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Holy Christmas Days not so Holy in Palestine
Maria C. Khoury, Ed. D |
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It is very sad to have extreme violence during these most holy Christmas days but almost excepted living under Israeli military occupation. All hell broke loose today in the West Bank following the killing of three settlers near Ramallah in a drive-by shooting where the attackers fled the scene. These killings made many settlers in our area literally go crazy and they were damaging and attacking all Palestinian cars stuck at military checkpoints for hours on end. Israel immediately arrested sixty Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; and anyway, in the last few days, has been in an intense raid-spree in Ramallah. The city is filled with military tanks, jeeps and thousands of soldiers.
This terrible cycle of violence is followed by Israel assassinating three young Palestinians overnight in Ramallah, Nablus and Jerusalem claiming they carried out anti-Israeli attacks. So help us God, nothing seems to change on the ground. For every few steps forward, we seem to take twenty steps backwards. It was such a perfect time of year. All the hotels were absolutely full in Bethlehem and Jerusalem! So many people were ordering boutique wine from our Taybeh Winery for their Christmas celebrations. But, nothing will ever be normal
in Palestine until this cruel Israeli military occupation ends.
We keep our hope in Christ and hope the world will turn their eyes towards Bethlehem not only to see the "Good News" that we announce each year during this sacred Holy Nativity fast anticipating the birth of the Prince of Peace but to finally see the cruelty of the occupation. We need help to put an end to American money that backs up Israel to the tune of ten million dollars a day of hard earned American-tax payers money that can be better spent in America for social security and educational grants or whatever Americans wish.
I hope you are experiencing the joy of this beautiful Christmas season and pray for peace! I seem to appreciate the quote from Martin Luther King more than ever:
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
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Dr. Maria Khoury
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