Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1027: A Palestinian Christian’s Perspecrtive on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: Alex Awad

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Alex co-founded Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem (yes, that one) and served as a professor and dean of students for many years. Alex received his MA in Missiology (1989) from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore KY; MA in Education (1976) from N. Georgia University in Dahlonega GA; BS in Secondary Education (1973) from Lee University in Cleveland, TN; BA in Biblical Education (1970) from Lee University in Cleveland, TN. He has also been a pastor and missionary for the United Methodist Church. Having lived in Israel from 1946-2015, Alex has seen a LOT! He shares his perspecive about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as a palestinian Christian who has lived through much fo the conflict.  Alex said you could email him at [e-mail] if you want him to send you a copy of his brother’s book, which he talks about on the podcast. He only asks for a small donation.  If you would like to support Theology in the Raw, please visit patreon.com/theologyintheraw for more information! 

Hey friends, I just want to invite you to consider joining the Theology in the Raw Patreon community. This is a group of followers who believe in the ministry and work of Theology in the Raw and want to support it financially. And honestly, I've been so impacted by the people who have chosen to support this podcast. Every month they send in a bunch of questions. A lot of them are really personal and I get to spend time responding to them in a private podcast. And we, you know, we'll message each other throughout the month and post responses to each other's questions. I'm actually going to start something new this fall, a monthly live Zoom chat with some of the members. And I'm super looking forward to actually seeing more of their faces every month. And there's other perks to come up like a free virtual

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in Iran community for a minimum of five bucks a month by going to patreon.com forward slash Theology and Raw. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology and Raw. The link is in the show notes. All right, here we go, folks. My guest today is Alex Awad. Alex, oh gosh, he's got a long list of credentials here. A master's degree in missiology from Asbury Seminary, a master's in education from Northern Georgia University, a bachelor's in secondary education from Lee University, bachelor's in biblical education from Lee University as well. He's been a pastor and a missionary with the United Methodist Church, and he is the co-founder of Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem. Yes, the Bethlehem in Israel. He taught there for a number of years. He's also the author of two books. One is Through the Eyes of Victims, a discussion about the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspective of a Palestinian. And also Palestinian Memories, the story of a Palestinian mother and her people. This is a fascinating conversation. And as you'll hear in our conversation, I mean, I've only, you know, paid attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict primarily through, I mean, obviously of an American lens, a Christian lens, and, you know, really a lens that's very pro-Israeli. And I lived in Israel for a few months. So that's been the perspective that I have, you know, come from. But I'm, as you know, if you've listened to this podcast for more than, you know, six minutes, you know, that I'm always eager to say, well, what's the other side of the story? What's the other perspective that I might

not be hearing? And that's what this podcast is. Alex is, as you'll see, very gospel centered, Christ centered, grew up in Palestine, just recently moved to the United States. And so he's going to have what might be for some of you, a very different perspective on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. So you can agree, you can disagree, you can be on the fence, whatever. But, you know, in this podcast, we want to, first of all, be a curious listener and really understand someone's perspective and learn from that. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Alex Awad. Thanks so much, Alex, for being a guest on Theology in Iran. I know this interview probably came out of nowhere. So I'm so thankful you agreed to come on.

Well, I'm honored to be with you. And thank you for asking me to be on your podcast because the Palestinian voice is not well heard in the United States and in North America in general. And so I welcome every opportunity to share and help my fellow citizens in the United States understand the challenges that Palestinian people are going through. Well, I've been so excited to talk to you because, yeah, I'll be the first one to admit that, you know, whenever I, you know, hear of a conflict, you know, in Israel, I typically hear it from the Israeli side of things, you know, and I don't know why that is, you know. I'm really excited to hear it not only from the side of a Palestinian, but somebody who's a Palestinian Christian,

because, I mean, I think Americans often have such a stereotype when they think of Palestinians, they just think of just terrorists, you know, running around bombing people. And so I'm going to assume you're going to give a, maybe a slightly different perspective, but let's, why don't you explain to our audience, you know, who are you? How did you get, were you raised a Christian and how did you get into wanting to be kind of a theologian, a writer, an academic in the Christian world? Yeah, well, my story starts in Jerusalem. I was born in Jerusalem. Two years after I was born, there was a war in the Middle East, which we call the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

My father, who was a civilian, was shot and killed in that war, leaving my mother with seven children. And not only we lost the father, who was the breadwinner in the family, but also soon after we lost our home, we were expelled from our neighborhood in West Jerusalem and we became refugees. Like almost 800,000 Palestinians became refugees in 1948. So we became also refugees and we moved from West Jerusalem to East Jerusalem.

