ON Thursday, the final day of her four-day visit to the Philippines, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of Palestine, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, met with local media in Makati. Of the many issues related to the genocidal Israeli campaign in Gaza, the difficult path to peace between Palestine and Israel, and Palestine’s efforts to build a functioning, productive state, Foreign Minister Shahin chose to open her remarks with one that has been tragically ignored in the conflict of the past two years: The dire state of Palestine’s Christian population and cultural heritage under the Israeli onslaught.
As the biggest Christian nation in Asia, the Philippines should regard this ongoing tragedy with alarm, as the gradual erasure of Palestine’s Christian culture is a loss not only for that country, but for Christendom in general. Yet the situation is largely ignored here, as it is in other parts of the world, largely because the conflict between Israel and Palestine is misunderstood as a conflict between Jews and Muslims.
Christian culture is tightly bound to Palestinian identity, even though it is true that Palestine is a majority Muslim state. This is not surprising, as Palestine is the cradle of Christianity; the West Bank part of Palestine is home to the towns of Nazareth and Bethlehem, and of course, Palestine’s capital of East Jerusalem contains the Old City, home to Christianity’s most important site, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as well as sites sacred to both Judaism and Islam.
At one time, Christians made up about 12 percent of the Palestinian population, with some towns, such as Bethlehem, having a large majority Christian population. Over the past decades, and particularly in recent years as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become more violent, the Palestinian Christian population has dwindled to only about 1 percent of the population, or between 50,000 and 52,000 people. In Gaza, the Christian population has been reduced to less than 1,000 people — about 660, according to FM Shahin — by Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of the territory.
Apart from the human tragedy, one grave concern is the harm the conflict between Israel and Palestine — which, as the foreign minister took pains to emphasize several times during her discussion with the local media, has been going on with varying levels of intensity for seven decades — has done to the large number of heritage sites throughout Palestine, and especially in Gaza. These sites are historically and culturally important to the entire world, and most of them have been designated Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) heritage sites; they include not only locations important to Christians, Muslims and Jews, but also some dating back to Roman times.
As Unesco sites, they should be afforded some international protection, and certainly respect by government authorities at any level, but their status has not spared them from war. The Greek Orthodox Christian of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza, the third-oldest Christian church in the world, and whose present structure dates back to the 12th century, has been attacked several times during the Gaza war, badly damaging the site and killing dozens of civilians taking refuge there. The only Roman Catholic church in Gaza, the Holy Family Church, has likewise been severely damaged by multiple artillery and air attacks. Likewise, Gaza’s only Protestant church, the Gaza Baptist Church, has been targeted for harboring refugees during the conflict.
Despite their rapidly disappearing presence in Gaza, Christians still play an outsized role in shaping Palestinian culture and governance. FM Shahin is herself a Christian, and Christians serve in other important roles. “We treat everyone the same,” she said.
But Shahin also shared her fear that Christians might disappear from Palestine altogether. “Palestine is the cradle of Christianity, but what is to become of it if there is no Christian population? Are the churches and holy sites to simply become museums for tourists to visit?” she said. “The world should not let that happen.”
The Philippines must speak out against the gradual elimination of Christian culture in Palestine, being carried out by Israel. Admittedly, this is a delicate matter for our government, given its warm relations with both Israel and Palestine, but a firm position must be taken nonetheless. Hopefully, FM Shahin’s meetings with Church leaders during her visit — she held talks with Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president Cardinal David and Archbishop of Manila Cardinal Advincula — will encourage the government and the Filipino Christians to demand that Israel act with humanity and respect.
