#munther isaac

[probablyasocialecologist]

A short walk from the Church of the Nativity is the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church. There, the Rev. Munther Isaac and his congregation chose this year to make a statement about the killing of so many children in Gaza. Using broken cement and paving stones, they placed the baby Jesus in the center of a pile of debris from a collapsed home, inspired by television images of children being pulled from the rubble, Issac says. "I always say we need to de-romanticize Christmas," he says. "In reality, it's a story of a baby who was born in the most difficult circumstances and the Roman Empire under occupation, who survived the massacre of children himself when he was born. So the connection was natural to us."

There's no Christmas in Bethlehem this year. With war in Gaza, festivities are off

[useless-englandfacts]

I do recommend watching the whole thing but here is a clip from Rev. Munther Isaac's Christmas sermon entitled 'Jesus under the rubble', delivered in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.

Transcript under the cut:

This war has confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal. Maybe it's the colour of our skins. Maybe it is because we are on the wrong side of a political equation. Even our kinship in Christ did not shield us.

So they say, "if it takes killing 100 Palestinians to get a single Hamas militant then so be it". We are not humans in their eyes. But in God's eyes, no one can tell us that.

The hypocrisy and racism of the Western World is transparent and appalling. They always take the word of Palestinians with suspicion and qualification. No, we not treated equally. Yet on the other side, despite a clear track record of misinformation, lies, their words are almost always deemed infallible.

To our European friends: I never, ever want to hear you lecture us on human rights or international law again. And I mean this. We are not White. I guess it does not apply to us according to your own logic.

So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was held before October 7th and the world was silent. Should we be surprised that they're silent now? If you are not appalled by what is happening in Gaza, if you are not shaken to your core, there is something wrong with your humanity. And if we as Christians are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness and we are compromising the credibility of our Gospel message.

If you fail to call this a genocide then that is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace. Some have not even called for a ceasefire - I'm talking about churches. I feel sorry for you.

We will be okay. Despite the immense blow we have endured, we the Palestinians will recover. We will rise. We will stand up again from the midst of destruction as we have always done as Palestinians - although this is by far maybe the biggest blow we have received in a long time. But we will be okay.

But for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this? Your charity and your words of shock after the genocide won't make a difference. And I know these words of shock are coming, and I know people will give generously for charity. But your words won't make a difference. Words of regret won't suffice for you.

And let me say it: we will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done has been done. I want you to look at the mirror and ask: where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide?

[vyorei]

THAT'S HER THAT'S BLINNE NÍ GHRÁLAIGH SHE DID MIGHTY I'M SO PROUD!!!!!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Zack Beauchamp at Vox:

The New York Times once described Tucker Carlson’s Fox News hour as “the most racist show in the history of cable news.” In the past week, allegations of bigotry involving his new show on X have come from a rather different corner: his fellow conservatives. The fight started April 9, when Carlson published a friendly interview with Palestinian pastor Munther Isaac. The pastor — who has reportedly praised the “strength” of the October 7 attackers — argued that Israel is no friend to Christians: It bombs them in Gaza, represses them in the West Bank, and restricts their ability to proselytize inside Israel proper. The interview went viral, receiving over 30,000 reposts so far. Erick Erickson, a prominent radio host and former Carlson ally, spoke for many on the right when he labeled Tucker a “pro-Hamas” ally of “the antisemites on college campuses, and the terrorist-supporting progressives of the American left.” Carlson has, according to Erickson, become “willing to use his platform and formerly earned trust and reputation to persuade the easily manipulated to believe the lies he used to rail against.”

