Sacred Christian site Emmaus destroyed by Israel
“The Road to Emmaus,” 1877 painting by Robert Zund. The Gospel of Luke account remains beloved reading and gives inspiration to spiritual retreats. United Methodist News Service.
By Alison Weir | Israel-Palestine News | April 15, 2023
Emmaus is a profoundly important place in Christianity. The Bible says that after Jesus’ death and resurrection, he appeared before two of his disciples while they were walking on the road to Emmaus, although at first they didn’t recognize him. When they arrived in Emmaus, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it in pieces, and gave it to them.
In 1967, after Israel launched its Six Day War, Israel expelled the inhabitants of Emmaus and obliterated almost all traces of the village, along with two other Palestinian villages nearby. This was part of the Israeli strategy, in the words of an Israeli historian, “to take over as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible” (a strategy initiated in the 1948 war to establish the modern state of Israel and then to erase the Palestinian presence).
Israeli journalist Amira Hass describes Emmaus before it was leveled: “Schools, mosques, an ancient church, olive presses, paths to fields and orchards, bubbling streams, mountain air, sabra bushes, carob and olive and deciduous trees, harvested fields, graves, water cisterns.”
Israel then “brought in the bulldozers and destroyed and detonated and trampled. Not for the first time, not for the last. And the owners of all that beauty – the elderly, the children, the infants – heard and watched the explosions from a kilometer or two away.”
The villages’ inhabitants then “trekked for days through the mountains to Ramallah, leaving their belongings behind. Four seniors and a one-year-old baby died along the way. The elderly and disabled residents who were unable to leave their homes had their houses demolished on top of them. Eighteen were killed, buried underneath the rubble.”
IDF soldiers expel the residents of Imwas (originally named Emmaus) from their village (source)
In 1972 Israel built its popular Canada Park on the location, named after Jewish Canadians who had been persuaded to donate for the venture. Hass writes that the park “was designed to conceal and bury” its war crime.
Christians often focus on the Biblical Emmaus story
Today, Christian pastors often retell the story of Jesus’ appearance to his disciples in Emmaus.
The numerous paintings of this sacred event are featured on Christian websites around the country. The story is often used as an inspirational message to Christians, for example, to become “more committed to serving others.” […]
Yet, almost none of the sites featuring the Biblical story of Emmaus seem aware of the modern story, and of the people made homeless and in need of help – perhaps because so few know these facts. As author Grace Halsell wrote in a powerful essay, most Christians are unaware of what they don’t know about Israel. “They were indoctrinated by U.S. supporters of Israel in their own country and when they traveled to the Land of Christ most did so under Israeli sponsorship.”
A moving film recounting the facts about Emmaus, “Ritorno a Emmaus” (Return to Emmaus), was broadcast on Swiss Italian Television on May 29, 1987 but was not shown in the U.S. This is the first time it’s available in English:
2 Comments »
Leave a reply to tonytran2015 Cancel reply
Featured Video
What is AZAPAC? Why is it important?
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Chris Matthews got it: Neocons want to destroy the Middle East for Israel
By Jonas E. Alexis | Veterans Today | August 4, 2107
Chris Matthews attacked the Neocon project in 2015 by saying that the Neocons and warmongers in the United States aspire to create complete chaos in the Middle East, presumably for Israel. His words are worth quoting in full:
“Why were the people in the administration like [Paul] Wolfowitz and the others talking about going into Iraq from the very beginning, when they got into the white house long before there was a 911 long before there was WMD. It seemed like there was a deeper reason. I don’t get it. It seemed like WMD was a cover story.
“The reason I go back to that is there’s a consistent pattern: the people who wanted that war in the worst ways, neocons so called, Wolfowitz, certainly Cheney.. it’s the same crowd of people that want us to overthrow Bashar Assad, .. it’s the same group of people that don’t want to negotiate at all with the Iranians, don’t want any kind of rapprochement with the Iranians, they want to fight that war. They’re willing to go in there and bomb.
“They have a consistent impulsive desire to make war on Arab and Islamic states in a never-ending campaign, almost like an Orwellian campaign they will never outlive, that’s why I have a problem with that thinking. … we’ve got to get to the bottom of it. Why did they take us to Iraq, because that’s the same reason they want to take us into Damascus and why they want to have permanent war with Iran.”
