Palestine through the eyes of young artists

Several months ago while still in Israel/Palestine, I blogged about my trip to Ramallah in search of contemporary Palestinian art.  I noted that I wanted to take my favorite piece by Maisa Azaizeh home with me.  It turns out that I did in a manner of speaking… it was just a bit slower making the journey.

After a string of emails to various organizations, I finally was put in touch with the artist, and we began exchanging emails about the painting, how I might purchase it, and how we might get it to the United States.  The exhibition traveled throughout Palestine until July 24, at which time it was free to make its way to me.  It arrived in the mail today, and it is everything that I remember it.

Here is what Maisa had to say about the painting:

When i first thought about painting a piece for [the] “Palestine through the eyes of young artist” exhibition, I immediately thought about the closest issues to me, things that are haunting me in me daily life, in the streets, in my way to work, the view i see out of my window, etc…  In the first glance, the painting looks as if its a panorama taken from a refugee camp, stressed and crowded, while in fact, even in the 48 Palestinian areas we notice Palestinian villages and neighbourhoods that looks like camps, since they suffer from marginalization [and] neglect, therefore, Palestinians, citizens of Israel, face limited possibilities in building and [the] confiscation of land. So, we see those places as crowded boxes, with its small details that seems not so important, but in fact they are for people (like cables, water tanks and so on..). Nevertheless, people don’t give up, don’t allow depression to enter their houses and even their air.. They still have some hope, which I highlight through the diversity of colors..

Episcopal Public Policy Network Middle East Action Alert

Your voice is needed now to support a renewed American leadership for peace in the Holy Land.

Over the past several weeks, numerous media reports have spotlighted the new energy in the Obama Administration for working toward a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Reportedly, the President is considering putting forward a U.S.-backed plan for a two-state solution that would end the occupation of the Palestinian territories; provide for the security and recognition of Israel; and establish a viable, secure, and independent Palestinian state.

Earlier this month, Christian leaders in the United States, including Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, wrote to the President to express “every possible support” for the Administration’s leadership toward peace, and to pledge to renew efforts to “join with our Jewish and Muslim colleagues to help work for that goal.” To read the full text of the letter, click here.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
For the Administration to succeed in its push for Middle-East peace, it needs strong support from lawmakers of both parties. You can help now by sharing the letter from the Presiding Bishop and other Christian leaders with your Senators and Representative. Click here to send a message to your lawmakers.

BRIEF BACKGROUND

• In March, the Administration’s envoy to the Middle East, former Senator George Mitchell, announced a commitment by Israel and the Palestinians to resume indirect peace negotiations (so-called “proximity talks”), a modest but important first step toward the resumption of full negotiations. This effort, however, was derailed in the wake of Vice President Biden’s trip to Jerusalem, during which the Israeli government announced a new wave of settlement-building in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
• Both Israel and the Palestinians must share responsibility for creating the conditions necessary for peace talks to resume. Palestinians must improve security by halting attacks on civilians, blocking illegal arms shipments and disarming militias, and improve governance and transparency as they build capacity for a future state. Israel needs to freeze expansion of settlements, withdraw “illegal outposts,” ease movement for Palestinians by reducing military check points, and refrain from disproportionate military responses.
• The Obama Administration now reportedly is considering putting forward an American plan for a achieving a two-state solution.
• This is a vital moment in the fight to establish a lasting peace that strengthens and protects Israel’s right to exist securely and free from violence, ends the occupation, and establishing a viable and independent Palestinian state.

Palestinian Farmer and Peace Educator Comes to Little Washington

Planting Peace, Teaching Hope

Sunday April 18, 2010 at 3 p.m.

A conversation with Daoud Nassar of Tent of Nations

Trinity Episcopal Church, 379 Gay Street, Little Washington, Virginia 22747

Daoud Nassar, a Palestinian Christian farmer, and his family work their 100-acre farm and olive grove near the West Bank town of Bethlehem.  They and their farm are part of a network of  ministries connected to the Tent of Nations, a dynamic peace and education center where Palestinian neighbors, international visitors, and interested Israelis join in conversations, olive tree planting, children’s camps, and other non-violent peace activities.