So I was two years old. Soon after, when I was about three years old, I was put in a boarding school, an couldn't be a full-time nurse and a full-time mother for seven children. And so we scattered into boarding schools and orphanages. But my mother was very keen about our education. She wanted to make sure that every one of us get a fair education. So she worked very, very hard to educate us. At the same time, she has to struggle to put food on the table for seven mouths to eat. So it was really tough.

The only thing that made so much impact on our lives is that my mother was a committed Christian. Her motto was, don't look back. Always look forward. Don't ask why God. Always ask how God. Don't harbor any hatred in your heart. Always forgive. Always forgive. This is what she tried to plant in our hearts, you know, to forgive, to look forward, to study hard,

and to do our best instead of revenging and instead of being bitter, rather, you know, study and then maybe contribute to the society that done you so much harm. So as we grew up, my mother would take us to church. She would be the Sunday school teacher. be the Sunday school teacher. So we grew in a very, very spiritually rich environment, although we were utterly poor, you know, because we lost everything. We were utterly poor, you know, financially. We didn't have any house of our own. We have to rent all the time with the meager salary of my mother. So it was very, very tough. But we never felt poor because of the wealth of the spiritual life and atmosphere that my mother has created around our house. So we felt like we were the children of God, you know, in spite of the miserable circumstances that we were in. And so we went to schools in Jerusalem.

By the time I graduated from high school, I was reflecting on my life, and I wanted the same faith like my mother, not only just to believe in Jesus Christ and to believe in God, but I wanted to serve this God that helped us to go through all of these problems and all of these challenges. I wanted the faith of my mother and also to serve the Lord that my mother served. So immediately from high school, I went to Bible colleges in Europe and then in the United States, and I studied in different Bible colleges and seminaries here in the United States. So when I reflect on my life, I just thank God because he took us through the storm into the other side. And I became a pastor.

I became a Bible college teacher. And my brother Bishara and I helped start Bethlehem Bible College, the first Bible college in the Holy Land for the evangelical and Protestant groups. So, you know, I mean, it's just an amazing journey. And we just give credit to God for his leadership and his grace on us. Alex, I'm curious, do you know what the percentage of Palestinians that are Christians growing up? Were you guys like an anomaly? Are there a decent number of Palestinians who are also like evangelical Protestant Christians? Well, when I was born, the number of Christians in Palestine was between 15 to 20 percent of the population. But right now, it's probably less than 2 percent.

So you can see in my lifetime, Christianity in the Holy Land and in most of the Middle East have declined rapidly, partly because of the political upheaval and partly because of the economic situation that was brought about by the political turmoil in the Middle East. in Iraq, they've been under persecution and under the threat of war, not so much from governments, but from, you know, radical groups in the Middle East that were very, very upset with American foreign policy. And they couldn't hit directly on America. So they hit on the Arab Christians who were living among them. directly on America, so they hit on the Arab Christians who were living among them. So this is tragic because the Arab Christians, you know, they were their fellow compatriots. And, you know, they are national citizens, faithful citizens of these countries.

But the radical groups, you know, the fanatic groups, they don't make a difference. And many of them, out of anger with the West, they persecuted Christians in the Middle East. And, of course, the Israeli occupation, the fact that Israel came, took our land, our very land, our very homes, our very gardens, trees, fruits, springs of water, everything we had, the Israelis took it away from us and made us refugees. And that's why many, many Christians fled to other countries, because they couldn't survive in Palestine under the Israeli occupation. It's interesting, I mean, to hear that perspective, because we're so used to saying, like, you know, Israel has a right to the land.

This is their land. How would you respond to somebody that says, well, no, this was originally Israel's land. So they didn't take your land. They kind of just reclaimed what was already theirs. And again, I'm just conveying a perspective that is out there. Yeah, we have to remember that we have two covenants in our Bible. One, we call it the Old Testament. One, we call it the New Testament. And there is no doubt that in the Old Covenant, God gave the land to the Jewish people. I mean, from Moses to Joshua to Nehemiah, Isaiah. When you read in the Old Testament, definitely we see that God chose

the Jewish people and God gave them the land of Canaan. That is very clear. Any Bible-believing person cannot deny the fact that in the Old Testament, God gave the land to the Jewish people. But with the advent of Christ, with the coming of Christ, Jesus became our promised land. Jesus became our hope and our future. So it's no more with Jesus, with his coming, it's no more territorial. with Jesus, with his coming, that it's no more territorial. The kingdom of God stopped being territorial and became spiritual. And so when, you know, the disciples went to Jesus and he said, are you ready to give us the kingdom? He said, you know, it's none of your business to know about when God is going to give the kingdom, but stay in Jerusalem until you are filled with the Holy Spirit.

