Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:52:16.737Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Vatican, Palestinian Christians, Israel, and Jerusalem: Religion, Politics, Diplomacy, and Holy Places, 1945–1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Anthony O’Mahony
Anthony O’Mahony*
Affiliation:
Heythrop College, University of London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The years 1945–9 were a time of profound political and social transformation for Palestine. Few other periods in its history match these changes, which left no community unaffected. The overwhelming Palestinian-Arab Christian and Muslim community was reduced from a majority to a minority, subject to the rule of a staunchly nationalistic Jewish and Zionist state. The events of 1948–9 were particularly devastating. A large number of Palestinians became refugees, including approximately fifty to seventy per cent of the Palestinian Christian population. Nearly half of the Christian community of Jerusalem had lived and had their businesses in the more modern and developed western sector of the city until Israeli occupation; their property was sequestered after they fled or were compelled to leave. Most of them were forced to seek refuge in the Old City, in monasteries and other Church buildings. Many others were forced to flee elsewhere, some leaving the former Mandate territory altogether.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 36: The Holy Land, Holy Lands, and Christian History , 2000 , pp. 358 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For a general account see Lustick, Ian, Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel’s Control of a National Minority (Austin, TX, 1980)Google Scholar. For the position of the Christian communities within the State of Israel see Amnon Kapeliouk, ‘Les arabes chrétiens en Israel (1948-1957)’ (Thèse de doctorat, Sorbonne, 1968); idem, ‘L’État social, économique, culturel et juridique des Arabes chrétiennes en Israel’, Asian and African Studies, 5 (1969), pp. 51-95.

2 The number of Christian refugees is a difficult and controversial question. Betts, Robert Brenton, Christians in the Arab East: A Political Study (Atlanta, GA, 1978), p. 212 Google Scholar, estimated the figures at 55,000 refugees, or 50% of the Christians living in what was to become Israel after the 1949 Armistice. However, according to Edward Duff (‘Honor in Israel’, in the American Jesuit review, America, 26 March 1949, p. 677) there were 150,000 Christian refugees, of whom 55,000 were Catholic. Bernard Sabella, ‘Palestinian Christian emigration from the Holy Land’, POC, 41 (1991), p. 74, suggests that the war of 1948 witnessed the forced migration of 714,000 Palestinians of whom 50,000 were Christians, or 7% of all refugees and 35% of all Christians who lived in Palestine prior to 15 May 1948. However, their travails did not end here. For an attempt to remove Arab Christians from the Galilee after 1948, see Nur Masalha, An Israeli plan to transfer Galilee’s Christians to South America: Yosef Weitz and ‘Operation Yohanan’, 1949-1953, Durham: Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Occasional Paper, 55 (Durham, 1996).

3 For the social, economic, and political position of the Christians under the late Ottoman, British, and Israeli-Jordanian periods, see O’Mahony, Anthony, ‘The religious, political and social status of the Christian communities in Palestine, c.1800-1930’, in O’Mahony, A., Gunner, G., and Hintlian, K., eds, The Christian Heritage in the Holy Land (London, 1995)Google Scholar [hereafter Christian Heritage], pp. 237-65; Daphne Tsimhoni, The Christian Communities in Jerusalem and the West Bank since 1948: An Historical, Social and Political Study (Westport, CT, 1993); Chad F. Emmett, Beyond the Basilica: Christians and Muslims in Nazareth (Chicago and London, 1995).

4 For Church-State relations in Jerusalem see Dumper, Michael, ‘Church-state relations in Jerusalem since 1948’, in Christian Heritage, pp. 266–87 Google Scholar; idem, The Politics of Jerusalem since 1067 (New York, 1997), pp. 180-96. As a result of deep international interest in the Holy Land, home to the sacred sites of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Israeli policy towards holy places was under constant global scrutiny. For the international community, Israel’s treatment of these sacred sites provided a convenient barometer to measure the degree of the new state’s commitment to its procalmation of independence pledge - 14 May 1948 - to safeguard the holy places of all religions. See Alisa Rubin Peled, The crystallization of an Israeli policy towards Muslim and Christian Holy Places, 1948-1955’, The Muslim World, 84 (1994), pp. 95-126.

