Yves Teyssier D'Orfeuil, Michel Sabbah: Paix sur Jerusalem. Propos D'un Eveque Palestinien.

Yves Teyssier D'Orfeuil, Michel Sabbah: Paix sur Jerusalem. Propos D'un Eveque Palestinien (Paris: Desclee de Brauwer, 2002), 297 pages,

THE AUTHOR, A FRENCH HISTORIAN and political scientist, who spent two years teaching at the Catholic University in Bethlehem, writes on the life and teaching of the first Palestinian Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Msgr. Michel Sabbah and on the native Christians of the Holy Land and Jordan who have been almost forgotten in the West. The book which provides a historical introduction to the present situation and discusses in depth the teaching of the Palestinian Roman Catholic Bishop, on the whole represents a rather unique compendium of knowledge about some of the most disputed religious and political issues of the era.

Msgr. Michel Sabbah is only one of the Patriarchs of the Holy City alongside the Greek Orthodox and Armenian ones. He is also the only Palestinian Arab among them and the local Arab Christians are very proud of him. In addition to Israel/Palestine, his jurisdiction extends to Jordan and Cyprus and his Latin Church, together with the Greek Orthodox Church, is the most important one among the thirteen main Christian churches of the Middle Eastern mosaic. With the exception of the minuscule Hebrew Language Catholic community in Israel, his faithful are essentially all Palestinian and Jordanian Arabs who share the fate of their Muslim compatriots, including the severe oppression and acute conflicts with Israel. Being their pastor and advocate, Msgr. Sabbah is also a Catholic bishop and theologian who is obliged to be open and compassionate to the Israeli side and to reflect in depth on the mystery of Israel and Palestine in the biblical context. According to him, to be a Christian in the Holy Land now is both a vocation and a spiritual, moral and psychological struggle. In order to help his people to pass through this difficult period, he wants to offer them the best possible encouragement: hope (p. 9).

From the end of World War I until now, the Arab Christian Communities of the Middle East, which particularly in the Holy Land and Syria are probably the oldest in the world, face many tremendous challenges. The division of the post-Ottoman Arab East among a number of small political entities, the establishment of the Zionist settlers' state of Israel, and the concomitant displacement of the majority of Palestinians led to political and social upheaval in the region which had a very negative impact on many local Christians and their role in the region. Although in 1914 the Palestinian Christians accounted for 15 percent of the country's population, their numbers have now declined to 3.8 percent in the Occupied Territories, 2.1 percent in Israel, and 4.2 percent in Jordan (p. 44). Lack of economic prospects, the Israeli repression and the general political uncertainty forced or persuaded many of them to emigrate from their ancestral homeland. For the Christian Churches in the region--especially in and around the Christian holy places in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth--this represents a peculiar threat of degradation to the role of the museums and/or tourist places without the local faithful and their warmth and protection. As the Patriarch has many times indicated, the Palestinian Christians are an integral part of the Palestinian people and must suffer the same fate as their Muslim brothers and sisters. They are also killed, tortured, detained, or forcibly expelled, their homes are destroyed and lands confiscated. Msgr. Sabbah thus considers it his bounden duty to defend the rights of all the Palestinians, arguing that their rights should be equal to those of the Israelis (p. 289).

Although he is a faithful Catholic bishop, and in general principles follows the Vatican's line strictly, he nevertheless believes that as the Palestinian Christians are also part of the universal Church, he as their pastor needs to be more outspoken and directly engaged.

Shortly after taking office, he wrote in one of his pastoral letters that no one under any pretext could ask all oppressed people to stay in silence and forget about their rights. Also, no one should fill the hearts of the oppressed with sterile hatred and a wish for revenge. The proper goal should not be to hate the adversary, but to achieve justice (p. 218). His ideas are consequently firmly based on the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II, who always links peace with justice, and frequently also with truth (p. 219).

For true believers such as Sabbah, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is particularly hard to deal with, not only because of the historical and political circumstances and the prevailing imbalance of power between the parties involved. The problem also rests in the Bible itself especially some parts of the Old Testament such as the Books of Joshua and Chronicles which apparently seem to support the present Israeli claims and to condemn the Palestinians to the exile and suffering. At present those parts of the Hebrew Bible which are additionally taken out of their historical context and previous Christian tradition, are now frequently used for political reasons by Christian fundamentalists in North America and right wing Israelis in Israel itself. It is understandable that reading these parts of the Scriptures is particularly challenging for the Palestinians and other Arab Christians, and might cause their doubts and disenchantment. In order to address their anguish, Msgr. Sabbah recalls the old Christian belief that the Divine Revelation was progressive and that the truth concerning God and the message of salvation was not communicated only at one time, once and for all. As he writes, "the level of knowledge and understanding of God's Word corresponds to each stage of the history of the people of God" and Christ and his universalistic message is the key for a Christian reading of the Bible.

The land of Israel/Palestine for many centuries belonged to the Palestinians; even during biblical times this land was also inhabited by other peoples who always co-existed with the Jewish people. Furthermore, this land is the cradle and location of most of the important events of Christianity. It is Christianity's holy land "par excellence." It is also a holy land for Islam. It is thus a holy land for all believers of the three major monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For each this land is holy for a variety of reasons, but one of them, though interpreted differently, is common to all: reference to the same ancestor, Abraham and to the faith in the same God, who is one and unique.

Two peoples, therefore, have political rights in the same land, and three religions also have religious rights there. These three religions are the "descendants," physical or spiritual, of Abraham, to whom God had promised the land. Today, if one of the three religions were to claim in the name of religion, a political right to the land, then the two others would have a right to put the same claim, for the same reason. The Patriarch often repeated the formula that the Holy Land is "one land, two peoples, three religions," the same as Jerusalem is "one city for two peoples and three religions" (p. 288). As God is believed to be a Lord of History, the two thousand years of the Jewish dispersal and the Palestinian presence there cannot be ignored, just as the Christian and Islamic roots in the country should not be overlooked. All these developments also need to be respected, being the Will of God (p. 200).

Sabbah deeply believes in the mystery of Jerusalem and the Holy Land as a whole. If many Western Christians support Israel and want to ignore the Palestinian reality, the Palestinians are for him an inseparable part of the Holy Land's identity (p. 201). One of his close aides, Father Rafiq Khoury, similarly indicates that it is impossible to understand the history of Israel without the history of Palestine, and there is no theology of Israel without the theology of Palestine. Theological understanding of the meaning of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 needs to be completed by a similar understanding of the destruction of two-thirds of the Palestinian villages and the expulsion of three-quarters of the Palestinian people. "The Palestinians are part of the history of Salvation in the geography of Salvation" (p. 202).

Father Michel Dubois, a French Dominican priest who taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was well known because of his pro-Israeli sympathies, noticed that Sabbah "defends his Palestinian people just as Cardinal Lienard, Bishop of Lille, defended the workers" (p. 290). As Lienard was one of the most prominent and still greatly respected leaders of the French Catholics, his words sound laudatory. The Palestinian Patriarch certainly deserves our recognition, but his struggle has not ended, and the future of his Palestinian Christian community now seems gloomier than ever before. Only worldwide understanding and support for his noble ideas can save the situation and allow him to complete his mission.

Andrej Kreutz is an independent scholar based in Calgary, Canada