30 dec 2016
PLO Executive Committee Member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, on Thursday, expressed concerns regarding the statement of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, who recently praised Israel for being a “democracy” that “respects freedom of worship.”
In an official statement, Ashrawi said that “Theophilos III is very well informed of the Israeli violations of the freedom to worship, [with regard to] his own community during Easter, and is also aware [that] the occupation of the Saint John Convent, near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, today, turned into another illegal Israeli settlement.”
“Theophilos III is also well aware of the impact of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, [of] the Palestinian people in general, and [of] the Christian population, in particular. His statement could only be delivered by someone who aims at distorting reality by disregarding the rights and aspirations of his own congregation.”
“Additionally, this statement contradicts all international reports on the situation of freedom of worship under Israeli occupation, and, in particular, in and around occupied East Jerusalem,” Ashrawi added.
“We are eager to know if Patriarch Theophilos did anything in order to defend the lands that members of his own congregation recently lost in Cremisan, or the fact that thousands of Palestinian Christians cannot access their own holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem, due to Israel’s illegal annexation wall and other movement restrictions.
Undoubtedly, Patriarch Theophilos knows very well the situation of thousands of Palestinian families, including hundreds of Christian families that have been divided due to racist Israeli citizenship laws.
Churches and religious leaders have historically provided a voice for justice and peace. The Kairos Document, signed by Palestinian theologians and religious leaders from all congregations, has clearly stated that religious liberty is severely restricted; the freedom of access to the holy places is denied under the pretext of security. Jerusalem and its holy places are out of bounds for many Christians and Muslims from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Even Jerusalemites face restrictions during the religious feasts. Some of our Arab clergy are regularly barred from entering Jerusalem.”
Finally, Ashrawi called upon Patriarch Theophilos III to work for justice and peace of the oppressed, rather than covering up the daily violations of the oppressors.
In an official statement, Ashrawi said that “Theophilos III is very well informed of the Israeli violations of the freedom to worship, [with regard to] his own community during Easter, and is also aware [that] the occupation of the Saint John Convent, near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, today, turned into another illegal Israeli settlement.”
“Theophilos III is also well aware of the impact of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, [of] the Palestinian people in general, and [of] the Christian population, in particular. His statement could only be delivered by someone who aims at distorting reality by disregarding the rights and aspirations of his own congregation.”
“Additionally, this statement contradicts all international reports on the situation of freedom of worship under Israeli occupation, and, in particular, in and around occupied East Jerusalem,” Ashrawi added.
“We are eager to know if Patriarch Theophilos did anything in order to defend the lands that members of his own congregation recently lost in Cremisan, or the fact that thousands of Palestinian Christians cannot access their own holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem, due to Israel’s illegal annexation wall and other movement restrictions.
Undoubtedly, Patriarch Theophilos knows very well the situation of thousands of Palestinian families, including hundreds of Christian families that have been divided due to racist Israeli citizenship laws.
Churches and religious leaders have historically provided a voice for justice and peace. The Kairos Document, signed by Palestinian theologians and religious leaders from all congregations, has clearly stated that religious liberty is severely restricted; the freedom of access to the holy places is denied under the pretext of security. Jerusalem and its holy places are out of bounds for many Christians and Muslims from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Even Jerusalemites face restrictions during the religious feasts. Some of our Arab clergy are regularly barred from entering Jerusalem.”
Finally, Ashrawi called upon Patriarch Theophilos III to work for justice and peace of the oppressed, rather than covering up the daily violations of the oppressors.
25 dec 2016
Jonathan Cook/Days of Palestine
‘Israeli leaders expect the US to be religiously inclusive, but then they refuse to practise the same at home,’ Hanna Swaid told Al Jazeera.
As tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims converge on the Holy Land, this week, to celebrate the birth of Jesus, senior Israeli rabbis have announced a war on the Christmas tree.
In Jerusalem, the rabbinate has issued a letter warning dozens of hotels in the city that it is “forbidden” by Jewish religious law to erect a tree or stage new year’s parties.
Many hotel owners have taken the warning to heart, fearful that the rabbis may carry out previous threats to damage their businesses by denying them certificates declaring their premises to be “kosher.”
In the coastal city of Haifa, in northern Israel, the rabbi of Israel’s premier technology university has taken a similarly strict line.
