Here’s What It’s Really Like to Live as a Christian in the Holy Land

Thank you for doing this. So, you first uh moved to the Holy Land in 1996, correct? Yeah. As a nun, right? Um, how are Christians doing in the Holy Land? Well, it's become a very difficult time for them there. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Basically, the Christians are in the same situation as the Muslims being a Palestinian. So, the problem is so there's two different things. If you live in Israel, you're a citizen. And so, they are can live there and work, but there's sort of some petty grievances that people might have. But if you're a Christian in Palestine, which is where most of the the uh activities of the life of Christ are, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, Jericho, uh Jacob's well, that's all within Palestine. And so there's many that's the predominance of the Christian population there. And they're treated um with the effects of the occupation, which means you have checkpoints around you. You can't you're not a Christian who lives in Bethlehem cannot go to Jerusalem to the holy supplr without a permit by Israel. And they don't usually give those permits especially now. A Christian can't. No. Without permission from Israel.

Um that that's interesting because I mean those those Christians that you're describing I mean they are the descendants of of the Absolutely. They've been there from the beginning. Yeah. I mean, right, Christ came as a Jew, right, went to the temple. But the people that converted and have lived there for centuries are, in fact, I think there's been studies done that uh if you the on Palestinians living there now, and they are the Canaanite descendants, they people that have been there for centuries, not all or the greater part, not just Palestine included Syria and Lebanon at a different time under different empires and things. So, yeah, they're the first Christians, the Christians at the time of Christ. and they can it's very difficult to practice their faith. It's sort of like you're in a gilded cage in the best that's how I I look at Bethlehem within Bethlehem. You can live there, but you can't go and visit your friend who lives near Jacob's well in Nablas without taking it. In fact, the priest in Bethlehem just told me the other day his wife is from near Janine, which normally would take you about an hour and a half to get between the two. Her father uh has prostrate cancer. In order to get treatment, there was only hospitals there. None nothing in the northwest bank could deal with it. Either in Jerusalem or in Hebrron, which is south of Bethlehem. And last year or a couple years ago, he was able to go to Jerusalem with a permit to get the treatment. But this year, the Israelis wouldn't let him. So, it took him over 5 hours to get down to Hebron and a man who's old and sick to doing things. So whether it's for those kind of activities or practicing your faith or visiting your relatives or which is part of Christian life too right you want to celebrate the holidays with with your family and friends it becomes very difficult to do the the reason I'm asking these questions well first I I think it's worth worrying about Christians uh who are the minority population well it's worth Christians in general but the United States is a majority Christian country that pays for a huge percentage of the Israeli economy both through trade and direct grants and military assistance and all the rest. Israel couldn't exist without the United States. So, and it has the support of so many Christians in the United States and I don't know if they're fully aware um I want to think they would care if they knew how the Christians are doing. And I keep reading that the Christian population in the region has declined dramatically since Israel became a state in 1948. Right. And I'm not quite sure why.

Well, again, I think it has to do because the whole issue is that Israel has continued to grow and think that they can dominate the Christian areas, the the areas of Palestine. So, they make it very difficult for anyone else to be able to live there. As simple as that.

But you would think Christians would get a special pass or dispensation because the United States is the great patron and it's a Christian country.

No, because well the problem you have is one with the Christians Zionists the ones who don't recognize the Christians in the Holy Land as being fully Christian apparently because why would a cru I I I have a very hard time understanding why someone who who is a calls himself a Christian and then gives money to support the building of settlements. Do we understand what that means? The settlements are in the areas of Palestine. They're taking over the land that belongs to the people of Palestine. And this has been going like I said I've been there since 1996 and I've seen the continued growth of the settlement. I lived in Bethany biblical Bethany beyond and over the mountain of Mount of Olives was the convent I was in in Jerusalem. And to the east of me was the settlement of Maly Adam in 1998. It was a relatively small settlement then. And then you go down the road to Jericho. It was one lane. It's now a larger highway. And that settlement of Mal Almine is like a huge city and has closed off the people of Bethany. We are closed off in Bethany from going to our convent in Jerusalem because of the wall that was built on Palestinian land on Christian land to there's a there's a Christian home for boys that the Israelis just took over and cut up to make part of the wall that separated. So they weren't it wasn't done for security to build that wall. It was done simply to expand the borders of Israel.

Wait, so they went right through Christian land. Did Christians in the West say anything about this?

Very few. I mean, I uh there was and also on that stretch at the lower end of the Mount of Olives, there was a nursing home run by a Catholic church and the the um nun that was in charge, she spoke to the French press and soon after she was told to she was sent to Lebanon or to another post, wasn't allowed to be there. Me at the same time, we had the wall was built right beyond Lazarus's tomb. Our school is walking distance from Lazarus's tomb, from where Martha and Mary lived. And they built the wall right above where the tomb is. So that separated some of our teachers from being able to come to school. It separated our families on either side of the wall. So in April of 2005, I went to Washington and spoke to some Congress people, not to demean Jews or not to even demean the state of Israel, to say, "Look, we are being affected by this wall. It's affecting our religious life. I can't bring my I can't go to visit my convent easily anymore because of this wall. It's disrupting our school life and we'd like to see it's not for security. It's not separating uh Israel from Palestine. It's separating Palestine from Palestine in the two. I get back home. I'm sorry. What kind of reception did you So, you went to Congress.

Yeah. And a handful. Actually, I I remember a very sweet occurrence. He he he's died since, but uh Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, I was scheduled to meet him and he wasn't there, but then he came and he literally ran down the hall to catch me. So there were a few there are a few people that were sympathetic, but um overall, no. And and I even felt the sense when I was talking to people that um that the um like I went to a meeting where there were a few aids there of different congress people, right? just in one office and just felt as if there was someone there watching what was what what what he was saying or doing going on. So anyway, so I get back. Did you meet with any Christian church leaders here in the US?

Unfortunately, I mean the Catholic Church has done a lot and said a lot, but I I sad to say I I feel the Orthodox Church in America has been very reluctant to speak out on this issue. Why? Or to be get involved. Maybe sometimes we I think it's a partly is just simply awareness. Even when people go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, they probably have Israeli tour guides and they don't you know it's an amazing experience to go to the Holy Land. It's overwhelming to people, you know, pious person to go there and you're thinking about going to see where Jesus was and here I'm on the Sea of Galilee and you don't really perceive what that wall means or who are those people living over there or how come there's only cars with yellow plates here and then we were in uh Jericho and I saw these green and white plates. What does that mean going on? They don't understand it. So, they don't get the concept for two weeks. License plate mean yellow plate is for people who live in the state of Israel and they can go on certain roads. uh all roads and uh for Palestinians who have a Jerusalem ID are allowed to have a car with a yellow plate and then Palestinians have green and white plates and they cannot use. So over that time that I've been here as the settlements have grown you build the infrastructure for it the electricity the roads separate roads that are used only by people that have yellow plates. as a foreigner and part of a foreign church um we were entitled to have either those or they also have white diplomatic plates that kind of diplomatic and religious plates that are there so there's very much an apartheid system very much so it's a and but so which gave me the freedom to help my Christians friends in Bethlehem and other places like one time there was a woman who uh her daughter they were from Bethlehem married a Christian who lived in Jerusalem so he had rights to be in the city of Jerusalem, have blue ID. But the mother, when the the daughter gave birth to their first child, she didn't have any way to go to see her daughter because it would be illegal for her to go into Jerusalem to get there. So, I had the school van and I got went to Bethlehem, go get her. And a lot of times we'd have a little more leeway. You know, if if I get go through a checkpoint, they'll see it's a nun and I go pass through a lot easier than someone else would. So, I was able to get her through to be able to go see her daughter at the birth of her granddaughter. We're sorry to say it, but this is not a very safe country. Walk through Oakland or Philadelphia. Yeah, good luck. So, most people when they think about this want to carry a firearm, and a lot of us do. The problem is there can be massive consequences for that. Ask Kyle Writtenhouse. Kyle Writtenhouse got off in the end, but he was innocent from the first moment. It was obvious on on video and he was facing life in prison anyway. That's what the anti-gun movement will do. They'll throw you in prison for defending yourself with a firearm. And that's why a lot of Americans are turning to Burna. It's a proudly American company. Burna makes self-defense launchers that hundreds of law enforcement departments trust. They've sold over 600,000 pistols, mostly to private citizens who refuse to be empty-handed. These pistols, and I have one, fire rock hard kinetic rounds or tear gas rounds and pepper projectiles, and they stop a threat from up to 60 ft away. There are no background checks. There no waiting periods. Burna can ship it directly to your door. You can't be arrested for defending yourself with a burn pistol. Visit burnabyrna.com or your local sportsman's warehouse to get yours today. Burna.com. I I'll just be totally blunt with you. the most Americans are aware that there's a system something like what you just described, right? But the pretext for the justification for it is that there's a lot of Islamic terrorism. There are a couple inifatas. There are a lot of suicide bombings and it's Islamic terror and most Americans have been taught for 25 years that Islamic terror is this is a threat. And I, you know, there's some truth in that, of course, but so we assume that Christians would be getting an exemption from all this. Why would Christians who are not responsible for Christian terror? There's no such thing. Why would they be penalized for this? Why wouldn't they, again, when the patron saint state is majority Christian, why wouldn't the Christians there be getting some kind of special pass? I don't I just don't understand that. Why punish the Christians for Islamic terror?