Contact Beverly Hunter for more information bev_hunter@earthlink.net

Home: Reflections on the [holy] land

Posted by Abbott Bailey

We are home now with much to think about and digest following an incredible trip in the land where Jesus walked, taught, healed, died, and was raised.  As Christian pilgrims, we went to enter into this story and hopefully come into spiritual contact with the person we consider our Savior.  As I mentioned in one of the first posts, before leaving on the trip, one of the children at St. Andrew’s School, a first grader, asked me to please take a picture with Jesus to share with them when I get back.  All I could do was chuckle in delight while thinking that I had much explaining to do when I got back.  In retrospect, I think this child knows more about adult behavior than I realized, because all 38 of us went from site to site taking pictures like paparzzi desperate for a glimpse of our religion’s greatest celebrity.  The point is, for Christians coming from outside of Israel and Palestine, the place is about a the person of Jesus Christ; the land is holy primarily virtue of Jesus’ presence in it.

For those who live there, however, the land is holy for very different reasons.  One of our speakers, Dr. Yarden, explained to me, that for Jews the land is in and of itself holy, starting from the site of the Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount and spreading out in concentric circles wider and wider.  There is no place that is not holy in all the land, which is why many orthodox Jews will get off the plane and immediately kiss the ground.  It is, to them, the promised land.  The specific location of historic events is not necessarily of utmost importance.  What is of utmost importance is its representation of the relationship – the covenant – between God and the Jewish people.  After the holocaust when over 6 million Jews were systematically subjected to state-sponsored murder, the land also represents the security of a Jewish state – a place where Jewish people might be safe from anyone or any nation ever again trying to wipe them off the face of the earth.  The land itself is like a signpost on the door calling for God’s protection and care.

For the Palestinians – both Christian and Muslim – the land is no less important.  Their lives are inextricably tied to it, despite being forced from it and having lived as an occupied people in for much of modern history. Nasser, our guide, is a Palestinian Christian born in the Old City of Jerusalem.  He and his family are refugees twice over.  His grandfather fled what is now Northern Israel in the late 40s when civil war broke out, the state of Israel was established and many Palestinians fled, were ejected from their homes or killed in the conflict that ensued.  He fled up through Jordan and back into the territory to settle his family in what is now the West Bank.  In the 1967 War between Israel and the neighboring Arab States, Nasser’s family again lost their land and became refugees for the second time.  When you enter the home of a refugee in Palestine, you will most likely find the keys to their original homes hanging in some prominent place.  Their ability to return home, called the ‘right of return,’ is one of the key sticking points in peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine.

For all these groups of people, the land is more than about livelihood; it is about their identity as a people.  They belong to the land, and it represents nothing less than life and freedom for them.

I said after my first trip here (this was my third) that this place seeps into your skin and settles in your bones in some inexplicable way.  If it does that for me, it’s almost unimaginable how deeply it is settled into those who live there.

Day Twelve: “Sleepover” in the Church of the Resurrection

Last night several of us wandered through the virtually empty streets of the Old City to the doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where we were hoping we might be admitted for a late night liturgy in the Franciscan Chapel and then to stay on throughout a portion of the night shut inside until the doors opened again at 4:00 am (so we’d been told).  I have been to the Church of the Resurrection several times previously and, while I appreciate its history and significance in the Christian tradition as the site of Golgatha and Jesus’ burial, I have not found it particularly compelling as a holy site.  That it is shared by three major denominations – the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian Orthodox and the Latin Roman Catholics with privileges granted to The Egyptian Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syrian Orthodox rendered its interior – to me – the equivalent of walking into a TV store with each TV on a different channel.  I found it visually and aurally dizzying in and of itself — never mind the scores of tourists clamoring about.

But when I heard that I had the option of being locked in to the church for the night, I was more than intrigued. I thought at last I’d have the opportunity to spend some time soaking in the place and the various Christian traditions manifested there in a less distracting way and maybe even find it a place of prayer.  I imagined tucking myself away some where inside the dark and quiet church to pray while occasionally milling about to experience on of the liturgies that might take place in the wee hours of the night.  I even grabbed by headphones so that I could listen to some chant on my iphone for a small portion of the time while inside (this was, after all, originally to last between 7:00 pm and 4:00 am).  Megan, more right than she realized at the time, blurted, “Headphones? Every sound is a chant inside the Holy Sepulchre.”  I never did need those headphones.

