Jesus’s homeland is under siege and the West is complicit

From Bethlehem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Easter was marked by violence

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Today, many people around the world celebrate Easter as a time of hope and renewal. But in the land where the story of Jesus unfolded, violence and exclusion have again overshadowed this sacred season. As someone deeply connected to this region, I reflect not only on my faith, but on the meaning of justice, history and memory in a place that remains holy and troubled.

I began my Easter morning as I do every Sunday—walking my dog and praying for peace in our troubled world. Growing up Catholic, I was always drawn to the Rosary, a meditative devotion focused on the lives of Jesus and Mary. As I recite the familiar prayers, I reflect on two simple Jews from the land we now call Israel and Palestine (a name imposed by the Romans over a century after Jesus’s death): Jesus and his mother Mary.

Perhaps it has something to do with being rooted in the Levant. My name, Chidiac, evolved from the Aramaic word for a member of the minor clergy, and Jesus and Mary communicated in this language.

The audio recording of the Rosary I listened to began with a prayer at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which many believe is the actual site of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead—the most triumphant moment in Christian teaching. Locals have always flocked to this site at Easter, and today they welcome believers from all over the world.

This year, celebrations were marred by violence, as Israeli police attacked worshippers, including clergy wearing sacred vestments, claiming “security concerns,” and barred the faithful from nearby towns—even Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus—from entering Jerusalem.

When praying the Rosary, I’ve always seen the lives of Jesus and Mary as a metaphor for resistance to oppression and ultimate triumph. I grew up during the Cold War, recognizing the harsh reality that with the looming threat of nuclear Armageddon, each day could be our last.

I witnessed how believers carrying Rosary beads brought down an American-supported dictatorship in the Philippines in 1986 and broke the stranglehold of the Soviet Union in Poland, ultimately leading to its complete collapse.

Perhaps the attacks this Easter in Jerusalem are also a metaphor for the way Christianity has been appropriated in Western cultures. Powerful Europeans distorted the message of liberation and the sacredness of each individual and used it as a means to control the common people. They twisted the message of Jesus to justify not only antisemitism, but their own “racial supremacy” and the exploitation of people around the world through colonization.

In North America, settler colonialism resulted in the intended destruction of Indigenous Peoples—a reality that has been met with unabated resistance.

With the weakening of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century, European and American colonizers set their sights on the Levant, where their racism met an interesting challenge.

How could they claim racial superiority as Christians to the people—Jews, Muslims and also Christians—who share the ethnicity of Jesus? They appear to have chosen to ignore this uncomfortable truth and embrace their own hypocrisy.

This inability to self-reflect has led to the violence we saw at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and are seeing throughout the West Bank—an area that Christian Zionists such as American ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee deny even exists, believing modern Israel fulfils biblical prophecy—and in the killing zone of Gaza.

At Good Friday, we reflect on how Jesus was led “as a lamb to the slaughter.” We see this same image as Westerners who claim to be Christian provide the weaponry used to kill those who share Jesus’s ancestral homeland.

For 2,000 years, we people of the Levant have been the living stones—the faithful communities maintaining presence and witness—of the holy sites in what is today Israel and Palestine. It seems that Zionists like Huckabee want to turn these sacred places into a lifeless theme park for pink-skinned Western tourists.

Throughout my life, I’ve put my faith in prayer, uniting with courageous and determined people across the world fighting oppression. I feared horrendous violence as the Philippine Army took to the streets of Manila and people in Warsaw were hauled away to Soviet-era prisons.

Then I watched these despotic regimes simply dissipate into thin air.

Let us pray this Easter season that we see an end to the killing and a peaceful Resurrection in the home of Jesus of Nazareth.

Gerry Chidiac specializes in languages and genocide studies and works with at-risk students. He received an award from the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre for excellence in teaching about the Holocaust.