“Christ is still in the Rubble”

of U.S. and Western-backed genocide in Palestine

“Christ Is Still in the Rubble”
Democracy Now, December 23, 2024

• Watch/Listen

Christmas celebrations are canceled in the West Bank and the city of Bethlehem, Jesus Christ’s birthplace, for the second year in a row in response to Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

AMY GOODMAN

On Friday December 20, the Palestinian theologian and pastor Reverend Munther Isaac delivered a Christmas sermon at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, in occupied West Bank, the birthplace of Jesus, called “Christ Is Still in the Rubble.” Here, an excerpt of his address.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC

“Never again” should mean never again to all peoples. “Never again” has become “yet again”. Yet again to supremacy, yet again to racism, yet again to genocide, yet again for the weaponization of the Bible and the silence and complicity of the Western church, yet again for the church siding with power, the church siding with the empire.

And so today, after all this total destruction, annihilation - Gaza is erased, millions have become refugees and homeless, tens of thousands killed - why is anyone still debating whether this is a genocide or not? Yet, even when church leaders simply call for investigating whether this is a genocide, he is called out, and it becomes breaking news.

Friends, the evidence is clear. Truth stands plain for all to see. The question is not whether this is a genocide. This is not the debate. The real question is: Why isn’t the world and the church calling it a genocide?

It says a lot when you deny and ignore and refrain from using the language of genocide. This says a lot. It actually reveals hypocrisy, for you lectured us for years on international laws and human rights. It reveals your hypocrisy. It says a lot on how you look at us Palestinians. It says a lot about your moral and ethical standards. It says everything about who you are when you turn away from the truth, when you refuse to name oppression for what it is. 

Or could it be that they’re not calling it a genocide? Could it be that if reality was acknowledged for what it is, that it is a genocide, then that it would be an acknowledgment of your guilt? For this war was a war that so many defended as “just” and “self-defense.” And now you can’t even bring yourself to apologize. …

We said last year Christ is in the rubble. And this year we say Christ is still in the rubble.

The rubble is his manger. Jesus finds his place with the marginalized, the tormented, the oppressed and the displaced. We look at the holy family and see them in every displaced and homeless family living in despair. In the Christmas story, even God walks with them and calls them his own.

So, today, let us reflect on the child Jesus, the child of Bethlehem. At the heart of the incarnation, there is a child. And this child, in his weakness, he is our hope. He is our consolation. He is our strength. This child — let us remember, this child shook Herod’s throne when he was born. And while there are some who talk about the “Roman Empire” or glorify Herod as “great,” we are the ones who think of a child born to refugees escaping a massacre. …

Yes, it has been 440 days. It is 440 days of Palestinians’ resilience, sumud. Indeed, it is 76 years of sumud. But we have not and will not lose hope.

Yes, it is 76 years of an ongoing Nakba, but it is also 76 years of Palestinian sumud, clinging to our rights and justice of our cause, 76 years of praying and singing for peace. I was thinking about it. We are stubborn people. We continue to pray for peace year after year after year, and sing about peace, and we will continue to do so. And we will continue to echo the words of the angels, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on Earth.”

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AMY GOODMAN

Excerpts of this year’s Christmas sermon from pastor Reverend Isaac Munther at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, in Palestine. Reverend Isaac’s forthcoming book is titled “Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza”.

The pope has just repeated his call for a ceasefire in Gaza. He also unveiled this year’s nativity scene at the Vatican, portraying a baby Jesus in a crib lined with a Palestinian keffiyeh. The Israeli government has now denounced the pope for calling for an international inquiry into Israel’s assault on Gaza to see if it constitutes a genocide.

The pastor Munther Isaac is joining us now from occupied Bethlehem. Your thoughts on what’s happening, on the pope being condemned by Israel, on what’s happening in Bethlehem, the second year that Christmas activities have been canceled?

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC

Well, if Israel was true that they are engaging within the rules of war, then why should they be concerned if anyone, not just the pope, calls for investigation into whether war crimes are taking place or not? Israel is clearly committing a genocide. The evidence is very clear. Of course they should be concerned, because if an investigation takes place, it’s going to reveal truly what is taking place.

AMY GOODMAN

Tell us more about “Christ in the Rubble” and that image that you created in the manger last year, that you continue this year.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC

We’re still seeing images of children pulled from under the rubble. It’s unthinkable to me that it’s been more than 14 months now into this genocide, and we’re still seeing the same images. It seems like we’re powerless, and it seems that the world is content with letting this go on. And here in the West Bank, as we watch from Bethlehem what’s happening in Ramallah or Hebron, we wonder, “Are we next?”

