Are We Israeli or Palestinian?
Partager
This is a question we are sometimes asked.
Are you Israeli?
Are you Palestinian?
For many people outside the Holy Land, the question seems simple. They see the land through modern politics, modern borders, and modern labels. They feel they must place people into one side or another before they know how to relate to them.
But for many native Christian families of the Holy Land, the answer is not that simple.
We are a Christian family from Nazareth.
Our roots are in Nazareth, Galilee, and the wider Holy Land where Christianity began.
The artisans who make our crosses, rosaries, icons, olive wood carvings, and other Christian items are local Christian families from Nazareth, Galilee, Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, and nearby towns, depending on the item.
These are not foreign communities.
They are not recent communities.
They are not imported communities.
These are native Christian communities whose churches, traditions, crafts, and family histories have existed in the land for generations.
The problem with modern labels
The difficulty with the question "Israeli or Palestinian?" is that it attempts to place ancient communities into modern political categories.
But these communities existed before modern borders.
They existed before today's political movements.
They existed before many of the labels people use today.
For many families, identity is not something that began with a modern government or a modern political movement.
It is something inherited from parents, grandparents, villages, churches, traditions, and memory.
Many native Christians of the Holy Land do not see themselves first through modern political labels.
They see themselves through family, faith, community, and place.
Their roots are older than the latest political argument.
Our family's memory
For us, this history is not something we learned only from books.
It lives in our family memory.
Our grandparents lived through enormous political changes that many people today know only from history books.
Our grandfather was already a grown man when one government gave way to another. He spoke about watching administrations change while ordinary people continued with their lives.
Our grandmother grew up during the British period and attended an English school.
Earlier generations in our family passed down stories from the Ottoman era as well.
The governments changed.
The flags changed.
The administrations changed.
The borders changed.
The languages of power changed.
The political labels changed.
But the people remained.
The churches remained.
The villages remained.
The olive trees remained.
The families remained.
This is something many outsiders struggle to understand.
They often look at a modern map and assume that modern labels explain everything.
But for native families, life is much older than today's political map.
You cannot ask people whose families lived through Ottoman rule, British rule, wars, displacement, and changing governments to completely reinvent their identity every time a new political label appears.
For many native families, home existed before the label.
The label came later.
More than politics
One of the saddest things about modern discussions of the Holy Land is how often people forget the human beings who live there.
People see headlines.
People see maps.
People see politics.
But they do not always see the people.
They do not see children playing football in the streets.
They do not see families gathering outside during warm evenings to share food, coffee, stories, and laughter.
They do not see people climbing olive trees, picking figs, harvesting olives, attending church, celebrating weddings, mourning loved ones, or walking ancient roads that generations before them also walked.
They do not see the mountains.
They do not see the valleys.
They do not smell the earth after rain.
They do not hear church bells echoing through old towns.
They do not see the beauty of ordinary life that continues despite hardship.
For those who live there, the Holy Land is not a political idea.
It is home.
It is memory.
It is family.
It is prayer.
It is community.
It is nature.
It is daily life.
And it is the place where Christianity began.
Our family's story
Like many families of the Holy Land, our family has known hardship.
Members of our family lost homes that were never returned.
Promises were made and broken.
Like many people of the region, our family carries memories of pain, uncertainty, and loss.
These wounds do not simply disappear.
Yet alongside those wounds, something else survived.
Faith.
Forgiveness.
Hope.
Love.
The desire to continue.
The desire to remain human.
The desire to live in peace.
This spirit is deeply Christian.
Christ Himself knew suffering.
He knew betrayal.
He knew injustice.
He knew humiliation.
He knew abandonment.
Yet His answer was forgiveness, mercy, and love.
For us, this is not weakness.
It is strength.
It is the very heart of Christianity.
We are Levantine Christians
Many people today describe Christians from the Holy Land as "Arab Christians" because Arabic is the language spoken in daily life.
But language and ancestry are not always the same thing.
Throughout history, people have adopted different languages for many reasons.
Languages spread through trade, administration, education, empires, and everyday life.
A language can become part of a people's lives without changing where their ancestors came from.
History is full of examples.
People in Ireland speak English but are not ethnically English.
