It all began on the first night of Passover, when a Palestinian terrorist introduced a new twist to the time-worn blood libel. Instead of accusing Jews of using Christian blood to bake matza, the terrorist killed 26 Jews as they sat down to the Passover seder in Netanya combining their blood with the matza on the table.
The awful symbolism of this attack was not lost on the Israeli government, and the IDF was finally allowed to respond to 18 months of war. Troops entered Palestinian-controlled cities throughout Israel, and succeeded to confine Yasser Arafat to his office in Ramallah together with about 50 wanted terrorists. And in Bethlehem, troops conducted a house to house search for terrorists, flushing them out into the streets and driving them into the city center. A gun battle erupted in Manger Square, with the terrorists finally invading the Church of the Nativity and taking 65 clergymen hostage as they began a standoff with IDF soldiers on Easter Monday.
To a certain extent, there is some symbolic justice in this situation. For centuries, Christian clergymen have fabricated the mixture of blood with matza in an effort to wipe out whole Jewish communities. Easter, the time when Christians celebrate Jesus’s death and resurrection, became a time to celebrate killing Jews. This year, when the Passover matza was truly mixed with blood – the blood of innocent Jewish celebrants – it is Jesus’s birthplace that is defiled by terrorists as they take hostage innocent Christian clergymen.
But such symbolic, even historical, justice is not on the Jewish agenda. Israel does not seek recompense from Christian clergy for the misdeeds of generations past. Indeed, some of Israel’s best friends are Christian leaders in North America and Europe, and such friendship is constantly recognized and appreciated for its very real value. In many cases, Christian leaders have shown more of an affinity for the State of Israel and its progress and development than some of their Jewish counterparts.
But while I give absolute credit and appreciation to such Christian displays of support and identification with the Jewish cause in Israel, I find it horrifying that the Palestinian leadership so cynically abuses all religious expression in Israel.
I am reminded as I write this of the destruction of Joseph’s Tomb in Shchem, and of repeated attempts to attack and destroy the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem. There is constant destruction taking place on the Temple Mount as the Palestinian-controlled authority there engages in “renovations” whose sole aim is the collapse of all remnants of Jewish presence there. And this week, the destruction of the Passover seder combined with the hostage-taking and defilement of the Church of the Nativity, explode any remaining myth of Palestinian tolerance for freedom of religious expression.
The entire set of supposed demands made by the Palestinians is based on Jewish identity. International legitimacy has been granted to Palestinian demands only in areas that are rich in historical Jewish identity. Just as Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Eilat do not appear in the Bible, they also do not appear in United Nations resolutions, State Department White Papers, or European Union policy statements.
The crux of this conflict surrounds Shchem, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Hevron, and Shilo – areas boasting thousands of years of Jewish and Christian history, the birthplaces of biblical religion.
Yasser Arafat’s war against Israel is not a war for his own state, not a war for territory, and not a war for freedom for his people. He was offered all that by a Jewish government, with backing from the Christian communities of the world. He rejected it all. Arafat’s war is a war of identity. He must eliminate all non-Arab identity, Christian or Jewish, from the Land of Israel. To do this, his battles must be fought over these areas that form the focus of Jewish and Christian identity. Indeed, even the name he has given to the current war – the al-Aksa Intifada – lends a religious fervor to the war that belies any other purpose.
Last December, Yasser Arafat expressed a desire to attend Christmas Mass celebrations in Bethlehem. An international uproar ensued when Israel forbade his attendance. But Arafat’s intentions were not grounded in religious brotherhood. Rather, he intended to use his appearance there as a symbol that Jewish and Christian religious identity was non-existent in the Land of Israel.
The next time anyone attempts to believe Arafat when he makes overtures to religious communities, they would also do well to remember the defilement of religion that he has overseen. This week’s blood libel in Netanya and standoff in Bethlehem provide another proof that there is no freedom of religion in Arafat’s picture of Israel.
Copyright 2002. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
