Academic literature on the topic 'Palestinian Christians'

This thesis challenges the assumption of Israeli state bias in favour of its Palestinian Christian population. Using ethnocratic and control theories it argues instead that the Palestinian Christians are inextricably associated with the wider Arab “problem” and remain, as a result, permanently outside the boundaries of the dominant Jewish national consensus. Moreover, this thesis argues that state attitudes towards the small Palestinian Christian communities are quite unique and distinguishable from its attitudes towards other segments of the Palestinian Arab minority, whether Muslim or Druze. Despite being considered a relatively modern and secular community, its small size, weak electoral power, extensive external links and its central role in Palestinian Arab national politics have resulted in a basic level of ambivalence towards them on the part of the authorities. This is compounded by Jewish memories of Christian persecution in Europe which have come, to some extent, to be redirected at disconnected local Christian communities and churches. At the same time, the growth of Jewish religious politics in society and particularly within the Israeli political establishment has resulted in a noticeable rise in previous levels of anti-Christian religious antipathy. These factors have combined to produce a visible pattern in the manner in which the state engages with its Palestinian Christian citizens today. This thesis concludes through the use of recent case-studies and a series of semi-structured interviews that Israeli state attitudes towards its Palestinian Christian population are, in fact, best described as being based on indifference and neglect rather than on any other single factor.

The foundation of the modern State of Israel in 1948 is commemorated by countless Palestinians as a day of „catastrophe.‟ Many Palestinian Christians claim that it was also spiritually catastrophic as the characters, names, events, and places of the Old Testament took on new significance with the newly formed political state and thereby caused vast portions of the text to be abandoned and unusable in their eyes. The present dissertation investigates this issue and asks, “How do Palestinian Christians read the Old Testament in light of the foundation of the modern State of Israel?” “Is it markedly different from that which preceded it?” “And what is the solution to the problem?” These questions form the basis of the present dissertation, “Palestinian Christians and the Old Testament: Hermeneutics, History and Ideology.” Chapter 1 introduces the dissertation. Chapter 2 looks at the basic elements of contemporary Palestinian Christian hermeneutics of the Old Testament, outlining the opinions of Naim Ateek, Mitri Raheb, Naim Khoury, Yohanna Katanacho, Michel Sabbah, and Atallah Hanna (Hermeneutics). Chapters 3-5 examine the degree to which Palestinian Christianity has developed and PCHOT has changed over the years (History). Chapter 3 looks at the years prior to 1917 and analyzes among other things the views of Chalil Jamal, Seraphim Boutaji, and Michael Kawar. Chapter 4 then surveys the years between 1917 and 1948, and chapter 5 reviews the years since 1948. Chapters 6-7 then look at how Palestinian Christians might read the Old Testament in the future (Ideology). Chapter 6 examines proposals made by Michael Prior, Charles Miller, and Gershon Nerel. Chapter 7 then outlines this author‟s own hermeneutic and provides an in depth analysis of Deuteronomy 7. Chapter 8 concludes the dissertation and proposes a way forward for Palestinian Christians and their reading of the Old Testament.

This study seeks to address a gap in the literature with regard to the Christian Palestinians. As members of a very small minority, they are often overlooked by the media and the academic community. While this is changing to some extent for Christian Palestinians in the Middle East, there is scant literature that considers their lives in the ‘West’ and almost none on their experiences in Britain. This thesis considers how Christian Palestinians have adapted to life in London, including an analysis of the individual experiences of both Christian Palestinians and Muslim Palestinians. Interviews with respondents focused on their English language abilities, educational achievements, attitudes to intermarriage, and their sense of belonging. These aspects were chosen because they offer an insight into respondents’ private and public lives, a distinction that is particularly important in the study of integration and assimilation. Through the assessment of these attributes, this research seeks to redefine the way that assimilation has been viewed and argues that a more comprehensive study of assimilation must include not only an analysis of whether migrants have adopted a characteristic of the host nation’s population, but also an analysis of whether they have adopted the sentiments their native born counterparts have attached to them.

