KIM LAWTON, correspondent: It’s Sunday morning in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Christians have gathered for worship at the ancient Church of the Nativity, which marks the traditional birthplace of Jesus. Local Christians like John Tawil say they feel a special tie to their faith.

JOHN TAWIL: Being a Christian in Bethlehem is something wonderful because it’s the place where Jesus was born.

LAWTON: But the 2,000-year-old Christian community here has been diminishing at an alarming rate, and some question whether Christianity can ultimately survive in the land where it began.

PROFESSOR BERNARD SABELLA (Al-Quds University): The places are important, but you need to make these places to come alive, and you cannot do that without indigenous Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land.

LAWTON: The overwhelming majority of Christians here are Arabs. They were among the hundreds of thousands displaced in 1948, when the State of Israel was established and in the wars that followed. For decades now, Palestinian Christians have continued to emigrate at disproportionately high rates, and their birth rates are much lower than those of Muslims. Roughly 150,000 Christians live in Israel proper—about two percent of the population. In the Palestinian Territories, it’s estimated that Christians make up just over one percent of the population. There are also small Christian minorities in disputed East Jerusalem. The circumstances for Christians vary in each of those places and, like most things here, a lot of it is shaped by the ongoing conflict.

SABELLA: The challenge, I think, to Palestinian Christians, in my view, and to Christian communities in Israel and the Middle East, is really to stay put.

LAWTON: Bernard Sabella is a sociologist in Jerusalem who has studied the emigration patterns of his fellow Christians, especially younger Christians, in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

SABELLA: The political situation and the economic situation together make it very hard for young people. Even when they are earning good money, and they have a secure job, relatively secure job, they feel that the prospects for the future are very dim.

LAWTON: That’s the case for John Tawil and his friend, Mary Abu-Ghattas, who are students at the Roman Catholic-run Bethlehem University. Both are 20 years old and both were born under Israeli occupation. They say Israel’s strict security policies toward all Palestinians make West Bank life untenable.

MARY ABU-GHATTAS: First of all, challenges in moving, which is like a basic human right, to be able to move from one point to another. Challenges in Israel controlling the water supply, Israel controlling basically any supply that comes into Palestine.

LAWTON: Mary’s Greek Orthodox family has lived for centuries in the Christian town of Beit Jala, just outside Bethlehem. She’s close to them, but also dreams of traveling to faraway places.

ABU-GHATTAS: Even though if I don’t care, like, if I have a lot of money. I just care to really be able to see the world, so, yes, that is definitely my dream, but it’s not going to—it’s not that easy to make come true considering our situation in Palestine. It’s very tempting to leave. Do we try? Yes, of course we try, like basically, obviously no one wants to leave their country, but it is hard. It’s a challenge.

LAWTON: John is part of the tiny Syriac Orthodox community. Several of his extended family members live in France and Britain. He’s a chemistry major who wants to study medicine, and he’s planning to do so abroad.

TAWIL: I would like to stay here, but I see that the peace, the peace process that they are moving in, will not achieve itself within the coming few years or within the coming 200 years. So why to suffer and struggle? Living under the occupation is not a normal life. It’s a stressed life, and we have to get out of this.

LAWTON: Bethlehem University was founded in 1973, and today about 30 percent of the students are Christians, 70 percent Muslim. University administrators are aware of the challenge they face.

BROTHER VINCENT NEIL KIEFFE (Bethlehem University): The difficulty with education is once you’ve educated someone they become mobile, and so they have opportunities elsewhere. Our goal is to try and encourage people to stay in the Holy Land. That’s why we’re here to start with.

LAWTON: Leaders of the Holy Land’s historic churches have been trying to encourage their flock to stay. For example, while the Anglican Church provides social services for all people, it’s also been developing scholarship and employment programs specifically aimed at Christians.

BISHOP SUHEIL DAWANI (Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem): We encourage them, and we do whatever we can within our capacity to keep them here in the land.