Because I don't think it's Islamic terror that's taking place in the first place. I think we have to disabuse oursel of that notion that this is a a a battle between Muslim and Jew or that you know constantly you heard after October the October event was that Hamas Hamas Hamas even to this day we hear it's Hamas Hamas Hamas. What is Hamas? Hamas are people who have had their homes taken from them who if they live in Gaza have not been able basically been in open air prison for certainly the last 20 years going on even when Gaza the Israelis withdrew from Gaza they didn't leave open borders there was no freedom for people in Gaza to develop their economy if I know people who wanted to try to go to school in America and couldn't get out of Gaza you know had had a fullbrite scholarship and and weren't able to You mean couldn't get out? Israel didn't give them permission. So what kind of freedom is that? If you live in Gaza, they couldn't even fly out. No. And their their airport had been bombed in what 200 early on 2000 there was an airport built soon after the Oslo Accords. But Israel has intervened many time in Gaza and little by little destroyed. You know when I first went there in 2002 after the second infat started, I remember saying to my mother back home, you know, this is genocide. even that genocide by Chinese water torture, but now we're seeing genocide uh on steroids. You're American, I should say. Yes, I'm I'm born in America. Yeah. Lived in America. And um so getting back to Hamas. So also the school I was at has 350 girls. It's in a in a town that's b 98% Muslim. um though it has roots. I mean, it's the roots of where Bethany where on our school grounds is a stone from the sixth century. This is um this is where Christ met Martha at the resurrection. You know, it's so we're talking about and it's the road leading there's still part of the road the road that existed when Christ walked during that time and would have seen Lazarus and Martha and Mary. Lazarus's tomb is down the road, right? But it and so permeated even with Palestinian Muslim culture is the sense that Christians lived here and they recognize Jesus as a prophet. So they respect him as and so there there's there I'm not saying that everything is perfect. You can't have divisions between just like even with uh with Christians you know some Christians might think we should have uh uh allow politics to be in the church or or legislate uh Christian morality and others would think totally different. So you can have sort of differences opinion if you will and we can all live with each other between that. So with Muslim and and Christian they can have their differences but overall the Palestinian culture is infused with both there.

So you were a nun in a majority Muslim town, a Christian nun in your habit I assume.

Uhhuh. And which also was to an advantage because pious Muslims are not jihadists the ones that I know. I'm not saying other parts of the world that may be the case, but in Palestine it's simply not the case. Or or Syria or Lebanon or Iraq. The Muslims are for the most part are it's it they've all grown up together, the Christians and the Muslims. And um there's a certain amount of commonality and respect. And so me wearing being dressed like this was just like many of the women there, right? So they kind of respected that. There's the same sort of conservative culture. There's the same sort of idea that we're both have some same basic values of compassion for our neighbor of doing of doing taking care of our families and uh trying to live a they have their form of fasting and almsgiving and it's actually very important to them and I think the best parts of Islam come from its development from Christian ideas that that Muhammad came to know. I'm sure of that. That's a you can sense it. This is a very different story from the one that we're told in the American media that Christians are imperiled by Muslims in the Middle East. They are not imperiled by uh Muslims in in Palestine. That is an absolute fact. And if uh yeah, that's just simply not the case. And again, going back to my school, in our school, we had icons which are part of the Orthodox tradition, pictures of saints and crosses in every classroom. No problem with that. I could show you a photograph, I can't now, but of the graduates of the the the latest high school graduation. And you know, they're embracing the nuns. They're they're they're dressed actually in a more secular way. And yeah, it all it all So a lot of your students were Muslim.

All Yeah. 98% the only your students were Muslim. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And about half the teach and about half the teachers at during the time I was there some Muslim, some Christian in a Christian school. Yes. And actually that's all throughout Palestine. The Orthodox is is a relatively small. We we do have schools in in many of the Palestinian towns, but also Catholic schools, Lutheran schools, and most of the population. Most of the students are Muslims. Huh. And and the beautiful thing about where the great danger is if the Christians continue to diminish uh a key part of Palestinian society and within Israel as well. You go to Nazareth, you'll see many Catholic run hospitals, schools, and so it's a fabric. It's a part of the whole character.

But I I'm just still confused by the idea that the Christian population is is declining under Israeli rule. You would think just the opposite. What gives them the what I observed from my time in Israel and going back every year is that they do not want any Palestinians there. So the majority of Palest of Christians in Israel and and Palestine are Palestinian. So they have to leave too. I I can I what grieves me is that the Holocaust is a her horrible horrible thing that happened. People slaughtered mo fairly quickly. Sometimes the thought comes to me when I've driven between I'm a drive there's a tunnel road that leads goes from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and it's only for the settlers to go on down to the continued settlements that lead down further south in Israel to Hebrron or actually I shouldn't say Israel into Palestine other Palestinian territory as you're going that tunnel road has been carved out of land that belongs to people in Bethlehem in Beala which you're passing by on that tunnel road so it's like a living death. How would you like to be a man? That was your grandfather's olive trees, but now it's controlled by Israel and you're not even allowed to drive on that road. And on that very same road, I remember another a poant picture. There was a woman that worked at our convent, a nurse, and took care of the nuns. And she had a home, a very typical stone uh Arab home, beautiful home with grape vines. I remember going to pick the grapes at the house that is now part of is they just confiscated the land. She fought it her she fought as long as she could to try to keep her property and for I remember passing by there some years and there's slowly slowly new Israel homes are being built that look very different and she's there's her something that looks out of as if it you know belongs to biblical Palestine. And so what I what I was getting at is that these people they're dying as they're living because it's like and I remember sitting at the home of one of those people in Bejala and they had lived in the center of town. It was his father's home and then he built a new one near the Tuthi Tithakumi Lutheran School. And I'm literally was sitting with them one afternoon and he gets a call from his brother. The Israelis are here. They're pulling up our olive trees, cutting them down on on some of their land. And he ran over. He got collected as many of the trees as he could. Military order. That's what it was. They just go and do it even though it's not their land. And then military order. Nothing you can do. They have jeeps and and weapons. You're not going to stop them. But he was able to take some of those trees. This shows the resiliency. And the word is samud. It's like it's a it's a quiet persistence. This is our land. and we're going to stay here. And this man is a doctor who studied in Hungary. He took those olive trees and they now are in a plot of land next to his new house and trying to grow. So it's like this is I'm not sure what Israel is trying to do. I mean, it's horrific what's going on in Gaza. And what is very concerning to me and why I'm grateful to be on your show is that what is going to happen the people that I know in the West Bank, Christian and Muslim, it's it's it's not said, but it's like we're next that what they've done to Gaza is going to come to us because who's going to stop them? already in the northern parts where the refugee the UNRA the refugee camps were. I was there in September. They had already been um making raids. I was in the center of Janine, right in front of the Catholic church. They had bulldozed the middle of the road and broken the water pipes. No bullet holes. I lived in 2002 during the antifad in Bethlehem. The whole city was full of bullet holes. So, there hadn't been any confrontations, but they were still bulldozing and doing what they wanted to do to wreck the infrastructure to make it harder for people to go to work up there. But now, in the last 8 months, they've cleared out um at least 15,000 people in Tulcarum and Janine in the northern part. They they don't they're not in their homes. Do you hear those stories? And these affect Christians as well. If it ain't broke, don't fix it is a cliche for a reason cuz it's pretty good advice. But sometimes it's not true. Cell phones are a glaring exception. You've got your cell phone, you've had it for years, you don't change. Sometimes your cell phone battery life fades or maybe your processor can't keep up. But your phone is bound to run into trouble eventually, no matter what the problem is. And replacing it early is much better and often far cheaper than replacing it too late. Enter Pure Talk. This month, if you switch to a qualifying $35 plan, 35 bucks, Pure Talk will give you a Samsung Galaxy A36 completely free. Literally free. Just 35 bucks a month for talk, text, and data. And you get to restart your phone life cycle without paying for a brand new device. So, it's a scamfree deal. All on America's most dependable 5G network. It's like a cell phone that works as well as any other. It's just way cheaper and they're not scamming you. So switching is a win for everybody. You save money on your cell phone bill bill bill bill. Pure talk grows to hire more Americans to support more veterans, which it does. So go to puretalk.com/tucker to get your free phone today. That's puretalk.com/tucker to switch to our wireless company. It's America's wireless company. It's Pure Talk. So why why do American Christian churches send money to a government that does this to Christians?