Elad Dokow, the Technion’s rabbi, ordered that Jewish students boycott their students’ union, after it installed for the first time a modest Christmas tree.
He called the tree “idolatry,” warning that it was a “pagan” symbol that violated the kosher status of the building, including its food hall.
About a fifth of the Technion’s students belong to Israel’s large Palestinian minority.
While most of Israel’s Palestinian citizens are Muslim, there are some 130,000 Christians, most of them living in Galilee. More Palestinian Christians live under occupation in East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed in violation of international law.
“This is not about freedom of worship,” Dokow told the Technion’s students. “This is the world’s only Jewish state. And it has a role to be a ‘light unto the nations’ and not to uncritically embrace every idea.”
‘Pagan Symbol’
Rabea Mahajni, a 24-year-old electrical engineering student, said that placing the tree in the union was backed by Palestinian students but had strongly divided opinion among Jewish students and staff. The majority, he said, were against the decision.
“One professor upset [Palestinian] students by taking to Facebook to say that the tree made him uncomfortable, and that those who wanted it should either put one up in their own home or go to Europe,” he told Al Jazeera.
Mahajni added: “This is not really about a Christmas tree. It is about who the tree represents. It is a test of whether Jewish society is willing to accept an Arab minority and our symbols.”
He pointed out that Palestinian students had not objected to the students’ union also marking Hanukkah, referring to the Jewish winter “festival of lights” that this year coincides with Christmas.
For most of Israel’s history, the festive fir tree was rarely seen outside a handful of communities in Israel with significant Christian populations. But in recent years, the appeal of Christmas celebrations has spread among secular Israeli Jews.
Russians brought it to Israel
Interest took off two decades ago, after one million Russian-speaking Jews immigrated following the fall of the Soviet Union, said David Bogomolny, a spokesman for Hiddush, which lobbies for religious freedom in Israel.
Many, he told Al Jazeera, had little connection to Jewish religious practice in their countries of origin, and had adopted local customs instead.
“The tree [in the former Soviet Union] was very popular but it had nothing to do with Christmas,” he said. “Each home had one as a way to welcome in the new year.”
Nazareth, which claims to host the tallest Christmas tree in the Middle East, has recently become a magnet for many domestic tourists, including Jews, Christians and Muslims. They come to visit the Christmas market, hear carols and buy a Santa hat.
Haifa and Jaffa, which became almost Jewish cities with significant Palestinian Christian populations after the occupation of Palestine in 1948, have recently started competing. Jaffa, next to Tel Aviv, staged its first Christmas market last year.
Meanwhile, hotels are keen to erect a tree in their lobbies as a way to boost tourism revenue from Christian pilgrims, who comprise the bulk of overseas visitors.
Upsetting Rabbis
But the growing popularity of Christmas has upset many Orthodox rabbis, who have significant powers over public space. Bogomolny said that some rabbis were driven by a desire to make the state “as Jewish as possible” to avert it losing its identity.
Others may fear that the proliferation of Christmas trees could lure Israeli Jews towards Christianity.
Wadie Abu Nassar, a spokesman for the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, said that he had noticed an increasing interest from Israeli Jews in Christian festivals, including in some cases requests to attend Christmas mass.
He told Al Jazeera this was not a threat to Judaism, but healthy curiosity. “If we want to live together in peace, we have to understand each other and learn to trust,” he said.
The controversial status of Christmas in Israel was underscored four years ago, when Yair Netanyahu, the 21-year-old son of Israel’s prime minister, caused a minor scandal by being photographed wearing a Santa hat next to a Christmas tree.
The office of Benjamin Netanyahu hurriedly issued a statement saying that Yair had posed as a joke while attending a party hosted by “Christian Zionists, who love Israel, and whose children served in the [Israeli army].”
Christmas tree harms Jews
Two years earlier, Shimon Gapso, the mayor of Upper Nazareth, originally founded for Jews on Nazareth’s land, banned all signs of Christmas in the city’s public places. He has been a vociferous opponent of an influx of Christians from overcrowded Nazareth.
The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has also been declared a Christmas tree-free zone.
In 2013, its speaker rejected a request from Hanna Swaid, then a Palestinian Christian legislator, to erect a tree in the building. Yuli Edelstein said it would evoke “painful memories” of Jewish persecution in Europe and chip away at the state’s Jewish character.