LAWTON: Christians outside the region are also trying to help. The Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation [HCEF] is a US-based group with the mission of “preserving the Christian presence in the Holy Land.” HCEF runs several investment and social service projects, such as this senior citizens day-care center in the West Bank town of Birzeit. Here, they try to celebrate traditional Palestinian culture and heritage. HCEF has also renovated or built more than 300 homes for low-income Palestinian Christians. This family of six was living in one rundown room. Now they have a brand-new three-bedroom home.

Church leaders worry that without a living Christian presence, the Holy Land could become like a museum or a theme park. The region’s Roman Catholic leader is Fouad Twal, who has the ancient title of Latin Patriarch. He wants pilgrims to visit not only the holy sites, but also the local Christians, whom he calls the Holy Land’s “living stones.”

PATRIARCH FOUAD TWAL (Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem): Only with the living stones, with people, with community, it has a meaning of holy. It is not a question of building and archaeology; it is a question of life.

LAWTON: Top Western Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders have just launched a new campaign to help Christians in the Holy Land. But that can be a complicated and sometimes controversial endeavor. Many Christians, especially in American and European evangelical communities, are strongly pro-Israel. When the US and other countries moved their embassies from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv for political reasons, one group of Christians founded their own institution to support Israel. They called it the Christian Embassy.

DAVID PARSONS (International Christian Embassy Jerusalem): We were founded in 1980 as an expression of comfort and solidarity with the Jewish people and their 3,000-year-old attachment to Jerusalem, and we’ve been standing on the principle of a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty for 30 years now.

LAWTON: David Parsons says people in his community worry that some efforts to support Christians in the Holy Land can be “anti-Israel.”

PARSONS: There is this temptation when you have this sympathy for the plight of Palestinian Christians that, you know, in order to help them you have to start bashing Israel. It is a divisive issue.

LAWTON: Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams contends that his campaign is actually very pro-Israel.

ARCHBISHOP ROWAN WILLIAMS (Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury): To put difficult questions to the government of Israel is a sign that we take the government of Israel seriously. It’s quite the opposite of delegitimation or whatever. It’s saying we expect the government of Israel to have a response. We expect for them to be able to bear criticism and to engage with it.

LAWTON: Parsons asserts that Christians are treated better by Israel than by other Middle Eastern nations, and he raises another controversial question: the role rising Islamic fundamentalism may play in the Christian exodus.

PARSONS: A lot of people look at the conflict, they look at the plight of Palestinian Christians, they look at so many of them leaving, and they want to understand why, and most of them know that the main culprit in this is Islamic militancy, both towards Jews and towards Christians.

LAWTON: Palestinian Christian leaders acknowledge there are some tensions with Muslims but say overall the two communities have lived together peacefully for centuries.

SABELLA: Our relations have been really normal relations, like neighbors. There are sensitivities in the sense that sometimes Palestinian Christians would like less of religion in the public sphere, yes. But that is not the cause for leaving.

LAWTON: Sabella says many Christians here see themselves as bridge-builders for peace and democracy.

SABELLA: If you lose the Palestinian Christians, then you lose, in a sense, the promise of a multireligious and open and democratic and pluralist society, and I’m saying that not simply to the Palestinian Territories; also to Israel.

TWAL: I consider all the inhabitants—Jews, Muslims, Christians—as my faithful, my people, my children, and I must take care of them. My dream is to see our children playing together in a normal life, a normal way in this holy, holy land. Until now, this dream, my dream, is only a dream.

LAWTON: And as peace remains elusive, many church leaders say their biggest challenge may be keeping their flock from despair.

DAWANI: Jerusalem for us Christians is a city of hope, because it is the city of the resurrection, and it is the city of hope, and hope is a very important concept in our lives. If we lose hope, we lose everything. But we still have hope.

LAWTON: The leaders believe that is the ultimate message of their faith, which was formed in this land.