What Jesus was trying to do is get that focus away from a territorial kingdom into a spiritual kingdom. And again and again in the Bible, you know, where you see Jesus is saying the kingdom of God is within you. So the kingdom of God is not a territorial, it's a spiritual kingdom. Also the concept of chosen people in the Old Testament, there were the Jews, the chosen people. But with the advent of Christ, we all became chosen people through faith in Jesus Christ. So not just the Jews are God's chosen people, but we are all. All those who believe in Jesus, they are God's children and they are God's people. So both the concept of chosenness and the concept of the land was totally altered in Jesus.

I mean, it's amazing because not only this, but the concept of the temple in the Old Testament, it was temple made of stones. In the New Testament, Paul said, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit and God's Holy Spirit dwells in you. So there is no more need for a physical temple, the Temple Mount or Mount Moriah or Mount Zion, wherever you want to place it, because our bodies, our hearts, our minds have become the temple of the Holy Spirit. The priesthood in the Old Testament was Levitical priesthood. In the New Testament, we became priests because Jesus made us priests for himself. That's what the New Testament teaches. The sacrifice in the Old Testament was animal sacrifice.

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ became the ultimate sacrifice. Christ became the ultimate sacrifice. So all of these things were changed because of Jesus Christ and his coming, where now everybody all over the world who come to Jesus Christ, they become God's chosen people. And if we are all God's chosen people, then none of us have a title on a certain piece of land. The Jews have no title on the land. The Palestinians have no title on the land. The people who live in the land, whether they are Jews or Gentiles, they have the title on the land because they live there. I was just so just so you know, and so my audience knows, I 100% agree with everything you said on a theological level. I mean, I used to believe

in the kind of the ethnic Jewish people have a theological right to the land, but I think that's a misreading of Romans 11, partly. I think a lot of it comes from an American political climate, less so from the scripture, or I think it comes from people, from my perspective, and it sounds like from your perspective as well, kind of misreading the, what I would call, you know, discontinuities between the old covenant and new covenant. You can't just read these promises in the Old Testament and think that they're going to be fulfilled in the most literal sense that if we didn't have the New Testament, we might take them to be. Because, I mean, everything you're saying is not only clear, but I mean, Jesus, he came on the scene in a climate when people were expecting, the Jewish people were expecting

the Messiah to be this militant revolutionary who would reclaim the land. So, and he absolutely did not, he pushed back against that mindset. So when he says the kingdom of God is within you, and even the disciples are kind of like, okay, so are we going to reclaim the land now? And he did not embrace that vision at all. You know, I mean, the problem today is with the teachings of what we call Christian Zionism. Christian Zionism is strong and is spreading very wide all over the United States.

And it is sad because the Christian Zionists, for them, the Israeli invasion of the Holy Land in 1948 is like a continuation of Joshua invading the Holy Land in the Old Testament. They take that as parallel. So people like Ben-Gurion and other Israeli leaders, they are like Joshua and Moses and so on. Although these Israeli leaders, they are atheists. You know, Ben-Gurion was a professed atheist. And many of the Israeli prime ministers are professed atheists. You know, Ben-Gurion was a professed atheist, and many of the Israeli prime ministers are professed atheists. But for Christian Zionists, they never acknowledge this,

and they see in the current state of Israel as a continuation of biblical Israel. And when they do that, then they think of the Palestinians as the old Canaanites and the Philistines and the Amalekites, that they deserve to be run out of the land so that God will give the kingdom to the Jewish people in preparation for the second coming of Jesus Christ. people in preparation for the second coming of Jesus Christ. It's a total theology that is out of harmony with the teachings of Jesus and out of harmony with the teachings of Paul and the apostles in the New Testament, where Paul says, you are all God's children through faith in Jesus Christ, whether you are Jews or Gentiles, Greeks or barbarians. And we are all become the seed of Abraham through our faith in Jesus Christ. That's what Paul taught in his letter to the Galatians. And so I would invite my Christian Zionist

brothers and sisters to reread the New Testament and put Jesus' glasses on their eyes so that they can see the truth about Israel and Palestine. So what you're saying is when Israel kind of reclaimed the land, they used kind of a theological rhetoric to achieve political ends, even though they didn't really believe in the theological rhetoric. They just kind of use that as kind of a... Yeah. Ben-Gurion was a Bible reader. The first prime minister of Israel, Ben-Gurion, was a Bible reader. He had the Bible, and if you look at it, it's all marked with different colors and so on. So he was an avid reader of the Bible. At the same time, he was a confessed atheist.

