My Evening with a Palestinian Priest

An article I wrote about Father Yousef (above) for the January/February issue of Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is now available online.  I've posted an excerpt below; for the full article click on "We Need Justice," Says Father Yousef Sa'adah, a Melkite Priest in Nablus.

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AT SUNSET A bone-chilling cold descended on Nablus, even inside the home of Father Yousef Sa'adah, the 67-year-old priest of St. John's Melkite Church. For an hour the priest had been describing the difficulties faced by the city's Christian community. His words, like the cold, made comfort impossible.

Among the examples he cited: "One family had no meat for their children for one month. Some cannot pay for electricity or rent. Some cannot afford medical care, and so they die."

The longer Father Yousef spoke, the more he looked exhausted, almost shell-shocked. It was as if relating these events made them real all over again, and it was a weight the aging priest could hardly bear.

The story that most visibly disturbed him, however, concerned an eight-year-old girl and her mother. At 10 o'clock one morning, Father Yousef recalled, a woman appeared at his office. In tears, she told him that as her daughter was getting ready for school that morning she had asked, "Mother, what is the meaning of life?" Quickly offering her own answer to the rhetorical question, the daughter matter-of-factly stated, "It is better to be dead than alive."

And then she left for school.