I’m Kim Lawton in Israel and the West Bank.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Top Roman Catholic and Anglican leaders from around the world this week launched a new effort to support Christians in the Holy Land who are caught in the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. They also called on politicians to jump-start the stalled Middle East peace process. The new campaign got underway at a high-level meeting in London. Kim Lawton was there.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: Christian leaders from Europe, North America, and the Middle East gathered at the historic Lambeth Palace, residence of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The meeting was co-hosted by Williams and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols.

ARCHBISHOP ROWAN WILLIAMS, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury: We cannot wait for the politicians to sort it out before we as civil society, as active agents, as people of faith, get on with making the differences we can make.

LAWTON: A main focus was how to shore up the minority Christian community in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Because of emigration and low birth rates, Christians now make up less than two percent of the population there.

WILLIAMS: That’s the very specific and the very practical challenge: Have these people a future in their ancestral home? We hope and pray that they do.

ARCHBISHOP VINCENT NICHOLS, Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales: The Holy Land and the holy sites could become something like the Colosseum, you know, the remnants of something that is of great historical interest and maybe of cultural interest, but not lived in, not living and breathing centers of life and prayer.

LAWTON: The leaders discussed concrete ways to help the predominantly Palestinian Christian community, such as financial support, building more relationships between congregations, and increasing public policy advocacy. As part of that, the group specifically called for an end to security restrictions that prevent local people of faith from visiting their holy sites. Conference organizers denied criticism from some quarters that supporting Palestinian Christians makes one “anti-Israel.”

NICHOLS: What we want to be in being pro-Christian is also being pro-Israeli and pro-peace.

LAWTON: The group heard from a variety of voices, including Jews and Muslims. Participants all agreed that working for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be the biggest help of all.

BISHOP GERALD KICANAS, Catholic Diocese of Tucson: Ultimately, what we need is a two-state solution where these two peoples can live together in peace, each in their own sovereign states, respecting the boundaries and respecting the rights of those states. But we’re not there yet.

LAWTON: The leaders said the conversation was valuable. But, as always, the big challenge will be turning talk into action.

I’m Kim Lawton at Lambeth Palace in London.

ABERNETHY: Kim will have a special report from the Holy Land next week.

Read an excerpt from JERUSALEM, JERUSALEM by James Carroll

JAMES CARROLL (Author, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World”): Jerusalem in the ancient world was the cockpit of violence. It was the place where all the warring armies of the empires intersected.

Beginning with that first experience of exile in Babylon, Jews came into a new awareness of who they were and who their God was by looking back at Jerusalem, and they claim their identity by refusing to forget it.

Augustine was arguing for the survival of Jews as Jews in Christendom who would witness to the truth of Christian claims by their degradation, and that’s been the source of tremendous anti-Jewish and ultimately anti-Semitic behavior, contempt, and one of the most powerful forms of the degradation was the Jews are to be permanently in exile from Jerusalem, from the Jewish home.

It’s so important to emphasize that the Islamic arrival in Jerusalem was nonviolent and respectful of the Jewish tradition, so that when the caliph beheld the Temple Mount, which to him was to be revered because that was the place where God had stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son, he’s astounded to discover that the Christians have been treating it as a garbage dump, and the caliph, Umar, ordered the Temple Mount cleaned up, reverenced; he invited Jews back into the city who had been exiled by the Christians. Those first generations of Muslims were honoring the Jewish holy place without any sense of conflict with it, and we know that that was lost.

In the year 1096 when the pope calls for the crusade to take Jerusalem back from the infidel who have been occupying it since the seventh century, it sears the European Christian imagination with violence, holy war, God wills violence, and it centers the Christian imagination on—guess what?—Jerusalem.