Many people throughout Latin America speak Spanish while carrying ancestry that long predates Spain.
Many people throughout Africa speak European languages while remaining rooted in ancient local communities.
Even in the Holy Land itself, language has changed many times.
Jesus primarily spoke Aramaic.
That does not mean He was from Mesopotamia.
It simply reflects the language commonly spoken in the land during His lifetime.
Language changes.
People often remain.
For many native Christians of the Holy Land, the story is similar.
Arabic became the language of everyday life.
But family roots, memory, and connection to the land extend much deeper than language alone.
We are not Europeans.
We are not outsiders.
We are not foreign settlers.
We are native Levantine Christians from the Holy Land.
Our connection to the land
In our own family, DNA testing also reflected what our family memory already told us.
The results showed overwhelmingly Levantine ancestry with deep roots connected to the land itself.
Further ancient DNA comparisons showed very close links to ancient populations from the region, including samples associated with the Canaanite and Israelite periods.
For us, this was not a discovery so much as a confirmation.
Our grandparents already knew where they came from.
Their parents knew.
And their parents before them knew.
The DNA simply echoed a story that was already alive in our family.
For native Christians of the Holy Land, identity is not only found in a laboratory result.
It is found in churches.
It is found in villages.
It is found in traditions.
It is found in family memory.
It is found in the graves of ancestors.
It is found in the roads walked by generations.
It is found in the prayers that have been spoken for centuries.
The Christians of the Holy Land are not simply people who happen to live there.
Their history is there.
Their churches are there.
Their ancestors are there.
Their memories are there.
Their craftsmanship is there.
Their dead are buried there.
Their lives are woven into the land itself.
Why we do not choose political sides
Some people want us to choose a political side.
But as Christians, our first loyalty is not to a political movement.
Our first loyalty is to Christ.
Christ said:
"My kingdom is not of this world."
That does not mean we ignore suffering.
It does not mean we ignore injustice.
It does not mean we pretend history contains no pain.
It means we do not allow politics to become our god.
We do not believe one people is worth more than another.
We do not believe one human life has greater value than another.
We believe every human being is created in the image of God.
We love our Christian neighbours.
We love our Muslim neighbours.
We love our Jewish neighbours.
We love our Druze neighbours.
We love all people.
This does not mean life is easy.
It does not mean there are no wounds.
It does not mean there is no suffering.
But nothing in our faith teaches us to hate.
Our faith teaches us to remain human.
The Christian way
For many Christians of the Holy Land, Christ has always been enough.
We do not have the largest communities.
We do not have the greatest political influence.
We do not have powerful voices on the world stage.
But we have Christ.
And for us, that is enough.
Governments rise and fall.
Borders change.
Empires come and go.
Political movements appear and disappear.
But Christ remains.
This is why many Christians of the Holy Land continue to choose peace.
They want to live.
They want to work.
They want to raise families.
They want to pray.
They want to preserve their traditions.
They want to remain in the land of their ancestors.
Our work
This is why Nazareth Fair Trade exists.
We are not simply selling products.
We are helping preserve a living Christian tradition.
The olive wood crosses, rosaries, icons, carvings, and other items we offer are made by Christian artisans whose families have carried these traditions for generations.
For many of these families, craftsmanship is more than work.
It is a way of remaining connected to their communities and to the land itself.
The olive wood tradition is not merely decoration.
It is livelihood.
It is heritage.
It is faith expressed through honest work.
Every cross carries more than wood.
It carries the hands that shaped it.
It carries memory.
It carries prayer.
It carries continuity.
Above all, it carries a small reflection of the beauty that Christ left behind.
In simple words
We are a Christian family from Nazareth.
We are native Levantine people of the Holy Land.
We work with Christian families in Nazareth, Galilee, Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, and nearby towns.
Our roots in the land stretch back long before modern political labels.
We do not exist to serve a political ideology.
We exist to serve Christ, preserve Christian craftsmanship, and help Christian families remain in the land where Christianity began.
The world often asks people to choose a side.
Our answer is different.
Christ is our side.
Christ is our King.
And through our work, we hope to preserve a small part of the Christian presence, craftsmanship, memory, and faith that has endured in the Holy Land for generations.