Well, I think the one the the ones that send money that support the settlements are obviously the Christian Zionists. There's an organization called Christians United for uh for Israel, Pastor John HGY. I was in Washington a few weeks ago because well, they had a conference in Baltimore. So it's it's slowly growing an awareness by other Christians in America that just like many Jews are protesting and saying not in our name and Jewish you know the Jews Jewish voice for peace there has to be much more done by the Christians in America because these Christian Zionists are speaking in our name. Someone like Ted Cruz Senator Cruz is saying and doing what he's doing because he's following a Christianity that is not the Christianity of the Holy Land. It's not the Christianity of a Catholic or an Orthodox or or a traditional Christian. It's a it's the it's a heretical belief. What what what is Christian Zionism? As far as I understand it, they they believe in the idea of the rapture. They believe that, you know, that um it's sort of this this cruel bargain they have going with Israel because basically what they say that they're going to be uh swooped up into heaven, right? and then there's going to be a thousand-year kingdom and then there'll be the end of the world and the judgment by Christ and he'll come back. This is a false it was it was condemned as a heresy in 381 because basically there is no thousand-year millennium to come. No thousand-year period. The end will we are in that time period now. And so it's it's a false belief there. And the the So basically they're arguing is that Jesus coming the first time wasn't enough. Yeah. And it's it's like in a way it's denying the Messiah be as as a as an Orthodox Christian, the most important thing in my life is that we receive the body and blood of Christ. And we prepare ourselves to receive that body because Christ came as God and as man. And if you read John, it's actually 666. First he says, "Take, eat. This is my body and drink. This is my blood." And many of people that heard the saying and found it to be a hard saying and turned away from him. Yeah. So everybody was Jewish then, right? But some believed and some didn't. And some continued to follow only the law. And some said, and Christ superseded the law. He said, "There's something more than that law. I am the law. I fulfill the law in the prophets." We believe in the feast of the transfiguration on Mount Tabor. It it takes place near Nazareth. I I've been there many times. And in our icons, in our images, you see Moses and you see Elijah aside Jesus because the law and the prophets have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He came and said, "I'm the church. I'm your salvation." And you know what I think often about is where I lived in in the Mount of Olives, St. Mary Magdalene convent, right above it is a Catholic monastery called Dominus Flavid. Christ wept. It's where Christ wept. And I I think of it often now because to some degree with Muslim Muslims to a lesser degree because they retain some of the Christian sensibility, but he's weeping over the people that didn't see him, that didn't understand who he was. And the pro okay so they follow only the law. And I think that's why you see these are people that can somehow justify allowing for the starvation and ethnic cleansing of so many people. Because if think of the stories from the gospels where um Christ heals the man with the withered hand. Yes. And he's looking behind him are the Pharisees and he's grieved at their hardness of heart because he was healing healing doing a work on the Sabbath day and that was against the law. And so now these Christians of wrong belief believe that they need to rebuild the temple as part of their plan. So they believe that the current state of Israel which has nothing to do with the biblical Israel is needed to be built up so that then somehow they can restore and build that temple fulfill an obligation of the law and the price of that they're willing to forgo the compassion that Christ talked about and allow people to be starved and wiped out. And Christians in America have to understand that you're allowing both people who support the state of Israel who who are Jewish or and those Christians who think they're doing something in the name of Christ when it's far from the name of Christ and it's actually causing the end of the Christian population in the Holy Land. It's going to be the numbers have dwindled. Now we're getting to the small thousands. I I just received a call the other day. Jacob's well is in the in the in the large city of Nablas in the center of the West Bank which has been grievously um raids take place all the time and it's very difficult but what happened the other day was that a a Christian run factory in Nablas there's about 600 uh families around 600 pe Christians number of churches and Jacob's well which is a very important site to us we always go there on a pilgrimage when we can and their factory um no warning no permit First on June 26th I believe the Israeli army came in and confiscated some of the factory equipment and then uh two weeks later they came and blew up a big portion of the uh factory. So how are people supposed to have a I they they gave no reason. There was no permit. They have a law they have lawyers. There has been as far as I know to this date no court order, no reason. And the only thing I mean quickly what popped into my head because it it is a metal making factory. Okay, they must be using it to make weapons, right? These are Christians who have been there for decades to centuries, I think, even the family. And um it's a well-known business. All right. And um no no order was given and and quite I almost feel uh a little worried about saying anything because I don't know what the repercussions will be with that family because they have no recourse. Who do they go to? Where's Ted Cruz in all this? Ted Cruz talks about how he's a Christian. Mike Johnson is the speaker of the house talks about how he's a Christian. They talk about it a lot actually. I I think they have to re we have to real I I I'm not sure that it can be done by uh we have to battle Apac and the Christian Zionists by the Christians standing up say not in my name we can't be doing this so if they're getting money from these organizations then Christians have to have enough concern to say I don't want this happening in my name no and to my brothers in Christ right exactly and not only it's the real people the living stones that are there that that keep the churches open that keep things going, but also for our Christian legacy. You know, we're supposedly a country based on a Judeo-Christian heritage, right? But so where is that Judeo-Christian heritage when you're destroying the very foundations of it? St. Jerome uh translated the Bible in Bethlehem. His his the cells where he was at are under the Church of the Nativity. You know, the the the very roots of the our Christian heritage are there and we're letting it be destroyed. not physically and uh yeah physically by killing the people but also there's a a wonderful person when you talk about resistance this all started with Hamas so for the most part I would say they're a resistance move there simply people fighting for their people trying to protect their land um and I don't know if we want to reach into the area of the whole problem is is there was never defined what Palestine is you know the Oslo Accords took place and then there was nothing to um there was area A, B, and C, and you didn't have a Palestine. So, little by little, Israel just keeps taking over the land. I said, confiscating, building the settlements, adding the checkpoints, and making strangling the life of anybody living there. Um, now I lost my train of thought. I'm going to Well, here's a story you probably haven't heard a lot about. The Chinese mafia is exploiting rural America to create a drug empire. This is not available on cable news. The network's not telling you about this, but it's totally real. Communist affiliated drug gangs destroying parts of the United States, the parts that Washington ignores, to sell drugs, laundering money, and building a black market network inside this country's most beautiful but least served areas. We've got a brand new documentary on this. It's called High Crimes: The Chinese Mafia Takeover of Rural America. It's available now on tuckercarlson.com. It's excellent. the purchase of churches and schools to aid the operation, the jerryrigging of power boxes to steal electricity, foreign pesticides, collusion with the Mexican cartels. It's it's unbelievable. By the way, one of the drug houses is like walking distance from my house. I didn't know that. It's a layered and fascinating story. Head to tucker carlson.com to watch now. We think you'll love it. the state of Israel um you know is less than 80 years old but that area is thousands of years old controlled by various empires as you've said uh and then finally the British up until 1948 during all that time huge pieces of land were owned by various Christian churches particularly in Jerusalem do they what what happened to that do they still own that land they own the land but this is where it's sort of the um a lesser kind of pers persecution is that um they use legal means or semi-legal means because you have land that was under the Ottoman Empire and there might be some documents or or certain leases and they say well the lease is up now we have to renegotiate it and suddenly the Christians have lost a portion of their land or they'll use middlemen and say and it it's sort of acts of deceit and they end up buying large these these front companies come and buy off some of the land and you don't realize that it's going to not Christians or not to Palestinians and being used in another way in in Jerusalem all all yeah primarily around Jerusalem Jerusalem and Bethlehem there's large chunks that have been taken the Knesset sits on the uh uh own land owned by the Jerusalem patriarchy what yeah well it was their land yeah and they have a lease they have a lease for it how did they get it well obviously they allowed them to have that was a legal operation that was done. Yeah. To have that land is um when you first got there 30 years ago, were there more Christians than there are now? There were more. I mean, it still has been a relatively small population um in the tens of thousands, I think, in in Palestine overall. And but it's certainly I think the greater degree and little by little it's decreased. Um, but it's really getting frightening now because I think these last two years is sort of like almost pushed people over the edge. But then you hear of families in communities like five or 10 families that are leaving now going to Europe, sometimes the US or Canada or Australia and and that's not only Christians. Of course, Muslims are a bigger population. It because there are people if you're raising your child and there's no job opportunities for them and quite frankly there's a good likelihood that they if you're a teenage boy that you could get shot. I don't I mean I know a number of kids in in Alazaria where I was 14 15 year olds who have been shot and look at the difference in that. what supposedly throwing a Molotov cocktail. And I now think about when the the war started in with Ukraine and Russia. I remember a story in the New York Times. It's it it was a huge story celebrating that a beer factory was now generating Molotov cocktails to throw against the Russians and it that was celebrated in Palestine. I hundreds of teenage boys have been killed because Israel will say they were throwing a Molotov cocktail. And I know of one case in he wasn't even I think he was 12 years old last year. I know a beautiful man and Dr. Saleem who's Muslim but who used to take care of the nuns at our convent. He lives in Chaot refugee camp which is part of Jerusalem. They pay Jerusalem taxes but a wall surrounds them. They're they're they're guarded by Israeli soldiers. He tries to run a disability center, but they're constantly being raided. People being detained by the uh the Israelis and the the um the infrastructure there. If you can tell when you're Palestine, East Jerusalem versus the West. One has sidewalk, nice sidewalks, good schools, the other is decrepit. Anyway, the Dr. Saleem uh there was a boy at the camp there, 12 years old. It was a Muslim holiday and he had he was shot dead and what they said was he had thrown a molotov. He was 200 yards from any soldier and they shot him. But that literally happens every day. I have a young man that we just helped come to America a year and a half ago who lives north of Hebron the Christian and his family he went to school a half hour north in Shepherd's Field. We wanted to bring him to America because he was at that age where you look the wrong way at a soldier and it's a possibility of getting shot. He's Christian but he could be Muslim. It doesn't you know the point is that this is what happens to them. So any normal family how you know they want to stay in their land. It's difficult. It's difficult to immigrate. How are you going to be treated going to another country and have to you know pick up your livelihood and leave leave other family members. It's not an easy thing to do, but yeah, it is happening that the population is declining and the priests are very concerned. I've talked to a number of priests in the in the West Bank and they're aware of the situation. So, what we're hoping to do, you know, there's sort of a latent movement of Christians that don't have this Christian Zionist perspective and you know, the Catholic Church has always done some to support the communities over there, but we haven't done anything politically because ultimately it's not the money that's needed now. It has to be the change that we have to change the support of Israel if you allow the settlements continue. If you continue, you know, uh James Carville, right, he was under Clinton and he he came up with a phrase for the campaign, it's the economy, stupid. The problem with Israel and Palestine is not Muslim versus Jew, it's the occupation stupid. That's really what it comes down to. And unless we get uh something where a sovereign Palestinian state where they're granted their freedom is created and maybe that'll be two states with a boundary or maybe it'll be some sort of confederation. That's up to the politician to decide. But unless there's freedom and an ability for the Palestinians to develop and and and be free to have their country, um Christians will continue to leave. And what will happen? Not only those living stones will leave but the holy sites. You know what gives me the greatest pleasure is uh after I left uh Jerusalem I've lived in America but two times a year I've been pilgrims people who want to come and visit the holy sites. Go and see where Jesus Christ was crucified and resurrected. Go see where he was born. Go up to the Sea of Galilee. Be a part of that. And in and uh one of our saints says taking a pilgrimage to the Holy Land is like the fifth gospel. So we can read the Bible all we want but it's when we go there and really are at the places where our Lord walked and lived and performed his miracles that you really it it deepens your your Christianity and your sense of if the one of the loveliest things is I take people of all ages and I'll ask them younger people at the end of the trip. So what what do you like the most? Some people might say the Dead Sea or something, but I've also been struck that 15-year-old boys will come back and tell me it's when we went to the holy supplr into the tomb of Christ. Yes. So, so there's obviously something there that's important to our Christian heritage and what's happening is if the Christians are forced to leave, if Israel takes greater control, what we will have is museums. They won't be living places of prayer. And that will be a great tragedy not only for the Christians but I think for the whole world. Yeah. Because they're not owned by government. I mean these are pre-existing they've been there for centuries. Exactly. And and they have gone down in upo. I mean there have been times over the centuries where where Christians have had difficult times and then rose up again and did. So uh I think actually we're in one of those dark times. I mean, we could go into whole explanation of why the world way it is. Why do we even allow this is mindboggling to me. It's getting painful. I can't look at anything right now. I And I think a lot of people every day these stories of what is happening and people justifying it to anyone with a conscience. It's sort of like what are we doing and how is this evil been allowed to grow and develop?

