Palestine Again and Again… A “Bouquet” of Genocides
Professor Michel Abs
The Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)
The war of extermination waged by the forces of occupation and oppression, whose features have been clear for decades, takes different forms depending on the needs of each stage, and on the requirements of harming this tormented people and dismantling its cultural, political, and moral existence.
The guerrilla war against the Palestinian people began before the partition of Palestine, when armed gangs, supplied with weapons from the colonial state, raided Palestinian neighborhoods, villages, and hamlets, spreading killing, displacement, and destruction. This led to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians at the time, giving rise to the Palestinian cause. Alongside this, organizations were created to provide relief and work for Palestinians, such as UNRWA, which today faces attempts to paralyze and eliminate its role, and the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees (MECC-DSPR) of the Middle East Council of Churches, which still operates to this day.
After this first phase came wars of many forms: the assassination of leaders, demolition of homes and displacement of families under various pretexts, confiscation of village commons and religious endowments, and even attacks on cultivated fields, the source of people’s livelihood. The image of an elderly woman embracing an olive tree to prevent its uprooting by the occupier spread worldwide and became a symbol of peaceful Palestinian steadfastness.
In a later stage, the institutions of the Palestinian Authority were targeted, courts, civil registries, land records, and other public institutions, clearly aiming to paralyze the state’s ability to serve a people living under daily threats.
Today, the forces of usurpation, unsatisfied by all the blood already shed—have launched an attack on the largest church in Palestine, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. This assault, blatant in its nature, had previously surfaced only sporadically in the media before being buried in the archives of the occupier’s “courts,” presented through forged claims and documents used as pretexts to seize church endowments passed down for centuries. Few know that the very institutions of the “State” of occupation are built on these church lands. Yet the church continues to resist, alongside its sister churches in Jerusalem, to preserve the existence and identity that the occupier seeks to erase. Mere delusions of an occupier feeding its thirst with myths!
Seizing the church’s bank accounts, while simultaneously imposing exorbitant taxes on its properties, leaves no doubt that long-prepared schemes are now being openly revealed, with the occupier’s usual brazenness. We may be on the threshold of a dangerous phase concerning Palestinian existence in general, and Christian presence in particular, in Jerusalem.
The world must once again move in response to the atrocities inflicted on the Palestinian people: from genocide in Gaza, to oppression, strangulation, and assassinations in the West Bank, to the paralysis of the church’s ability to help those crushed under occupation and injustice.
The world cannot remain a bystander to a people exterminated in Gaza, offering them only some food and medicine.
The world cannot remain a bystander to a people subjected to torture and mass killing in the West Bank, responding only with condemnation.
The world cannot watch as the institutions bearing witness to Christian existence in Jerusalem face an existential assault, replying only with statements of disapproval.
The world must gather its thoughts on the various forms of genocide in Palestine: killing, starving, leaving people prey to cold, heat, disease, and thirst, destroying public institutions, and now even violating church institutions.
This new type of assault on the church, what should we call it? Must we invent a new name for a new kind of genocide?