When we arrived we waited outside the door in the courtyard until the doors were opened.  The keys to the church are held, incidentally, by one of the oldest aristocratic muslim families in Jerusalem.  According to Dr. Ali Qleibo, who is member of this family, the custody of the door, which regulates the ceremonial opening and closing of the entrance to the church, is inherited by members of the family since the early pilgrim days to this site in the seventh century.

Once inside, we wandered around a bit until bells started chiming from multiple.  The Armenians had begun censing the altars within the Holy Sepulchre, beginning with the Holy Sepulchre itself.  Led by something like verger, they processed from altar to altar to cense each holy place as pilgrims and tourists were “shooed” out of the way.  It wasn’t too long before we realize that tonight was going to be anything but a quiet night (we are told that it can sometimes be quiet at night in the church).  Liturgy after liturgy started taking place in the various chapels, sometimes with overlapping bells and chants.  I suppose it should have been cacophonous with all the competing sounds, but somehow it wasn’t.  The various traditions weren’t fighting for prominence in sight or sound; they were simply conducting their liturgy.

We settled in to the Franciscan Chapel for the Vigil Celebration of the Third Sunday in Lent (or something like that — “Celebratio Vigiliae Dominicalis III Quadragessimae).  We chanted psalms and hymns and heard scripture (all in Latin, mind you) leading up to the great gospel procession.  As the Gospel book was processed out of the Franciscan Chapel, around and in the Holy Sepulchre, we were given candles to join in the procession.  In that moment, perhaps more than any other, we transitioned from tourists to pilgrims as we joined in this great liturgy.  At one point, we realized that, at least in this liturgy, we were no longer the on-lookers, but part of the celebration in a very different way than Eucharists we’d celebrated at holy sites up until then.  We processed with the Franciscan priests and monks, nuns and other pilgrims from around the world.  Onlookers snapped photos of us, but it didn’t matter, because we were worshipping – together.

At the conclusion of this vigil, Megan and I made our way to the edges of the Greek Orthodox Liturgy.  An Eastern liturgy, this one was so unfamiliar to us that we had virtually no point of entry for comprehension.  We did find, however, that it was difficult not to get swept up in the crowd of worshipers who were moving in waves, circling in and out as the priests moved through the crowd and then up to the altar.  We realized finally that the waves carried people to a cross held by one of the priests meant for veneration by the worshipers (to kiss the cross).

Lured by the sound of the most incredible chanting, we again made our way to the Holy Sepulchre, where the Armenians were again celebrating a liturgy at the tomb.  What sounded like a full choir was actually just five men.  Before too long we found ourselves drawn into the liturgy again even though we were standing on the sidelines as they included us in the censing during the worship.  I was grateful for my exposure to Anglo-Catholic liturgy so that I knew enough to bow in acknowledgment whenever the thurifer turned in our direction with the thurible.    I was grateful to again to experience participation in the devotion at this most holy site in Christendom, though utterly foreign and strange and incomprehensible.

Finally, nearing 3:00 am, we headed home through the utterly deserted streets of the Old City and went to bed to practice resurrection.

Day Eleven: Conspicuous in Ramallah

Today while most of the rest of the pilgrims headed to Qumran and the Dead Sea (I have visited these places twice on previous pilgrimages), I went with a few folks to Ramallah to visit some of the Anglican ministries here – school, hospital, vocational center.  My friends will have to fill you in on those in another blog post, because I was feeling a bit more adventurous and decided to peel off from the group to wander the streets of Ramallah in search of contemporary Palestinian art.

As soon as I got on the bus headed to Birzeit University’s Ethnographic and Art Museum and waved goodbye to my friends, I was immediately struck by how conspicuous I was. Everywhere we have been to date has been inundated with tourists.  But even without the tourists, there is a twinge familiarity that somehow tempers my foreignness.  Perhaps it’s the ubiquity of of Christian holy sites, however radically different they are culturally manifested here. Perhaps it is a greater western/European influence.  Perhaps it’s the ease with which so many people speak English or their anxiousness to engage in conversation and lull me into a shop.