Did you make any converts in Palestine ever? Did you Muslims converting to Christianity.

Um, it's a it's a you have to be careful with it, but I I will say that I don't know those Muslims that have converted to Christianity, but it's not something you can do openly. Not that they're going to be killed, but it's not it won't be looked upon well, and it's not easy to do. Um, yeah. Uh, uh, we in Palestine. Yeah. You can talk to people. I guess it doesn't you know the interesting thing is I'm orthodox and in orthodoxy we don't aren't really a procilitizing faith it's a faith that's becomes of what you are and how you live you know what I mean it's just so you don't actively do missionary work in in a lot of cases mostly it's just by your example and that was the first Christians right and who were martyrs or or were people or their way of life because they weren't pagans because they were trying they were trying to treat people decently and people responded to that they you were following the message of Christ and that people said oh yeah well we really don't want to live like the cberitic life that we were living before and that looked appealing to people so that's that is what the witness of Christianity is and that's another reason why if it's gone uh it'll only hasten the bloodshed and the destruction in the Middle East because I think the Christians are a buffer between Muslim and Jew in um in Palestine and that makes sense were you there there was a siege at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, birthplace of Jesus. Um maybe 2002, I remember.

Oh yes, I was there. Yeah. Yeah. I had uh that's where I became especially close to the Palestinian Christian community cuz in Bethany there aren't that many Christians, but we had teachers from there and students from there, the boarding students. And when the siege happened, it wasn't just a siege on the church itself. What they claimed was that there were some fighters that were in the church who which actually that's a Christian tradition, you know, for people to take refuge in a church. But the Israelis used that as a as a way to well, they besieged the church for and but the whole town was under siege, not just the church. So that meant that the teachers who lived in the Bethlehem area couldn't get out of Bethlehem to come over to Bethany. People couldn't get food and medicines. After a while, it became uh I would get calls and saying, you know, my neighbor has epilepsy and we cannot get a new medication for her. Can you find a way to get something in, you know, through a care organization into us? And finally, when the siege end during that time, I remember a doctor telling me how describing how someone had been shot uh in in his house and he was bleeding to death. And he was calling the doctor, you know, what do I do? What can I do? And the doctor literally heard him just bleed to death during that because no ambulance, nothing was allowed. And after the 40 days, roughly 40 days, which is ironic. Um, uh, I went in there and I met up with some of the people. The everything was strewn with garbage all over the streets, the bullet holes. You know, what Israel likes to do is destroy. Not only did they do they control the place, but they almost take glee. And we're not talking about Hamas time. We're not talking about, you know, 2023. We're talking about 2002. They would go through the town of Bethlehem and purposely with their tanks, a piece, the smaller ones, like knock over the light poles or the the things that are garnished with Christmas trees, you know, decorations and things, and knock

them over in the middle of town or pull their bulldozer and smash a car. But again, that same resiliency of the Palestinians, the Simude, I have a photograph. Uh, he's actually the father of one of the priests now in Bethlehem. And he's sitting on his car that had been smashed by the Israelis, just with a smile, kind of like, "You're not going to stop us. We're going to carry on. You know, you did this to me, but I'm going to carry on."

There were people shot inside the church in the, yeah. The bell ringer there was shot dead. Yeah. And I know there, of course. Yeah. Yeah. So that was the moment. And Christians were shot outside the church. I don't, I don't know if it was exactly during those 40 days, but a a young 16-year-old boy, who was an altar boy of the church, you know, there were curfews going on and they had tanks all, uh, all around the city, circling them. And he was out with his 70-year-old cousin, I think it was, and they were just kicking a soccer ball. He was shot dead by a sniper, 16-year-old Johnny Talgia. You remember his name? Of course.

And also there was another, Christine Sada. Her father was the principal of the Orthodox school in Bethsaida, Shepherd's Field. They were driving and the Israeli soldiers, who, that is Area A, right? If you want to talk about the politics of it, technically that means it was under full Palestinian control. They should have their police and everything. No. Israeli jeeps were there and they mistakenly thought that was a car of some militant. So they shot up the car. Um, his wife was injured. He was injured as well, and his 12-year-old daughter, Christine, was killed. Why? What did they do wrong? They thought, the Israelis thought that was somebody that was going to do something bad. Was anyone ever punished for it? Of course not. Of course not.

I had an incident in front of our school where they had put us on curfew and, uh, our girls, the bedroom of the border girls were on, on the main street. And I look out, it was curfew time, but I saw, and there were soldiers sort of marching up and down the street, a handful of them, not like a brigade. And, um, there was a man walking up to the soldier. And I thought, "Oh my goodness, it's a Palestinian man." It turned out he was deaf-mute and he wasn't from Bethany. He was from Hebron, but he had relatives there. He didn't understand what was going on, 'cause they call, call curfew any time. And then he got to get off the street. So the soldiers shot him. The man's a deaf-mute and he ended up getting shot in the eye. He survived, but he was shot in the eye right outside our door. And for all, for a couple of years, we had a tank in front of the school. And often I had to, um,

Why were the girls dangerous at the school? Well, the town, the Palestinians are dangerous. All Palestinians. Yeah. Yeah. 5-year-old girls are dangerous. But what was danger to us is, um, uh, Mount of Olives. This was before the, or while the process of the wall being built, there had been a situation where some settlers, probably the PE followers of Ben-Gvir, they had taken a a little truck and they had explosives and they had gone in front of a high school on, um, on the top of the Mount of Olives. Fortunately, it was stopped before they blew it up. So every day, I remember for at least six months, because they'd also done something similar near us, near the Mali Adumim settlement. I would actually go, we had a fairly large property and there's like gates on either side where the girls would come in. Every morning I'd be up at 6:00 in the morning and go make sure that there I didn't see like a little bomb someplace, 'cause that was what was going on.

And totally, the settlers, you worried the settlers would bomb the school. They attempted to. They attempted to. There were a couple occasions. Palestinians, but kids, doesn't matter. It's a, it doesn't matter at all. I remember thinking in 2002 when the bell ringer was shot, um, in the church on the site where Jesus was born. So, it's kind of the center of Christianity. That and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where he was buried. Mmm. Um, remember thinking, like, are American Christians in the United States, whose weapons literally they were using AR-15 platforms for this, American rifles, American ammunition, uniforms, American bulldozers, are they really going to put up with this?

