by Jonathan Kuttab
Attacks by religious fanatics on places of worship and individuals of another religion are a well-known and despicable phenomenon. They go beyond mere racism and discrimination, in that they invoke the name of God Almighty in justifying bitter hatreds and hostilities against entire communities. Those performing the attacks do so with zeal and venom, and a feeling that they are serving God.
Attacks by religious Jews on Muslim holy places in Palestine are often recorded and noted, and they are sometimes used to explain the ongoing hostilities between the two groups and to warn of the consequences of turning an otherwise political situation into a religious conflict with devastating worldwide consequences. Indeed, it would be horribly tragic if Muslims worldwide start viewing Jews as enemies and start seeking revenge upon them in the name of God. Advocates and proponents of justice for Palestine should always be very careful to avoid such approaches and to insist on framing the situation in its proper political framework. They must not yield to the temptation of seeing it as a religious conflict between Judaism and Islam. To be sure, there are religious differences and conflicting claims to holy places, particularly in Jerusalem, and these conflicts have been used in the past to justify campaigns to conquer Jerusalem, “rid it of infidels,” and assert political control over it. This was also done by crusaders and other groups.
Recently, we have been observing a sharp rise in attacks by Jewish religious fanatics on Christian clergy, cemeteries, and holy places in Palestine, particularly in Jerusalem. These fanatics take advantage of the power of the state (Israel) to attack Christians and to assert political power and control over Jerusalem on behalf of the Jewish state.
The typical reaction in the West has been to totally ignore or downplay such attacks on Christians. One reason is an obvious one: Christians in the West feel they have very little basis for complaining against such bigotry in light of their own despicable millennia of anti-Jewish bigotry and intolerance in their own countries, which has not yet fully subsided as antisemitism continues to raise its ugly head from time to time until this day. The fact that the Christians being attacked in Palestine today are not responsible for western bigotry seems besides the point. Western Christians, who duly report and condemn every attack on synagogues and Jewish cemeteries are not as willing to note or condemn attacks on Christians in Palestine.
Yet these attacks are now becoming a more frequent phenomenon. One frequent type of attack, spitting on clerics and clergy, is literally a daily event in the Old City. One Israeli Jewish reporter, who wanted to investigate these claims, borrowed an abbot’s cassock and walked the streets of the Old City, and sure enough he was spat upon. The Israeli police apparently do nothing, even though the Old City is blanketed with surveillance cameras which record everything that happens in its streets, and given Israel’s facial-recognition technology, which it is marketing to the whole world, it would be easy for them to identify the attackers.
Another manifestation is in the attacks on Christian cemeteries and churches. Hateful graffiti is sprayed on the walls, there are attempts to start fires and burn churches, and cemeteries are broken into and headstones are smashed. In one recent attack on a church in the Old City, statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary were shattered. In a frightening incident recently, Jewish fanatics attacked the monastery of Stella Maris in Haifa, claiming that it is actually a Jewish holy site to which they want to lay claim. The conflicting claims of the three monotheistic religions, as well as the competing Christian denominations, was carefully set forth in a document referred to as the Status Quo arrangement, enacted by the Turkish Ottomans, adopted by the British, then the Jordanians, and at least formally accepted by Israel. Attempts to alter this arrangement could easily lead to religious conflict.
From a theological point of view, Christians (for the most part at least), thankfully no longer make the kind of claims that were made by Crusaders. After all, the essence of Jesus’ message was to reject the concept of an earthly kingdom. My kingdom is not of this world, he taught. He also addressed the issue of the “holy places” in his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. When she asked him where is the proper place to worship God, “here in Samaria or in Jerusalem?” He answered that neither is the true holy place for worship, because “God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
Good theological arguments can be found also in Judaism and Islam to battle such bigotry, but the fact remains that there are those who make a practice of agitating and seeking religious domination and supremacy in the name of God. We need to use both religious arguments, rational secular arguments, and proper common sense and decency to reject such atrocious behavior and to promote religious tolerance and understanding. Political strife is bad enough. Religious bigotry on top of that would be disastrous.