My friend, the late Fr Percy Church MSC wrote a dramatic description of his Christmas in Bethlehem:   

The bitter wind, the road blocks, the x-rays and the body searches had robbed the mass of joy, leaving the strange sensation that we were not in church but held in prison. And at the mass the military there, so evident, alienated all sacred sense. It seemed to be a play before TV cameras, to deceive a watching world that all is well giving me an uneasy sense of guilt for cooperating in a sacrilege or being a puppet in a lying show. Selling my own self and all I held dear.  

When the weary mass was ended and we had been released, people quietly melted away as if ashamed to have contributed to this masquerade. No singing, dancing, no cheery exchange with pilgrims from afar… we had no heart in it. 

We were loaded into army trucks as tired soldiers disassembled rooftop observation posts and mini fortresses.. glad there’d been  no incident ( a successful military operation) oblivious or not caring, or maybe glad they had stripped us of all purpose leaving only a shabby make-believe of a Christmas I had waited a lifetime to experience. 

We felt our way along some alleys of the town, still and empty with doors fast-locked that kept the people in but seemed to squeeze their fear like a winepress to flood the streets with something sour…a people grieving for those in prison, deformed or dead,  and full of fear what may be tomorrow. 

As no-one spoke I pondered if the sadness, fear and oppression from friend and foe alike  were not more like the reality of Christ’s own birth.  The bulk of the Herodium where Herod’s body lies still dominates the skyline here. At mass I had wondered if we had recalled that Christ was born or done to death tonight. Perhaps both. We should not forget the tinsel, trees and lights but remember also  this Christmas night in 1990 relived what St Matthew wrote, “That Herod was perturbed and so were all the people.” So maybe we were blessed tonight in Bethlehem. 

Seventeen years later, things are the same; the military presence, the fear, the lies. Especially the lies.  

Fr Percy’s view of Palestine, as was mine, had been shaped by the false heroic myths by Leon Uris and the biased lies publicized by the US influenced mainstream press: we hear ad nauseum Hamas won’t recognize Israel’s right to exist, but not that a political party cannot diplomatically recognize a state and besides, had Japan cruelly occupied Australia, apart from the timid and the inevitable collaborators, few Australians would be willing to recognize the right of Imperial Japan.  

Nor do we hear that Israel has not extended recognition to a Palestinian state. We are constantly reminded that Palestinians are terrorists but Israeli state terror is not exposed: Israel is an occupying power bound by the Geneva conventions yet it systematically commits war crimes by murdering stone-throwing children, allowing the sick to die at check points, cold-bloodedly letting the injured bleed to death by blocking ambulance access, and is presently laying siege to Gaza ensuring a humanitarian crisis of horrific magnitude.  

Suicide bombers make headlines, but the daily extra-judicial killings by one of the most sophisticated high-tech and largest armies in the world goes unannounced.  

There are cheers when Israeli migrants return home, but silence when Israel denies 3.5 million Palestinian refugees the right of return that is unambiguously guaranteed by international law under the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and UN resolution 194 (and now supported by Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the Vatican's office for migrants.)  

Finally, the Zionist claim of Israel as the promised land is historically discredited by the fact that since the Canaanite inhabitation of Palestine in 3000BC, the Jewish rule totals a mere 364 years until 1946.    

Seventeen years since Fr Percy was in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, there has been a colossal change. An eight metre high concrete Leviathan, a monster of chaos and apartheid,  has been loosed upon Palestine devouring Palestinian homes, crops, olive trees, livelihoods, precious things like family and community unity, even sanity have fallen apart. The beast has slouched into Bethlehem, encircled it and is slowly suffocating the people and the manger of peace. 

Fr Percy was a witness to the truth of Palestinian suffering under Israeli occupation and it pained his compassionate soul. As it must.  

His poem, Mary’s Face captures the madness and Love's solution: 

The beauty of her face belies her culture

I’ve seen the draining ugly anguish

On Palestinian and Jewish mother’s face

When her own son was done to death.

It felt the same in either race

And Mary was of both 

Vacy Vlazna

Justice for Palestine Matters

www.palestinematters.com