Impressions of a Nakba village

The remains of the Palestinian village of Lifta, west of Jerusalem

A little to the west of Jerusalem, a narrow, unmarked road curves away from the highway and dips into the valley below. The roar of the city fades away as the lane twists down the hill through steep banks of long grass. A heavy silence falls. Then, as the road rounds a corner, we see it: scattered across the hillside, the crumbling houses of the former Palestinian village of Lifta.

Yesterday marked 64 years since the nakba, the ‘catastrophe,’ the day on which Palestinians commemorate their expulsion from the land of Palestine. In May 1948, over 700,000 Palestinians were made refugees, forced from their homes or massacred by the advancing Jewish militia, an act of ethnic cleansing which paved the way for the establishment of the Jewish state. 

Sixty-four years on, there is still no justice for the world’s largest refugee population. The descendants of former residents of villages such as Lifta now live in refugee camps throughout the West Bank, Gaza and wider Middle East, denied the right to return to their homes; in many cases, even denied the right to visit their ancestral land. 

Houses in Lifta remain unoccupied, 64 years after the expulsion of their inhabitants

The homes of Lifta are still standing, though weeds now push through their crumbling walls and fallen roofs leave hollow rooms open to the sky. Many Israelis simply moved themselves in to houses left empty after the nakba, but Lifta has remained unoccupied. The only inhabitants now are the roosting birds, and some of Jerusalem’s homeless, their blankets spread like rugs on the cold hearths of unlit fireplaces. 

Until earlier this year, plans were proposed to destroy what is left of Lifta, and to turn it into a luxury housing complex. The decision was overturned in February a surprise ruling by the Jerusalem District Court to ensure the historical site, one of the last visible remnants of the nakba, would remain untouched. 

As the sun beats down, we push our way through overgrown paths and patches of cactus, past house after empty house with gaping arched windows and grass-covered porches. Inside the houses, the stone walls are cool and mottled green with mould and age. Some have been covered in graffiti, spray-painted letters and pen-scrawled scribbles in Hebrew, Arabic and English. 

"We will return": Graffiti inside one of Lifta's houses. Many of those forced out of Lifta, as well as their descendants, are still refugees.

A little further down the hill, a stream runs along the bottom of the valley, and we follow its course upwards. Emerging from the trees, the scene changes. In the midst of this vacant village, a ringed stone wall cuts round the stream and creates a large pool of cold green water. The air is filled with the sound of splashing and laughter. For Israelis, the ruins of Lifta are the perfect spot for a picnic on a warm spring afternoon.

Once a thriving Palestinian town, now a desolate sprinkling of stones on an unmarked hillside of Jerusalem; a small pocket of memory in a now thoroughly Israeli neighbourhood. The destruction and devastation of Palestine’s past, hidden from view behind the haze of barbecue smoke.

Stephen Sizer: "We need to start a revolution of love"

I interviewed Stephen Sizer, Christian pastor and author of 'Zion's Christian Soldiers', for this article for the Electronic Intifada. Stephen is one of the most outspoken evangelical critics of the theology of Christian Zionism. He was in Bethlehem for the Christ at the Checkpoint conference, which brought Christian leaders and theologians to Palestine to meet the local Palestinian church and challenge Christian Zionism. I talked to him about Christian Zionist theology and their attack on the conference, Iran and the wider Middle East, and how the Christian church should respond to the situation in Palestine today.

Firstly, how would you define Christian Zionism?

Christian Zionism can be defined as Christian support for Zionism. Clearly Zionism is a secular political movement, at least it was in its origins. Today many Jewish Zionists are religious, so it’s become more of a religious movement within Judaism. 

But, within the Christian concept, it’s clearly a religious belief system, and it simply believes that the promises God made to Abraham and the Jewish people in Hebrew Bible are in some sense being fulfilled today, or are about to be fulfilled. Therefore as Christians our responsibility is to support what God is doing among the Jewish people today, and so it taints our political agenda.

So what implications does the Christian Zionist theology have for the Palestinians?

