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I am a Palestinian Christian. BY MITRI RAHEB. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.
"You forgot the curtains. Please do not forget to take them down too and remove them,' said the old woman to the Israeli soldier after the soldiers robbed her of all her possessions. The household goods of the residents of the Palestinian village of Belt Sahour were being confiscated as punishment for organizing a tax boycott in their peaceful protest of Israel's unjust occupation of Palestine. "Shamed and guilty, the soldiers left. At that moment the old woman had achieved dignity. At that moment the triumphant Israeli army had lost the battle." Mitri Raheb, the pastor of the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, narrates this powerful and moving story in his book I am a Palestinian Christian, an important contribution to today's search for answers to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.
Part one of the book provides an introduction to the history and religious background of the Palestinian-Christian situation. He reminds the readers that "The Middle East conflict is a political conflict, not a religious one. Consequently no 'pious' solution, be it Jewish, Christian, or Islamic is possible. He affirms the important role of religion, particularly Christianity, in terms of mediating between Israel and the Palestinians and among Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
Historically, the Arab Christians have been mediators or bridges in bringing philosophy, medicine and science from Europe to the Middle East in the nineteenth century. Arab Christians "have teamed and mastered several Western languages. . . (which served as) bridges linking the Palestinian Arabs with the West." But their biggest challenge is to mediate between two peoples in conflict, the Jews and the Palestinians.
If Palestinian Christians are to remain in their own land, and find in their religion ways to mediate these conflicts, they must develop a local Palestinian theology. One of the tasks of this contextual...