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) wrote a blistering post on X that attempted to banish Carlson from the conservative movement entirely. “Tucker’s MO is simple: defend America’s enemies and attack America’s allies. There isn’t an objective bone left in that washed up news host’s body,” Crenshaw wrote. “Tucker will eventually fade into nothingness, because his veneer of faux intellectualism is quickly falling apart and revealing who he truly is: a cowardly, know-nothing elitist who is full of shit.” While Erickson and Crenshaw are seen as more establishment-friendly voices nowadays, the outrage at Carlson was shared even by some in the right’s Trumpier corners: Even the sorts of people who oppose Ukraine aid laid into the former Fox host after the Isaac interview. Only an openly antisemitic fringe of the conservative movement — the so-called Groypers — seem to be gleeful, believing that pitting Israel against Christians can bring old-school European Jew hatred to contemporary America.

“It’s waking people up. It’s making people aware of the fundamentals — which is first and foremost that Jews are not Christians,” said Nick Fuentes, the leading voice of the Groypers. “Once you get into those basics, you can start to build upon that and get to where we are.” So is what Carlson suggests about Israel and Christians accurate? And what does the right-wing backlash against him say about the state of the conservative movement today? Broadly, I think there are basically three key answers to these questions:

It’s true that Palestinian Christians are suffering, though it’s largely because they are Palestinians rather than because they are Christians. Carlson’s message, however, does less to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians than to pit Jews against Christians.

In trying to excommunicate Carlson, conservatives are pretending that he’s changed — but he’s really the same guy he always has been. The antisemitic and otherwise bigoted things he said on Fox were far worse than anything in the Isaac interview and received only a fraction of the internal right-wing condemnation.

Carlson is exploiting legitimate criticism of Israel to fan the flames of Christian antisemitism, which has become a growing problem on the right even as much public attention recently has focused on the left wing.

Israel doesn’t persecute Christians, but it does oppress Palestinians

Christians are a small minority inside Israel — about 2 percent of the total population. But this mostly Arab group’s numbers are growing, and they tend to do better than their Muslim peers in socioeconomic terms. A 2021 report from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics found that Israeli Christians were more likely to get a college degree and less likely to be on welfare attainment than Muslims and even Jews. Israeli law guarantees formal freedom of religion, and there are no legal restrictions on Christian worship. There is some restriction on missionary activity, but that typically only affects travel visas for foreigners rather than Christians living in Israel. No one in the country has been prosecuted for missionary activity. That’s not to say Israeli Christians have no problems. Jewish extremists occasionally harass Christians in Jerusalem, and there are tensions surrounding the city’s holy sites. Danny Seidemann, a leading expert on Jerusalem, has warned that settler plans for the city threaten the historic Christian presence there. But this, per Seidemann, is less a reflection of hostility toward Christians per se than it is a reflection of the generalized settler goal to control all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

But while the Israeli state does not officially discriminate against Israeli Christians, it does oppress Palestinians — and Palestinian Christians suffer along with their Muslim brethren. From churches bombed in Gaza to Israel’s “security barrier” cutting right through Bethlehem, Palestinian Christians experience Israeli occupation the same way that other Palestinians do: as violence and unfreedom. “The major threat to Christian communities and institutions is dismissiveness. They’re not seen,” Seidemann writes. “What’s seen are Palestinians and Arabs who are always suspected terrorists.” Most of Isaac’s comments in the Carlson interview were focused on explaining how the general cruelty of the occupation hurts Palestinian Christians. But Carlson’s additions — such as saying Israel is “blowing up churches and killing Christians” — go a bit further. He suggests that Israel is targeting Christians as a class, and that the Jewish state is fundamentally hostile to Christianity.

[...] From openly espousing the “great replacement” conspiracy theory to suggesting that immigrants to the United States are dirty and diseased to peddling the same sort of antisemitic lies that motivated the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting, Carlson consistently worked to make some of the most dangerous fringe ideas in American politics palatable to mainstream Republicans. This flirtation with antisemitism isn’t a break from Carlson’s longstanding persona but an extension of it.

The internal conservative discourse on Carlson is thus both substantively and psychologically revealing. Substantively, it shows that the right is willing to forgive or downplay antisemitism unless it’s somehow linked to criticism of Israel — in which case there’s a zero-tolerance policy. Psychologically, it shows there is a powerful need to reconcile conservatives’ previous love of Carlson with the reality of who he is, requiring implausible contortions about his changing radically after leaving Fox.