The implications tend to be negative for the Palestinians. In simplistic terms, the presence of the Palestinians as Muslims is problematic within the theology of Christian Zionism. It’s straightforward, you have God’s people, and you have the rest. And the rest are either passive, they should be behind Israel, (God is blessing America because it supports Israel), or they’re opposing Israel. Typically the Palestinians are seen as opposing Israel and therefore Satan is working behind Israel to stir up God’s people and restrict their inheritance.

The problem is, what we do with Christian Palestinians? Typically when I talk to Zionists they either deny they exist, or they say they’re nominal Christians or they’re liberal Christians, and they’re coming to the land to spoil things for the Jews. But there really is no place for the Palestinians within a Christian Zionist theology, other than as the servants, or the hewers of wood and the carriers of water. When I debate with Christian Zionists they typically say Palestine exists, it’s called Jordan, that’s where the Palestinians can go and live - as if God gave this land to the Jews and the Jews only. 

The conference, and you in particular, have been subject to attacks from Christian Zionists in quite prominent news outlets such as the Jerusalem Post, as well as from within the Messianic Jewish community. Why do you think they feel so threatened by this conference? Do they see it as a danger to their theology? To me it shows they think it’s going to be quite influential. 

In my experience the Christian Zionist movement is very influential in the States, and has a lot of support from the political establishment in Israel, because the early Zionists recognised that they needed Western support to strengthen their claim to the land and hold on to it in the face of opposition from the Arab states. Therefore for Christians who have a high view of the Scriptures, who believe in Jesus, to come along and question that theology is a threat. It’s like we’re taking their baby away from them.

In America it is largely the Christian support for Israel that ensures the politicians accept a Zionist reading of history. So I see that they are threatened. When someone uses very provocative language about you personally, or says very bad things about you, the first few times it happens you are shocked. You get upset, you get defensive. But after a while you say, well, it’s not true. I know it’s not true, I know my motives better than you do. I don’t want the Jews thrown into the sea. I don’t want to see Israel cease to exist. So why are they being so emotional and aggressive? 

There’s a definite strategy involved. The first thing they will often do is to ingratiate themselves to you. They will try to win you. So they will encourage you to come to Israel on an all-expenses-paid tour, see the land, meet the people. If you don’t buy into that, they will try and intimidate you. They will bombard you with emails, letters, phone calls; they will challenge you at every opportunity. And often people give up at that point. Many ministers I know share the views I hold but they won’t talk about it, because when they do they get hit over the head. And so intimidation often works. 

But if intimidation won’t work, if you continue to hold the views that you have and make those public, intimidation leads to isolation, that is, they will intimidate people to isolate you. If I’m giving a public appearance, they will send letters to tell people not to let me speak, or try to get people not to go. They will intimidate, they will isolate and if that doesn’t work they’ll try to incriminate you. And so they will attempt to suggest you are anti-Semitic, or you deny the Holocaust, or you’re a racist. 

Take the fact that I’ve been to Iran to lecture, or to Lebanon, or to Qatar. I’m there as a Christian, to speak on behalf of the church here, calling for peace and reconciliation, repudiating the use of violence. I was in southern Lebanon about three years ago when my book came out in Arabic, and I met some guys from Hizbollah. They took me round part of southern Lebanon. At the end of the conversation the commander of Hizbollah in southern Lebanon said, ‘Stephen, what would you advise Hizbollah?’

I said, ‘Release the Israeli captives. Let them go, you don’t need to hang on to them. Don’t trade them. You’ve defeated Israel, they had to leave southern Lebanon. Show that you are magnanimous, out-do them in kindness and compassion, show that you worship a compassionate God.’ Because if people will out-do one another and retaliate with kindness, retaliate with compassion and love, rather than with weapons and hatred, what will that do to the Israelis? It will shame them. They will think, we need to revise their view of Hizbollah, they’ve been kind to us. Will they be more likely to hate them, or will they be more likely to respond in kind? I think we should start a revolution, but a revolution of love. Now that may be naïve, but I felt that was what I had to say. 

So I use opportunities that I get, whether it’s in Lebanon, or Iran. I’ve only been to Iran once, and I certainly didn’t meet any believers, but it was an opportunity to talk about Jesus and about the Christian faith. I said that the Christians in Palestine are not Zionists or colonialists, they’re not antagonistic towards Islam, they want to live in peace with their neighbours, and I was able to advocate on their behalf.

