was read live from that hospital in Gaza.
The compass of MECC is clear, its direction unquestioned, and it has been so since its foundation.
The Middle East Council of Churches’ publications are rich with writings about Palestine. Through the ecumenical bodies with which it maintains strong bonds, it carries the voice of Palestine to every corner of the world.
Part of the recent shift in public opinion, especially among students in the West, is due to the Church’s decades-long work of advocacy and communication.
Yes, the Church has fulfilled its duty toward the cause of Palestine. In doing so, it has lived faithfully by the commandments and example of the Lord, and it will continue to do so until justice prevails.
I assure you: the generations yet unborn will not believe that all this happened, and continues to happen, on the very land where the Lord was incarnate, preached His Gospel, was crucified, and rose again.
They will not believe, because all of this is an assault on human dignity itself. Yet those who feel no shame cannot know disgrace, and those who know no honor will never feel the sting of shame.