ARTICLES

Their Fathers Were Not Born Here

San Francisco Priest is Advocate for the Palestinians

By Christopher Zehnder

The June 24 Guardian Unlimited carried this story: "On a rocky West Bank hilltop overlooking the Jordan River Valley, a teenager with dust-matted hair dug a well. to supply five mobile homes put up a week ago in violation of a U.S.-backed peace plan." The Guardian noted that "Jewish settlers appear to be establishing unauthorized outposts faster than the Israeli military tears them down. Monitors said nine new outposts have gone up even as troops removed eight tiny hilltop enclaves in the past two weeks -- a hesitant first step implementing the 'road map' peace plan."

Such reports make it appear that President George Bush's road map peace plan has been "one big show," as an anti-settlement Israeli peace activist (quoted by the Guardian) claimed. Yet, it is hard for one sundered from the Holy Land by the length of two continents and an ocean to judge. The Israeli-Palestinian strife seems so remote from life in California; it seems hardly our concern.

Yet, one San Francisco priest says it is our concern, if not as Californians, than as citizens of the United States. As evidence, Father Labib Kobti quotes a book by Paulist father John W. Mulhall, America and the Founding of Israel, An Investigation into the Morality of America's Role. Father Mulhall writes that "it was years-in-years-out American diplomacy and billions in American loans and/or outright grants voted for annually by Americans' representatives in Congress that were sustaining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was American-made bombers, paid for, at least in part, by American taxpayers, that were pulverizing Beirut apartment houses and burying their occupants under the rubble. Rightly or wrongly, willingly or not, every American citizen, simply by his or her citizenship, was and is involved in the conflict...."

Father Labib Kobti, the pastor of St. Thomas More in San Francisco, is also the founder of Al-Bushra, a website dedicated to Middle East issues (www.al-bushra.org). Though Al-Bushra, by its sweeping self-description, "stands pro-Truth, pro-Justice and pro-Peace and prays God, Allah, HaShem, Adonai, the Most Holy for Mankind," it, more particularly, advocates the rights of Palestinians in the Holy Land. This is hardly surprising, since Father Kobti's parents are Palestinians (in exile from their homeland). He himself was born in Beirut, Lebanon, where he was ordained priest in 1975. For 28 years, he served as a priest in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, and Italy for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. In 1992, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah sent Father Kobti to California to serve Arab-American Catholics, with whom he has worked both in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas. In 2002, Archbishop William Levada made Father Kobti pastor of St. Thomas More at 1300 Junipero Serra Boulevard (at Brotherhood Way) in San Francisco, the seat of the Arab-American Catholic community in northern California. In this capacity, Father Kobti represents Patriarch Michel Sabbah, who remains his immediate superior.

To understand the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one must understand its origins. Father Kobti told me in a telephone interview that the conflict started well before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. It began in the midst of the First World War, when British foreign secretary Balfour announced the intention of the British government to establish a Jewish homeland in Israel after the war. In this, however, said the British government, it was to be "clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

Father Kobti said that, prior to this 1917 Balfour Declaration, "the Zionists, with their leader, Theodore Herzl, were looking for a homeland" for Jews. The British wanted to give them Uganda, "but they said, 'we do not want Uganda.' The Jews had suffered in Europe -- there was no holocaust at that time, because we are speaking about the First World War -- but they had suffered in Europe, in Spain, in France, in Germany, Russia, and Austria. They refused Uganda. The British suggested to them Argentina. They refused. They said the only thing that we can think about is Palestine, because it reminds us of the Bible."

Balfour's promise of Palestine initiated the conflict between Palestinians and Jewish settlers. "The Arabs," said Father Kobti, "started to fear that there was a plan [to displace them with Jews]; and, in fact, Jews started to come to Palestine in large numbers from Europe." Before the Balfour declaration, said Kobti, the number of Jews was less than five percent of the population in Palestine -- the majority being Muslim and Christian Arabs. Yet, in the years following the Balfour Declaration, the number of Jews in the Holy Land increased. In 1922, they numbered 12.9 percent of the population; by 1929, they had grown to an estimated 18.9 percent of the population.