And to me it seems, at least in the UK, that Christian Zionism is the mainstream theology, almost as if everyone is a Zionist by default until they learn better. Do you think Christian Zionism is still the mainstream theology, or do you think it’s starting to lose its hold?

No I don’t think it is. I think America is an unusual place. The mainstream, mainline denominations, such as Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists, I would say they are largely philo-Semitic. The scriptures teach us to love the Jews, pray for the Jews, and with the legacy of the Holocaust, with the anti-Semitism that was endemic within the church in the Reformation, in the Middle Ages, the church has a lot to repent of. And so I think a lot of Christians have a burden for Israel which is born out of guilt, guilt for the Holocaust, fear of anti-Semitism, and a genuine love for the Jewish people. That’s not Zionism. That’s philo-Semitism. 

It crosses the line when you say that Israel has an exclusive claim to this land, that the Jews are God’s chosen people, therefore you are not; the best thing you can do is leave, because God gave it to them. When you turn your theology into a political agenda which denies the human rights of other people because they’re not Jews, for me that’s where it crosses a line.

It’s a minority view in most churches in Europe, in Britain, but it is a dominant view in America still, because of the influence of popular Christian writers who advocate that theology, and political leaders who benefit from that theology. Most US politicians depend on the electorate to get elected, but they depend on finance to mount their campaigns. And Christian Zionists and Jewish Zionists are very generous to both parties, it helps to buy influence. Now if you question that, you have to ask, why won’t you find a single serving US politician critical of Israel? Other than Ron Paul, who stands up like a sore thumb. 

I do feel, as a Christian, that my Christian Zionist brothers and sisters in America have a lot to answer for.  Their uncritical support of Israel does several things. It threatens the state of Israel, because if you genuinely love someone you will warn them that their behaviour is destructive. It threatens the existence of the church, not only in Palestine but in the whole of the Middle East. Muslims look on and they say George Bush is a Christian, Obama is a Christian, America is a Christian nation, they are threatening to bomb Iran; this is Christianity. So are we surprised that they retaliate, or they don’t think so well of us? This theology of Christian Zionism is destructive, of Jews, the Palestinians, and it undermines the gospel witness of the Church here in the Middle East. 

Do you think there’s any way to influence that movement, to change their mind?

Yes, I think that people like Gary Burge and Len Rogers, the speakers who have come to the conference, basically have come because they have a burden for reconciliation. They want to see Jews and Palestinians living side by side in peace, either in one state or two, it doesn’t matter, but what we have now is not going to last. It cannot last, because its deeply unjust. Israel is practicing apartheid policies in the Occupied Territories; there are two separate road systems, two separate healthcare systems, two separate education systems. They are creating bantustans for the Palestinians and that is destroying the soul of Israeli society, as well as destroying the future of the Palestinian community. It cannot last. 

So what we are seeking to do is challenge it theologically. That’s why I wrote my book Zion’s Christian Soldiers. It’s meant to be a popular way of reading the Bible to help people make sense of the promises God made in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, not just to the Jews but to all who recognise him. And show that the particularism and the exclusivism of Christian Zionism is actually a misreading of the Bible. 

I think politically, I would want to support politicians whose agenda is one of urging the nations of this part of the world to find a way of resolving their differences peacefully, rather than violently. So threatening to bomb Iran because of its aspirations is not going to thwart their research. Are they less likely or more likely to want nuclear weapons if we bomb them? They are more likely to want nuclear weapons, because they are going to be insecure.

You look at a map of Iran at the moment and you will find forty American bases inside Arabia, the Gulf states, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Gulf. Forty US military bases surrounding Iran. So who’s threatening whom? If Iran had warships off the coast of Florida or America would be up in arms, as they were in the Cuban missile crisis when Russia sent missiles to Cuba. The last time Iran invaded another nation was 200 years ago. They may be complicit in what happened in Iraq, but as a sovereign nation they haven’t attacked anyone in an awful long time.

And, as a comparison, are there any other theologies in history like Christian Zionism that use the Bible to support oppression?