But whenever convenient, he and the early Zionists, they said, this is our land. God gave it to us, although they did not believe in God. This is like a story that happened to my brother. One of my brothers, his name is Mubarak. He is a nonviolent peace activist. So he went to Palestine during the first uprising. He had a group of Palestinians and they were planting trees on property that the Israelis were confiscating from Palestinians. He was planting olive trees. So he confronted Jewish settlers. And this settler came to him and he said,

why are you doing this? Why are you planting those olive trees on this land? My brother said, it's because this land belongs to us Palestinians. We have the right to plant trees on our land. And the guy said, didn't you read the Bible? God gave the land to us, the Jewish people. And then my brother asked him, do you believe in God? And the Jewish settler said, no, I don't. So you can see the hypocrisy in all of that. Whenever it is convenient for them, they claim God gave them the land. I'm not saying that all the settlers don't believe in God. Many of them do. But some of them, they don't believe in God. But yet, whenever it's convenient, they use the name of God to steal Palestinian land.

Can you give us a quick, just a brief history lesson for the last 150 years? I mean, because I lived in Israel. I don't know if you know that for like four or five months. And even now, my Israel history is just so cloudy. When did Jewish peoples begin to kind of reclaim the land? Like you mentioned the 48 War, which, you know, the conflict, but it went back deeper than that. Like, can you take us back to the last 150 years? And like, how did we get to where we are today?

Well, before 1948, we were occupied by the British. The British had Palestine and they call it the British Mandate over Palestine. That lasted from about 1917, 18 to 1948, the British Mandate over Palestine. Before that, before the British Mandate, we were under the Turkish, the Ottoman Turks empire for 400 years. Palestine was like a province in the Turkish empire. Syria was another province. Lebanon was another province. So we were a province within the big empire called the Ottoman Empire. And of course, the Ottomans, they lost the war to the British and the British

took over Palestine in around 1917 and established the British mandate. But part of the reason why the British wanted Palestine was secret deals they made with a Christian Zionist and a secular Jewish Zionist in order to take over Palestine because they had a, the British made a promise to the Jewish people. We call it the Balfour Declaration. And the Balfour Declaration says that Jews have the right to go to the Holy Land and make it their homeland, with the condition that they should not infringe on the rights of the people who already live in the Holy Land, which, of course, that part did not happen. But the Jewish people took the Belfort Declaration as their Magna Carta to go to Palestine and create a Jewish state. Now, you have to understand this is happening, all of this is

happening in the shadow of the Holocaust, where the Nazis have killed millions of Jews in concentration camps, and the whole Western countries were partly feeling guilty and partly feeling sympathetic to the Jewish people. And so they wanted to compensate the Jews. None of the European countries were willing to compensate the Jewish people on their own turf. I mean, Germany did not want to give the Jewish people a their own turf. I mean, Germany did not want to give the Jewish people a piece of Germany. Neither did France want to give the Jewish people a piece of France. But they felt it convenient to say to the Jewish people, we support you, go to Palestine and create your own state in Palestine. And they did not care for our people, the Palestinian people, until today.

They don't care whether it is the United States, Canada, Australia, France, England, Germany. They don't care for the Palestinian people and what happened to them in the last, say, 75 years. All they care, they wanted to support Israel. They felt guilty about the harm they did to the Jewish people. They did not want the Jewish people, but they want them to dwell in Palestine and live there. So until today, the Israelis are confiscating Palestinian land. They are demolishing Palestinian homes. They are incarcerating Palestinian youth in the thousands. And none of these countries who always talk about human rights are willing to confront Israel with its human rights violations in the Holy Land. This is hypocrisy on big stage. I mean,

it's great hypocrisy. When there is a war in Ukraine, for example, oh, they start, you know, raising the flag. Russia is wrong. Russia is occupying another country. We should go and stand with Ukraine. We give Ukraine billions and billions of dollars worth of money and weapons to stand against Russian aggression. Well, Israel is doing the same thing, but they are totally blind and muted when it comes to Israel and its aggression against the Palestinian people. Why are so many people being incarcerated and youth being, yeah, and land being... Well, because it's natural for people under occupation to resist. It's natural. When a youth, 17, 18, 19 years old, he wakes up to life and he realizes the Israelis are beating his father,

incarcerating his brother or sister and taking his land or her land and his family's land that has been with them for many generations, they resist. I mean, their resistance is nothing like Israeli power. I mean, they may take a stone and throw it at an Israeli soldier, then they get incarcerated for so many years, you know, and abused and tortured in Israeli jails. But it's natural for people under occupation to resist their occupier. No, that makes sense. This episode is sponsored by One Million Home, an awesome organization dedicated to winning the battle to get orphaned kids home. Did you know that there are 5.4 million kids in orphanages