[...]

The right’s growing antisemitism problem

In the past few years, the Groypers have looked more influential than many on the more mainstream right seem to appreciate. In 2022, Nick Fuentes finagled an invite to Mar-a-Lago and had dinner with Donald Trump. More recently, popular podcaster Candace Owens has outed herself as a Groyper-adjacent antisemite. While this turn led to her departure from the right-wing Daily Wire, it also showed how much the movement has made inroads on the broader right. During the Owens saga, Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing sat down for a conversation with Fuentes that was streamed on X. Speaking to a man he had once called “a wicked little s**t with evil ideas,″ Boreing praised Fuentes as a “most talented” and “very funny” broadcaster — and invited him to be a guest on a Daily Wire show. There’s a lot of evidence that right-wing antisemitism is rising. While much attention has been paid (rightly) to left-wing antisemitism after October 7, academic research suggests that antisemitic attitudes are disproportionately concentrated among right-wing young adults. Right-wing extremists are responsible for nearly all of the deadly attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in recent years. Trump’s own rhetoric has long been rife with antisemitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories.

Tucker Carlson, like Candace Owens, has learned that criticizing Israel in right-wing media spaces comes at a great cost. Even before his recent interview with Palestinian pastor Munther Isaac, Carlson has pushed antisemitic tropes.

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

From the Al Jazeera live updates page:

Text:

No response from White House to Bethlehem churches letter:

Churches in Bethlehem have not received a response from the White House to their letter requesting a ceasefire, Munther Isaac, the pastor of Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem has said.Isaac added that the US “veto vote in the UN” was the response.

“They celebrate Christmas in their land, and wage war in our land,” Isaac said in a post on X.

Isaac’s church has this year displayed a Christmas nativity scene with baby Jesus lying in a manger on a pile of rubble to reflect what is happening in Gaza.

[anitosoul]

[tieflingkisser]

Munther Isaac speaks on Palestinian resilience

‘The only thing we have is our resilience and ourselves.’ Munther Isaac says that while he is grateful for the support of many, in the end and unfortunately Palestinians are facing the occupation and this war all by themselves

[feline17ff]

Bethlehem Pastor Rev Munther Isaac criticises Western hypocrisy and Church complicity in Gaza crisis

[probablyasocialecologist]

“I see God in the rubble,” said Munther Isaac, the Palestinian pastor of a landmark Lutheran church in Bethlehem, the West Bank town revered by Christians as Jesus’ birthplace. “And Christ was born under occupation.”

[...]

In Bethlehem, where many local Christians have relatives in Gaza, the Christmas holiday will be marked by prayers, church services and the annual procession of Christian patriarchs — but the more joyous traditional trappings are being eschewed. No twinkling Christmas lights, no lavishly decorated tree in Manger Square, no festive parade with marching bands. “How could we celebrate?” asked the town’s mayor, Hanna Hanania, whose office overlooks a nearly deserted Manger Square. The flagstone plaza facing the Church of the Nativity, a pilgrimage site for Christians the world over, is usually bustling at this time of year, but most of the souvenir shops and restaurants lining it are tightly shuttered. Bethlehem, where once-majority Christians now make up fewer than one-fifth of the town’s population of some 30,000, is a microcosm of the West Bank’s woes. Checkpoints hem it in, and the stony terraced hills — where shepherds watched their flocks by night, as the traditional Christmas carol has it — are transversed by a hulking Israeli security barrier. Surrounded by Jewish settlements, the town is home to two Palestinian refugee camps that seethe with unrest and are regularly raided by Israeli troops. “It’s not the little town of the Bible anymore,” said the Rev. Mitri Raheb, president of Bethlehem’s Dar al-Kalima University. At 61, he remembers when the unobstructed view from his nearby family home was a mountainside that turned green in spring rains. Now it is topped by a settlement, one of nearly 150 in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law. For Palestinian Christians, the current war marks a catastrophe embedded within a catastrophe: the potential eradication of what was already a minuscule Christian presence in Gaza. Numbering fewer than 1,000 out of a population of more than 2 million, the community’s wartime losses are disproportionately felt. Many Bethlehem-area Christians have relatives in Gaza, and are terrified for their safety.