Cette étude soulève de nombreuses questions sur les Palestiniens vivant au sein de la diaspora en se concentrant sur les Palestiniens Chrétiens. Elle traite de sujets majeurs concernant les migrations, la diaspora, l'identité et les réseaux ; quatre concepts interdépendants mais qui ne peuvent être analysés de façon isolée les uns des autres. La majorité des migrations palestiniennes ont commencé pa rdes migrations forcées pour des raisons politiques ou économiques avant de devenir des migrations transnationales.Bien que des politiques d'absorption des migrants par les pays de la diaspora aient été mises en place, ceux-ci ont conservé leur identité, grâce aux réseaux religieux, familiaux,nationaux et palestiniens. La création de clubs de villages et de villes, de clubs familiaux, d’églises arabes, entre autres,ont relié les migrants les uns aux autres et ont également mis en lien la diaspora et le pays d'origine.Comprenant des réseaux sociaux, économiques et charitables, les réseaux transnationaux ont affirmé les relations des migrants avec leur pays d'origine comme un élément principal. Toutefois, la proportion de migrants palestiniens pouvant franchir les frontières de leur pays d'origine reste faible. Ceci confirme le fait que les Palestiniens à l'étranger constituent une vraie diaspora. Les Palestiniens ont vécu différentes expériences de migration et de diaspora dans les pays arabes voisins et dans les pays éloignés étrangers (non-arabes). Le concept de diaspora a été redéfini à partir de notre terrain palestinien.L'étude présente différents modèles géographiques de familles palestiniennes dans la diaspora<br>This study raises many questions and issues on Palestinians living in the diaspora through focusing on the segment of Palestinian Christians. This study discusses major issues on the level of migrations, diaspora, identity and networks; four interrelated concepts that could not be examined or understood in isolation from each other. The majority of Palestinian migrations started as forced emigrations for political or economic reasons before becoming transnationa lmigrations. This shift was accompanied by another shift in the legal statuses of this transient segment of Palestinians who obtained new nationalities.As a result of the adoption of migrants' absorption policies by countries of diaspora, migrants have preserved their identities, which ranged from religious, to familial, to nationalist and to Palestinian. The establishment of village and city clubs, Arab churches and family divans (Diwans) among others have connected migrants to one another and also connected the diaspora to the homeland .Ranging from social, to economic, to charitable, transnational networks have affirmed emigrants' relations with their country of origin as a main element. However, the proportion of Palestinian emigrants could cross borders to their country of origin is small. This is confirm the fact that Palestinians abroad constitute a real diaspora .Palestinians have gone through different experiences of migration and diaspora in neighboring Arab countries and remote foreign (non-Arab) countries; the concept of Diaspora has been redefined in a manner that fits the Palestinian case. The study presents different geographic patterns of Palestinian families in the diaspora

Palestine is known as the birthplace of Christianity. However the Christian population of this land is relatively insignificant today, despite the continuing institutional legacy that the 19th century Western missionary focus on the region created. Palestinian Christians are often forced to employ politically astute as well as theologically radical means in their efforts to appear relevant within an increasingly Islamist-oriented society. My thesis focuses on two ecumenical Christian organisations within Palestine, the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem (headed by the Anglican cleric Naim Stifan Ateek) and Dar Annadwa Addawliyya (the International Centre of Bethlehem-ICB, directed by the Lutheran theologian Mitri Raheb). Based on my field work (consisting of an in-depth familiarisation with the two organisations in Palestine and interviews with their directors, office-staff and supporters worldwide, as well as data analyses based on an extensive literature review), I argue that the grassroots-oriented educational, humanitarian, cultural and contextual theological approach favoured by the ICB in Bethlehem is more relevant to the Palestinian situation, than the more sectarian and Western-oriented approach of the Sabeel Centre. These two groups are analysed primarily according to their theological-political approaches. One, (Sabeel), has sought to develop a critical Christian response to the Palestine-Israel conflict using the politico-theological tool of liberation theology, albeit with a strongly ecumenical Western-oriented focus, while the other (ICB), insists that its theological orientation draws primarily from the Levantine Christian (and in their particular case, the Palestinian Lutheran) context in which Christians in Israel-Palestine are placed. Raheb of the ICB has tried to develop a contextual theology that seeks to root the political and cultural development of the Palestinian people within their own Eastern Christian context and in light of their peculiarly restricted life under an Israeli occupation regime of over 40 years. In the process, I argue that the ICB has sought to be much more situationally relevant to the needs of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, given the employment, socio-cultural and humanitarian-health opportunities opened up by the practical-institution building efforts of this organisation in Bethlehem.

Despite the increasingly common situation of statelessness in the contemporary Middle East, a majority of the theoretical tools used to study nationalism are contingent upon the existence of a sovereign state. As such, they are unable to fully explain the mechanisms of national identity, political participation, and integration in non-institutional contexts, where other social identities continue to play a significant political role. In these contexts, the position of demographic minorities in society is significant, as actors with the most popular support –majorities -- tend to have the strongest impact on the shape of the political field. This thesis demonstrates what we can learn from studying the mechanisms of nationalism and political participation for one such minority group, the Palestinian Christians, particularly with regards to how national identity fails or succeeds in instilling attachment to the state and society. This is accomplished by applying the theoretical framework of social identity theory to empirical field research conducted in the West Bank in 2014, combined with an analysis of election and survey data. It is argued that the level of attachment individuals feel towards the “state” or confessional communities is dependent on the psychological or material utility gained from group membership. If individuals feel alienated from the national identity, they are more likely to identify with their confessional community. If they are alienated from both, then they are far likelier to emigrate. Additionally, I suggest that the way in which national identity is negotiated in a stateless context is important to future state building efforts, as previous attempts to integrate national minorities into the political system through, e.g., devolved parliaments and quotas, have failed to instil a universal sense of the nation.