The return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, to Israel, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries especially, culminating in the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, is a reversal of this ancient fate that was generated by the Romans and then theologized by the Christians. And I would just add that we Christians have been reckoning with this, and that’s the meaning for us Catholics of the tremendously important visit to Jerusalem by Pope John Paul II in the year 2000. He prayed at the Western Wall as a Jew would pray, without invoking Jesus, and he offered his act of repentance there—a tremendously important reversal of theology, the example of the kind of reckoning with the past that has to keep happening, actually.

Christians, Jews, and Muslims all have a sacred connection to it, each in a very different way. That sacred connection to this place, even though at the present moment it’s a source of contention, is actually a profound source of union.

I don’t see any hope for peace between Israelis and Palestinians until two things happen. One, Palestinians have to somehow reckon with the authentic return of the Jewish people to the Jewish homeland is a fulfillment of Jewish history. On the other side, I don’t see much hope for peace until Israelis reckon with their part in the dispossession of the Palestinian people, and in particular I’m troubled by the settlements and the ongoing occupation.

The holy one we all have in common is the one God, which makes us brothers and sisters, so the place itself is a source of peace, and so I love Jerusalem, including the mess of it—the Christian mess, certainly, but all of the messes of it.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: Beneath the Jerusalem hills, near the entrance to the city, are the remains of the former Arab village of Lifta. All of Lifta’s Arab residents fled or were forced out during Israel’s war for independence in 1948. Today, it’s the only once-Arab village in Israel that has not been destroyed or resettled by Jews. Lifta’s former Arab residents want it back. The Jerusalem government wants it developed for luxury housing, and some preservationists, on both sides, want it kept as a monument to what life there used to be. Menachem Daum is an American Jew from Brooklyn. He traveled to Lifta recently to hear all sides of the story.

MENACHEM DAUM: I may have a family link to Lifta. My uncle, Meyer Yosef, a member of the Betar Zionist youth, left Poland for Palestine in 1937. He joined the Lehi militia, also known as the Stern Gang. He was my hero. While the rest of my family were victims during the Holocaust, he was a fighter for the Jewish people.

NECHAMA NUSBAUM (Meyer Yosef’s Wife): He was convinced that Israel was home. That’s what he told his mother when she was crying at the train station when he left Poland. She was crying so much. He said, “Don’t cry, I’m going home.” The Arabs—we didn’t think about them at all.

DAUM: In 1947, my uncle’s Stern Gang and other Jewish militias were fighting Arab forces near Lifta. On December 28, Jewish fighters entered Lifta’s coffeehouse and killed at least five villagers, allegedly in retaliation for an attack on a passing Jewish bus. Fearing for their lives, most of Lifta’s Arab residents fled. None have ever been permitted to return. On a visit to Lifta’s spring I met a group of Israeli youngsters and was curious to hear what they knew about Lifta.

DAUM (speaking to Israeli children): So what about the history of this place?

FIRST GIRL: When we came to capture the land, so they didn’t like Israel so they escaped. They just want to kill us.

DAUM: What would you think if some people who used to live here 60 years ago wanted to come back?

FIRST GIRL: That it’s theirs.

SECOND GIRL: No, that’s ridiculous. It’s our land.

THIRD GIRL: God promised to give the land to us.

DAUM: For most of my life I held the same simplistic attitudes as these girls and until today have never heard spoken to Palestinians to hear their side of the story.

YACOUB ODEH (Former Resident of Lifta): Here was my home. You see these stones? Here was my home. No time I forget when I was playing here.

DAUM (speaking to Yacoub Odeh): Did you have phones here, by the way?

ODEH: No, we are shouting. I want to call my young cousin or uncle, “Mahmoud!” I shout, and he answered me in the same way: “Yacoub!”

DAUM (speaking to Yacoub Odeh): I always looked upon my uncle as a hero. All my other relatives died in the ovens, and he was a fighter.