Yes, very much so. The Bible has been misused by every colonial system. The Spanish used the church to suppress the Incas and the other people in Latin America, the British used the Bible to justify the colonisation of east Africa and Asia. In South Africa, the Dutch Reform Church used the Bible to justify why the blacks were inferior to the whites. The Bible and politics have been used together. We’ve used the paradigms of the Bible to justify mistreating other peoples that we could denigrate or dehumanise, because they were the Amalachites, or the Philistines, or whatever. As Christians we must use the teachings of Jesus and the apostles as our filter for interpreting our responsibility towards other nations. 

How do you ask the church and Christians to respond to this situation in Israel/Palestine?

I would take them back to the Bible and the parables of Jesus. One of the most famous is the parable of the Good Samaritan. I use it all the time. I say, well, the guy in the road, who was he? Everyone says he was a Jew. I say, where does it say that in the scripture, in the passage? It doesn’t tell us that. Jesus puts in the middle of that story one sentence that caused a problem for everyone that came down that road. He said the guy in the road is beaten up and left half dead, and they stripped him of his clothes. What Jesus is doing is he’s creating a problem. The guy in the road was naked and unconscious. And that created a dilemma for everyone else who came down that road because they couldn’t tell, is he one of ours, or is he one of theirs?

Now with respect, if you are walking a street in London and you see a white person wearing nice clothes lying in the road, you’ll stop. If you see someone, dare I say it, of another nation, in rags, lying in the gutter, will you stop? I would, I hope. But many wouldn’t. Them and us. Jesus says ‘No, the guy is a human being.’ We don’t know who he is, but are you going to stop? And that was his answer to the guy who said, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ The guy wanted Jesus to say define the limit of his responsibility, to say these are my neighbours, those are my enemies. Jesus says, ‘What kind of neighbour are you to anyone you meet? How are you going to treat him?’

So my message to the Christian community is to say Jesus has called us to treat everyone with dignity and respect, created in the image of God, whether they are our friends or enemies, whether they are our community or another community. And when we demonstrate that love and compassion, they are open to know why we treat them that way. And that’s the opening to share the Gospel. I believe we should treat everyone the same way we treat Jesus. No less. Because Jesus said such as you did to the least of these, you did it to me.

Israel and Palestine: Two equal sides?

Graffiti on the Israeli separation wall, Bethlehem, West Bank

A pet peeve of mine is when people say I should spend more time in Israel, to hear the 'other side of the story.' "So you've lived with Palestinians in the West Bank," the conversation usually goes. "Don't you think you should spend some time in Israel too, to hear their point of view?"

This kind of well-meaning suggestion is frustrating and is a misrepresentation of true nature of the conflict on many critical levels. Most importantly, it is based on the false assumption that the situation in Israel-Palestine is a conflict between two equal sides; the assumption that for every Palestinian opinion, there is an equally valid Israeli opinion. Two peoples, locked in battle, unable to agree on even the smallest of matters. They're both as bad as each other. Why can't they just get along, right?

Not exactly. The Israel-Palestine conflict is not about two rival siblings who perpetually disagree; it is about a powerful, US-backed colonial state which is militarily occupying a stateless and powerless people, the Palestinians. Israel has the upper hand in every arena of life. Each Israeli decision is backed unequivocally by the United States, each of Israel's crimes go unpunished in the international forum. When Mahmoud Abbas rightly or wrongly applied for Palestinian statehood at the UN, it was vetoed instantly by the US. Israel and Palestine: one is a state, the other is not. Two equal sides?

The rule of law in the West Bank is another example of the vast inequality between Palestinians and Israelis. Whilst Palestinians are ruled by Israeli military law, Israeli settlers in the same area fall under Israeli civil law. If a Palestinian boy throws a stone, he is arrested by soldiers and sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. If an Israeli settler shoots a Palestinian dead in a field, the police will do little more than shrug. Palestinians in Area C are almost always denied building permits, and their homes are subsequently demolished, sometimes repeatedly, by the Israeli military. Israeli settlers in the same area continue to expand; illegal under international law, unchallenged by the international community. 