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kid with their family. So that's what your Giving Tuesday gift will be going to. So if you have a heart for orphans, and if you're a Christian, you kind of should, and you want to contribute to more effective and biblical ways of caring for orphans, then go to 1millionhome.com forward slash T-I-T-R. That's the number one, the million home, no spaces,.com forward slash T-I-T-R. I love it. And if I hope if I ask a question, it doesn't sound offensive. These are genuine questions. No, no, no, absolutely not.

Okay, go ahead. So it seems like, and if this is totally wrong, then please correct me. I don't have a lot of knowledge under my feet with the conflict over there. But it seems like now, and maybe it's kind of terrorist groups that are instigating this, but it seems like on the Palestinian side, they typically initiate something and Israel now responds rather than vice versa. Like I remember when I lived there, we had bomb shelters and there was frequently sirens would go off and we'd have to go to the bomb shelter because another rocket was launched over our heads. And I don't think, and again, if I'm totally wrong, it doesn't seem like the Israeli

military is kind of randomly, well, let's just throw a rocket into Palestine. Or maybe they do if they're trying to take out a leader or something and it kills a bunch of civilians or yeah, we'd love to your perspective by getting like a warped perspective on things. Well, you know, I mean, the word terrorist is loosely used in the media. in the media. And we pick and choose who to put the label terrorist on. You know, Israeli fighter jets go over Gaza and kill hundreds of people.

They kill children playing on the sands of the Mediterranean Sea in Gaza. You know, whole families wiped out. And the media never called them terrorists. They call it collateral damage. When Palestinians do anything, kill Israelis, then it is called terrorism. So the media poisons our mind in the West to put the label terrorism on one group, but close our eyes on what they do

on the other side. Also, let's go to the West Bank. I'm living in my home. I have a garden, but the Israelis want my home and my garden. They give me a hard time. They force me out of my home. They force me out of my garden. So I'm upset. My children are upset. One of my young boys may go and do a terrorist act in Israel. Of course, the media would report the terrorist act and the Israeli retaliation to the terrorist act. My house, you know, gets demolished if it's still my house, if it's not already with a Jewish family in it. And so they are not willing to read the whole story. If they read the whole story, much of the West Bank, 60 percent of the West Bank, have been confiscated by the Israelis.

Palestinian lands, homes, trees, water resources. What should the Palestinians do? You know, sit and be quiet while every, you know, all of their, you know, possession, property, land. Palestine is very, very small country. It's like the size of New Hampshire. It's not a big land. But yet the Israelis are coming and taking everything that the Palestinians have.

Not only this, they are fighting the Palestinians economically, you know, and politically, and in every aspect they could. So they are, in the mind of the West, they are the goody-goody people who are defending themselves, but the Palestinians are the violent people who are doing harm to Israelis. That is because they are not willing to look at the whole story. If they look at the whole story, and usually people who come to Palestine and see it, one example, I used to work with the Methodist church. I used to be a missionary with the Methodist church in my country, in Palestine. And one United Methodist journalist decided to come and visit me, you know, and make a report. So her name is Cynthia. Cynthia called me from her hotel in Jerusalem. And she said, Alex, sorry, I cannot come to. So her name is Cynthia. Cynthia called me from her hotel in

