At Easter 2010, the candles of Palestinian Christian families that used to flicker by the thousands during the Festival of Lights in Jerusalem, were down to a few hundred. Restrictions imposed on Palestinian Christians by the Israeli authorities, including permits, checkpoints, and reduced access to holy sites all contributed to dwindling numbers. Even Palestinians living in Jerusalem and nearby Bethlehem needed permits to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Holy Saturday.

Local Christians are leaving the Holy Land in droves, fearing their children will never have a future of peace amidst the region’s political tensions. Several articles in this issue lament the loss of the ‘living stones’, one of the oldest Christian communities in the land where Jesus himself walked.

But does this haemorrhage of Christians from the Holy Land matter? The international Christian community clearly feels that it does and a part of its mission today is to support them. When the Easter restrictions were imposed this year, the World Council of Churches called upon all the churches, ‘to put pressure on Israel to end the illegal occupation of East Jerusalem as well as in this particular case to stop limiting Holy Land Christians from exercising their basic religious rights’.

Other forms of solidarity are being shown too. Zaytoun, for example, is a business founded in 2004 to develop a UK market for artisan Palestinian produce, particularly olive wood objects such as crucifixes. The company is a cooperative and a Fair Trade organisation. Jews for Justice for Palestinians, a network of Jews in Britain who oppose Israeli policies that violate the rights of Palestinian people, and Friends of Sabeel UK, both work non-violently for justice and reconciliation in Palestine and Israel.

Pax Christi International, the Church’s peace movement, recently supported its partner in Bethlehem, the Arab Educational Institute, when it challenged Israel for putting two sites in the OccupiedPalestinian Territories on a new ‘national heritage’ list. The sites - once shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims – include Rachel's Tomb, near Bethlehem. Fuad Giacaman, the Christian Director of the Institute, feared Rachel's Tomb would be even more cut off from Palestinian Christians. He described the action as ‘a kind of racist measure because it negates and marginalises others - Christians and Muslims’. The Institute, based near Manger Square in Bethlehem, runs local and international youth and education projects, all supported by Pax Christi.

In Britain, members of the National Justice and Peace Network, show solidarity in very practical ways. When 60 pupils left St Mary’s Primary School in Derby last July they received a hand-sized cross made in a workshop in Bethlehem. Other local children receiving their First Holy Communion were given a tiny wooden cross to wear – made in the same place. The crosses were brought back from Palestine by Rosemary Read, a local Justice and Peace activist who had lived and worked in Palestine for three months as part of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. She noticed the beautiful olive wood carvings in Bethlehem being by-passed by most pilgrims, who flocked into the Church of the Nativity and then immediately boarded buses back to Jerusalem, driving through the 30 ft ‘Security Wall’ which surrounds Bethlehem. She felt that, ‘If young people in Britain can understand just a little of this then maybe the next generation of Bethlehemites will have a better life’.

Just last month, St Philip’s Cathedral in Birmingham hosted a vigil for justice and peace in Israel and Palestine. It was one of many taking place across the world in June as part of the World Council of Churches’ World Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel. Showing solidarity to the Christians of the Holy Land means a great deal to them at this crucial time.

• Mission_Outlook_July_2010.pdf