Exodus of Palestinian Christians Raises Concerns : Religion: Growing numbers flee the Arab uprising and economic hardship. Churches and towns feel the pinch.

Deserted streets and shuttered shops have become as emblematic of Christmas in Bethlehem as creches and holly, but for the Palestinian Christian community, the lack of cheer extends beyond the surface sobriety of a holiday in turmoil.

As the Palestinian uprising against Israel wears on, the flight of Christians from the occupied land is leading members of the dwindling minority to ponder with alarm the possible extinction of traditional and revered communities.

Whole families are packing up to search for surer political and economic surroundings in foreign lands. The best young minds are leaving to seek education abroad because universities in the occupied West Bank, where 30,000 Christians live, have been closed by Israeli authorities for more than two years.

The exodus raises visions of a vacant Christian landscape in places such as Jerusalem, whose Arab neighborhoods were fully annexed by Israel in 1967, and in and around Bethlehem, on the West Bank. Churches and shrines become mere museums of a dead past, peopled only by priests, monks and nuns without a flock to watch over.

“The question is: Do we want a church of stone blocks or a church of people?” asked Geries Khoury, a Palestinian theologian and director of the Al Liqa Center, a religious institute on the outskirts of Bethlehem. “I think that if such a situation persists, only stones will mark the holy sites of Christianity.”

“There has long been emigration, but it could be a danger if it goes on in this rhythm,” said Michel Sabah, the Roman Catholic bishop of Jerusalem.

It is hard to obtain precise data on the exodus of Christians from among the 1.7 million population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. About 3,000 Christian Arabs live in Gaza.

Some churches keep tabs on their members, others do not. There were 27,000 Christians in Jerusalem in 1948; today, there are 12,000. Bethlehem, with a population of 30,000, was once 80% Christian; now Christians make up less than half of the population.

About 80,000 Christians live in Israel and are Israeli citizens and thus have political rights denied Palestinians in the occupied land. Most Arab Christians belong to ancient churches, including the Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic and Syrian Catholic churches.

Many Palestinian Christians argue that their only chance to secure a vital community is through the Arab revolt and its promise of an independent state. But even that hope is clouded. Strains of Islamic fundamentalism that are intolerant of Christian customs have become prominent and are frightening the already beleaguered minority.

Still, the Christians tend to throw in their lot with the intifada, as the uprising is called.

“We prefer the Palestinian state with its risks and advantages. And as Christians, we would prefer a liberal Palestinian state,” commented Peter Madros, a Roman Catholic priest in Beit Sahur, believed to be the site of the field where angels announced the birth of Christ to shepherds.

Palestinian experts point out that a decline in the Christian population in the Holy Land has gone on steadily since the end of the 19th Century, when the region was under Ottoman Turk rule. Hardship and hunger brought on by land confiscations forced many Palestinians to seek a new life abroad, notably in Latin America and Australia. In Honduras, the descendants of Palestinian immigrants are called Turcos because their forebears originally came carrying Turkish passports.

The success of Palestinians in setting up themselves abroad was a magnet for those who stayed behind. Sometimes success was measured modestly. While doing research into the Palestinian diaspora, theologian Khoury came across a letter from his grandfather, who wrote about the abundance of bread in Argentina as an enticement for others to come.

Israel’s 1948 war of independence drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into exile, including tens of thousands of Christians. Some Christians became active in the Palestine Liberation Organization, among them George Habash, who heads the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist PLO faction.

The 1967 Six-Day War, which resulted in Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, created a new sense of despair among Palestinian Christians. Land confiscations and Israeli settlements ate away at farming and business. Military rule meant a tangle of rules designed to keep the Palestinians under control. Travel, construction and business permits were bound up in a bureaucratic tangle.

“Many Palestinians thought that 1967 was the end,” Khoury said.

The intifada, while instilling a degree of nationalist pride, brought further practical hardships. Because the community values education, the closing of schools by the Israeli authorities has hit hard.

“There is a real brain drain among the Palestinian Christians,” said James Fleming, who heads the Biblical Resources Study Center near Bethlehem.

The economies of towns such as Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahur and Ramallah, which have important Christian enclaves, have suffered a sharp decline. Tourist traffic is off by 80%; hotels and shops that sell traditional olive-wood manger scenes are empty. Commerce from Israeli day visitors, who used to buy groceries and frequent Arab restaurants, has all but ended.

The frequent commercial strikes called by the leadership of the uprising has cut into sales to the Palestinian public.

Beit Sahur made news in the fall when its residents resisted efforts by the military government to collect taxes. In doing so, however, scores of families lost their possessions.

“We are hanging on by very little,” said Yaacov, a carpenter in Bethlehem who asked that only his first name be used. “We want to live here. It is our home. But the young people have no future.”

Yaacov has sent one college-age son to Germany to study and hopes to send another one. However, because he refused to pay taxes, he fears that the military government will not give his second son clearance to travel abroad.

Khaled, a partner in a video cassette rental store in Ramallah who declined to give his family name, said he plans to leave for Australia early next year to join a brother who emigrated a decade ago. He has sold his furniture, car and share in a family olive grove.

“We Palestinians have always had to look for a better life elsewhere,” said Khaled, a father of four. “I’m not sure that even a state would make things easy for us. Tiny groups do not do well in the Middle East.”

Hints of the vulnerability of the Christians in the vast Islamic community surfaced in instances of harassment by Muslim fundamentalist groups. Women have been told to cover their heads and arms in the Muslim fashion, and some liquor vendors were ordered to close down.

“Christians wonder what they are going to do here if Islamic forces continue to gain power,” Khoury said.

Christian leaders say that for political and theological reasons, it is important for Christians to keep a toehold in not just historic Palestine but the Middle East as a whole.

Some believe that Christians can serve as a link between the Western and Arab worlds because of their ties to both.

“Christians have many cultural ties to the Arab world and Islam. It is good for us to be here to be a bridge,” said Khoury, whose Al Liqa Center hosts frequent Muslim-Christian dialogues.

Theologically, the presence of Christians fits with the faith’s ideal of “bearing witness.”

“It would be ironic for a living Christian community to disappear from the land of His (Christ’s) ministry,” said Naem Ateek, a Palestinian theologian in Jerusalem.

Many Palestinians resent the activities of fundamentalist Christian sects from the West that ignore the plight of the Palestinians and unswervingly support Israel’s policies. The support of the fundamentalists is based on beliefs that the creation of the Jewish state fulfills biblical prophecy.

Some Palestinian theologians have responded to the intifada by trying to advocate Christian-based nonviolence and to teach a brand of “liberation theology” in some ways similar to the teachings popular in churches in Latin America.

However, they ran into an immediate roadblock in the Old Testament passages that tell of the Jewish flight from Egypt and conquest of the land of Canaan. In Latin America, theologians base their “liberation theology” on the Exodus story and its account of the struggle against oppression. But the Palestinians do not find the account liberating: The stories are frequently used by Jewish fundamentalists and right-wing Israeli politicians to justify an exclusive claim to the land.

The counter-theory in vogue among Palestinian theologians is one that depicts a universal God of justice rather than a tribal and exclusive God. Such a theory accepts the existence of a Jewish state, but with the Palestinian state recognized as an equal right for Arabs, exponents say.