Jerusalem. And she said, Alex, sorry, I cannot come to visit you in Bethlehem because my tour guide said Bethlehem is too dangerous to visit. It's safer for you to stay put in Jerusalem. I told her, Cynthia, don't listen to him. Just tell me which hotel. So she told me the name of the hotel. I drove my car to Jerusalem, picked Cynthia up, took her back to Bethlehem. We spent a day in Bethlehem. I showed her the holy places. I showed her the wall. I showed her the situation. And we had a wonderful visit. On the way back, as I was taking her back to her hotel, had a wonderful visit. On the way back, as I was taking her back to her hotel, I noticed teardrops falling from her eyes. I was surprised. I said, Cynthia, did I say anything that offended you? Did I do anything that offended you? Why are you crying? She said, no. She said, I am

a journalist. I am supposed to know better. I was so deceived by my tour guide and by the company that runs to tell me that Bethlehem was a violent place. We spent the whole day. It's a very peaceful place. The Palestinian people are very kind, very hospitable. And so I was absolutely deceived. This is really what is going on. If like more right-wing media like Fox News is going to be very pro-Israeli and more left-wing outlets, CNN or whatever, would be much more pro-Palestinian. Would you agree with that? Or do you feel like it's more public? Not yet. Not yet. I think Fox News is extremely pro-Israeli. CNN is pro-Israeli, but not extreme in that. I have a problem with Fox News because even if you watch Haaretz, that's an Israeli newspaper, if you watch Haaretz news compared to CNN, Haaretz is much more factual about the situation in Palestine than CNN.

So CNN is better than Fox News, but it's not out of the water as far as truth in reporting about the situation in Palestine. There are new reporters, new journalism on the left. Yes, that is coming. Also, the influence of Al Jazeera in the United States is positive because they have more balanced reporting, Al Jazeera, many of the media moguls, the big media companies, actually they are owned by pro-Israeli groups. They finance them. And so they have the money, and therefore they lean towards news that are pro-Israel. use that as a pro-Israel. I'm curious, as a Christian, when you were living in Israel, were there a lot of conversations with other Israeli Christians too? Like, did the Christianity create camaraderie, or were the ethnic tensions and political tensions a hindrance to unity?

Yeah, I would say both, because, you know, I was part of a group called Musalaha, which means reconciliation. And this group, we reached out to our Messianic Jewish brothers and sisters, and they reached out to us. And we would have wonderful fellowship. We eat meals together. We worship together. We went into trips together, say, to the Negev, to the desert, to, you know, to Jordan. And we had a wonderful time together. We went into trips together, say, to the Negev, to the desert, to, you know, to Jordan, and we had a wonderful time together. But, you know, many of the Messianic Jewish brothers and sisters, they have some kind of a Messianic perspective about Israel, and that Israel is

God's chosen people, and God gave them the land. But we discovered that the secret for fellowship is to focus on Jesus as our main common denominator. Because if we focus on Jesus, we can continue to have fellowship. If we focus on theology and politics, then it is very hard for us to keep harmony in the body of Christ. However, by saying this, I'm not recommending that we compromise what we believe or they compromise what they believe. However, we look at each other face to face and say, I don't agree with you, but I still love you in the love of Christ. I still love you, even though I don't agree with you. You believe that 1947, 1946, and also you believe that 1948 and 67 are all miracles of God fighting on behalf of Israel.

Well, you believe that God is engineering all of that on behalf of Israel. Well, we don't believe that. We believe these are genocides where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were killed and became refugees. So we don't look at this as you look at them. However, we can disagree and continue to have fellowship. And don't demand from us to take your perspective. And we don't demand from you to take our perspective. I should have asked this earlier, because I want to go back to the kind of 1948 situation,

or the kind of post-World War II occupation. From how you describe it, that should be, I think, pretty easy for a lot of people to say, yeah, that probably wasn't good, you know, the way it went down, especially for the Palestinian people. Would you say that that still lives in the lives and memory of the conflict? So like you said, even if, you know, you drive through a city and some kid throws a rock at your bus or whatever, like, you know, and then when I was there, you know, that happened. It wasn't, you know, there were areas where I felt like if I I got on the bus, I had to kind of duck because kids were throwing rocks at me. But I don't know.

Kids don't just wake up and want to throw rocks at people. There's a history here. There's a situation. Would you say that that occupation in the post-World War II era is still almost fresh in the minds of Palestinians? Yes. Yes. We always commemorate, remember what we call al-Nakba.

Al-Nakba is a word that means catastrophe or a disaster. And that's what happened to Palestinians in 1948 when we lost about two-thirds of our country to Israel in the first Arab-Israeli war. And nearly 800,000 Palestinians became refugees. So that is the Nakba. And every Palestinian, whether an old man like me or whether a child, they are taught and they learn about the Nakba. Of course, the Israelis, for them, it is their Independence Day.