5 Irani, George E., The Papacy and the Middle East: The Role of the Holy See in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1962-1984 (Notre Dame, IN, 1986), pp. 9–57 Google Scholar; idem, The Holy See and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’, in Kail C. Ellis, ed., The Vatican, Islam and the Middle East (Syracuse, NY, 1987), pp. 125-42; Rokach, Livia, The Catholic Church and the Question of Palestine (London, 1987)Google Scholar.

6 Catholic institutions were swift to respond to the crisis, providing humanitarian support for the Palestinian Arab refugees in advance of parellel Protestant and UN agencies and far exceeding all other Christian and other institutions in their efforts. From summer 1948 to February 1950, the American National Catholic Welfare Conference sent $1.3 million, much more than the American Protestant Church World Service, which contributed $331,000. Catholics outside North America gave some $5 million, while various Red Cross organizations contributed just $2 million. This multinational and well-organized Catholic relief effort was provided for all Palestinian refugees, Muslim and Christian, and was formalized by the foundation of the Pontifical Mission to Palestine on 4 June 1949. The Vatican, moreover, did not intend to limit itself to emergency aid, as its avowed goal was to create a viable and long-term political solution to the Christian refugee problem at least, in order to preserve a stable social base for the Church and to prevent future upheavals in the region. See Kreutz, Andrej, Vatican Policy on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: The Struggle for the Holy Land (Westport, CT, 1990), pp. 87–111 Google Scholar.

7 M.-A. Boisard, ‘Le Saint-Siège et la Palestine’, Relations Internationales, 28 (1981), pp. 443-55, and the following studies by Andrej Kreutz: The Vatican and the Palestinians: a historical overview’, Islamochristiana, 18 (1992), pp. 109-25; ‘The Vatican and the Palestinian question’, Social Compass, 37 (1990), pp. 239-54; ‘The Vatican and the Palestinians’, in Peter C. Kent and John F. Pollard, eds, Papal Diplomacy in the Modern Age (Westport, CT, 1994), pp. 167-79.

8 Levillain, Phillippe, ‘Israel et le Saint-Siège. L’accord fondamentale entre le Saint-Siège et Israel’, in Levillain, P., ed., Dictionnaire historique de la papauté (Paris, 1994), pp. 915–17 Google Scholar. For the political and theological background see Salvador C. Corral, ‘El Acuerdo basico, de 30 de diciembre de 1993, entre la Santa Sede y el Estado de Israel. Desde la perspectiva de la Santa Sede’, Estudios Eclesiásticos, 69 (1994), pp. 145-71; Coria E. Gil, ‘El Acuerdo basico entre la Santa Sede y el Estado de Israel y el proceso de paz en el Proximo Oriente. Perspectiva teologica’, ibid., pp. 181-201. For an Israeli view see Sergio I. Minerbi, The Vatican and Israel’, in Kent and Pollard, Papal Diplomacy in the Modern Age, pp. 189-201.

9 Gerald Arboit, Le Saint-Siège et le nouvel ordre au moyen orient, de la guerre du Golfe à la reconnaissance diplomatique d’Israel (Paris, 1996), pp. 163-78; Jean-Dominique Montoisy, Le Vatican et le problème des Lieux-Saints Qerusalem, 1984).

10 See Claude Soetens’s important studies on Papal policy towards Jerusalem and Palestine: Le Congrès eucharistique internationale de Jerusalem (1983) dans le cadre de la politique orientale du pape Leon XIII (Louvain, 1979); ‘Entre Concile et initiative pontificale: Paul VI en Terre Sainte’, Cristianesimo nella storia, 19 (1998), pp. 333-65.

11 Minerbi, Sergio I., The Vatican and Zionism: Conflict in the Holy Land, 1895-1925 (Oxford, 1990), pp. 15–92 Google Scholar; Kock, H. F., Der Vatikan und Palastina (Vienna and Munich, 1973)Google Scholar; Pierazzi, G., ‘Der Vatikan und die Heilgen Statten in Palastina, 1919-1922 und 1947-1950’, Jahrhuch der Diplomatischen Akademie Wien (1971), pp. 99–110 Google Scholar. For official Catholic press opposition to the Zionist project in Palestine during the inter-war period see E. Caviglia, ‘Il sionismo e la Palestina negli articoli dell’Osservatore Romano e della Civiltà Cattolica (1919-1923)’, Clio, 17 (1981), pp. 79-90.

