A Catholic priest based in the West Bank is asking Christians not to flee.
Father Firas Khoury spoke with Catholic news site Aleteia, saying, “What if all the Christians flee from the Holy Land, if they could not face the terror? What would this land mean for Christians in the West?”
“What would their story mean?”
It would mean, “shrines and history will never tell you the story of the man from Nazareth.”
Khoury, who lives in Zababdeh, a town in the northern part of the West Bank, spoke out because of trouble with Israeli settlers in Taybeh.
Taybeh, located east of Ramallah, is the Palestinian territory’s “last fully Christian town.”
According to Khoury, what’s going on there is serious and deserves worldwide attention.
“For the last three years, settlers have attacked the villages near the settlements and burned the olive trees and the fields belonging to the Palestinians.
“These settlers,” he claimed, “want to terrorise the people to flee and leave their homes.
“If they control the city, they could delete the long Christian history of this place.”
This is why he wants Christians to stay. “Their presence keeps alive the story of Jesus in the land where he lived,” Aleteia reported.
Khoury is that concerned, he’s “begging” Christians around the world to “stand for justice and solidarity with the Christian community there.”
His goal is to see “Taybeh survive.”
This is part of a broader series of clashes across the territory between Israelis and Palestinians.
The West Bank priest told Aleteia, “We invite you to pray for us and hear our stories and come to visit; we have many stories to tell you.
“We need you to stand for peace, to listen to the Christian Church in the Holy Land and stand with us, your brothers and sisters.
“Today, we are trying to survive in the middle of the conflict.”
That conflict is due to Israeli settlers violently attacking Taybeh’s residents.
In response, Israel’s military closed Taybeh to non-residents, telling Reuters it was being done “to prevent the attacks.”
This is still in effect and “only applies to Israelis and not to Palestinians,” the IDF said.
In a statement quoted by Reuters, they added, “Upon receiving any report of violations of the order, IDF soldiers are dispatched to the area.”
They then “operate to disperse the gatherings and detain suspects in order to protect the citizens of the area and to maintain order.”
The Times of Israel’s Tom Livny described the town as a “closed military zone,” and it will be so for at least a year, he said.
Two “activists” also told him that the closure “will have a severe economic impact because Taybeh, rich in Christian heritage, relies heavily on its tourism industry.”
Questioning the official military narrative, Livny said, “If the reason for this move truly was the settler attacks, then why should tourists from Brazil be prohibited from entering?
“If,” he added, “residents can’t earn an income, then they’ll leave.”
Appearing to suggest that this could be the real reason for the IDF action, Livny asserted, “they don’t even want Christians to be living there.”
The left-leaning Jewish activist also called the whole experience weird.
Settler incursions “have the upper hand.”
“Shoving a camera in their faces and blocking their way from trying to get through a fence around someone’s home is about as aggressive as you are allowed to behave.”
Saying he wasn’t sure what the IDF’s presence had fixed, Livny said, “All of the settlers that I saw had their faces mostly covered with bandanas. That may be a precaution against having their faces appear on camera in a place they aren’t allowed to be.”
The people behind the attacks on Taybeh’s residents tend to be “kids and young men riding their donkeys around people’s property.”
They appeared to be doing this to “make them afraid and uncomfortable, and waging a very patient war of attrition until they finally give up and pack their bags.”
“There is absolutely no logic in closing the road,” Livny remarked.
“The settlers don’t use cars; they travel by donkey.
“So, in other words,” he concluded, “the entire town could have ended up being sealed off as a punishment for being harassed by settlers.”
Livny’s account gives weight to Khoury’s complaints.
Independent Catholic News published a letter from the priest on 25 August, in which he stated that the IDF presence and new settlement in Zababdeh, near Jenin, is making life difficult.
“What we are experiencing,” he said, “should not remain unknown.”