Was there any pushback from the United States? The problem is, is the, um, the lack of awareness that our mass media. I worked at CNN at the time and I interviewed Benjamin Netanyahu about this at the time. I'll never forget it. And what was his response? "Terrorists. Like, we do what we have to do. No apologies." But I said, "But that's our church." And it's also, have nothing to do with this. So what are you doing? And it was like, "Shut up, anti-Semite." But I remember thinking, maybe, I mean, I'm just some, like, semi-agnostic news douche from CNN, but like, where are the ministers on this? They think a lot of times they didn't want to get involved. It's what the, the, the same fear that the mainstream media seems to have is that we don't want to rock the boat. And it's, and also to be fair, because the mainstream media doesn't do its job fully, people are given a very distorted picture of events. So they don't know what's happened or going on. Or for this is a kind of a minor example, but at that time period, uh, my brother was coming up for a job at ABC News and there was a story on the Page Six, New York Post, "George's Crazy My Name." That my name at that time was Maria George's Crazy Sister Maria. And what they said, it was like the Drudge Report, that's where it came from, that kind of thing, that I had said that Israeli soldiers were raping women in, um, in Bethlehem. Point of fact, someone had contacted me about that in an email from America and said, "Did you hear anything about any anything going on like that?" And I said, "No, you know, we have a lot of difficulties. I do know where they've gone into doctor's clinics and they've like broken the, uh, the sonogram machine and they, they put graffiti on it, just went to the bathroom on there." The same kind of things that they're doing in Gaza, they were doing it in, in the early 2000s, raiding people's homes for to, to may have a vantage point and then steal the things in there and herd the family into one room. And so I said, but, you know, I said, "Well, let me check it out. I haven't heard any stories like that." And I contacted friends in Beth. I said, "No, no." The Christians said, "No, nothing like that has happened." And I wrote back to that person and said that. But it didn't matter. They put it, that cuts, what comes out on the news is what they want to come out on the news.

So, this was someone trying to keep your brother from getting a job at ABC News. Either to keep it or to keep him in line, right? You don't want to step out and say anything against Israel. Would, did you talk to your brother about it? It's a difficult conversation and I think it's probably better for him to, to say why or he does. I think, I think it's the, it's not, it's not his problem. I think it's a problem in all of mainstream media and it's certainly a great problem right now. I mean, you know, and even with this, we're dealing now. It's becoming a lot of publicity on this, even though it is being distorted. I actually watched the news this morning and, uh, James Strides is on and he's talking about it's all Hamas and they show the emaciated hostage and as if, you know, we would, everything would be okay if only Hamas would release the hostage. And, and, and that's the starvation when it's, it's taking place. Millions of people are being starved. Babies are dying there. And we're focused. God, I, I hope the hostage gets freed. He should get freed. And he should get freed. And Israel should remove themselves from Gaza and allow the, the, the food to get in. And that's, and, and Christians should be pushing for that. And I think we are seeing that to some degree now. But it's still obscuring the main point. Like I said, the, the great, the unspoken thing when I talk to all my friends on the West Bank now is that I said, they know we're next. That it's going to happen. And it will happen. Maybe we'll go back to that time where it'll be more like they, they play a long game. You know, even with this settlement building, we'll build and then if America gives a little bit of pushback, okay, we stop for a while and then we start again. So maybe even in the West Bank for now, if there's, hopefully will be some resolution with a ceasefire and and bringing food into Gaza, that in the West Bank that they'll, um, step back for a little while, but that doesn't mean that in another few months they'll, there'll be some provocation. Like I said, they've already wiped out thousands of people from refugee camps in Tartum and Jenin. They're making life very difficult in many towns in Taiba, in Bethlehem. Water is, is not given to the city. So you don't have water unless you have your water tanks. And there's no rain. You know, when I first moved to Jerusalem and you do your laundry, you hang it outside and I come there in May, there's no rain till October if you're lucky. So those water tanks aren't getting filled during the summertime. And so if, and Israel controls the access to the water to the Palestinian towns. So if they decide they only get it once a week, you only get it once a week. While they have swimming pools in their settlements and green plush grass that Christian Zionists are paying for.

Have you, you know, a lot of Christians in the Holy Land, how many support the government of Israel? Do you know the Palestinians within Israel? Yeah, Christians support the government of Israel. I can't, I don't know that they would be any that really would, any, what's the, what's the, especially now, any, they're literally throwing out Palestinian, uh, representatives. So in the US, there's a sense that Christians support this program. Of course not. And, and to the, you know, when I first moved there in '98, there was hope for peace and there, there was a much stronger peace movement within Israel, people who recognized not just a cold peace, but that we can live together and we should work towards that. But that's certainly been abolished. It's just so st. I lived in DC for all this, but like at the, you know, the final decade of the Cold War, there were a lot of, uh, Jews in the Soviet Union who were being persecuted. Well, everyone in the Soviet Union is being persecuted, including the Jews. And, um, and they came to Israel. Yeah, they came to Israel. Came to the United States. And there were Jewish groups in the US and in Israel that I supported then and I support now, who said, "We got to get our people out of there and help them." They're called Refuseniks, right? And my dad worked in this actually. And, um, I thought that was great. Sure. You don't see that with any Christian group with Christians in the Middle East. There's no Christian group in the United States that I'm aware of. It's like, "Hey, those are our people. Maybe we should help." No. They are very. In fact, there was just a conference down in Atlanta. There's something called Churches for Middle East Peace and there's a group like Telos Group. Um, there's Christians for a Free Palestine, but they're very small and they're not so much part of the institute, you know, the, the hierarchy of the church. Well, but to, we had Pope Francis did speak out and I think certainly the Catholic Church in America has to do a lot more as an institution. I mean, we should have a Christian APAC group. Yeah. The, yeah.

Going on. Like, you're not allowed to shoot up the Church of the Nativity. Sorry. I mean, and even if you're agnostic on the politics of it or whatever, which is fine, maybe preferable, but you can't do that to Christians. How about, no, I agree 100%. So, we have to move to that. Weird. But, but to be, that gets back to the thing though, is that people don't always see the whole story. And we're, we're, we're just flooded with this message that those terrorists are coming to get us next, which is absurd. Has any member of Hamas or anybody of a Palestinian come and threatened America as an American? No. That's not their, that's not what they're about. The thing is that, but that's the, the tactic that's used is that, um, we have to plaster them as being these jihadists when they're nothing like that. It's a.

Are they, um, I mean, I'm sure you've dealt with Hamas or know people who have. Right. Are they religious fanatics? Are they jihadis? Not the people that I know. Like I said, when I, when I was again, in, at the school, we had a couple teachers, Muslim men, and there were some elections going on and it wasn't Hamas then. It was, it was the Social Party or something, but it was definitely a relig, Muslim religious party. I would have voted for those guys because they, they weren't corrupt. They wanted to serve their people and that's what it was about. So, I'm not saying it doesn't happen anywhere. I'm not totally ingrained in, in the community, but, um, I don't, it doesn't, the vibe there isn't one of wanting everybody to convert to Islam and forcing it upon them at all, at all. And the purpose of Hamas is primarily to resist and to protect their people and their land. It's not just,

Palestine and Israel where the Christian population has shrunk. It seems like throughout the Levant. Yes. We just, and I think that's part of the whole Greater Israel project. You know, isn't it so ironic that they've made such a big targeting Christians? Targeting Christians. Yeah. Well, targeting to, to make control for Israel, for example, in Syria. I, I went to Syria in 2004 and I went to the place, the Convent of St. Thecla, where outside of Damascus in Ma'loula, where the nuns were kidnapped by ISIS. Right. And the, the population is over 10% Christian. And you have ancient Christian sites as well as vibrant monastic communities there and vibrant churches and hospitals that were run by the church by in Syria and Lebanon, right? And now what have we done? And so Assad wasn't perfect. Saddam Hussein wasn't perfect. But the Middle East is not the United States. And we tried to impose ourselves there and get rid of these governments who, for all their repression, also kept the people together, allowed minorities to survive there, including Christians. Including Christians. Yeah. And Christians. Yeah. And this, and just recently, and so I find it mind-boggling that now we take sanctions off after Assad is gone and we put in place someone who was dish, who was part of ISIS. Does a leopard change its spots? And how are the Christians in? Well, we had the bombing. We had the, actually the very, if you may, I'd like to look for the statement. Yeah. From Patriarch John of Antioch, whose brother was a bishop and was kidnapped in, uh, 2010 and presumed to be dead now. And in June, uh, there was a bombing, a suicide bombing in the church in, uh, in Damascus, Mar Elias. And Patriarch John, he didn't pull any punches. He came and he said to the, he gave a eulogy, but he also called out the government because they didn't really condemn the act at all, the ISIS government. And, and he says, Apostle Paul, uh, in his epistle to the Romans, "For whether we live, we live to the Lord, and whether we die, we die to the Lord. The rock of our faith is the Lord who rose from the dead, and the martyrs who live, who lie before us today, are children of the resurrection. They dwell in the divine light. They did not die. They are alive. They have passed on, even if in this horrific way, to the one whom they loved." He's, he's living like we're supposed to live as Christians, is talking at it, the Christians there. But then he says, "But I will say boldly, Mr. President Abu Jalani Ashar, the, the former head of HDS, head of the, the ISIS group, we deeply regret, Mr. President, that in the immediate aftermath of the crime, not a single government or state official was present at the scene except for Mrs. Hinn Kabowat, a Christian. We regret that deeply. We are an integral component of this nation, and we are here to stay. Let me remind you, the two archbishops of Aleppo, Bulos and Yuana, were kidnapped, and much was said at the time. The Ma'loula nuns were also kidnapped, and here we still are. This heinous crime was committed the day before yesterday, and we will remain here. We appeal to you, Mr. President, for a government that does not get distracted by issuing unnecessary decisions unworthy of mention from the sacred royal door. We call for a government that takes responsibility and shares in the suffering of its people. Mr. President, the people are hungry. If some have not told you, I am telling you, honorable, come and take care of your people." I think that's pretty bold for a guy who had his brother kidnapped, just had a number of petitioners bombed, and he's telling someone who has been known to be a terrorist, calling him out. That's pretty bold. I would say that's pretty bold.