ODEH: Now my question for you: How do you look on a person kicked you from your house, destroy your life to become a refugee, to be in a tent and in winter cold or in summer hot? I think who steal, who theft your freedom, your dignity, your right to live with your community, and kick you out in a miserable life—no time you will see him a hero. If I do it, sure you will hate me. You will attack me. You will attack me.

DAUM: Yacoub’s description of his village reminded me of the memories that were passed down to me of my ancestors’ destroyed shtetls in Poland. If the development of Lifta goes through, will its Arab heritage and memories also be erased? I went to Ramallah in the West Bank to meet other former residents of Lifta and collect their memories.

MRS. HAMUDDEH (Former Lifta Resident): We had Jewish neighbors and Christian neighbors. We all lived together happily. Our Jewish friends would come to our weddings and parties. The Christians also came. We were like one family.

YACOUB KHALIF (Former Lifta Resident): If they were to tell me now you have the right to go back to Lifta, it would take me one hour. I would walk. I would not even take a taxi or car to go to Lifta. I will walk it, and if I die without getting it back, my children will get it back, my grandchildren will get it back.

JALAL AKEL (Former Lifta Resident): I took all my children to Lifta. I showed them where our house used to be. I showed them everything. Of course, we always tell them there is hope. Even if only for the children of our children, the hope is still there.

You can see those cars? They are exactly up the wadi of the valley of Lifta.

DAUM: So you look here from your roof and you see.

AKEL: I can see, but what can I do?

DAUM: Neither Lifta’s former residents nor their children are likely to return if the government allows Lifta to be developed. Under its plan, the 54 existing ruins will be rehabilitated and sold as villas and will be surrounded by luxury housing, hotels and shops. Proponents of the plan say it will actually preserve Lifta and save it from further deterioration.

ITZIK SHWEKY (Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites): We are not interested in erasing heritage. The plan addresses the heritage of Lifta, to leave the old architecture. We are not building new buildings that will be tall, but will be in the style of old Lifta.

DAUM: Wouldn’t it make symbolic sense to somehow not develop Lifta right now and hold it as a symbolic gesture for some better future?

SHWEKY: I think that you are wrong. I have a different opinion. If I turn it into a monument and say on this site there was an Arab village, that will only lead to hatred and painful memories, because we would then be causing conflict, and then they’re going to say that this is how we once lived and then the Jews came and threw us out. No, I’m not going to do that. We are the State of Israel. We are Jews. We don’t have to save the Palestinian heritage. They will know that it was Lifta, but we are a new nation that has to progress.

DAUM: While some Israelis see the ruins of Lifta as a threat to peace, others believe just the opposite. They want to preserve Lifta as a place of education and hopefully reconciliation.

DAFNA GOLAN (Sociologist, Hebrew University and Lifta Preservation Activist): Lifta is also a village of hope. It can be a place where we can talk about our future, where we can remember the past, where Israelis could see how Palestinians used to live, could understand what it means for Palestinians to lose their houses, what happened to them in 1948. So why destroy this little hope that we still have?

DAUM: My uncle dreamed of a land where Jews could walk the streets proudly as Jews. He saw Arabs as an impediment to that dream. I have come to believe that Lifta is important for Jews as well as for Arabs. If Jewish and Arab youth grow up believing they have always been natural enemies, peace will be impossible. We need to preserve Lifta to challenge the simplistic memories we often pass on to the next generation.

ABERNETHY: Menachem Daum says he has made many trips to Israel, but this was the first time he ever talked with Palestinian Arabs. They all had grievances, he said, but no one expressed hatred of him because he is a Jew. They want to live in peace, they told Menachem. Muslim, Jew, and Christian together the way they used to.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: As the so-called Arab Spring spread out from Egypt and Tunisia, the New York film makers Oren Rudovsky and Menachem Daum were in Israel listening to the hopes and concerns of Palestinian Arabs and Israelis. Here is a sample — unscientific but still revealing.

SHMUEL GROAG (Israeli Architect): The revolution in Egypt, the first reaction of the Israeli public was kind of being in panic as if, you know, you see democracy on one side and people are panicking.