Whatever it is, Ramallah is different.  Here I am not only conspicuous but somehow exposed. I wear no head scarf, and I’m, well, big.  Ramallah isn’t on the itinerary of Christian pilgrimages, so there are no big tour buses and no wide-eyed tourists about.  Here the locals get to live in peace, in a gross manner of speaking, of course, because it’s impossible to forget the presence of the separation wall, the checkpoints, the unemployment, the water shortages even in Ramallah, called by one local “five star occupation”…

Last Sunday I dragged some friends to the Jerusalem Artists’ House to look at the art of some young Israeli artists.  Today, I went by myself to see “Palestine through the Eyes of Young Artists.” I don’t have anything to back up my fascination with art.  I have no training or knowledge in art history or critique.  I couldn’t even be described as a dilettante I know so little, but whenever I travel outside the United States especially, I yearn to see art.  Not any art (though I love a great museum), but contemporary art.  It taps something in me that desires to experience beauty and complexity and intimacy and estrangement and pleasure and discomfort all at once.  It gives me a different sense of place.  So here I am.

My favorite painting is by a young Palestinian artists named Maysa Azayzeh, born in Haifa in 1985 and currently working as an art teacher in addition to painting.  I wish I could share her work with you all.  It is, to me, the quintessential image of Palestine — stone houses stacked on a hill with roof top water barrels and electric lines that seem to suspend from house to house — in deep colors and bold lines.  I would like to take it home with me.

Just as I finished this blog in a cafe called Stones in Ramallah, a group of Palestinian teenage girls sat down beside me speaking impeccable English with perfect American accents.  I only had a quick moment to ask them where they were from and how they were here.  They were all born in the United States and now have moved back to live in Palestine.  Surreal.

After re-connecting with my other Ramallah friends at the Episcopal Vocational/Technical Center, we went to the grave of Mahmoud Darwish and then to Arafat’s tomb before heading back to Jerusalem.  In the top photo, Megan is capturing Mahmoud Darwish’ name on paper.

Day 10: Reflection at Dominus Flevit

Today’s theme was The Suffering Servant, and we visited churches and places of prayer related to Jesus’ last days, including the Garden of Gethsemane, the Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Mark (a traditional site of the last supper), and the Church of St. Peter in Galicantu (where Jesus was tried by Caiaphas and Peter denied Jesus). The first place we visited was the Church of Dominus Flevit, which is shaped like a tear drop and recalls when Jesus wept over Jerusalem.  Gareth Bevan, one of our fellow pilgrims, offered the following reflection.

By Gareth Bevan

I guess it would be true to say that we have experienced first hand some of the joys and sorrows of this land and its people.

And there are of course the joys and sorrows of our own lives.  The joys of new birth, the joys of love and reconciliation.  And there are the sorrows which sometimes plunge us into the darkest hours of our very being.

And it such joys and sorrows, the body and mind react in many ways.  The body finds its own expression – both inwardly and outwardly.  A tear drop is one such expression – as we sometimes weap for joy and indeed weep in our sorrow.

And so we find ourselves outside the beautiful of Dominus Flevit built by Antonio Belutzie, which remembers the spot where Jesus wept over Jerusalem.

In a sense both joy and sorrow meet here.  The joyful singing of the disciples and the sorrow of Jesus as he weeps for the future of Jerusalem – prefiguring perhaps Christ’s agony on the cross and the joy of his resurrection.  In the words of the hymn, Where’er such joys and sorrows meet and thorns compose so rich a crown.

This beautiful church is shaped like a teardrop, and when we enter we are perhaps for a moment enclosed in a teardrop and, if you like, just for a fragment of our earthly existence we become enveloped in the holy dew of a tear.

But you will notice in the church this is not an introspective.  Antonio Belutzie provides us behind the altar with a clear glass and a clear view of Jerusalem.  The view is framed but not constrained – and this view compels us to look out as Jesus did in his despair for the future of the city.

But surely our eyes should see more than this – please do spend some time and look – the view perhaps compels us to look beyond Jerusalem, to the world and its injustices, the futility of war, the inequities of oppression and hunger.

As St. Theresa of Avilla puts it: Ours are the eyes through which to look out Christ’s compassion to the world.  Surely we are compelled to look at our own countries and their imbalances and also look into our own lives and the way we live them.

Again, St. Theresa of Avilla says:  Ours are the feet which he is to go about doing good, ours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.