Swaid pointed to the prominence of Jewish symbols in public spaces in the United States, including an annual Hanukkah party at the White House, during which the president lights menorah candles.
“Israeli leaders expect the US to be religiously inclusive, but then they refuse to practise the same at home,” he told Al Jazeera.
He also noted that the religious freedoms of the Palestinian minority were under ever greater attack, most notably with the recent drafting of a so-called “muezzin bill,” which would crack down on mosques’ use of loudspeakers for the call to prayer.
“Given this hostile political climate, the battle to gain legitimacy for our religious symbols becomes all the more important,” he said. “Otherwise, we face a dark future.”
Nonetheless, there has been a backlash, especially from secular Jews, against the rigid control exercised by Orthodox rabbis.
Haifa’s mayor, Yona Yahav, overruled the city’s rabbi in 2012 when he tried to ban Christmas trees and new year’s parties. The Jewish new year occurs several months before the Christian one.
And, last year, in the face of a legal challenge from Hiddush, the chief rabbinate backed down on threats to revoke the kosher certificates of businesses that celebrate Christmas.
But while the ban on Christmas trees has been formally lifted, in practice it is still widely enforced, according to Bogomolny.
“The problem is that the chief rabbinate actually has no authority over city rabbis, who can disregard its rulings, as we have seen with the letter issued by the Jerusalem rabbis,” he said.
Most hotels wanted to ignore the prohibition on Christmas trees because it was bad for business, but feared being punished.
“It is a problem throughout the country,” he said. “The hotels are afraid to take a stand. If they try to fight it through the courts, it will be costly and could take years to get a ruling.”
One hotel manager in West Jerusalem to whom Al Jazeera spoke on condition of anonymity said he feared “retaliation” from the rabbis.
“The letter was clearly intended to intimidate us,” he said. “The Christian tourists are here to celebrate Christmas and we want to help them do it, but not if it costs us our certificate.”
‘Israeli leaders expect the US to be religiously inclusive, but then they refuse to practise the same at home,’ Hanna Swaid told Al Jazeera.
As tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims converge on the Holy Land, this week, to celebrate the birth of Jesus, senior Israeli rabbis have announced a war on the Christmas tree.
In Jerusalem, the rabbinate has issued a letter warning dozens of hotels in the city that it is “forbidden” by Jewish religious law to erect a tree or stage new year’s parties.
Many hotel owners have taken the warning to heart, fearful that the rabbis may carry out previous threats to damage their businesses by denying them certificates declaring their premises to be “kosher.”
In the coastal city of Haifa, in northern Israel, the rabbi of Israel’s premier technology university has taken a similarly strict line.
Elad Dokow, the Technion’s rabbi, ordered that Jewish students boycott their students’ union, after it installed for the first time a modest Christmas tree.
He called the tree “idolatry,” warning that it was a “pagan” symbol that violated the kosher status of the building, including its food hall.
About a fifth of the Technion’s students belong to Israel’s large Palestinian minority.
While most of Israel’s Palestinian citizens are Muslim, there are some 130,000 Christians, most of them living in Galilee. More Palestinian Christians live under occupation in East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed in violation of international law.
“This is not about freedom of worship,” Dokow told the Technion’s students. “This is the world’s only Jewish state. And it has a role to be a ‘light unto the nations’ and not to uncritically embrace every idea.”
‘Pagan Symbol’
Rabea Mahajni, a 24-year-old electrical engineering student, said that placing the tree in the union was backed by Palestinian students but had strongly divided opinion among Jewish students and staff. The majority, he said, were against the decision.
“One professor upset [Palestinian] students by taking to Facebook to say that the tree made him uncomfortable, and that those who wanted it should either put one up in their own home or go to Europe,” he told Al Jazeera.
Mahajni added: “This is not really about a Christmas tree. It is about who the tree represents. It is a test of whether Jewish society is willing to accept an Arab minority and our symbols.”
He pointed out that Palestinian students had not objected to the students’ union also marking Hanukkah, referring to the Jewish winter “festival of lights” that this year coincides with Christmas.
For most of Israel’s history, the festive fir tree was rarely seen outside a handful of communities in Israel with significant Christian populations. But in recent years, the appeal of Christmas celebrations has spread among secular Israeli Jews.