Beginning in the 1930s, Jewish immigration to Palestine dramatically increased "because of the Holocaust," said Father Kobti. The "only way they had to escape," he said, was to "find a homeland." Arab dissatisfaction increased. Palestinian Arabs wanted their own state -- indeed, said Father Kobti, the British had promised independence to the Palestinians if they fought with the Allies against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. Palestinians charged that Jewish settlers were pushing Palestinian peasants and farmers off their lands. Jewish settlers were richly funded; they built the modern city of Tel-Aviv, and established citrus and truck farms, which they cultivated using the most modern technology then available. Arab discontent erupted into open violence against the British occupying forces in 1936-38. This was met, in turn, by terrorist actions carried out by some Zionist groups.

Violence only increased after World War II, with armed Zionist groups carrying on a terrorist resistance against the British occupying force. In 1947, the United Nations suggested partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Palestinian states. "The UN gave Israel 51 percent of the territory," said Father Kobti. "To the Palestinians, who were the majority of the population, they gave 49 percent of the territory." This was unacceptable to Arabs, he said, for it placed Arabs in the Jewish lands under the political control of the Jews -- and Arabs remained the majority of the population in those areas, holding most of the land [real estate]. The months before the British finally withdrew from Palestine witnessed civil war between Jewish settlers and Palestinian Arabs, with terrorist actions on both sides. When Zionist terrorists slaughtered about 250 Arab villagers -- half of whom were women and children -- at Dair Yasin, Palestinians fled in panic from their homes on the coastal plain. With the proclamation of the state of Israel in May 1948, the Arab states of Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon invaded Palestine.

This war won the state of Israel new territories. "The Jews," said Father Kobti, "won the war and got 78 percent of the land. The remaining 22 percent, which is today called the Occupied Territories, was given to Jordan, under King Hussein. Gaza Strip was given to Egypt to protect, under the UN resolution." The hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the coastal towns and from Galilee did not return to their homes but found refuge in camps in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and inside Palestine.

The Six-Day War, in 1967, gave Israel more territory. In this war, which Father Kobti says was "initiated by Israel" (though Israel says it was preempting an attack by the Arab states), Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, along with Sinai. Though Israel returned Sinai to Egypt in 1982, it continues to occupy the other territories -- a situation, said Father Kobti, that has brought tremendous suffering to Palestinians and Jews alike.

For one, said Father Kobti, to the injustice of building Jewish settlements in occupied territories is added Israel's destruction of Palestinian houses. Israel, he continued, says it destroys these houses because they are built without permits -- but Israel, also, refuses to give building permits to Palestinians. "You can present a demand, a request and you will never ever get permission. Anywhere!" said Father Kobti. Instead, immigrant Jews receive permits. "The Palestinians say, 'O.K., the Jews who are coming from Russia, they have not been born here. Their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, were not born here.' The Israelis are saying to the world that Palestinian houses are illegal. But the [Israeli] settlements, recognized as illegal by the international law and the UN, are not illegal?"

Those Palestinians whose houses are destroyed, or who are forbidden to build shelters, said Father Kobti, live often in cruel conditions. "You have sometimes 20-30 people living in one room," he said. Others, he said, go to refugee camps, or find shelter even in cars and buses.

More currently, the conflict in the Holy Land has arisen over the failed 1993 Oslo agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. "With the Oslo agreement they [the Israelis] agreed to give back the occupied territories to the Palestinians in five years and to discontinue settlements there," said Father Kobti. Yet, Jewish settlements continued a-building on the West Bank. Israel has claimed that the Oslo agreement failed because of Palestinian suicide terrorist attacks, yet Father Kobti claimed that Palestinians had never used such tactics until 1994. That year, he said, "an Israeli Jew went to the Hebron mosque of Abraham and killed 39 Muslim worshippers -- and he was protected by the Israeli soldiers. Then, the Palestinian Muslims declared jihad and started to say, 'O.K., you are killing innocents, we can kill innocents.'"

Father Kobti said that some Muslim Palestinians find justification for suicide bombing in the biblical story of Samson. While Samson, Kobti said, "is a symbol of Christ for Christians," because we see him as Jesus, who gave his life for the world, for Muslims he is "a symbol of liberation." "In today's terms, Samson would be considered the first terrorist, because in killing himself, he killed thousands of innocent people, including children." If one would ask the Muslim terrorist, "why are you killing the innocent people?" he would reply, said Kobti, "what do you want me to do? They took my house. They put my father in jail. I can't go to school. I have no future. But the Israeli has a future. He took my water, and I don't have a stone to put my head on."