You know, Jesus still weep; he weeps for those who have lost loved ones through senseless war, he weeps for the people of Haiti and the people of Chile, he weeps with us in our time of desperation, sorrow, and grief – which are sometimes only known to us in our hearts.

He weeps for Jerusalem.

You know, it is love that sums up all the commandments and God never forgets us.  In Isaiah 49: I have carved your names in the palms of my hand.  And as we close our hands in prayer sometimes in sorrow and in joy God opens his hands and there we will see our names.

So let us pray for Jerusalem, for blessed are the peacemakers; we pray for peace in the world, we pray for peace in our lives and peace at the last.  Amen.

Day 8: Transfiguration

Posted by Abbott Bailey

This is the homily preached on Mount Tabor during our Eucharist at the traditional site of the Transfiguration.

I want to start by taking a poll.  Raise your hand if you want to stay here in Galilee.  It is good for us to be here.  Out of the loud and crowded city of Jerusalem.  Away from daily, unavoidable, insistent reminders of fear and oppression.  Into the quiet and peaceful countryside lulled by the lapping waters of the Sea.  Bodily entering into the collective memory of Christian pilgrims.  Walking daily in the shadow of the Galilean we call Jesus the Christ.  It is good for us to be here.

As if it weren’t good already, here we are on a mountain – a “high place” where human experience throughout the ages tells us that our chances of an encounter with the Holy are increased.  Where the air is thin and the distinctions between heaven and earth blur. On this mountain, Mount Tabor, heaven and earth met in the person of Jesus Christ.  And the only response Peter could muster was, “It is good for us to be here.  Let’s pitch a tent for you and our guests and stay a while.”

We know Peter often says the wrong things at all the wrong times, and this time is no different, but it’s not completely idiotic. Just several days before he had answered Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am,” with a very definitive, “You are the Messiah of God.”  He now sees in Jesus’ transfigured face the affirmation of what had welled up from somewhere deep inside of him and came spilling out of his usually blundering lips. He’s made contact with the collective memory of his people, who wandered in the desert and lived in tents, who were delivered, protected and cared for by God.  I imagine that something inside Peter tells him that he’s witnessing God again at work for God’s people in an extraordinary way, and so his response is to rejoice and commemorate the moment.  Peter wanted to give God the praise warranted by such a moment.

The point, of course, is that it’s not time to commemorate.  Last night at dinner Andrew told the story of another group of pilgrims who had visited Mount Tabor.  It was not unlike it is outside today, with low visibility, cloudy and grey.  Once on top, one of the course participants was lamenting the lack of views due to the clouds.  Andrew, or some other wise person among them said, “Well, it’s not really about the views is it?  It’s about the clouds.”  I would suggest that it might not even be about the clouds in the sense that Peter and the others weren’t meant to fixate on them – to want to build tents and stay a while.  It’s not the time to commemorate.

It’s time to go to Jerusalem. This was the transition point in Jesus’ ministry.  From this point forward, his face was set toward Jerusalem with the knowledge of the inevitability of the cross and of his departure and toward the fulfillment of his mission.

This is a transition for us as well.  We too turn our faces toward Jerusalem, albeit for a very different outcome one hopes, as Fran said last night. From there the journey continues home.  For many of us, coming to the holy land has been – and continues to be – like entering a thin place.  We are encountering Jesus in unexpected and sometimes surprising ways.  We’re being challenged, and at times perhaps frightened.  Our vision may be a bit cloudy and confused as we try to make sense of our faith in this fractious context.  Nasser has reminded us that as soon as we think we have it all figured out and it’s clear in our minds, we are certainly very confused.

Yet, as we know from last night’s reflections, for all of us “something has happened.”  And yet, this moment isn’t IT. In fact, this entire pilgrimage is not IT.  It’s not about commemorating what’s happened here, but about carrying on with the work we’ve been given to do, while recognizing how that work has been “transfigured” in light of our time here.

So, we leave Galilee – even though it is so good for us to be here – because, like Jesus, we must turn our faces to Jerusalem and then home, hopefully transfigured in our mission and ministry until we find our selves back in Jerusalem again.  Perhaps the best commemoration – the best way for this “thin” experience to stick with us – is to allow this experience to seep deep into our bodies so that it becomes the transfiguration is manifested in our mission and ministry when we leave this “thin” place.  This is how we might praise God best until, as Anne’s friend at the synagogue in Capernaum reminded us yesterday, “We all meet again in the New Jerusalem.”