So, um, the government of, of Syria now, the government run by the former ISIS leader, is pro-Israel. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the whole plan. And, uh, you know, when you get to it, they talked about, um, the, from the river to the sea, right? Where, where did that statement come from? Look at the charter of Likud, the party of Netanyahu. They very clearly, very clearly say, "From the Jordan into the Mediterranean is, is going to be Israel." And really, from the Nile to the Euphrates, which means going into Iraq, into the edges of Egypt, and up to Salah. So that's why we had the war in Iraq. Why did our, our young people have to die? Why did we have to spend so much money on a war? I was supposed to visit Iraq in, in the early 2000s. Um, our school secretary, her father was born in Mosul and he was an, a Syrian Christian. And so we, this is an opportunity to go and visit him. And that's when they started chopping off the heads and doing things. So we thought better of making that part of the trip. But how many, how many Christians were displaced from Iraq during that time? Almost all of them. Almost all of them. And now in Syria, you're seeing the same thing. Which in 2004, I saw vibrant communities. I saw people who could live even under Assad as Christians. Now they're in fear for what's going to happen to them. I, I mean, it's hard to see this as an accident. So, West Bank, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, all places where US foreign policy chutzpah, at the behest of Israel, sees the destruction of Christian communities. I'm guessing that's like not an accident. No, not at all. It's definitely part of a plan. But the thing is, why should we be supporting that plan? And also, you know, we're focusing on the Christians, but I said, I, we had student girls who were Russian background who lived in the cities of Israel. And what you've seen the last 20 years, too, instead of that nascent peace movement, instead of people who tolerated their neighbor and could live with their neighbor, we, it's become a totally militant society. The girls I know that are there now, it's a lot of aggression and a lot of hatred. And how many Israelis have you having big problems in Greece now? I don't know if you've seen the dem. I'm a Greek, right? People are parading through the straits because Israelis have left Israel, even though they're the ones that have all the defense, right? All the protection. Even what kind of a country is Netanyahu trying to have? Do you really want to live in a, in a militarized country that's always in, in fear and always thinking that they should, they're under attack when they don't have to be?

You say it's more hostile. You see these videos of Christians, priests with crucifixes around their necks getting spit on in Jerusalem. Is, are those real? Yes. And I mean, that's happened before, you know, even from the first days that I was there. There'd be occasionally something like that. And occasionally there were, uh, graffiti put on walls and, uh, yeah, sprayed on Jesus a monkey, 2013, on a church. Yeah, that was right in Tabgha, the, where the multiplication of the, the loaves and the fish, a Catholic community, graffiti there talking about getting rid of the idols or something like that, some sort of Old Testament statement. And do, and burning, burning a statue of the Virgin Mary and parts of the monastery there. So, but that was a small segment. Like, even at that time, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich were like sort of outcasts in Israel. They weren't the prominent members of Israeli society and what they represented in those religious zealots of, of the. But now they're, they are in power and they're dominating everything. And, you know, they say sometimes that if, if the Israelis didn't have the Palestinians there'd be a civil war between the secular and the, uh, religious Jews, which is true. That would happen. Do, oh, there's enormous tension, enormous. Do you know anyone who's been spit on? Any Christians who've been spit on? Me? You've been spit on? Of course. Yeah. What do you mean? Of course. That's disgusting. Yeah. Well, but that's the least of it. It's a. That's the least of it. But again, I'm saying this as a perspective from the perspective of someone who lives in a majority Christian country that's paying for all of this, right? So that's kind of the, that's the. Or I'll tell you a story. My father is a priest, right? A Greek Orthodox, which means, and he was wearing a collar suit. He visited one time and we visited the town of, we visited the town of Taybeh. And it, uh, there was a checkpoint before you enter into the town. Can you give us perspective where is Taybeh? Taybeh is biblical Ephraim. It's when Christ, uh, after he raised Lazarus from the dead, he went about 10 miles to the northeast of Jerusalem, Bethany area, to prepare himself before he would come back to Jerusalem for his crucifixion. Ephraim is is known as the town of, um, of compassion, of solace. Even in the time of Saladin, they came, they actually was called Ephraim. It's now called Taybeh, which means the good or the beautiful. So, it sort of had that reputation. So he went there to prepare himself for his crucifixion. 20 miles, not even 20 miles from, from Jerusalem. Interesting. So with your father, who was my dad. Yeah. Of famous, an American priest. Yeah. Dressed as a priest and my mom was there too. So we were going to drive in. So, there's a checkpoint sort of at the entrance of the town. And then you have many olive groves, which by the way, uh, I was just talking to someone the other day. Uh, they have about 8,000 acres of land, let's say, and over a quarter of it has been confiscated either by settlers and the army allowing them to take their olive groves. And there's, they have no recourse. There's nothing. Who owns the land? The Palestinian Christian families. And it's been confiscated from Christian families. Well, confiscated. What do you do when they have guns and you don't? I don't know. You, you call your patron church in the West and you say, "Raise a stink." Call Ted Cruz and other self-described Christian came right. And then the only thing the, so what did Mike, the US ambassador to Israel, he said he was very concerned because the, also the happened, which, so they didn't, there's three churches in, in Taybeh, an Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and Catholic. And there's also the ruins of a fourth-century church that partially stands and people will still go there sometimes. Not full services, but just to be at the spot. It's a place that was built by St. Helen in the fourth century. George of St. George. Settlers burned the brush and also there's a cemetery right next to it. Burned that area. They burned the cemetery. They, everything's stone there. So nothing burns, but they burned the area around there. So you have grass and brush that was burned. And not only that, I was shocked when I saw how much they've infiltrated. It's one thing the entrance of town and you've taken the open land, the olive groves. They have Bedouin, like in that town, there's a beer factory, a distillery, a hotel, and Bedouin are living, have been forced off their land around there and are now living at, with allowance of the Christians to, to be there because they have no place else to go and no one to protect them. So, Ambassador Huckabee comes and he's very concerned because an attack on a church. And also that same week, a Palestinian American had been shot dead by settlers or beaten to death. Sif Musat, 20, not even few, a couple miles away. And he was going to address that as a Palestinian American to, to see that Israel would investigate. Nobody's been arrested or died. He's an American citizen. Yes, he's from Florida. He's often, just like I'm an American citizen, was beaten to death by settlers and no one was arrested. No, never happens down in Hebron. Just, and the concern, my concern in talking to, and we're sure that happened. We're absolutely sure that happened. Yeah. How can an American citizen be beaten to death in an Israeli-controlled area, paid for by the United States, and nobody does anything about it? Well, this is our problem, isn't it? That's, I'm sorry, I keep stepping on your story. So, So, Ambassador Huckabee shows up. He shows up and he says, you know, he's very concerned about what happened and we're going to check it, you know, but the next day settlers were there with cows marching through the town with their cows. So, it shows that they, they are in control, in control. And not only that, just a couple days ago, this is a week after he's been there, you know, in the Bible, there's the story of Ruth. One of the women in Taybeh is married to a, but she's a Greek American married. They met in school in Boston. They got married. He was going to business school. Her husband, he came back to Palestine to establish the business. She goes with her husband, becomes Palestinian, you know, going to care for the people of his nation. She was, she got a PhD at Harvard. She's written books about the Holy Land. And with the, the, the sales of those books, little by little, she visited parishes in America and she raised money so that they could build 30 homes for for Orthodox people. So, uh, those homes were cars of the people in those homes were burned the other day. And there's graffiti again on the wall and it says, it names another village and it says, "You're going to regret this." And, and the rest, I, I talked to two Israeli people who are from Israel and they couldn't even decipher the, the top part. So I, you know, because it's very interesting, a lot of the settlers are actually people from Brooklyn, New York. Yeah. They have dual citizenship and, and they go back and forth between is freely. They can go to Ben Gurion Airport, go through Tel Aviv to come to the settlements in the West Bank. But those people in Taybeh who are actually American citizens as well, they can't go through Ben Gurion Airport. How is it that an American citizen can't go through Ben Gurion Airport? Because he's also a Palestinian. Are you sure? I'm absolutely sure. Yes. They have to go through Jordan and right now, um, and through a border that is controlled on one side by Israel. And right now, it's so difficult. They only open for, I've, I've been told from 8 to to 1 or 2. And you've got thousands of people trying to come through, right? So you could be there for hours and you may not get through that day. People make plans to, you know, the only way Palestinians can do anything to be free is to go to another country. I mean, even for a vacation or something, you don't feel free in your own country. I used to feel that when I was living there in the summertime, that's why I would travel to different countries because within Israel and Palestine, you feel like you're in prison. You can't feel like a person. And so if you have the opportunity to go away to breathe a little bit, you do that.