Russians brought it to Israel
Interest took off two decades ago, after one million Russian-speaking Jews immigrated following the fall of the Soviet Union, said David Bogomolny, a spokesman for Hiddush, which lobbies for religious freedom in Israel.
Many, he told Al Jazeera, had little connection to Jewish religious practice in their countries of origin, and had adopted local customs instead.
“The tree [in the former Soviet Union] was very popular but it had nothing to do with Christmas,” he said. “Each home had one as a way to welcome in the new year.”
Nazareth, which claims to host the tallest Christmas tree in the Middle East, has recently become a magnet for many domestic tourists, including Jews, Christians and Muslims. They come to visit the Christmas market, hear carols and buy a Santa hat.
Haifa and Jaffa, which became almost Jewish cities with significant Palestinian Christian populations after the occupation of Palestine in 1948, have recently started competing. Jaffa, next to Tel Aviv, staged its first Christmas market last year.
Meanwhile, hotels are keen to erect a tree in their lobbies as a way to boost tourism revenue from Christian pilgrims, who comprise the bulk of overseas visitors.
Upsetting Rabbis
But the growing popularity of Christmas has upset many Orthodox rabbis, who have significant powers over public space. Bogomolny said that some rabbis were driven by a desire to make the state “as Jewish as possible” to avert it losing its identity.
Others may fear that the proliferation of Christmas trees could lure Israeli Jews towards Christianity.
Wadie Abu Nassar, a spokesman for the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, said that he had noticed an increasing interest from Israeli Jews in Christian festivals, including in some cases requests to attend Christmas mass.
He told Al Jazeera this was not a threat to Judaism, but healthy curiosity. “If we want to live together in peace, we have to understand each other and learn to trust,” he said.
The controversial status of Christmas in Israel was underscored four years ago, when Yair Netanyahu, the 21-year-old son of Israel’s prime minister, caused a minor scandal by being photographed wearing a Santa hat next to a Christmas tree.
The office of Benjamin Netanyahu hurriedly issued a statement saying that Yair had posed as a joke while attending a party hosted by “Christian Zionists, who love Israel, and whose children served in the [Israeli army].”
Christmas tree harms Jews
Two years earlier, Shimon Gapso, the mayor of Upper Nazareth, originally founded for Jews on Nazareth’s land, banned all signs of Christmas in the city’s public places. He has been a vociferous opponent of an influx of Christians from overcrowded Nazareth.
The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has also been declared a Christmas tree-free zone.
In 2013, its speaker rejected a request from Hanna Swaid, then a Palestinian Christian legislator, to erect a tree in the building. Yuli Edelstein said it would evoke “painful memories” of Jewish persecution in Europe and chip away at the state’s Jewish character.
Swaid pointed to the prominence of Jewish symbols in public spaces in the United States, including an annual Hanukkah party at the White House, during which the president lights menorah candles.
“Israeli leaders expect the US to be religiously inclusive, but then they refuse to practise the same at home,” he told Al Jazeera.
He also noted that the religious freedoms of the Palestinian minority were under ever greater attack, most notably with the recent drafting of a so-called “muezzin bill,” which would crack down on mosques’ use of loudspeakers for the call to prayer.
“Given this hostile political climate, the battle to gain legitimacy for our religious symbols becomes all the more important,” he said. “Otherwise, we face a dark future.”
Nonetheless, there has been a backlash, especially from secular Jews, against the rigid control exercised by Orthodox rabbis.
Haifa’s mayor, Yona Yahav, overruled the city’s rabbi in 2012 when he tried to ban Christmas trees and new year’s parties. The Jewish new year occurs several months before the Christian one.
And, last year, in the face of a legal challenge from Hiddush, the chief rabbinate backed down on threats to revoke the kosher certificates of businesses that celebrate Christmas.
But while the ban on Christmas trees has been formally lifted, in practice it is still widely enforced, according to Bogomolny.
“The problem is that the chief rabbinate actually has no authority over city rabbis, who can disregard its rulings, as we have seen with the letter issued by the Jerusalem rabbis,” he said.
Most hotels wanted to ignore the prohibition on Christmas trees because it was bad for business, but feared being punished.
“It is a problem throughout the country,” he said. “The hotels are afraid to take a stand. If they try to fight it through the courts, it will be costly and could take years to get a ruling.”