12 Jasse, Richard L., ‘Great Britain and Palestine towards the United Nations’, Middle Eastern Studies, 30 (1994), pp. 558–78 Google Scholar; Pietro Pastorelli, ‘La Santa Sede e il problema di Gerusalemme’, Storia e Politica, 21 (1982), pp. 57-98.

13 Ferrari, Silvio, ‘The Vatican, Israel and the Jerusalem Question (1943-1984)’, Middle East Journal, 39 (1985), pp. 316–31 Google Scholar; idem, The struggle for Jerusalem’, European Journal of International Affairs, 1 (1991), pp. 22-39.

14 London, Public Record Office [hereafter PRO], FO 371/WV 1011, Perowne to Attlee, 8 Aug. 1949; see also FO 371/E6425, Perowne to Bevin, 4 May 1948.

15 See, e.g., Perowne’s reports from the British mission to the Holy See to London, PRO, FO 371/E6418, 15 May 1948; and also Enardu, M. G., Palestine in Anglo-Vatican Relations, 1936-1939 (Florence, 1980)Google Scholar.

16 On the end of the French religious protectorate in Palestine see Minerbi, Sergio I., L’Italie et la Palestine 1914-1920 (Paris, 1970), pp. 152–73 Google Scholar; idem, ‘L’Italie contre le Protectorat religieux français en Palestine’, Asian and African Studies, 4 (1968), pp. 23-56.

17 For the background to the Vatican’s opposition to the Zionism see Meir Mendes, Le Vatican et Israel (Paris, 1990), pp. 69-96; Chouraqui, Andre, La Reconnaissance, le Saint-Siège, les Juifs et Israel (Paris, 1992), pp. 101–68 Google Scholar.

18 Luigi Maglione, Vatican Secretary of State, in a letter to Amleto Cicognani, Apostolic Delegate in Washington, 18 May 1943, in Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la seconde guerre mondiale, ed. P. Blet, A. Martin, and B. Schneider, 11 vols (Vatican City, 1965-81), 9, p. 302. Ferrari, The Vatican, Israel and the Jerusalem Question’, p. 317.

19 See Angelo Roncalli (then Apostolic Delegate in Istanbul) in a letter to Maglione, 4 Sept. 1943: Blet, Martin, and Schneider, Actes, 9, p. 469.

20 See ibid., 11, p. 510.

21 Ferrari, Silvio, Vaticano e Israele dal secondo conflitto mondiale alla guerra del Golfo (Florence, 1991), pp. 29–54 Google Scholar.

22 Nolfo, E. Di, Vaticano e Stati Uniti 1939-1952: dalle carte di Myron C. Taylor (Milan, 1978), pp. 299–300 Google Scholar. For the appointment and the mission of Myron Taylor to the Vatican see George Q. Flynn, ‘Franklin Roosevelt and the Vatican: The Myron Taylor appointment’, Church History, 58 (1972), pp. 171-94; idem, Roosevelt and Romanism: Catholics and American Diplomacy (London, 1976).

23 John V. Perowne, letter to B. A. B. Burrows, 19 Jan. 1948: PRO, FO 371E/1175. Perowne, British Plenipotentiary Minister to the Vatican, was passing on the thoughts of Mgr Giovanni Montini, then Acting Secretary of State and later Pope Paul VI.

24 Bovis, H. Eugene, The Jerusalem Question, 1917-1968 (Stanford, CA, 1970), pp. 58–91 Google Scholar; Pieraccini, Paolo, Gerusalemme, Luoghi Santi e communita religiose nella politica internazionale (Bologna, 1996), pp. 437–91 Google Scholar.

25 See Enardu, Palestine in Anglo-Vatican Relations, pp 21-2; Di Nolfo, Vaticano e Stati Uniti, p. 258; Blet, Martin, and Schneider, Actes et documents, 9, pp. 300-1.

26 For contemporary Catholic views on Zionism and the question of a Jewish State in Palestine see the following two studies by Esther Starobinski-Safran, concerning the Swiss Cardinal Charles Journet and the influential French Catholic thinker, Jacques Maritain: ‘Les destinées d’Israel, son mystère et la foi mosaique selon Charles Journet’, in Philippe Chenaux, éd., Charles Journet, 1891-1975, un theologien en son siècle (Paris, 1994), pp. 69-93; Judaisme, peuple juif et Etat d’Israel’, in Michel Bressolette and René Mougel, eds, Jacques Maritain face à la modernité (Toulouse, 1993), pp. 219-43.