SHWECKY (Israeli Environmentalist): Listen, the situation is not good for us or for them, because there won’t be a strong leadership, and we are the ones who have to be strong or else they’ll wipe us out.

DAFNA: (Israeli Sociologist): I understand the fear of Muslim Brothers, but it doesn’t seem that’s what people in Egypt or in Tunisia want. They really want freedom, and I think we should trust them on what they want. They want to live properly. They want to have jobs. They want to live like everybody else.

ROBBY: (Israeli Founder of Organ Donor Society): I think we need to focus on democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, and hope in the marketplace of ideas that tolerance of other people in the region will play out to Israel’s benefit.

SHEIK NAMIR: (Palestinian Historian): The Palestinian people have had a lot of problems. Every time an event like that happens in an Arab country it’s good for Palestine. Every flag raised calls for the liberation of the Palestinian people, and we’re witnesses to that.

TAHU: (Palestinian Poet and Elder): We are now in front of a bright, new beginning, hopefully. Look at the Europeans. They are supporting the Libyan people, not their rulers. Before they used to side with the rulers. Now everybody knows the truth and feels sorry for the Palestinian people and all other people who are oppressed by their governments, as if they were imprisoned.

JALAL AKEL (Palestinian Businessman): All this will have an impact on the Palestinian youth, who will be affected by the events in the Arab world. Now they can claim back their freedom the same way they see it happening in Egypt and Tunisia and hopefully soon in Libya.

DAFNA: You know, something is changing, and I don’t know but I think it will come here. It’s very difficult to believe that the whole Arab world will be in riots and Jerusalem and the West Bank are going to be quiet.

ABERNETHY: The Palestinian Bureau of Statistics has released figures showing that in the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, there are 5.5 million Palestinians, and 5.8 million Jews. Because of their higher birth rate, the number of Palestinians is expected to equal the number of Jews in about three-and-a-half years.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: As the crisis in Egypt continued to unfold this week, many questions emerged about the religious implications. What role will religion play in a new government, and in particular, what role will the Muslim Brotherhood play? How will the new situation in Egypt affect the rest of the Middle East, including Israel and the peace process, and how will Egypt’s Christian minority fare? We explore all this with Qamar-ul Huda, a senior program officer at the US Institute of Peace. He’s a consultant in many parts of the Middle East on conflict resolution. Dr. Huda, welcome.

QAMAR-UL HUDA (Senior Program Officer, US Institute of Peace): Thank you.

ABERNETHY: In the demonstrations in the streets there wasn’t much evidence of a religious influence. It seemed pretty secular, but lots of people expect that in a new government there will be strong religious representation. Is that fair to say?

HUDA: That’s a fair assessment. We know that the mass protest in Egypt is a mass public crossing all ideologies. This is a national issue for Egypt, and it’s not contained to any one group. The new government or the transitional government that will be formed in the near future—I think the religious voices or the religious parties will be at the table but will not dominate the party.

ABERNETHY: Now there’s a lot of fear around, as you know and have read, about the Muslim Brotherhood—what it is, what it means, what its place might be in a new government, and what the implications of that are.

HUDA: Well, the Muslim Brotherhood is almost seven decades old, and it’s basically a group that reacted to a secular nationalist movement in Egypt. It’s—right now it’s been regulated to do mainly social welfare and social services.

ABERNETHY: Is it what you would call a radical Islamic group?

HUDA: I think there are fringes of the Brotherhood that had radical groups and voices. They’ve been, I think, mostly eliminated under Mubarak in the ’90s. Right now it’s a very small group that’s mismanaged but also has very little influence as we speak today.

ABERNETHY: And in a new government, whatever the name of it, you would expect there to be religious representation, and what does that mean? What does that imply?

