I was born in Bethlehem from a Christian family. My dad hails from a Lebanese-Syrian Maronite (Eastern Catholic) family.
After his father's death my dad took over as a church organist and played at the Lutheran church and Saint George's Cathedral in East Jerusalem for 45 years. He also taught English at the Vatican-funded Bethlehem University and played the violin — a rare talent among the wild unruly Middle Eastern societies.
At night my dad read Shakespeare and Wordsworth. He was the first Palestinian (though Lebanese at heart) to ever visit the Holocaust Museum in West Jerusalem. We are told he shed tears on that day.
That emotion must have been unparalleled for a Christian living in Bethlehem in 1969. Bethlehem was then, as is today, under Israeli military occupation. It must have been pathological to shed tears for Jewish victims of the Holocaust at a time when he was a victim of an Israeli military occupation.
Living as part of a Christian minority in a predominately Middle Eastern Muslim society was not any easier. This double bind spelt doom for 400,000 other Palestinian Christians and forced 80 per cent of them to leave the land of their ancestors during the past 40 years.
Ongoing apathy by a majority of American evangelical Christians has also indirectly contributed to the Palestinian Christian exodus.
In 1968 there were no credible universities in Bethlehem, so I left for the American University in Beirut. I was issued a temporary ID by the Israeli military authorities as permit to leave and re-enter the occupied West Bank within 12 months. I was not able to do so opting instead to complete a BA in Psychology. This proved semi-fatal. My permit was declared null and void and my right of return was abolished with a stroke of a pen.
Subsequently, my dad wrote a letter to Senator Symington in Washington DC. He pleaded with him to intervene on my behalf with the military authorities. He argued: 'Why is it easier for American Jews to migrate to Israel, but my son, who was born in Bethlehem as were his mother's ancestors, is not allowed to set foot there?'
Four weeks later my dad received a reply assuring him I was able to return to Bethlehem any time he desired. I was given 'permission' to see my parents, but only for four weeks. Disappointed I returned to AUB, completed