Since you are an American and you obviously know people in positions of authority, when you come back to the US and tell these stories at dinner, what do people say? At dinner, they, they show concern when you tell the story. But again, it seems maybe it seems too distant for people. Or I have also, you know, what since I, uh, I've talked to people in our churches and I'm trying really now to focus on organizing because people say, "How can we help now? They're really seeing this, the, the gross things that are going on. How, where do we send money? What do we do?" Yes, people need money, but what we really need is political change. So I'm sort of bordering on three different congressional districts and we've tried to set up appointments with our congressmen. They've thrown us off. I'm talking about middle-aged women trying to go see their congressman. They don't want, when you tell them what you want to talk about, they don't want to make an appointment for you to be able to educate them. I did. And then I wrote a letter to my congressman, Nicholas Langworthy. He writes back an Israeli bullet point, an APAC bullet point, uh, reply, basically saying, you know, Hamas is the problem and, and, you know, it's okay to send weapons over there. So it, but little by little, we have to go and keep educating. If, if enough people keep knocking on the doors and saying, "We don't like what we're doing. Why are we sending billions of dollars to Israel and then we're cutting Medicaid? We're cutting, people don't have jobs in his district." In fact, I, I was listening in on, he did a phone, uh, town meeting or whatever, and most of the people were concerned because they, they didn't have enough money for groceries or, you know, what was going to be done with their healthcare in the coming months and years. And then no questions about, for, he didn't take my question on the thing. I wanted to ask about Israel and why we were sending more, more offensive weapons. We're not talking about, don't play this game. Nothing wrong with the Iron Dome and protecting yourself. You're in a tough neighborhood. I'm talking about assault rifles, which was just passed again to give assault rifles that Ben, that Ben gave, just gives into the hands of settlers who then kill the, the Palestinians in the West Bank, and we're financing that. So people, have you not had enough? You really want this done in your name? But the politicians make it hard, too. They don't want to hear it. And you have, and I understand when I lived there in the early 2000s, Congressman, uh, Deral Lisa and Carolyn Maloney was still in office at the time. They were there on an Israeli junket. I think it was a 60th anniversary of something, but they, they were willing to come and see me, but they wouldn't come to Bethany 'cause that was over the wall, or the wall was being built then. That was in the West Bank. So we met on the Mount of Olives and they actually, they came with me and they saw the wall was being constructed then and they saw how people were passing through the rocks and they had not good things to say about Israel. But do you think their vote would have changed? No, not going to happen. Not going to happen. I once again threw you off track when you were explaining, um, visiting with your parents. Right. So we come into, we're heading into Taybeh and the, the soldiers, bec, the reason the soldiers are there because just outside of Taybeh on one side you have the settlement of Ramoun, swimming pools and beautiful homes, and, uh, the other direction, the huge settlement of Ofra. So these are in the West Bank in areas that's supposed to be Palestinian. And so the soldiers there are supposedly protecting them, but they block the entrance to Taybeh or, you know, check who's going in and out. And you're going, so we drove, we, they first weren't going to let us go. They said, "No, no, no, you can't come through this way. You got to go around Ofra, go like 20 miles and come back another road to get into Taybeh." I said, "No, no, no, they're only in the country for a couple weeks. They're only here for a few hours. We're going in this way." Finally, they let us in. And then when we go, and we said, "I'm only going to be a couple hours. We're visiting families there and we'll come back out." When we come back out, the same game. The soldiers just standing there. They play this game where, um, to show that they're in control. There was no other cars behind us. They just said, "No, they wouldn't let us pass. They're just going to wait for a while." Um, and finally, my father, temperamental Greek, got, got out of the car and went up to the soldier and said, "What is this? I'm an American citizen. I'm a, we just want to go back to Jerusalem." And they basically just laughed in his face. That's, g, eventually we were able to move. But the scorn they have for Americans is really something else. For that's not the only incident where I've seen something like that where they mock America. Mock America. America pays for the whole thing. Well, thank you very much. But there's no love for America. Well, I look, I have seen, sadly to say, during that time, American soldiers, veterans, that would be at the checkpoints and they'd be sort of joking with the soldiers. So there, there was probably some camaraderie with certain people who were probably Christian Zionists or of that mentality. So they were pro-Israel. If you have that view, then it's okay. But in general, no, they don't have any, uh, love for Americans. Really? Yeah. Well, that was my perception. No, it doesn't. I think most Americans would be surprised to, to learn that. Yeah, it's a, it's about time that it changes. It's.

Why do you think they're scorned for Americans in a country supported by Israel? Supported by America. I think I think that's just a part of the arrogance of the country. I, they, they think they're due for everything. There's not much gratitude. We're past that time, you know. You know, because you're bringing up something now when I think about it. The time period when Joe Biden was a young politician and there was that warm feeling towards Israel and it was sort of the underdog, but we're way beyond that time now, you know. So that's where the sense of, before, but there might have been a sense, "We're thankful to America." But over the years, as this whole progression of the, of the greater land of Israel and, and the dominance of another people and having the power to do it, there's no more of that gratitude.

Have you been attacked for saying things like this, uh, in which, in the United States? Well, like that little slander, then. I mean, I'm sure I, well, we'll see what happens after this. I'm sure I actually come to think of it, you know, I, we talked before about in the early 2000s, my father was a, a priest at a, a large church in New York City and he, he, there was a gathering of a few hundred people and I talked about the situation in Palestine and everybody was receptive. But then there was a, um, a newspaper that I believe was controlled by John Catsimatidis, who's a big fellow in New York City. They reported what I said, but they also watered it down a lot. There's like this idea, we don't want to go too far in saying anything negative about Israel. And that was back then. That's a 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Yeah. So it's not being attacked necessarily, but it's not letting you be truthful about things.

Do you think Christians in other Arab countries are treated better than Christians in Israel and Palestine? Well, I can only go from the, the my times of being there. In, in Lebanon, too, at the time I was there, there were churches and it was, they were part of the society. So, there was nothing wrong with being a Christian. And in Syria, when I would, now, now, who knows what's going to happen, but certainly the time when I was there. Um, well, Israel controls those countries now. Well, they're, they're trying to make inroads. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what, what do they do first? They bombed after Assad went down. They, they get rid of all the military. So, what is the point of, uh, Abu Jalani being there now, the ISIS head, without, who is he, who is he serving? Is he serving the Syrian people or the Israeli people? What's the answer? Right now, it looks like he's serving Israel. What's so surprising is that you think of, or in the United States, people think of Israel as like this foothold of Western civilization in the Middle East. And so you would imagine the Christians would do a lot better under Israeli control than they would under Assad's control. But no, that's not the case at all. It's definitely not the case at all.

That's, I'd like to talk a little bit more about the Palestinians themselves. I would love for resistance because I, I think one of the reasons I was grateful to be able to come on is to really give a picture of the, of them and the people as they are. And what, one thing that's really struck me, I know Muslims, I know Bedouins, I know all during this time where they've really been suffering. What I really get sense from them is their real belief in God and that their life is in God's hands and there's such a humility and and an obedience to their creator and an understanding that this life is not the only one. And there's a real beauty to that that I think so much of the world is missing. And I, and I think even in sort of, there's a deeper sense to all that's even going on right now, right? We're in the heart of Jerusalem, in the heart of where Christ came. There was a reason for that. And now we have a situation where the people who were the closest to God are being destroyed. The one in a simple sense. You know, I live next to the Mount of Olives and when you go down the Mount of Olives, it's where they, they said, "Hosanna in the highest, here comes Christ." And often I've gone to parish churches in Palestine and the whole community, they know all the service and they're singing it themselves. And it reminds me as, as those people that were on the Mount of Olives greeting the creator, greeting the Messiah who is coming for their salvation and and honoring him. And that's what they're doing to this day. And, and what we're doing instead is destroying that. And, and what does that mean for the world when we let that go? The last time I was there, I, I went through Amman, not through Tel Aviv. So I had to go through the border and then I spent a night and in the early morning I was being driven to the airport from Madaba, where there's a mosaic from the sixth century that shows you the places in the Holy Land, the map in Madaba. And when this, Madaba is not a very big city and as I'm going out of it, you very quickly before you get to the airport, come to lands that are still being grazed by shepherds. And I started to weep because to me, that's so emblematic of what the Lord really wanted us to be like, in touch with the land, recognizing that our life depends on what we grow and what we produce and what we do. And those kind of people are the ones who I hear from now who say they're suffering. They're, they're literally going to be killed, but they have much so much more courage and faith than you find in, in so much of America and in the West, which we've lost. And, and it's to me, it's sort of like this whole war is in a way, we're killing the, the Christ message. And that message, you can, whatever your theology is, is one of compassion and tolerance and love. And the world is, is becoming smaller in that way. And I think people sense that, right? The, how we, how we act to each other and to our neighbor. There's so, and, and the very fact that people, politicians and people can listen to doctors, listen to what's going on and still somehow have a blank face and think it's okay. How did we come to such a point of darkness? Well, I mean, it does seem like part of the broader spiritual war. Yes, absolutely. I think so.

