Palestinian Christians feel world doesn't care

By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - World leaders all but ignore the interests of Palestinian Christians caught up in the conflict with Israel, despite their deep roots in the land where Jesus was born, according to the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.

"Everyone talks about the Christians, but they are the first to be sacrificed in international planning for the region," said Michel Sabbah who was born in Nazareth, now part of Israel.

"In world politics they deal with the strong, and we are not strong. Therefore we are just forgotten," the Roman Catholic leader told Reuters at the Patriarchate in Jerusalem's Old City.

Pressures on Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike have increased since violence erupted in 2000 after the collapse of U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Since then Israel has reoccupied parts of the West Bank that had been transferred to Palestinian rule under the 1993 Oslo peace accords. It has expanded Jewish settlements there while dismantling those in the Gaza Strip and withdrawing its troops.

The stresses of occupation, lawlessness and unemployment in the Palestinian territories have contributed to a steady outflow of Christians opting for a new life abroad. Sabbah said the faithful would never abandon the cradle of their religion.

"There will always be people who believe in Jesus Christ living around the holy places," the 73-year-old cleric said.

"We are called to be Christians here, whether times are difficult or easy."

Emigration has balanced natural growth in the Palestinian Christian population, which has remained roughly stable since Israel's creation in 1948 when many Christians became refugees.

But Christians have dwindled in relative terms. Nine percent of the population of Mandate Palestine in the mid-1940s, they say they now number less than 1.5 percent of Palestinians living in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

ISRAELI CONTROL, INTERNAL CHAOS

Sabbah said Christians, like all Palestinians, suffered from general instability and obstacles to free movement imposed by Israeli checkpoints and a separation barrier that slices through many West Bank communities and is still being expanded.

He said the barrier, which Israel says has prevented many Palestinian suicide bombings, could have served peace if it had been built along the Green Line separating Israel from territory it captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war.

"But built within Palestinian towns and quarters it is useless and serves neither peace nor security," Sabbah argued. "One day this wall will fall apart because it is abnormal."

He said the constraints on daily life have led to social problems and family tensions, as well as crime and gangsterism that a weakened Palestinian Authority was unable to control.