HUDA: I think that what that means is that the religious representatives will try to push for more Islamic values in the government, perhaps more Islamic teachings and ethics in schools, and perhaps have law to represent more Islamic values, but I don’t think they’ll have any real influence in the beginning, because the concern is now constitutional reform and unemployment.

ABERNETHY: And what about the religious minorities, especially the Christians, the Copts? There are ten million, about, of those?

HUDA: Yes.

ABERNETHY: What would be the outlook for them?

HUDA: Well, at this time we know they are participating with the protests. They are looking for a change in Egypt. I think right now they are most likely positioned to take part in the government, and we’re hoping and many people are hoping there will be a more pluralistic government that will embrace the Christian Copts.

ABERNETHY: They might even have a place in the government?

HUDA: I think they will.

ABERNETHY: Well, what about Israel and the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians? What are the implications of that whoever makes up the government, the new government in Egypt?

HUDA: Yes, I think this is the big question and the big concern for many of the Western thinkers and analysts. What will happen to the treaty signed with Israel? What is the security risk for Egypt? But for what it seems like that right now the government, the transitional government will take care of internal matters but also may be—stay with international treaties that it signed with Israel. There’s no indication that radical Islam will come to the forefront, and there’s no indication that it will abdicate with current treaties.

ABERNETHY: And what about between Egypt and the US?

HUDA: Well, it’s looking like on the streets there’s some discontent with Western forces and American influence in terms of its delay in moving the regime out. But I think Egyptians are very positive with their alliances with the West, and I think they will continue with those alliances.

ABERNETHY: Dr. Qamar-ul Huda from the US Institute of Peace. Thank you.

HUDA: Thank you for having me.

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BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: As the US tries again to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, American Jews are speaking in unusually diverse voices about what Israel should do. Generally, older Orthodox Jews are strongly opposed to anything they think might weaken Israel’s security. But more and more younger, less religious American Jews are publicly critical of some of the policies of the Israeli government. Betty Rollin listened to the full range of opinions.

BETTY ROLLIN: This year’s New York Salute to Israel parade honored the 100th anniversary of Tel Aviv. Unsurprisingly, the spectators included many fervent supporters of Israel.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: I just went and I was in love with it. The people are amazing, the spirituality and everything about it, you can’t find it anywhere else.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I think it’s important for my kids to know their tradition, their history, and for them to grow up with that love of Israel that my parents instilled in me and I would pass it on to them.

Rabbi Avi Weiss

Rabbi AVI WEISS (Hebrew Institute of Riverdale): The history of the Jewish people is wed to the land of Israel. The Bible talks about a special mission that the Jewish people have, and whenever it talks about the covenant, which is our contract with God, it talks about children, people, and land, and from the very beginning that land as defined is the land of Israel. That’s where Abraham and Sarah walked.

ROLLIN: Rabbi Avi Weiss, an Orthodox rabbi in Riverdale, New York, has strong personal ties to Israel. Two of his children live there with their children. He travels there often, and Weiss’s spiritual connection to Israel runs deep.

Rabbi WEISS: As wonderful as I feel in America, in Israel I feel like I’m spiritually flying. I can’t explain it. It’s like asking someone why they’re in love.

ROLLIN: Many American Jews are very moved by the concept of Israel. What’s behind that?

Professor STEVEN COHEN (Hebrew Union College): In part, they are reacting to Israel as a response to the Holocaust. For years, Jews have suffered from persecution. That persecution never reaches the height that it did in the destruction of six million Jews in Europe, and American Jews are very aware of that narrative from ashes to the glorious, miraculous state of Israel and that really cements the American-Jewish relationship with Israel.

ROLLIN: Whereas American Jews overwhelmingly support the state of Israel, there is more and more criticism of its policies, even on the part of some rabbis. Rabbi Michael Paley is a scholar in residence at the UJA Federation in New York. Although a strong supporter of Israel, Rabbi Paley is troubled by its treatment of the Palestinians.