As I write, I'm sitting in the middle of one of the West Bank's many refugee camps. Were Israelis displaced en masse from their homes in 1948? No. From where I'm sitting I can see the 8-metre high separation wall. Are Israelis prevented from travelling freely to their livelihoods and their families? No. To get to Jerusalem from here, one must pass through a military checkpoint. Do Israelis daily face soldiers with guns, demanding to see their identification, subjecting them to ritual humiliation on the daily commute? No.  

This is not an unresolved battle between two people groups; I reject the notion that Palestinian patriotism and Israeli patriotism are both equally valid. The 'conflict' is the systematic oppression of a people subjected to an ongoing military occupation; a colonial project started by Western powers in the 20th Century, not an age-old dispute between two equally legitimate warring factions. Show me an Israeli who has been tortured in Israeli jail, show me a nonviolent protest in Israel which has been dispersed with tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition. Show me an Israeli who lives under a foreign, colonial occupation and is systematically deprived of his human rights. The suffering of the 'two sides' is incomparable. 

"So you're an anti-Semite," the conversation may continue. "Don't you know about the suffering of the Jews? What about the Holocaust?" Let me clarify. I understand that the Jews have been subjected to some of the worst atrocities committed by man against man. Humanity must never forget the immense pain the Jews have suffered. But forgive me if I am unable to connect the dots: Why should the Palestinians be continually displaced from their homeland to pay for the crimes commited by western Europe in the Second World War? Is the solution to mass suffering really to transfer the suffering onto someone else?

I am reminded of the words of South African writer Farid Esack in an open letter to the Palestinian people, published in the Electronic Intifada: 

'I am astonished at how ordinarily decent people whose hearts are otherwise “in the right place” beat about the bush when it comes to Israel and the dispossession and suffering of the Palestinians. And now I wonder about the nature of “decency.” Do “objectivity,” “moderation,” and seeing “both sides” not have limits? Is moderation in matters of clear injustice really a virtue? Do both parties deserve an “equal hearing” in a situation of domestic violence — wherein a woman is beaten up by a male who was abused by his father some time ago — because he, too, is a “victim?"'

If I talk to a prisoner who has been tortured in prison, do I then need to talk to their interrogator too, to 'hear his side of the story'? If I attempt to understand and support a victim of crime, do I then need to attempt to understand the criminal, too? It is my responsibility, not only as a Christian, but merely as a human being, to stand firmly on the side of the oppressed and strive for their justice, not to have a cup of tea and a chit-chat with the oppressor.

Ethan Heitner: Freedom Funnies 2012

View from a refugee camp balcony

In the early morning the balcony is warm with sunlight, but by noon is cool with shade. From below comes the sound of boys kicking a football in the alley, chickens, the crow of a cockerel, the flap of wings. Cats scrap and wail in the garbage, and the street seller and his tomato cart rumble past as he shouts his price. Occasionally a tour guide walks the street with earnest listeners in tow, eyes wide, cameras poised.

"Yes, yes, this all used to be tents."

Aida camp, between Bethlehem and Beit Jala, is one of nineteen refugee camps in the West Bank, established shortly after the nakba, the catastrophe of 1948, to house refugees from western Jerusalem and the surrounding area. Whilst the population expands, no new housing is being developed, resulting in overcrowding, water shortages and soaring unemployment.

The street below is narrow and piled high with garbage, the concrete block buildings are tall and flat-topped. A girl paces the rooftop opposite, learning lines for a play. A teenage boy pegs washing to a line. On the same rooftop, the Palestinian flag is caught around its pole, struggling to fly.

The sun begins to set, and the hum of traffic and the beep of horns drift from the distant road as the warble of the call to prayer echoes from the mosque. Beyond the rooftops, the palm trees, and the unfinished buildings stands the Israeli separation wall; one part colourful graffiti, two parts concrete grey. After heavy rain, the moisture turns the wall black. It takes two days for it to lighten again.

Night falls and the moon slowly rises. The Christmas lights still illuminate the restaurants on the old Hebron-Jerusalem road, now cut off by the wall which loops deep into Bethlehem. A television blares in a far-off house, a car engine, and then silence.

The wild dogs bark in the distance as darkness falls, the Palestinian flag caught up in the night breeze, still struggling to unfurl. Sixty years since the catastrophe, and still no solution for the ever-expanding refugee population. An entire generation has lived and died in the permanent half-life of the refugee.