The Nakba Day for us is their Independence Day. You see the difference, you know? But this is what we need to think for the future. What is the future holding for Israelis and Palestinians? We Palestinians are becoming more than half of the population from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. What are the Israelis are going to do with us? Are they going to continue to deny us rights, confiscate our land, and humiliate us? Or are they going to wake up one day and they say, these are our neighbors. We have to live with them, and they

have to live with us. And there is no choice. There's no choice for us as Israelis, but to have a one state with equal rights of citizenship for everyone, whether regardless of their religion, ethnicity, or cultural background. We are all one people. We need to live in this land as one people. We can rebuild it on the basis of peace and justice and equality. Until the Israelis are willing to steer away from their mentality of occupation and oppression into a mentality of coexistence, we will continue to have problems in the country. When did you move to, because you're in Eugene, Oregon now, when did you move to the States?

In 2015, my wife and I resigned or retired, really, from missionary work with the United Methodist Church. And we moved to Eugene because we have a daughter living in Eugene. So now we live in Eugene. living in Eugene. So now we live in Eugene. But we continue to be very active on Palestinian issues, trying to help our fellow American citizens understand what's going on in Palestine. And the Bible College, is it still going? And how's it doing? Yes, yes. The Bible College is still going, and they have students, and they are progressing. They have also a peace program where they give a master's in education, peace studies for local people and also for via Zoom for international people around the world. So the Bible College is doing very well.

And we are thankful. We are really thankful that something that started from zero, from nothing. I mean, when my brother started the Bible College, he had $20 in his pocket. And now it's a multi-million property, you know, and it's really a great Bible College, you know. Of course, he now is President Emeritus, He now is president emeritus because we have a young man, Jack Sara, who is running the Bible College, and he's doing a great job. Are all the students Palestinian, or most of them, or is it more diverse? Generally, all the students in the college are Palestinians because our borders are limited. Israel will not allow Christians from Lebanon or from Syria or from

Iraq to come to our Bible college. However, via the internet, we attract people who are not Palestinians, people from all over the world and all over the Arab world and the Middle East can study at Bethlehem Bible College, even though they never set a foot in Bethlehem. Is there a lot of tension between the Christian Palestinians and Muslim Palestinians? Or like, you know, is the Bible College kind of seen as like in bed with the West, if you will? Or like, because it's Christian and people think that if you're Christian, oh, so you're just pro-America or whatever? Or like, is there other tensions along those lines?

No. for the last 45 years, Bethlehem Bible College has been ministering not only the gospel and the teaching theology to our students, but we have been involved in serving the community in many, many ways. We have an organization called the Shepherd Society, which is the humanitarian hand of the Bible College. humanitarian hand of the Bible College. And through the Shepherd Society, we give food, medicine, to people who are in need, regardless of their faith,

regardless whether they are Muslims or Christians. So all the people in Bethlehem, they are aware of the Shepherd Society and the ministries of Bethlehem Bible College. And therefore, whether it is the average man or woman on the street, or the mayor or the governor of Bethlehem, they all have high respect to Bethlehem Bible College. That's great. Wow. I think I remember when I was in Israel, fall of 1999. It's been a few years. And we visited Bethlehem, did the tourist stuff.

And I think I remember seeing the sign. Is the Bible College right there in the city? Right there. You can see the sign on Main Street. Yeah. I remember being shocked. I'm like, well, Bethlehem Bible College? I didn't know there was a Bible College.

You should have stopped the car and went down. I know. But it's not too late. Let's go. Ah, well, hey, I'll take you up on that. To say I loved living in Israel is an understatement. Obviously, there's, you know, the sites, how the Bible comes alive. But I fell in love with the culture, both, I mean, the Jewish culture and Palestinian culture. And I loved it so much. In fact, I actually, and I don't know if this is good. I'm not saying I encourage this, but I actually loved waking up to the Muslim prayers through the loudspeaker just because it was just so like just the religious tensions and and just it was just in the air and it was just so fascinating to me i just really fell in love with it um yeah so i'll go back it's an amazing place i the food oh quite often the oh the hummus

and falafels and i could eat that every you You sponsor a trip and I'll be one of your teachers. And I love just wandering down the streets of the old city and the shopkeepers. And they're playing backgammon, drinking tea. And it's so easy to get in a conversation. I found the people there so incredibly friendly. And so I very much, the perspective of your journalist friend, I experienced that too. Not that there's not danger and tension or whatever, but I just found the individual people so friendly. In fact, there's a shopkeeper there who developed Muslim, but he would always do the money.

