Christian Leaders Must Meet the Living Palestinian Stones
Christian Leaders Must Meet the Living Palestinian Stones
Americans have pointedly ignored the plight of Christians in Palestine.
I was born in Bethlehem in an evangelical home. My late father, George Kuttab, was pastor of the town’s Church of God. I attended college at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, and then returned home and married in the Baptist Church.
Ironically, my birthplace and our homeland were and continue to exist, as they did when Jesus was born, under a foreign occupation.
While Palestinians, like me, are looking for peaceful nonviolent ways to attain our right to self-determination and statehood, international forces appear intent, whether knowingly or not, in preventing this right for all people.
The exaggerated Israeli response to the brutal act by Hamas on October 7 has produced a changed international environment more supportive of Palestinian rights. As of this writing, 80 percent of UN member states and four out of five of UN permanent security members have recognized Palestine on the June 4, 1967 borders.
But one particular group, which is close to our evangelical faith, has chosen a different path and has become the biggest supporters of Israel’s violent crimes against our people, including Palestinian Christians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Pro-Israeli Christians, sometimes referred to as Christian Zionists, have been weaponizing Israeli aggression through warped justification of biblical texts, while ignoring the living Palestinian Christians. These expressions are not only made from pulpits but are illustrated in action. Visits, often paid for by the Israeli government, reflect a clear political bias towards one party of the conflict at the expense of its Palestinian victims who have been exiled without being allowed to return despite UN resolutions and the 5 million Palestinians living under a military occupation that has violated the Geneva Convention by bringing foreign citizens to live in occupied areas.
An example of this bias was illustrated when 1,000 U.S. pastors made a visit to the region in early December, paid for by the state of Israel, and totally ignored Palestinians, including Palestinian Christians.
Their act was not new; in President Donald Trump’s first term, the former Vice President Mike Pence and dozens of top U.S. political Christian leaders similarly ignored us. Pence was photographed approvingly signing U.S.-made bombs that Israel used in its war against Palestinians and Lebanese.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, located in Jerusalem’s Old City, is often overlooked. At the same time, many Christians are photographed paying homage at the Western Wall, donning the Jewish kippah and placing notes with prayers between its ancient stones. There is of course nothing wrong with visiting the Western Wall. But for a self-described Christian leader to avoid the church where Christ was buried and rose again, and to avoid meeting with the body of Christ, local committed Christians, is hard to fathom, and has raised many legitimate questions. (To be fair, Vice President J.D. Vance did break the routine by visiting the Church of the holy sepulcher back on October 23 during his visit aimed at bolstering Trump’s ceasefire, which Israel has repeatedly violated according to UN officials and even the White House.)
The one-sided visit of the American pastors who met with an Israeli leader wanted by the International Criminal Court produced a slew of articles, including in these pages. Soon after The American Conservative’s article, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee paid a visit to Bethlehem. Posting on his X account, “We sang ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ in church this morning & in the afternoon @janethuckabee & I went to actual Bethlehem & visited the beautifully decorated Manger Square, Church of Nativity, & stunning Christmas tree. A cordial welcome from the people there. Special time to go there!”
It is unclear whether Vance’s visit to the church or the ambassador’s meeting with the mayor of Bethlehem and getting a photo from his balcony are connected to the U.S.-sponsored ceasefire in Gaza, or whether it reflects a reaction to the legitimate concerns of Palestinian Christians. Still, neither Vance nor Huckabee has yet to meet with local Christians. As Jack Sara, president of the Bethlehem Bible College, told the New York Times last August, “We are not on his radar screen.”
Palestinian Christians have, for some time, spoken out against Christian Zionists, condemning their support for what many view as genocide and war crimes against Palestinians, particularly in Gaza. It would be one thing if the visitors would visit all holy places in Jerusalem, but to exclude the holy place of their own faith and ignore fellow Christian believers raises many eyebrows.
Vance and Huckabee will probably be praised for the seemingly ordinary act of visiting a holy site of his own religion. Yet the very fact that such a visit is treated as exceptional highlights the abnormality that has become routine: Church leaders appear to downplay their own faith to signal loyalty to Israel and its vision of Jewish supremacy in the Holy Land. My call to action to Church leaders: visit the living Palestinian stones, the actual local Christians making up the body of Christ in Palestine.
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