Day Six: In the Shadow of the Galilean

Posted by Abbott Bailey

I am just back from sitting by the water’s edge at the Sea of Galilee.  For some reason, today, more than any other day on the pilgrimage, I have been contemplating Jesus as an historical person.  Looking around I wondered if I could imagine Jesus walking along this sea, seeing the same landscape, the same sunset, hearing the same birds and the sound of the water lapping over the rocks. For some reason this feels important.

This morning we started our journey to Galilee through the desert, on to Jericho and then up along the Transjordan to the Sea of Galilee.  Stopping in the desert, I was in awe of its expanse.  How small we are when in the midst of it, even this very small desert.  We were there, of course, to contemplate Jesus’ 40 days in the desert, appropriate for Lenten pilgrims to the Holy Land.  There is virtually no ground cover, which brings a feeling of complete exposure.  Did he stay in one place?  Did he wander around the desert?  I suppose I imagine Jesus in a state of prayer while there, but perhaps his prayer was simply his presence in the desert – exposed and open.

Traveling to Jericho, one of the oldest cities in civilization, we took a tram up to Temptation Monastery, built in the side of the cliff, where modern tradition holds that Jesus was tempted by the devil.  It presented another opportunity for devotion, and again I knelt, placing my knee in a groove worn perhaps by many a pilgrim to this place, and bodily entered the collective memory of Christian tradition.  I am past worrying about any site being the literal location of biblical events.  There is something to be said about joining a collective journey in the shadow of the Galilean who looms so large for us and yet lived so insignificantly and marginally in his day.

It is said that Jesus was born in an incendiary time with a people ready to ignite in rebellion.  Of course, the rebellion did happen not long after Jesus’ crucifixion, which resulted in the destruction of the temple by the Romans.  It seems little different today though the powers have shifted.

Day Five: Worship in the Holy Land

Posted by Abbott Bailey

This morning many of us worshiped with the Arabic congregation at St. George’s Cathedral. Much, of course, was in arabic and therefore would have been completely incomprehensible were it not for the fact that we were worshiping together as Anglicans — we understand each other’s prayer language.  At times, I would close my eyes and listen as the two languages, arabic and english, wove in and out , neither silencing or outdoing the other.

The gospel reading was from Matthew – the story of the Canaanite woman (‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’)  I couldn’t help but wonder how the Palestinian Christians hear this story.  Do they ever feel like they are receiving the scraps from the table of the Holy Land?  The preacher, as others have, suggested that she “reminded” Jesus that he is the Lord of ALL people, and not just a few.  He also suggested that we reach for more faith than the faith of the Canaanite woman (who, I would suggest, stood up to Jesus to get her just mercy).  Is that what it takes to survive here?  Or maybe the simple fact of living here day in and day out with faith suggests something more profound than many of us can imagine who have so little need to stand up for anything since it is all handed to us on a silver platter.

As it stands, the Christian population is rapidly dwindling in the Holy Land.  Yesterday, when we visited Bethlehem, we learned that in recent years the Christian population, which was a majority, is now around 25% of the population.  In all the Holy Land, Christians now account for less than 2% of the population.  We’ve been told that Christians have more family connections outside of Israel and Palestine, which makes it easier for them to leave.  Given the hardships of living here as palestinians, they chose to make another home.

I am reminded of Dr. Yarden’s reflection on the difference between Christian and Jewish understandings of the Holy Land.  He said that for Jews the Holy Land is a tapestry in which every thread is Holy moving out in concentric circles of holiness from the Temple Mount.  For Christians, he said, the Holy Land consists of a series of holy places, like knots, in between which there is nothing sacred so to speak.  I understood the analogy, but wasn’t sure I’d push it quite that far in terms of the Christian view of the Holy Land.  I understand that we, as a people, were never a nation in the sense that the Jewish people understand themselves to be a nation here, and yet I imagine that the ties to the land are still quite strong for a Palestinian Christian whose family has been living here for generations.  I wonder what analogy a Palestinian Christian might make of the relationship between the people and the land in terms of their faith?