“American Jews are very aware of that narrative from ashes to the glorious, miraculous state of Israel, and that really cements the American-Jewish relationship with Israel.”

Rabbi MICHAEL PALEY: We’re now in control of other people, and sometimes we’ve been too aggressive. Sometimes we haven’t listened to their rights. Sometimes we’ve blotted out their voices. Sometimes they made us blot out their voices.

ROLLIN: Philip Weiss is a nonreligious American Jew who writes a blog that is very critical of Israel.

PHILIP WEISS: Israel is pursuing disastrous policies on its own that, as a Jew, I have to stand up and say this goes against all my training as an American. This goes against the civil rights struggle in which I took a part. This goes against the Vietnam War struggle in which I took a part, and so I’m going to stand up as a Jew, as a proud Jew, and denounce these policies and say you have to find a new path.

Israel came out of a movement that responded to horrific conditions for Jews in Europe. Those conditions don’t exist anymore, and that is why this summoning the Holocaust—which is what the Jewish leadership is reduced to again and again in order to maintain support for Israel in the American Jewish population—that has run its course.

ROLLIN: Abby Bellows is a young Jewish American who is sympathetic with the Jewish need for a homeland, but she also has reservations.

ABBY BELLOWS (Community Organizer): I feel complex in my feelings towards Israel. My grandmother escaped from Germany, and a lot of our family was killed there. So I get the need for a Jewish state from that kind of visceral level, and I recognize that anti-Semitism still exists in the world. But at the same time I feel that there’s something fundamentally tense for me about having a state that by definition gives preference to one group over others, because my Jewish values taught me about egalitarianism, and I feel like they are not being represented necessarily in the policies of Israel.

A lot of my friends are into progressive Israel activism. But I have a lot of other friends who just feel really alienated from the state. I’m a community organizer, and a lot of left-Jews really don’t connect or are embarrassed by Israel or feel really alienated.

ROLLIN: Professor Steven Cohen has studied the wide range of opinions American Jews have on Israel. He found that non-Orthodox Jews over 65 are far more committed to Israel than those under 35.

Prof. COHEN: In large part that’s because younger people are more likely to marry non-Jews, and it’s the result of that marriage that their attachment to Israel is lower than older people. Among non-Orthodox Jews, most young Jews marry non-Jews.

ROLLIN: And many non-Orthodox young Jews feel they can fully express their Judaism in America without reference to Israel. In contrast . . .

Prof. COHEN: . . . Orthodox Jews, as opposed to everybody else, have become more attached to Israel: more travel to Israel, more study in Israel, more settlement in Israel. They are more conservative, some say hawkish, about Israel’s conflict with its Arab neighbors, and their approach to Middle East politics will come to more and more influence the way American Jews relate to that part of the world.

Professor Steven Cohen

ROLLIN: The Orthodox, among others, are greatly concerned that the two-state solution, which Obama favors, would result in a loss of land — and security.

Rabbi WEISS: We withdrew from Lebanon, and what happened was suddenly the rockets came in. We withdrew from Gush Kativ, from Gaza, and the rockets came into Sderot, and I have great fears at this point if we are going to withdraw from the West Bank, from Samaria and Judea, then Tel Aviv is right there in the line. I desperately want to live in peace with Palestinians. Rabin used to say you have to make peace with your enemy—which you can only make peace with an enemy who wants to make peace with you. Having Gaza which is controlled by Hamas, by terrorists, or withdrawing from the West Bank, which could then be taken over by Hamas or Hezbollah, that’s not good for Israel and it’s not good for America.

ROLLIN: However American Jews feel about Israel, the important thing, according to both sides, is that they feel.

Prof. COHEN: Criticism of Israel indicates engagement with Israel. American Jews should be worried when their children stop criticizing Israel.

ROLLIN: The question is whether the growing criticism in America will affect US policy toward the state of Israel.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Betty Rollin in New York.