What happens to the two million people who live in Gaza? Well, I can't say that I'm a Trump fan, but I, you know, he's a wheeler-dealer. He wants to get that Nobel Peace Prize. He's got people with a lot of money in Saudi Arabia and Qatar that have his ear. We don't have to build a Riviera. Build it for the Palestinians. They go and rebuild the area and let it be and and reconstruct for a Palestinian nation. Why is that such an outrageous idea? Why, why does Israel think that the people of Palestine have to be their enemy? They have, they say, "Go to Jordan, go to Egypt." What's the difference? Another 20 kilometers in. That's really what we're talking about. The difference between Amman and Tel Aviv is 20 miles at the most to drive between the two. So, what's the difference between the people that live in Palestine, that live in Jericho and Bethlehem, and someone who lives in Amman? And what's the difference between someone who lives in Gaza? So give them a defined border and and have the people of other countries, the Arabs too, should support the rebuilding of Gaza and and have Israel remove their military from there and give and let Gaza have their freedom to be able to develop. Those people are some of the most educated people in Gaza. I mean, how many of us have read the, I hope the stories of Mosab Abu Toha or, uh, Rafat, who was, who was killed, the poet, beautiful, graceful people. Bisam now, who's on every day on, maybe not everybody sees her, not in the mainstream media, but these are beautiful young Palestinians who are still trying to live and have joy and see something beautiful in the midst of all their suffering. So there's no reason that the money can be there. And if Trump, he's not a politician, he's a, he's a businessman. Work it out. I mean, it's a, I don't know that that's going to happen, but our politicians certainly haven't done it. What's the current plan for those people? It's probably not to raise a trillion dollars and rebuild them a model. But I mean, so what is a plan? Are we in such a world where we can look on live TV that two million people are just slowly going to die now? Or are you going to transfer them? And why should they be transferred? Why should, why should they have to leave their land that they've been in for centuries? And in Gaza, you know, Gaza is, uh, as much as the West Bank, Gaza, the St. Porphyrius Church from the third century was bombed. We also have in the Orthodox, how, how did the, how did a Christian church get bombed? Because it's part of Palestinians and all. I, I've been there before and basically, it's the, the Holy Family Church and the Baptist Church, they're all pretty much in the same area. So you can't make a mistake. And Christians through. So you don't think that was an accident? No. No, nothing's an accident. I mean, occasionally a shell might go off, but no. And certainly the last time with the one where they pointed at the cross, you don't miss that. Well, at the Holy Family Church, the cross didn't topple, but literally inches from it. And I have, you know, in, in Nablus at Jacob's Well, there's a large church now, and there's crosses on the front face in circles. And the monk always points out to us when I go there, there's a tank shell that was pointed, that was aimed at that cross. You can still see it from an earlier confrontation in Nablus. So don't tell me these soldiers are.

make mistakes. You could the the the church in Gaza has, you know, it's pointed and the cross is there in the middle of it by itself. So it's hard to believe that it wasn't a person. So what would you say? What would you say to Ted Cruz, the self-proclaimed Christian, supporting tank shells fired at crosses? Like what is that?

Well, I would say, you know, again, it's to disabuse of the notion. It's those same to talking points that the congressman gave. Well, but Hamas is the problem and they're terrorists. Well, Hamas is not the problem. So, so don't use that as an excuse anymore. And you we have to defend Christian values, American values, and and dignity, freedom for people. Isn't that what we're all about? Having their rights.

What um what happens on the temple mount? What is the temple mount? Can you explain what that is?

Well, the temple mount is the area uh where the temple existed at the time of Christ in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, right? Directly like I lived in the convent of St. Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives. Directly in front of me is the Dome of the Rock and there's the old walls the old the w the walls of the old city and within that is the area where the temple was had been existed. Right. There was also a Byzantine church at one point in the fifth century and that because where the Dome of the Rock is is where Abraham sacrificed or was going to sacrifice his son Isaac. Yeah. So it's a holy to all monothesis traditions. Yes. And so on the left side, if you're looking from the convent where I was at is the wailing wall. That's a portion of the temple that still exists, a wall. And so some just like the Christian Zionist, the Jews want the temple rebuilt. So I know Christians who have been there who who will take a sign and go take the crescent off the dome and say we'll put a cross on there. It's natural to all of them to do. So there is this movement to rebuild the temple. Uh all the time I was there I heard about that but um and there were small movement of it of but there's a mosque where the temple was. Yeah. Now it's Alaska mosque. It's the third holiest site for Muslims in the world. And the a lot of confrontations you have is because um Israel Israel will control getting in and out being able to go there. So or they'll say only men over 50 can go to the the mosque today and there there's a lot of confrontations there and people have been killed. So it is a mosque. Yeah. There's a functioning Alaska mosque is there. Uh but so you can't build the temple with the mosque there. No. And they say that they have the plans for rebuilding the temple and everything and for and people like uh Ben Gir the the minister who's a religious zealot have gone on the temple mount and it's a provocation. the the area is controlled by uh religiously by Jordan, but there's a an organization that's responsible for the that area. Okay.

So, you hear people say we're going to rebuild the temple, the third temple, but there's a mosque there. So, what's the plan for the mosque?

Well, I guess it would be to blow it up. What would And then you just said that's the third holiest site in Well, of Islam, of course, this would be a dark day for anybody. So then what what would happen if you blew up the third holiest site in Well, you could probably answer that better than me. It certainly would ignite a great conflict in the world. I just want to say this out loud because people sort of blindly talk about it. Oh, what we're really coming to and I think that's the that's the problem with the Christian Zionists is is that what is your end game here? They their belief tells them that's okay. We want to have this third world war because we're going to be taken away and we'll be okay and we'll come back later after all the fighting's done. That's sort of basically what their theology tells them. And in the meantime, all the Jews are supposed to convert to their brand of Christianity or die in the confliguration. It's and so I'm asking you this because you're a nun, right? That's not a Christian That's not a That's not a Christian belief. No. Or preceptance. Yeah. Huh. Where? Any idea where that came from? That idea, the rapture. Yeah.

Well, like I said, it originally the idea of having the thousand-year kingdom is a is a heresy that was in the early church. But the real push of all that becomes from the 1830s. James Darby Scullfield or John Darby Scullfield. It's sort of so it's a new theology that has no basis in the foundations of Christianity. It's has nothing to do with it.

How do you think this story ends?

It depends on us. And that's why, you know, maybe I I part of me wants to have that message of that we have to do something politically. The Christians have to wake up and tell their they're because it's all in the hands of the United States. It doesn't matter what any other country in the world does. If US protects Israel, this will continue and we will get to that conclusion of the denoma which will lead to a third world war or something of that sort for sure. So but also in a spiritual sense then we also have to recognize what do we want to be as people. Do we want to follow the way of Christ or do we want to follow the way of a Christ who leads us to a better world? We live in this world as best we can in order to prepare for the world to come. Not we don't look Christ came and said my kingdom is not of this world. So if you're truly a believing Christian, you want to do all the things that will put you in good graces with God when when it comes to judgment day, right? And that doesn't mean rebuilding the temple. It means living like a Christian and and trying to build a society that lives by Christian principles and your government acting as one that acts by Christian principles. And so that doesn't mean slaughtering other people and leading to their to their cleansing.

I really appreciate you taking this time. I think that there's a I appreciate you. I I I hope it does a little bit to open people's eyes. And I I just want to end with one thing.

Of course. I think the only way you know there was the writer Tanihi Coat who may have differences opinion on other things, but what really opened his eyes, he went with a writer's group to the West Bank and went and saw how the Palestinians were living and what the reality of the occupation was. And that got him to understand we have to make some changes and there have been changes in the black church communities definitely reaching out. I would like one I think that we have to have many more people come and see and not go on an Apac junket but really go and as Christians tell your communities we want to go and we want to go and visit our Palestinian Christian communities and this might be a little you could decide what you want to do with it. My dream thing would be to have a trip. Perhaps have you come on the trip. Perhaps have uh Mel Gibson, Cat Stevens. It's a funny kind of thing, but he's a guy who was born in the Greek church and is now a Muslim and Zoron and Bradlander and try to give the idea and Marjorie Taylor Green. The the point is we have to expose that dinner. All right. Not just a dinner. You're going to come visit with my friends in uh in the Ninj Janine, okay? And in Bethlehem. And then we're going you're going to go tell the world what's going on there cuz you're all much better communicators than I am. And the world really has Aren't we horrified by the idea? Aren't you as a media person horrified? Why can't reporters go into Gaza? Why can't And reporters are not allowed in large portions of the West Bank now? They call them military zones. What kind of press freedom is that? and what are they trying to hide? So, the only way that's going to break that is by enough of us saying enough influencers going over there and saying,"I want to see what's going on and then report back." And I thank you for giving me at least this little opportunity. Um, hope it moves things in the right direction. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Okay.

[Music]

So, it turns out that YouTube is suppressing this show. On one level, that's not surprising. That's what they do. But on another level, it's shocking. With everything that's going on in the world right now, all the change taking place in our economy, and our politics, with the wars we're on the cusp of fighting right now, Google has decided you should have less information rather than more. And that is totally wrong. It's immoral. What can you do about it? Well, we could whine about it. That's a waste of time. We're not in charge of Google. Or we could find a way around it. A way that you could actually get information that is true, not intentionally deceptive. The way to do that on YouTube, we think, is to subscribe to our channel. Subscribe. Hit the little bell icon to be notified when we upload and share this video. That way, you'll have a much higher chance of hearing actual news and information. So, we hope that you'll do