He would exchange money for us. And we would go sit in a shop for hours, drink tea and talk. And he was so just kind and like, I don't know. And maybe he's shady. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. It's personal life, but I just found it's so fun to just walk around talking to people, you know, the same. If you walk in Bethlehem, I'm people, you know,

if you don't talk with them, they'll talk with you. If you don't invite them, they'll inviteem. People, you know, if you don't talk with them, they'll talk with you. If you don't invite them, they'll invite you. And they are genuine in their hospitality. Are they suspicious of, like, Americans coming in? I mean, thinking, because they probably

know. I mean, American and Israel are so close. Are they kind of suspicious at first? I think some would be. Some would be, you know. But the majority will be more friendly. Even friendly Kind of suspicious at first? I think some would be, some would be, you know. But the majority will be more friendly. Even friendly, you wouldn't believe it, to Israelis.

Really, okay. Yeah, even friendly to Jews and Israelis. Because for most Palestinians, this is not a religious conflict. We are not against Judaism. We are not against a religious set of beliefs. It's basically people who are taking our land, whether it's in the name of politics or whether it is in the name of God, they are taking our lands and making it their land by force and accusing us of being what you call it, terrorists.

Take our land, and we are the terrorists. You know, that is what aggravates some people. But on a personal level, we love people, whether they are Muslims, Christians, or Jews. And Palestinians are hospitable. Of course, there are times when the political tensions are high, then that hospitality drops. But by nature, because understandable. The other Palestinian would think that you are a collaborator if somebody, Palestinian would think that you are a collaborator if somebody, some of your friends are being killed and here you are offering coffee and pita to an enemy.

So that is difficult. But most of the time, you know, in peaceful time, most of the time, Palestinians are very hospitable. How did the Palestinian people view the terrorists that are, you know, in Gaza or the West Bank? I mean, well, you know, our position, the position of the Palestinian government is, you know, terrorists are terrorists. And what Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, does, he incarcerates those people. And even the Palestinian Authority are putting them in jail. That makes the Palestinian Authority very unpopular in some Palestinian circles because they think of them as freedom fighters, not as terrorists. And here you are, Mahmoud Abbas, putting them in jails. But most of the Palestinians don't want to see terrorism. They don't want to see

innocent Jews killed and their blood is spilled on the streets of Jerusalem. But at the same time, you know, sometimes when Israelis are killing dozens of Palestinians, their mind changes. And then, you know know that feeling of revenge comes and then they want to do to Israelis what's being done to them so you would say the majority of Palestinians do not view terrorists as freedom fighters but when there's injustice

done towards Palestinians there might be a little bit of like well you know a little more sympathy with the freedom fighter kind of motivation yeah exactly but and also really our definition of terrorist and terrorism completely is different than the West, because like I said earlier in the on the program, Western media and Western governments, they put the label terrorist on the people they want to put the label on them. And even though Israelis do much more killing and really terrorism than Palestinians, that word terrorism never is labeled on the Israelis. And that is not fair. Well, Alex, you've given us a lot to think about. And I know my audience is probably a mix of like, like agreement, disagreement, or people just having their minds spinning around thinking like, I haven't thought about it from this angle before. Or, you know, I mean, the book that I wrote is called Palestinian Memories,

the story of a Palestinian mother and her people. You can find it on Amazon, and you can find a used copy. Also, you can find it on the digital copy of the book. Okay, yeah. And your other book, Through the Eyes of Victims, in 2001. Through the Eyes of the Victim is a simple book. Okay. Yeah. And your other book, Through the Eyes of Victims in 2001. Through the Eyes of the Victim is a simple book I wrote about 20, 25 years ago, but it's like the ABC of the Arab-Israeli conflict for dummies. It's a very simple book. Yeah. And this book here is really the newest book. This is written by my brother and his ghost writer.

Her name is Mercy Eichen in The Dark Streets Shining. Okay, yeah. Yeah, and it talks, this is the autobiography of my brother, Bishara, who started Bethlehem Bible College. It's an amazing book. If people send me their address, I am willing to send them the book for a small contribution. Okay. Yeah. For a small contribution, because it, you know, it takes money to print the book and to ship it. But if somebody would say, here, Alex, this is my snail mare address.

Send me the book and I'll send a contribution. This contribution will not go to me, but it will go to an organization that does peace and justice in the Holy Land. That's fantastic. What's your email address? How can they get you? They can go to Alex E. Elephant, award, A-W-A-D, at yahoo.com. I will put that in the show notes so people can just easily...

Yeah, if they do contact me, I'll send them the book and they can make a symbolic contribution. Okay. Sounds good. Alex, thank you so much for taking the time and love your heart towards Jesus. Most of all, that's just giving us a lot to think about. Sure. God bless you. this show is part of the converge podcast network