פלסטינים

Two years after its publication, the authors of the "Kairos Palestine" document held an anniversary conference in Bethlehem, constituting themselves a tribunal before which to arraign all the churches of the world for not showing enough enthusiasm for their original document.

For over two decades, parts of the Christian world have been bemused by the writings of self-styled "Palestinian Christian theologians." Since their brightest lights are Protestant pastors, they are minor figures among the overwhelmingly Orthodox and Catholic faithful of the Holy Land. But they are strangely popular in Liberal Protestant circles abroad and especially beloved of church bureaucrats.

Catholics for Israelare highly aware of the precarious and difficult situation you find yourselves in.  We are not against you by calling ourselves Catholics for Israel. It is precisely the concern for the situation you are in and the complexity of your situation that is motivating us to address and speak out those things that today most Catholics are afraid to even think about.

Before the children of Israel entered the Promised Land, God warned them that they might be tempted to forget God if they became complacent in their prosperity (Deut 8:11-20). As a consequence, they would serve new gods, and as a punishment they would be attacked by a people who are not really a people.

Christoph Cardinal Schönborn says European Christians' support for Israel is not based on Holocaust guilt and Christians should affirm Zionism as biblical. Schoenborn said it was doctrinally important for Christians to recognize Jews' connection to the "Holy Land" and Christians should rejoice in Jews' return to Palestine as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

In the Catholic Church, disagreements are commonplace over a whole range of issues, be they political, social, economic, religious or historical, but at the end of the day these differences of opinion can be resolved through amicable discussion, prayer and a sense of fellowship and family in Christ. There is one issue, however, that divides so deeply that it has the potential to create permanent separation, and this is the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

The Hidden Roots of the Crisis of the Church in the Holy Land: In the troubled Holy Land, divided and torn by conflict, local Church leaders and Christians of all colors often claim to speak a tireless message of justice, reconciliation and peace. If only more people would listen to this message - so they claim - it would surely dramatically improve the prospects for peace between the conflicting parties in the region. But is this true?

On the heels of the Gaza disengagement, which was intended to empower the Palestinian Authority to improve the lives of its people, few journalists have reported on the acutely trying times facing the Christians residing in areas "governed" by the Palestinian Authority. Professor Justus Reid Weiner, Scholar in Residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, provides an in-depth look into the nearly uninterrupted persecution of Christians throughout the decade since the Oslo peace process began.  Read Human Rights of Christians in Palestinian Society.

Hamas denies Israel's right to exist. But for pontifical diplomacy, the Jewish state is wrong to defend itself with force. The custodian of the Holy Land reveals the thinking behind the Church's policy in the Middle East.

Day by day the anti-Israel alliance, and sadly in collaboration with major church movements mainly from the Protestant world, is seeking to make the Apartheid label stick to Israel. We see this at present in the fortnight of global agitation known as “Israel Apartheid Week.” There is more to this scheming than meets the eye in that the real agenda behind branding Israel an “Apartheid state” is to remove the Jewish State altogether.

Perhaps you have seen this map before; it claims to illustrate the "Palestinian loss of land" from 1946 to 2000. The problem is that the map completely misrepresents the recent history of Palestine-Israel.

On October 28, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu caused a stir when he quoted a controversial passage from the Bible identifying Hamas with Amalek--Israel's archenemy in the Bible--to justify Israel's ongoing war against the terrorist group.

Br. Tilbert Moser proposes a biblical alternative to the Two-State Solution and Vatican recognition of the Palestinian State. This article is currently available in German only.

There has been much excellent academic study of the history of Christianity in the land of its birth. It could fill a whole library. In recent years, however, all that fine work has been eclipsed by the myth, created by the so-called "Palestinian narrative," of Palestinian Christianity.

The self-styled “Kairos Palestine” document was launched in Bethlehem on December 11,2009 by a panel chaired by the former Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem,Michel Sabbah. The document is meant to mobilize churches worldwide in a program of boycotts, divestment and delegitimization directed at the State of Israel.

The Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem have responded to the October 7 Hamas massacre in Israel and ensuing war in Gaza with posture of moral equivalence, suggesting that both parties in the conflict share equal blame and equivalent moral responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Intellectually, this is an easy path to take. But is it morally right?