One hotel manager in West Jerusalem to whom Al Jazeera spoke on condition of anonymity said he feared “retaliation” from the rabbis.
“The letter was clearly intended to intimidate us,” he said. “The Christian tourists are here to celebrate Christmas and we want to help them do it, but not if it costs us our certificate.”
24 dec 2016
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Israeli forces, on Friday, suppressed Bethlehem’s “Santa Claus March,” shooting tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at participants, with many suffering from tear gas inhalation.
A number of demonstrators, including five journalists and foreigners, participated in a march near Israeli checkpoint 300, in the north of Bethlehem, which separates residents from Jerusalem. The march, which includes participants dressing up as Santa Claus, close to the Christian holiday of Christmas, was launched under the banner “Terrorism and Occupation are Two Sides of the Same Coin,” and demanded the opening |
of Israeli checkpoints for Christian tourists to celebrate the holiday in the traditional birthplace of Jesus Christ.
A Ma’an News Agency reporter witnessed Israeli forces fire rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas into the crowd, which caused a number of participants to suffer from inhalation. Five journalists were also injured, including the cameraman for the Jordanian al-Roya TV Muhammad Shoudha. Israeli forces reportedly fired tear gas canisters directly at his foot.
An Israeli border police spokesperson was reported to have said that “15 men in the afternoon threw rocks at Israeli soldiers,” he said, adding that “some of them were dressed as Santa Claus and tried to cross the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.”
The spokesperson also said that two Israeli soldiers were injured by rocks being thrown at them. The injuries were reported as light.
This was the second such march to be organized this year, in Bethlehem, for the Christian holidays. Israeli-imposed restrictions on Palestinian movement, regulated by more than 196 illegal Israeli settlements scattered across Palestinian territory, more than a hundred Israeli checkpoints and physical obstacles, and the construction of the Israeli separation wall has continued to strain the movement of Palestinians, and has caused the tourism industry to plummet.
Christmas is typically a time of year where Bethlehem receives droves of Christian tourists visiting the Nativity Church in the Old City. However, activists have pointed out that the tourism industry has severely declined, with Israeli authorities continuing to tighten control over Palestinian movement, as the Israeli occupation now enters its 50th year.
A Ma’an News Agency reporter witnessed Israeli forces fire rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas into the crowd, which caused a number of participants to suffer from inhalation. Five journalists were also injured, including the cameraman for the Jordanian al-Roya TV Muhammad Shoudha. Israeli forces reportedly fired tear gas canisters directly at his foot.
An Israeli border police spokesperson was reported to have said that “15 men in the afternoon threw rocks at Israeli soldiers,” he said, adding that “some of them were dressed as Santa Claus and tried to cross the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.”
The spokesperson also said that two Israeli soldiers were injured by rocks being thrown at them. The injuries were reported as light.
This was the second such march to be organized this year, in Bethlehem, for the Christian holidays. Israeli-imposed restrictions on Palestinian movement, regulated by more than 196 illegal Israeli settlements scattered across Palestinian territory, more than a hundred Israeli checkpoints and physical obstacles, and the construction of the Israeli separation wall has continued to strain the movement of Palestinians, and has caused the tourism industry to plummet.
Christmas is typically a time of year where Bethlehem receives droves of Christian tourists visiting the Nativity Church in the Old City. However, activists have pointed out that the tourism industry has severely declined, with Israeli authorities continuing to tighten control over Palestinian movement, as the Israeli occupation now enters its 50th year.
10 dec 2016
The Israeli authorities decided to seize a vast tract of mortmain green land belonging to the Armenian Church in al-Walaja village, northwest of Bethlehem, and use it as a national park for Jewish settlers.
Members of the Armenian community in the village affirmed that the Israeli nature and parks authority started to take over this area, which is estimated to be 50 dunums of land.
They also said that clashes broke out between them and Israeli soldiers last Saturday in the area following a prayer day held at the Church.
They expressed their fears that the place, where Christian rituals take place, could turn into a Jewish site, calling for fencing the area in order to protect it.
Members of the Armenian community in the village affirmed that the Israeli nature and parks authority started to take over this area, which is estimated to be 50 dunums of land.
They also said that clashes broke out between them and Israeli soldiers last Saturday in the area following a prayer day held at the Church.
They expressed their fears that the place, where Christian rituals take place, could turn into a Jewish site, calling for fencing the area in order to protect it.