Yours truly and many others have been saying the same thing for years. We would not have perpetual wars in the Middle East if the Neocons did not take their orders from Israel. Even George W. Bush implicitly admitted this.
George W. Bush once asked his father to define Neoconservatism. “‘What’s a neocon?’ ‘Do you want names, or a description?’ answered [the elder Bush]. ‘Description.’ ‘Well,’ said the former president of the United States, ‘I’ll give it to you in one word: Israel.’”[1] … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
loongtip on When Threats Replace Evid… loongtip on Zelensky tried to kill the cha… eddieb on I might get killed for posting… Bill Francis on I might get killed for posting… loongtip on Beijing cancels Panama deals a… loongtip on Showdown loongtip on New York Bans Israel-Linked Te… loongtip on Trump tells India to stop purc… eddieb on The Old Testament and the Geno… papasha408 on Trump’s war posturing against… Coronistan on This is How We Should Have Res… Coronistan on NO MANDATES, NO PROFITS: MODER…
Aletho News- What is AZAPAC? Why is it important?
- The Toxic Border: How Israel’s Chemical Spraying is Reshaping Life in South Lebanon
- Zelensky tried to kill the chance for Russia-Ukraine peace, again
- Somalia president warns against Israeli interference, vows to prevent any military base in Somaliland
- Iranian FM says uranium enrichment to continue ‘even at cost of war’
- No, Al-Jazeera, Climate Change Hasn’t Altered African Flood and Drought Patterns
- Bad Science, Big Consequences
- New Study Rebuts The Assumption That Anthropogenic CO2 Molecules Have ‘Special’ Properties
- Racketeering Scheme?: Vaccine Makers Profit Twice by Selling Drugs to Treat Vaccine Injuries
- When Threats Replace Evidence
- If Americans Knew
- In Gaza, marriage is a form of resistance – Not a ceasefire Day 121
- Israel returns bodies with evidence of organ theft and severe mutilation – Not a ceasefire Day 120
- AIPAC Coordinates Donors in Illinois House Primaries
- Geneva Academy warns Gaza death toll could top 200,000
- Media ignore allegations that Israel raped German journalist
- Former Israeli PM: Settlers are Aiding and Abetting Jewish Rioters in the West Bank
- Tucker Carlson sheds light on Christian-Muslim harmony in Palestine, Jordan
- Revealed: Private jet owned by Trump friend used by ICE to deport Palestinians to West Bank
- Bypassing Oversight to Rush Billions in Arms to Israel
- Aid trickles into Gaza, medical evacuations trickle out – Not a ceasefire Day 119
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Natural Gas Storage Level Dwindles To Just 28%… Increasingly Critical
- New Study Rebuts The Assumption That Anthropogenic CO2 Molecules Have ‘Special’ Properties
- Climate Scientist Who Predicted End Of “Heavy Frost And Snow” Now Refuses Media Inquiries
- Polar Bear Numbers Rising And Health Improving In Areas With The Most Rapid Sea Ice Decline
- One Reason Only For Germany’s Heating Gas Crisis: Its Hardcore-Dumbass Energy Policy
- 130 Years Later: The CO2 Greenhouse Effect Is Still Only An Imaginary-World Thought Experiment
- New Study Affirms Rising CO2’s Greening Impact Across India – A Region With No Net Warming In 75 Years
- Germany’s Natural Gas Crisis Escalates … One Storage Site Near Empty …Government Silent
- Polar Colding…Antarctica Saw Its Coldest October In 44 Years!
- New Study: Sea Levels Rose 20 Times The Modern Rate During The Roman Warm Period
Aletho News 
The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories. Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter (2014). “The Jimmy Carter Library”, p.759, Simon and Schusterhttps://www.azquotes.com/quote/653533
LikeLike
I sent an account of the fate of Imwas to the Guardian years ago. My letter was published (it probably wouldn’t be today), but I fear it has not had much of an impact. You never know, though: it may have opened a few eyes here and there.
LikeLike