Last week, The Guardian told the story of the Qubrsi brothers — two of approximately 1,400 Christians residing in Gaza today. Brothers Karam and Peter are currently the only members of their family still in Gaza. Their sisters Rani and Mai fled to Bethlehem in 2007 after the manager of Gaza’s Bible Society Bookstore, where their husbands worked, was shot dead by radical Islamists; their parents are in Israel, where their mother receives treatment for pancreatic cancer.
Like every Christmas since the Hamas takeover in 2007, the Qubrsi brothers are prohibited from celebrating the holiday openly. When Hamas took control, Christmas lost its status as a public holiday, and public displays of non-Muslim worship were banned. Peter tells the story of having been harassed and threatened with arrest by a Hamas official for wearing a wooden cross around his neck. The city square that once was home to a large communal Christmas tree is now empty. The brothers celebrate quietly in their living room.
Although Karam and Peter hoped to travel to Bethlehem — the traditional birthplace of Jesus — for the holidays, Israel limits the number of exits from Gaza at 500 people, and only those below the age of 16 and above 35 are eligible to leave. They hope for a day when the Palestinian Authority will return to power to “take revenge” and put an end to the religious persecution.
Religious intolerance in Gaza also causes hardships beyond a doleful Christmas.
Peter told The Guardian, “This is not a Christian environment. There are no good universities, there is no opportunity to work, no apartments to rent and so no way we can get married. We have no future here.”
Nazareth Illit — or Upper Nazareth — is a Jewish town in northern Israel that overlooks the larger Israeli Arab city of Nazareth proper. About one third of the 70,000 inhabitants of Nazareth — the city in which Jesus grew up — are Christian; the rest are Muslim. In recent years, the heights of Upper Nazareth have attracted more Christian Arab residents, who now comprise about fifteen percent of the population.
This Christmas, Mayor Shimon Gapso of the mostly Jewish Upper Nazareth has declared that there shall be no public displays of Christmas trees or any other non-Jewish symbols in his town.
“Upper Nazareth is a Jewish town and all its symbols are Jewish,” said Mayor Gapso. “As long as I hold office, no non-Jewish symbol will be presented in the city.”
Gapso was approached by Arab members of the city council, including Muslim members, who pointed out that Christmas trees serve no other purpose than to spread happiness and that Jewish Chanukkiyot (Menorahs) are displayed is numerous American cities that are not designated as Jewish. Gapso’s response was, “Let them go down to Lower Nazareth.”
Gapso’s ban on Christian worship in his town seems to fly in the face of Israel’s Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty, which guarantees religious rights to people of all faiths in Israel.
The mayor’s actions have incensed Arab and Jewish Israelis alike.
Yuval Ben-Ami, a writer for +972 Magazine writes, “By declaring Upper Nazareth Christmas resistant, Mayor Gapso exposes the great insecurity and confusion of the Jewish state. If the only way to maintain the Jewish character of his town is by showing complete lack of tolerance and resisting integration of its non-Jewish residents, then Upper Nazareth is in fact a self-imposed ghetto, walled by fear and intolerance and so, by extension, is the entire state of Israel.”
This is not the first time that Shimon Gapso has faced such accusations. Earlier this year, MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) petitioned Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to have Mayor Gapso removed from office for having told an Arab newspaper that if he had been present during the October 2000 clashes between Israeli Arabs and police, more Arabs would have been killed.
Thanks Jacob.
It frustrates me that Yuval Ben-Ami doesn’t feel obliged to justify his extension to ‘the entire state of Israel’. The topic is too sensitive to be phrased so flippantly.
That ticked me off, too. I think it’s quite an exaggeration, but also something worth thinking about, given the sum of everything that’s going on in Israel these days. Check this out: http://t.co/4Ro3tq6F.
I think that this is an article that shows people here of a forgotten struggle that affects us all. By living in California, we live somewhere in which religious freedom is supposedly protected, and to a large extent it is… but this article serves as a reminder that freedom and expression of religion is still a struggle. we all want freedom of religion but we forget that it comes at a cost. Unfortunately we often think we must stifle another religion in order for our own to survive… hopefully one day we will live in a world where this is not true.
I think this is a good article and it says a lot about the situation but it would be better if you could explain more about the fact that the Mayor of Nazareth does not represent the norm in Israel. It is outrageous that he feels like he can do such a thing and prevent a minority group from expressing their own religion. You could only find a response from Meretz on a different matter? Nothing from a more mainstream Israeli organization?
Another interesting thing that you mention is this, “They hope for a day when the Palestinian Authority will return to power to “take revenge” and put an end to the religious persecution.”
I am really interested in were you came up with this, a little research, and if you can try and read Khaled Abu Toameh on this, you would find that the PA is almost as bad as Hamas the only difference is that they don’t execute religious minorities that openly practice their faith. The PA has restrictions on buying land and since Oslo in 1993 Bethlehem which was a majority Christian city is now less then 15%. It is important for people to fully understand the plight of Christians not only in Gaza but all over the Middle East.
Check this out
http://www.hudson-ny.org/501/the-beleaguered-christians-in-bethlehem
this article is propaganda. christmas is celebrated in gaza every year. it is israel that restricts palestinians from worshipping the holy sites of their homeland with its imposition of racist policies