Palestinian Christians, a history of oppression and displacement – The Stones Cry Out

The history of the oppression of Palestinian Christians is often ignored

Quinn Coffey – A final, and particularly striking comment was made by Rev. Ateek’s in his 2010 address to the Christ at the Checkpoint conference, ‘Jesus was a Palestinian who was born under occupation. Jesus lived under occupation. Everything he taught, everything he said was done under occupation, exactly the way we live today.’

I am going to be writing about the Christian Palestinian oppression by Zionist Christians in Palestine over the next few days but I wanted to share this movie about the fate of Palestinian Christians from 1947 onwards:

The Stones Cry Out Movie

Website here.

Christianity was born in Palestine two thousand years ago. From there it spread throughout the Middle East and to the rest of the world. Yet many are unaware Christians still live in the land.

For more than 60 years the Palestinians, Christians and Muslims, have suffered displacement, expulsion, wars, occupation and oppression.

The voices of Palestinian Christians have all too often been drowned out in the turmoil of events.

This is their story, in their voices, from the Nakba of 1948 until today.

About the film

In 1948, tens of thousands of Palestinian villagers were driven from their homes in what was officially dubbed “Operation Broom”, intended to literally sweep tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in the fertile hills and valleys of the Galilee, and make way for settlers in the newly created state of Israel.

Elias Chacour, now the Archbishop of the Galilee, was just a little boy when Israeli troops ordered his family out of the Christian village of Kifr Bir’am. He left the village with a blanket on his shoulder, walking to his new home, a cave.

Today Kifr Bir’am is an Israeli national park, the houses of the village are crumbling, the church is abandoned.

After the Galilee came the expropriation of the West Bank in 1967, the settlements, the wall. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, is now hemmed in by the wall, cut off from Jerusalem, and robbed of much of its agricultural land.

All too often media coverage of the conflict in Palestine has framed it as a fight between Muslims and Jews, largely ignoring the fact that Palestine was the birthplace of Christianity, that Palestinians are both Muslims and Christians, and that Palestinian Christians have played a critical role in their land’s history and the struggle to maintain its identity.

From 1948 up to today, through wars and uprisings, leading Palestinian Christians, including the late President of Beir Zeit University Gabi Baramki, Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi, civil society activist Ghassan Andoni, Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah and others recount the unwavering and sometimes desperate struggle of all Palestinians to resist Israel’s occupation and stay on their land.

Watch: