A revolutionary man of God is preaching in the Galilee. His purpose is salvation. But unlike Jesus 2,000 years ago, the aims of Greek Orthodox priest Gabriel Nadaf are a little more down-to-earth. He wants to achieve salvation for Christians in Israel by encouraging them to integrate in Israeli society. Lyn Julius blogs in The Times of Israel on this sea-change in the attitudes of Arab Chrstians:
“We were dragged into a conflict that wasn’t
ours,” says Father Nadaf. “Israel takes care of us, and if not Israel,
who will defend us? We love this country, and we see the army as a first
step in becoming more integrated with the state.”
Serving in the military is widely recognised
as the gateway to mainstream acceptance and equality of opportunity in
Israeli society.
Together with a Maronite former IDF captain, Shadi Khallouf, Nadaf has established the Christian Recruitment Forum.
Already, the Forum seems to be gathering
grass-roots support. The draft is compulsory only for Jews, Druze and
Circassians: by mid-summer 2013 the numbers of Christian recruits in the
IDF had gone from 35 to 100. Some 500 Christians have reportedly
volunteered for national service.
In July 2013, a new mainly-Christian party,
B’nai Brit Hahadasha ( Sons of the New Testament), was formed. The mayor
of the mixed Christian-Muslim town of Nazareth has condemned one of the
party’s founders, Bishara Shlayan, as a “collaborator” with the Israeli
authorities.
The Christians appear to be rising up in
protest against the traditional anti-Zionist radicalism of Arab parties
in the Israeli Knesset. Sometimes even more radical than than their own
electorate, these are not interested in promoting local priorities.
Their leaders resort to demagoguery and divisiveness, using rhetoric
indistinguishable from that of the PLO.
“The current Arab political establishment has
only brought us hatred and rifts,” says Bishara Shlayan. “The
Arab-Muslim parties didn’t take care of us. We are not brothers with the
Muslims; brothers take care of each other.”
Israel’s 160,000 Christians comprise 2 percent
of Israel’s population. They are a minority within a minority. They
tend to be among the best educated and affluent of Israelis, but marry
later and tend to have fewer children than their Jewish counterparts.
Nadaf’s Christian awakening may be seen as a
response to the Arab Spring. The rise of Islamism has led to the vicious
persecution of Christians. Copts, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Maronites
are fleeing the Middle East in droves. Some predict that, like the Jews
of the region, the Christian community will be driven to extinction.
Although the Christian share of the Israeli
population has fallen, Israel is the only country where numbers of
Christians are growing. The 80 percent Arab Christians have been
bolstered by the arrival of 20,000 Russian Christians.
For Mordechai Nisan, an expert on Middle East minorities, Father Nadaf’s movement heralds a sea-change in attitudes among Christians.
Traditionally, Arabic-speaking Christians have
thrown in their lot with Arab Muslims, he explains. Along with Muslims
they have identified with the Palestinian cause. In Syria and Iraq,
Christians have been cheerleaders for pan-Arab nationalism and leading
lights in Arab communist parties. A Christian, Michel Aflaq, was the
ideologue behind the nationalist Ba’ath party. Constantine Zureiq was a
Christian intellectual moderniser who advocated Arab unity based on
reason and science.
Ultimately, the passionate identification of
Christians with pan-Arabism and communism was a means of escaping the
humiliations and exactions of ‘dhimmitude’. Together with Jews,
Christians were relegated to second-class status under Muslim rule.
Zionism represents the national liberation of the Jews from the shackles
of dhimmitude.
For Mordechai Nisan, the Christian movement in
Israel marks ‘the end of dhimmitude’. Nisan excitedly proclaims:
“Christians in Israel’s Galilee are courageously promoting their
pre-Islamic non-Arab identity as an old-new collective
Aramean/Aramaic-speaking Oriental narrative.”
Perhaps Nisan is going too far. Father Nadaf
is merely switching alliances – latching on to the coat-tails of the
Jews. He is not declaring a separate identity.
Already Father Nadaf’s declaration of loyalty
to Israel has come at a cost. He has had to engage bodyguards and had
his car tyres slashed. He has been forced to rely on his Jewish friends
to protect him. Israeli politicians have had to intervene to prevent the
Jerusalem Patriarchate from firing Father Nadaf.
Nadaf’s teenage son recently suffered a brutal beating by a 21-year old youth linked to the anti-Israel Hadash party.
“As I call for integration in Israeli society,
extremists are trying to divide and tear and incite against me,” Nadaf
said the following day. “The incitement of verbal threats has passed
yesterday into physical violence as their goal is to intimidate me and
my family.”
It remains to be seen whether Father Nadaf can muster enough support to withstand the pressures.
An old story in Galilee.
No comments:
Post a Comment