On This Day

Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.

2 Jan3 Jan4 Jan5 Jan6 Jan7 Jan8 Jan9 Jan10 Jan11 Jan12 Jan13 Jan14 Jan15 Jan16 Jan17 Jan18 Jan19 Jan20 Jan21 Jan22 Jan23 Jan24 Jan25 Jan26 Jan27 Jan28 Jan29 Jan30 Jan31 Jan1 Feb2 Feb3 Feb4 Feb5 Feb6 Feb7 Feb8 Feb9 Feb10 Feb11 Feb12 Feb13 Feb14 Feb15 Feb16 Feb17 Feb18 Feb19 Feb20 Feb21 Feb22 Feb23 Feb24 Feb25 Feb26 Feb27 Feb28 Feb29 Feb1 Mar2 Mar3 Mar4 Mar5 Mar6 Mar7 Mar8 Mar9 Mar10 Mar11 Mar12 Mar13 Mar14 Mar15 Mar16 Mar17 Mar18 Mar19 Mar20 Mar21 Mar22 Mar23 Mar24 Mar25 Mar26 Mar27 Mar28 Mar29 Mar30 Mar31 Mar1 Apr2 Apr3 Apr4 Apr5 Apr6 Apr7 Apr8 Apr9 Apr10 Apr11 Apr12 Apr13 Apr14 Apr15 Apr16 Apr17 Apr18 Apr19 Apr20 Apr21 Apr22 Apr23 Apr24 Apr25 Apr26 Apr27 Apr28 Apr29 Apr30 Apr1 May2 May3 May4 May5 May6 May7 May8 May9 May10 May11 May12 May13 May14 May15 May16 May17 May18 May19 May20 May21 May22 May23 May24 May25 May26 May27 May28 May29 May30 May31 May1 Jun2 Jun3 Jun4 Jun5 Jun6 Jun7 Jun8 Jun9 Jun10 Jun11 Jun12 Jun13 Jun14 Jun15 Jun16 Jun17 Jun18 Jun19 Jun20 Jun21 Jun22 Jun23 Jun24 Jun25 Jun26 Jun27 Jun28 Jun29 Jun30 Jun1 Jul2 Jul3 Jul4 Jul5 Jul6 Jul7 Jul8 Jul9 Jul10 Jul11 Jul12 Jul13 Jul14 Jul15 Jul16 Jul17 Jul18 Jul19 Jul20 Jul21 Jul22 Jul23 Jul24 Jul25 Jul26 Jul27 Jul28 Jul29 Jul30 Jul31 Jul1 Aug2 Aug3 Aug4 Aug5 Aug6 Aug7 Aug8 Aug9 Aug10 Aug11 Aug12 Aug13 Aug14 Aug15 Aug16 Aug17 Aug18 Aug19 Aug20 Aug21 Aug22 Aug23 Aug24 Aug25 Aug26 Aug27 Aug28 Aug29 Aug30 Aug31 Aug1 Sep2 Sep3 Sep4 Sep5 Sep6 Sep7 Sep8 Sep9 Sep10 Sep11 Sep12 Sep13 Sep14 Sep15 Sep16 Sep17 Sep18 Sep19 Sep20 Sep21 Sep22 Sep23 Sep24 Sep25 Sep26 Sep27 Sep28 Sep29 Sep30 Sep1 Oct2 Oct3 Oct4 Oct5 Oct6 Oct7 Oct8 Oct9 Oct10 Oct11 Oct12 Oct13 Oct14 Oct15 Oct16 Oct17 Oct18 Oct19 Oct20 Oct21 Oct22 Oct23 Oct24 Oct25 Oct26 Oct27 Oct28 Oct29 Oct30 Oct31 Oct1 Nov2 Nov3 Nov4 Nov5 Nov6 Nov7 Nov8 Nov9 Nov10 Nov11 Nov12 Nov13 Nov14 Nov15 Nov16 Nov17 Nov18 Nov19 Nov20 Nov21 Nov22 Nov23 Nov24 Nov25 Nov26 Nov27 Nov28 Nov29 Nov30 Nov1 Dec2 Dec3 Dec4 Dec5 Dec6 Dec7 Dec8 Dec9 Dec10 Dec11 Dec12 Dec13 Dec14 Dec15 Dec16 Dec17 Dec18 Dec19 Dec20 Dec21 Dec22 Dec23 Dec24 Dec25 Dec26 Dec27 Dec28 Dec29 Dec30 Dec31 Dec1 Jan

25 December

Fr Manuel MussallamPALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS IN THE NATIONAL STRUGGLE
On this day in 2007, Fr Manuel Musallam, the Catholic priest of the Gaza Diocese spoke irritatedly to an obtuse BBC reporter: “Hamas this, Hamas that. You think we Christians are shaking in our ghettos in Gaza? Of course, I am a Christian believer, but politically I am a Palestinian Muslim. I resist Israel's military occupation…This is our home.” Musallam’s parents accompanied him to Gaza. When they passed away in Gaza, the Israeli authorities denied him a permit to accompany them when they were buried in Bir Zeit.