[intothenoise]

Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, Silence is Complicity U.S. Speaking Tour, August 2024

[fidelesir]

[Image ID: A painting of a brown-skinned infant Jesus wrapped in a grey keffiyeh and with a bright circular halo behind his head, surrounded by dark grey and black rubble. The rubble covers everything except most of the baby, the halo, and a white border, on which is written the quote above. // End ID.]

“God is under the rubble in Gaza. He is with the frightened and the refugees. He is in the operating room. This is our consolation. He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death.”

– Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, in his sermon “God is under the rubble in Gaza.”

I made this painting of the manger scene created by Rev. Dr. Isaac’s church, Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, with the Christ child under the rubble (original image here).

Full sermon • An interview with Rev. Dr. Isaac about the installation

[marcogiovenale]

bethlehem pastor reverend munther isaac: we won’t accept an apology after gaza genocide

Reverend Munther Isaac, senior pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church of Bethlehem, talks to TRT World […], saying people are turning a blind eye to what is happening in Gaza, which is a genocide.

[holyfigtree]

“We are outraged by the complicity of the Church. Let it be clear: Silence is complicity, and empty calls for peace without a ceasefire and an end to the occupation, and the shallow words of empathy without direct action — are all under the banner of complicity. So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world.

If you are not appalled by what is happening; if you are not shaken to your core – there is something wrong with your humanity. If we, as Christians, are not outraged by this genocide, by the weaponizing of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness.

If you fail to call this a genocide. It is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace. 

Some have not even called for a ceasefire… I feel sorry for you. Despite the immense blow we have endured, we will recover. We will rise and stand up again amidst the destruction, as we have always done so as Palestinians. 

But as for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this? 

Your charity, your words of shock after the genocide, won’t make a difference. Words of regret will not suffice you. We will not accept your apology. What has been done, has been done. I want you to look at the mirror and ask: where was I? […]

In this season, we have been troubled by the silence of God. In the last few months, the Psalms of lament have become a precious companion. We cried out, My God, My God, have You forsaken Gaza? In our pain, anguish, and lament, we have searched for God, and found Him under the rubble in Gaza. If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza.

— Father Munther Isaac, "Christ in the Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament" Sermon delivered in Bethlehem

[whitesinhistory]

Aired April 1, 2024

As Christians around the world celebrated Easter Sunday, Palestinian Christians from the occupied West Bank were prevented from reaching Jerusalem for Good Friday to walk the Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus is said to have followed on the way to his crucifixion more than 2,000 years ago. Meanwhile, Jesus’s birthplace of Bethlehem is uncharacteristically empty of tourists this year as Israel’s assault on Gaza and crackdown on the West Bank escalate. “Nothing can wash the blood from your hands,” said the Reverend Munther Isaac at an Easter vigil for Gaza on Saturday, about Western complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Isaac is a Palestinian Christian theologian and the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. He joins Democracy Now! to discuss the history of Palestinian Christians in Gaza, Israel’s occupation of Bethlehem and its strangling of freedoms in the West Bank, U.S. Christians’ support of Israel and more.

[heckyeahponyscans]

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I did not know until this year that Bethlehem is in the occupied West Bank. A somber Christmas.

[rivage-seulm]

Christmas Cancelled in Bethlehem

Last week, Christian church leaders in the city of Bethlehem announced the cancellation of traditional Christmas festivities in the place traditionally associated with the Jesus’ birth. And this for at least two obvious reasons. For one, the genocidal killings by colonial settlers in Palestine’s occupied West Bank have made it impossible for tourists to come to Bethlehem. For another,…