27 Bovis, Jerusalem Question, p. 71. The original text is in Oriente Moderno, 29 (1949), pp. 52-3; translated text in The New York Times, 16 April 1949.

28 Lazar, D., L’Opinion française et la naissance de l’Etat d’Israël, 1945-49 (Paris, 1972), pp. 177–219 Google Scholar. See also Rash, Y., Deminer un champ fertile: les catholiques français et l’état d’Israel (Paris, 1982)Google Scholar; idem, Catholiques de France, un Israelien vous parle (Paris, 1981).

29 See PRO, FO 371/E4707, Godfrey to Creech-Jones.

30 See PRO, FO 371/E4089, for the correspondence between Griffin and Bevin.

31 In a meeting with Perowne, Tardini said on 3 May 1948 that he was not aware of Griffin’s letter. See PRO, FO 371/E6425, Perowne to Bevin, 4 May 1948.

32 L’Osservatore Romano, 24 Oct. 1948.

33 For a detailed analysis of the reasoning behind the encyclical see S. Ferrari, ‘The Holy See and the postwar Palestine issue: the internationalization of Jerusalem and the protection of the Holy Places’, International Affairs, 39 (1985), pp. 261-83.

34 Bovis, Jerusalem Question, pp. 71-2.

35 PRO, FO 371/E12895, Gowen to Secretary of State, 2 Nov. 1948, unsigned communiqué from the British Legation at the Holy See, 1 Oct. 1948.

36 L’Osservatore Romano, 12 March 1949.

37 McDonald, James, My Mission in Israel, 1948-1951 (London, 1951), p. 187 Google Scholar; Feldblum, Esther, American Catholic Press and the Jewish State, 1917-1959 (New York, 1977), pp. 82–3 Google Scholar.

38 Reproduced in Rackauskas, C., Internationalization of Jerusalem (Washington, DC, 1956), app., pp. 79–80 Google Scholar.

39 See Acta apostolicae sedis, 41 (1949), pp. 161 ff.

40 See L’Osservatore Romano, 17 April 1949.

41 See Le Monde, 12 Nov. 1948; Tablet, 20 Nov. 1948; Documentation catholique, 7, 21 Nov. 1948.

42 Francis J. Spellman, letter to Harry S. Truman, 10 June 1949. The entire correspondence was published by S. Ferrari, Il Vaticano e la questione di Gerusalemme nel carteggio Spellman-Truman, in Storia contemporanea, April 1982, pp. 285-320.

43 Regarding the UN debate and the proposals put forward in 1949 and 1950 see Bovis, Jerusalem Question, p. 70, and Morzellec, J. Le, La question de Jérusalem devant l’Organisation des Nations Unies (Brussels, 1979), p. 212 Google Scholar.

44 See PRO, FO EE1018/23, William Godfrey (Apostolic Delegate in the UK) to William Strang, 25 Jan. 1950; FO EE1018/32, Perowne to G. W. Furlonge, 20 Feb. 1950; FO EE1018/135, 21 Sept. 1950; FO EE1018/158, 13 Oct. 1950.

45 For Paul VI’s visit to the Holy Land see Soetens, ‘Entre Concile et initiative pontificale’, pp. 333-65. For documents related to papal policy see the important collection ed. Edmond Farhat, Gerusalemme nei documenti pontifici (Vatican City, 1987). For the Vatican’s continuing action and diplomatic dialogue over Jerusalem and the Holy Land see the following studies: Silvio Ferrari, ‘Le saint-Siège, l’État d’Israel et les Lieux-Saints de Jerusalem’, in J.-B. D’Onorio, ed., Le Saint-Siège dans les relations internationales (Paris, 1989), pp. 301-21; J.-D. Montoisy, ‘Israel-Vatican: le nouveau dialogue’, Studia Diplomatica, 34 (1981), pp. 753-70; Richard P. Stevens, The Vatican, the Catholic Church and Jerusalem’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 10 (1981), pp. 100-10; Henri Tincq, L’Étoile et la Croix: Jean-Paul II - Israel: l’explication (Paris, 1993); Anthony Kenny, Catholics, Jews and the State of Israel (New York, 1993).