Israel has made it clear they plan to annex the West Bank next year. What would this mean on the ground? Again, we live in this moment of anticipation, of anxiety. And at the same time, we’re broken by the fact that the world seems content with letting this go, without serious efforts to make it stop or put accountability and restraint on those who commit war crimes.

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Genocide as U.S. and Western policy, from the past to the present, from Guatemala to Palestine

There is no end in sight to Israel’s genocide in Palestine, live-streamed for over 14 months. There is no end in sight to Israel’s ethnic-cleansing, land theft in Palestine and violent expansion into Lebanon and Siria with the goal of the creation of “Greater Israel”.

U.S. and Western support for/legitimization of what Israel is doing are a demonstration of Western power, corruption and impunity today, and a reminder of how the U.S., Canada and Australia were created as Nation States through imperialist genocide and ethnic-cleansing land theft of the Western European powers in the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th centuries.

“[Zionism is] the only political ideology you’re not allowed to criticize … I think the outlawing of criticism of political Zionism in the West that’s happening now is proof of their fear that they are unable to defend this ideology on moral grounds because the minute you begin to unpack it you see good old fashioned, bad old fashioned, white supremacist settler colonialism.”

(Craig Mohkiber, former UN official)

Watch 1:12 minute clip: https://x.com/i/status/1872349180787560892
Posted by Jadaliyya on X, December 26, 2024

Remembering genocide in Guatemala

Rights Action does not casually denounce neither Israel’s genocidal policies and actions in Palestine, nor U.S. and Western complicity, participation and legitimizations.

We remember the genocides and scorched earth massacres carried out by U.S. and Western-backed military regimes in Guatemala in the 1970s- 80s, targeting and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, a majority being Mayan indigenous. Today, Rights Action continues to funds on-going work and struggle, led by victim-survivors of the genocides, for truth, memory and justice.

During the worst years (1978-1983) of genocides and massacres, a number of U.S. allies or “proxy states” - Israel, Britain, France, Chile’s Pinochet regime, and the Argentinean Generals - provided military aid, weapons and training to the Guatemalan regimes.

Sectors of the Guatemalan Army receiving training from Israel began to refer to what they were doing as the “Palestinization” of the Mayan peoples. (Here: Links to information 1, 2, 3 about Israel’s role in Latin America in the 1970s and 80s supporting U.S.-backed military regimes.)

Accountability for U.S. and Western complicity

As Rights Action continues our work related to human rights and justice, environment and land defense struggles in Guatemala and Honduras, we are clear in our understanding that these are not and never have been “national” issues.

Since October 2023, we have regularly shared information about and denounced the U.S.-led, Western-backed genocide in Palestine, so as to make the connections from the local to the global, from imperialisms and colonialist projects of the past, through to today.

Rights Action supports activism and work to hold the U.S., Canada, the E.U. and Australia legally and politically accountable for supporting, enabling and legitimizing Israel’s systematic crimes against humanity and war crimes against Palestine and the Palestinian people.

Rights Action supports calls for

• Immediate and permanent ceasefire.
• Immediate delivery of massive amounts of comprehensive humanitarian relief, and reconstruction and rebuilding support.
• Release of all political prisoners and illegally detained/captured people.
• And then, support for as long as it takes a comprehensive negotiation process that deals with the genocide and other human rights violations and war crimes happening now (beginning October 7); that deals with the death, suffering and destruction going back to the 1948 Nakba; and that that addresses the root causes of the establishment of the Israeli Apartheid system, the violent, illegal occupation, and the on-going illegal settler expansionism.

Need to diversify media sources

Rights Action urges everyone to diversify their news sources. As a necessary antidote to the oftentimes harmful, misleading reporting coming from much of the mainstream government and corporate media in the U.S., the E.U. and Canada, we suggest the daily news provided by Al Jazeera news (https://www.aljazeera.com), Democracy Now (www.democracynow.org).

Get involved with, follow news feeds of

• Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East: https://www.cjpme.org
• Jewish Voices for Peace (U.S.): https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org
• Independent Jewish Voices (Canada): https://www.ijvcanada.org
• Palestinian Youth Movement: https://palestinianyouthmovement.com
• CAIR California Resource Guide: https://ca.cair.com/losangeles/palestine-resource-guide
• Palestine Solidarity Campaign: https://palestinecampaign.org/resources
• Ceasefire Now: https://ceasfirenow.ca
• Ceasefire Today: https://ceasefiretoday.com
• BDS Movement: https://bdsmovement.net
• Double Down News: https://www.doubledown.news
• Medical Aid for Palestinians: https://www.map.org.uk
• Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor: https://euromedmonitor.org/en
• Canadian Foreign Policy Institute: https://www.foreignpolicy.ca 
• CODEPINK: https://twitter.com/codepink
• World BEYOND War Canada: https://worldbeyondwar.org/canada 

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