The Christmas tree at Manger Square near the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, West Bank, Dec. 3, 2022.[/caption]
Israel’s callous disregard for Palestinian freedom to worship grows even more brazen than usual this Easter, adding to an already long list of human rights abuses. It’s business as usual under occupation.
“Hosanna” means “save us,” but Israeli soldiers descended on Palm Sunday worshipers anyway, grabbing Palestinian flags out of their hands in the middle of their holy procession.
The heads of Jerusalem’s Christian churches decided to close the Church of the Holy Sepulchre until further notice, in a protest against what they say is Israel’s “systematic campaign against the churches and the Christian community in the Holy Land”
Haaretz reports that a senior Israeli rabbi ruled against an image of an Israeli poet on a banknote because the poet’s wife was Christian. The rabbi said: “in our tradition, there are grave things written about whoever [lives his life] with a Christian. Tied to him like a dog. [People like that are] called apostates.” The ruling impacts ultra-Orthodox Jews living throughout Israel…
The recent conviction of an Israeli settler for an arson attack on the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes is a reminder that Jewish extremism toward Christians and their holy sites is a problem as old as the state of Israel itself.