As the first Gulf War (early 1990’s) against Saddam Hussein threatened, I worked at the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. One of our tasks was aiding Americans who lived and worked in Saudi Arabia but who now wanted to leave before the war began.
Our consular unit included three U.S. Foreign Service officers and six locally hired employees. Two were Palestinians. Both had served at the Consulate many years, using their long term contact with Saudi Arabian officialdom to help us in our tasks. Without them, our work would have been more difficult: checking on Americans in prison, for example, or setting up visits with foreign parents of American children involved in custody cases.
One of the American women we helped to evacuate expressed unease at riding to the airport with one of the Palestinians, despite the fact that he was aiding her in getting home to the U.S. Perhaps she thought all Palestinians were terrorists, a laughable view considering the dedication of our hardworking employees.
I thought of this incident recently when I listened to Elias Chacour, Archbishop of Galilee in Israel for the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. Melkite Christians trace their origins back to Syrian Christians in the early days of Christianity. They have endured centuries of conquests, persecutions, and minority status in the tumultuous Middle East. Archbishop Chacour was born in Palestine in 1939 in a Christian village. He is an Israeli citizen, a Palestinian, and a Christian.
In the 1980’s, he began a school which today is one of the top schools in Israel. Its students include Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Archbishop Chacour is a committed Christian who works for peace in a conflicted land.
He tells his story in several books, including Blood Brothers: The Dramatic Story of a Palestinian Christian Working for Peace in Israel. It is available online in digital and print editions.
Perhaps his story and that of others like him will give us a more balanced view of the inhabitants of that stretch of the Middle East known to Christians as the Holy Land.