Father Kobti, though was careful to note, that he does not condone the killing of innocents, even in retaliation for similar offenses by Israelis. "The killing of innocents, whether Jewish, Muslim, or Christian, is very wrong," he said. The Palestinians, too, have been guilty of terrorism; "Arafat was a terrorist," said Father Kobti, and Arab terrorists "have done horrible things in Lebanon, in Jordan, in Palestine. As the Catholic Church of Jerusalem, we condemn [terrorism]; Patriarch Sabbah has always condemned violence. Resistance is another thing. Resisting occupation, as the French did against the Germans [in World War II], is different from killing innocents. We do recognize the right of resistance, but we do not condone any kind of [terrorist] violence."

The conflict in the Holy Land, however, said Kobti, does not simply involve Jews and Muslims; Arab Christians also suffer. "We have heard that Moslem means Arab. No," he said. "The Arab Christians existed before Islam came in the seventh century. We were Christians before Islam. St. Paul preached to the Arabs." Because of Israeli policies, said Kobti, the number of Arab Christians in the Holy Land is declining. "I studied in the seminary in Beit-Jala, near Bethlehem, and I saw our own people, Catholics, come to me and say, 'Father, take us with you to the United States. Father, we are dying here. We prefer to die than to live. Father, please find a way.' The biggest victim is our church. We were about 20 percent in the Holy Land. We are now less than 1.8 percent; some people say we are a half percent. Some predict that if this continues, there will be no Christians left in the Holy Land."

But if such plans, as President George Bush's Roadmap to Peace, are to stop the conflict, they must recognize, said Kobti, "that Israel is an occupation force. This is what [the Israelis] have been saying: 'you, Palestinians, shut up! No resistance, no incitement. We will continue to build the settlements. We will continue to occupy your houses. You continue to dismantle your houses. You continue not to do any violent things against us, then we will start to withdraw from some of what we have occupied. Shamir, in fact, only took away some trailers posted here and there on the West Bank, and said, 'we are dismantling the illegal settlements.' This is frustrating to Palestinians, and they don't see any other answer."

Yet, though (perhaps) well intentioned, President Bush is naïve, said Kobti. Father Kobti thinks the Israelis should withdraw from the occupied territories and, like President Bush, says that the Palestinians should have their own sovereign state in the Holy Land. Yet, though "President Bush has said Palestinians should have their own state," said Kobti, he has not specified "what are the borders of that state? He doesn't tell. 'It's for negotiation.' They have been doing the negotiations now for 36 years; Mr. President, what are the new negotiations? What are the guidelines? He doesn' t know. He doesn't know what he is doing. We, as the Christian communities of the Holy Land, we appreciate that he wants to do something, but he has to stick with the people; he has to side with the people." Do you make plans to change something in your house without consulting your wife and your children, if your children are over 25? It's their property! Can I plan something in my church without my parish council, financial committee, somebody from the archdiocese? Bush doesn't know! He doesn't even know where Ramallah is or what a refugee camp is."

President Bush, however, may not want to know; Israel, said Father Kobti, serves American interests. "The United States has troops all over the world. They want to control the world," Kobti opined. "Those troops cost a lot of money and they are costing lives." Israel, he said, to which the United States gives over $10 billion yearly, is a military proxy for the United States in the Middle East. "We give them the money, they do our work," said Kobti.

But the Israelis are not beneficiaries of this aid, for it brings with it great suffering. "We are killing the Israelis," said Kobti. "We thought we saved them from the Holocaust, but we, the American people, who have done a lot of good for the world, are giving them money to kill themselves. How many Israelis, since the creation of the state of Israel, have been killed? How many mothers have lost their children and their husbands? One day someone will come and say, 'the United States, you are also part of the holocaust of the Israelis.' We are giving them moral support, military support, media support, and money. But they are dying! They want to live like any other people, those poor Jews! And what are we doing to the Palestinians? Another holocaust -- a Palestinian holocaust."

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