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INTERNATIONAL
PRESBYTERIAN
33
An Open Letter
to President Joe Biden
By Dr. Bernard Sabella, Executive Secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches’ Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees, Jerusalem
Dr. Bernard Sabella is a Pales- tinian academic, a sociologist formerly on the faculty of Beth- lehem University. He is the Ex- ecutive Secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches’ De- partment of Service to Palestin- ian Refugees (DSPR), a partner organization of The Presbyterian Church in Canada, whose fam- ily was displaced in 1948 dur- ing the Palestinian Nakba. Dr. Sabella’s graduate work was completed in the United States, focusing on gathering statistics on the shrinking population of Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land.
DSPR is an agency estab- lished by the churches in the years immediately following the creation of the state of Israel, to provide services to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza, in Jordan and in Lebanon. DSPR’s mission is to promote the socio-economic develop- ment and rights of Palestinian refugees and other marginalized
communities in the Middle East. At the 2016 General Assem- bly, Dr. Sabella was honoured with the Cutting Edge of Mis- sion Award. He is a leader in the Palestinian Christian com- munity, calling for a resolution of the conflict based on Christian values—a respect for justice, opposition to violence, and love
of enemies.
Dr. Sabella issued the fol-
lowing open letter when the US President Joe Biden visited the Middle East in July 2022.
Mr. President,
As an elderly Palestinian of the Catholic faith, my spirits are dampened.
I have grown up in a Catholic family that has experienced the Palestinian refugee crisis follow- ing the Arab Israeli War of 1948. My refugee parents, living togeth- er with 4 children in one congest- ed room, in contrast to the small independent house they had in Qatamon prior to 1948, insisted on the best private education for my siblings and me in Catholic schools, part of the private edu- cational scene in Palestine prior to 1948 and after.
Because of a good educa- tion and upbringing, I was able to pursue university education in the USA, on a scholarship from the US Embassy in Amman, Jor- dan. This opportunity enabled me to carry on the legacy of my parents, Zachary and Marguerite, and to offer our children, my wife Mary’s and mine, the possibil- ity of a good education here and abroad.
I taught at the Catholic Univer- sity of Bethlehem for a quarter of a century, and I came to ap- preciate how Palestinian college
students are earnest in achieving a good education themselves. My Ph.D. advisor, the late Murray Milner, Jr. from the University of Virginia, who hailed from Texas, visited the Bethlehem University campus back in the eighties and he remarked that, except for the way the Palestinian co-eds were attired, you would think that you were on any US college campus.
I have worked with the De- partment of Service to Palestin- ian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches for the last twenty-two years. I touched the pain of Palestinians and others displaced and refugees across the Middle East. In my refugee work, some of the outstanding par tners are Churches in the USA; Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, the Disciples of Christ (the Christian Church), the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church, to name some. These churches and their members have been touching the pain of Palestinians since 1948, and their solidarity has uplifted the spirits and healed the bodies of thousands of Palestinian refu- gees throughout the years.
In 2006, I was privileged to be elected a member of the Pal- estinian Legislative Council on the quota reserved for Christians from the City of Jerusalem.
And yet, Mr. President, despite all these life accomplishments and the contributions that the US education and American church support have given us, my spirits remain dampened.
My Palestinian compatriots and I have always been hoping for a fair hearing from the successive American Administrations. We
Two visitors from Taiwan recent- ly visited Canada to take part in the memorial service for the late Joy Randall on July 16 at St. An- drew’s Presbyterian Church in Cobourg, Ont. Joy was a nurse who served at Changhua Chris- tian Hospital in Taiwan for over 35 years. She was a missionary of The Presbyterian Church in Canada appointed to the Pres- byterian Church in Taiwan. Joy passed away on July 10, 2020, but due to COVID-19, friends and family couldn’t celebrate her life until this summer. The Rev. Dr. Paul McLean gave the homily
have been dealt with unjustly and we expected, with the ide- als that your great country calls for—justice, democracy, and equal rights—that there would be insistence on these same values when dealing with our rights so long denied.
We are left with no optimism that a fair, just, and lasting solu- tion to our predicament will come out of US policies on the Arab-Is- raeli conflict. Strategy and power, rather than the values of fairness and justice, appear paramount in determining political positions. At times, we Palestinians question whether the USA applies double standards in its dealings with dif- ferent countries, occupations and conflict situations.
I am not discounting, Sir, that the conditions of Palestinian life and their improvement are an essential area of concern, as has been stressed repeatedly by American Administrations. But allow me, Mr. President, to quote the biblical verse: “One does not live by bread alone”(Matthew: 4:4). The spirit yearns for the kind of words and actions that would tend to the wounds of my people.
The ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the expansion of illegal settlements, the inter- mittent mar tial confrontations in the Gaza Strip, the daily killings of Palestinian youngsters, the expropriation of vast stretches of land that dislodge thousands of Palestinians out of their natu- ral habitats and the continuing intimidation and harassment of Palestinian children and farmers by settlers, protected by the Is- raeli army, all point to a situation of no exit. Not even the Church and its properties are immune
during the service.
Changhua Christian Hospital
sent two representatives. The Rev. Frank Ching-fa Chen, Direc- tor of the Pastoral Depar tment, and Susan Shu-chen Chang, Director of the Nursing Depar t- ment, attended the memorial service and shared stories of Joy with friends and family.
On Sunday, Frank and Susan participated in worship at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Toronto, Ont., where the Rev. Ian Ross-McDonald, General Sec- retary of the Life and Mission Agency, was preaching.
from the acts of settler groups, as happened in Jaffa Gate with proper ties belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem.
Mr. President, the other day a young Palestinian footballer on Palestine television said in plain Arabic: “We are a people that want to live, like other peoples. We want to enjoy playing football and to have a taste of the good life.” Likewise, Palestinian work- ers who get up as early as three in the morning each day to make it through crowded checkpoints to arrive at their work by seven would tell you that they labor be- cause they love their families, and they want their children to have opportunities that they them- selves did not have.
We aspire for freedom from occupation and to be able to live like other nations in our own state. We also cherish a vision for Jerusalem, as the Heads of Churches stated in a November 1994 statement:
“We invite each party to go beyond all exclusivist visions or actions, and without dis- crimination, to consider the re- ligious and national aspirations of others in order to give back to Jerusalem its true universal character and to make of the city a holy place of reconcilia- tion for humankind.”
With the dampened spirits that weigh upon the hear ts of my Palestinian compatriots and my own heart as you visit with us these coming days, the least of our expectations is that you listen to Palestinian voices who yearn for peace and justice. The hurt we feel inside us should be healed if a future of peace is to reign at some point in the future in this troubled land.
The Rev. Frank Ching-fa Chen, Direc- tor of the Pastoral Department, and Susan Shu-chen Chang, Director of the Nursing Department, Changhua Christian Hospital, Taiwan, at the headstone of the late Joy Randall.
Visitors from Taiwan
Susan and Frank with Joy’s brother, John Randall.