 

المسيحيون الفلسطينيون هم جزء من النضال الوطني

25 ديسمبر

في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 2007 ، تحدث الأب مانويل مسلم ، القس الكاثوليكي في أسقفية (مطرانية) غزة ، بغضب إلى مراسل بي بي سي الذي كان لامباليا: "حماس هذه ، حماس تلك. هل تعتقد أننا كمسيحيين نرتجف في أحياءنا المنغلقة(كالجيتو) في غزة؟ بالطبع أنا مؤمن مسيحي ، لكنني سياسيًا فلسطيني مسلم. أنا أقاوم الاحتلال العسكري الإسرائيلي ...هذا بيتنا ". رافق مسلّم والداه معه إلى غزة. ولدى وفاتهم هناك ، رفضت السلطات الإسرائيلية منحه تصريح لمرافقتهم الى بيرزيت ليدفنوا هناك.

The journalist reprimanded by Fr. Musallam was the BBC's Katya Adler, currently BBC Europe Editor.
She conceded that Gaza in 2007, the year before Israel unleashed the Cast Lead massacre, was "home to a thriving Christian community". Adler reported that she had come to Fr. Musallam's "office to ask how Christians in Gaza were faring on this, their first Christmas under the full internal control of Hamas".

"You media people!" Father Musallam boomed at me when I first poked my head around his door.
"Hamas this, Hamas that. You think we Christians are shaking in our ghettos in Gaza? That we're going to beg you British or the Americans or the Vatican to rescue us?" Rescue us from what? From where? This is our home."

Ninety-nine percent of the Catholic school pupils are Muslim. Fr Musallam says he does not fear the Islamists. "They should be afraid. Not me. Their children are under my tutelage, in my school. Hamas mothers and fathers are here at parents' day along with everyone else."

But there is more that binds Christians and Muslims in Gaza than their children's shared playground. On one of the walls hang huge photos of the Pope, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Palestinian president.

I found a group of 10-year-olds on stage, rehearsing their Nativity play, watched, with great enthusiasm, by a group of their Muslim friends. Mary and Joseph squatted on stage. The girl playing Mary, clasped a tube of scrunched-up brown paper wrapped in a scarf, which, for rehearsal purposes, was posing as baby Jesus.

"You see, our identity is a multi-layered one. Of course, I am a Christian believer, but politically I am a Palestinian Muslim. I resist Israel's military occupation, obviously not with weapons. The Jihad can never be mine but with my words, my sermons, I am a Palestinian priest. We have lived alongside Muslims here since Islam was born. They have a special word for us, the Christians of Palestine. They call us Nasserine - the people of Nazareth. They recognise that we have always been here. Even the more extreme Muslims see a difference between us and other Christians they regard as enemies and call Crusaders."

Full article here

Like their Muslim neighbours, Christians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are denied basic religious freedoms. They are routinely prohibited from traveling very short distances to worship in one of the most holy sites in Christianity — the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem. Bethlehem at Christmas - every week of the year - is a prison, surrounded by a 25-foot high wall and patrolled by heavily armed soldiers. Entry to Bethlehem is through a massive steel and concrete checkpoint designed to humiliate and intimidate Palestinians trying to live and work.
A latter-day Mary and Joseph would probably be unable to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem; checkpoints, roads for Jews only, and armed settlers are just some of Israel’s creative range of obstacles to Palestinian travel.

Palestinian Archbishop Atallah Hanna denounced Israel's violation of human rights: “There has never been one day's fighting between Palestinian Muslims and Christians”. Christians have always been an integral part of the Palestinian freedom struggle. Atallah Hanna, Azmi Bishara, George Habash, Nayif Hawatmeh, and Hanan Ashrawi are notable examples.

Israel's recent “Nation State Law” reserves important democratic rights to Jews, denying them to Palestinian Muslims and Christians, whether they are Israeli citizens or under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. This law makes explicit what has always been the case - that Israel is based on apartheid structures of violent dispossession and subjugation of the Palestine indigenous people.

Every Christian denomination in Palestine collectively issued the Kairos Palestine appeal which calls on their co-religionists and others worldwide to support the BDS movement to boycott and isolate the State of Israel until it concedes Palestinian rights.

 

 

 

3-minute video: Palestinian Christians under Israeli occupation speak out