Paul KeenanThe Holy Land community faces a fresh wave of terror, writes Paul Keenan
Where does one begin? Such is the ebb and flow between fatal tensions and unsteady peace in the Holy Land that any analysis of the region and its fractious communities risks being out of date within days.
Perhaps then, it is ‘best’ to begin with the dead as, sadly, it is only ever the victims of conflict, be it political, be it religious, who remain a constant.
At the time of writing, Israel has had a shocking week of bloodletting as the contentious issue of access to the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount provided fresh impetus to simmering anger on all sides. Thus, October opened with the murders in the West Bank of Israelis Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, shot dead in their car in front of their four children, who survived unharmed, at least physically.
As the weekend rolled on, two more lives were lost, this time in Jerusalem in separate attacks on Jews. On the Palestinian side, meanwhile, hospitals were challenged by an influx of protestors, shot during violent clashes with the Israeli Defence Forces.
That there are, however, new dimensions to the uneasy existence for all in the Holy Land is a contention that can hardly be doubted.
With the Middle Eastern ‘meltdown’ offered by the rise of the so-called Islamic State, Israel is justifiably nervous of the upsurge in conflicts within its neighbourhood, and potentially within its own borders as local extremists are emboldened by ISIS successes – the Islamic Jihad grouping was quick to hail one of the Jerusalem killers as a ‘martyr’ from its ranks.
Yet increased extremism does not now appear to be limited to just one side here.
Settlements
Since at least 2005, when Israel made concessions on its controversial settlements in the area around Gaza, the ‘Price Tag’ group of disaffected Israelis has been carrying out its low-level campaign of revenge attacks, notably in the form of arson and graffiti attacks on mosques and Palestinian properties. In recent times, Price Tag has also turned its attention to buildings and property of Christians, those it clearly views as ‘interlopers’ in the Jewish homeland, with the group’s name regularly spray-painted near the sites of arson to monasteries and damaged cars.
A more sinister turn of events came last July in an arson attack on the home of the Dawabsha family in the village of Duma. Eighteen-month-old Ali Dawabsha perished in the blaze, while his father Sa’ad and mother Reham died in hospital later.
The attack led both to an international outcry and to internal soul-searching on the part of Israel. More worrying, perhaps, investigations led Israel’s Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon to state in early September that those behind the Duma arson are a far more dangerous grouping than Price Tag.
“Their aim is to cause a flare-up in the security situation on the ground,” the minister made clear. Earlier, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been unequivocal in describing the attack as “reprehensible terrorism”.
It might be argued as to whether Israel could or could not have reasonably predicted the Duma attack or its level of ferocity, but the signs have been clear for some time that extremists are now plotting actions of increasing boldness and severity.
Just weeks before the Duma killings, the worldwide Christian community was stunned by the devastating arson attack on the Catholic Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish at Tabgha, on the shores of Galilee. Here amid ruined walls and burned Bibles was a scene at once representing a desire for utter destruction of a Christian site not previously witnessed (that rage has been until now reserved for Muslim properties) and, in the graffiti against ‘idol worshippers’, a message far darker than the usual Price Tag insults. (At least one prominent figure, Benzi Gopstein, leader of anti-Arab group Lehava, has allegedly called for church burnings.)
Again, such activity is not confined to one side. Lost amid the coverage of last weekend’s raft of murders in Israel was news of a severe act of arson in Bethlehem, this one aimed at the Maronite monastery of St Charbel, which is currently being refurbished for reopening after 15 years. Despite initial police ‘flip-flopping’ between a malicious act and an electrical fault, Palestinian extremists are now the subject of investigations around the incident, with Salafist Muslims high on the list of suspects.
These are merely flashpoint incidents for a Christian community all too aware of a hardening of hearts in this small corner of the Middle East. From a growth in radical sentiment among Palestinian neighbours to Israel’s renewed construction of the separation barrier across the Cremisan Valley, Christians are becoming increasingly squeezed.
This was reflected in an address at Notre Dame University in the US at the end of September when the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Fouad Twal, lamented the raft of hardships faced by his community in the Holy Land today: “Lost in the conflict between Muslims and Jews are the Christians of Israel and Palestine, who are becoming a forgotten people while the more dramatic conflicts dominate the news,” he said, insisting that “even if the media and the international attention are focused on the dramatic events of ISIS and the problem of refugees in Europe, the grossest facts on the ground cannot be overlooked: occupation, dispossession of property, oppression, violence, injustice, fear and discrimination.”
The perspective was mirrored, separately, in an earlier joint message from Archbishop Eamon Martin, Primate of All Ireland, and Cardinal Vincent Nichols of England at the conclusion of their September visit to the Holy Land. During that fact-finding trip, the prelates noted: “At times we…sensed the isolation that Christian communities are experiencing – their fear of being neglected or even forgotten by their brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. We heard accounts of so many families who have already left because of fear or lack of confidence in a prosperous future for their children and grandchildren.”
These cannot be comfortable messages for either the Palestinian Authority in its continued drive for recognised statehood internationally, or Israel which continues to stand over its record as the one country of the Middle East to guarantee freedom of religion.
In response to the concerns of the visiting prelates in September, Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin was at pains to declare that while “Christian communities of the Middle East have paid a heavy price for their faith”, in Israel, “when there has been vandalism at holy sites, we stood together, and continue to stand together with the Christian community to condemn these terrible acts. An attack on any place of worship is an attack on all of us.”
Sadly, not all share such sentiments, and with Prime Minister Netanyahu responding to last weekend’s violence with a promise of a “harsh offensive on Palestinian Islamic terror”, the hardened hearts on all sides look set to continue their campaigns against easy targets.