The Fraudulent Lawsuit Pitting Christians Against Israeli “Settlers”
While evangelical Christians are some of Israel’s most ardent supporters, an Arab-Christian family has been trying to steal land in Gush Etzion, and despite numerous court orders rejecting their claims and evictions, their illegal land grab persists, championed by virulently anti-Israel and antisemitic groups. Some groups, hiding under the mantle of Christianity, claim that Christian Zionism is the true enemy of the Church.
The Israeli Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration, also known as Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), recently set borders for a new town in Gush Etzion called Nahal Heletz, also known as Neve Ori. The new region of Israeli settlement is an area of some 3,000 dunams (approximately 740 acres) located at the foot of Har (Mount) Gilo, an area of particular strategic importance that serves as an Israeli corridor between Gush Etzion and Jerusalem.
The town was founded as a farm following the 2019 terrorist murder-rape of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher in the area. Nahal Heletz is one of five communities that received approval in June in response to the Palestinian Authority’s push for statehood and support for international legal action against Israel. The Israeli government recognized the settlements in return for an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, which had Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich make concessions that prevented the P.A. ‘s economic collapse.
Nahal Heletz and seven other parcels of land comprising some 30 dunams are designated as Area C under the Oslo framework and, therefore, under full Israeli civil and security jurisdiction. They belong to Himnuta, the procurement arm of the Jewish National Fund. The remaining land parcels are registered Israeli state land, designated as Area C.
Despite clear proof of ownership as part of Israel, illegal intrusions have been carried out over the years from the Arab villages of Batir, Walajah, and Husan. Illegal roads have been paved between them to control the area and establish irreversible facts on the ground.
UNESCO has supported this claim, declaring Al-Makhrour (the Arabic name for Nahal Heletz)a World Heritage Site located in Palestine in 2014. Proponents of the illegal Palestinian seizure of Israeli land have cited the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Jewish settlements must end “as rapidly as possible.”
In addition, the Kisiya Christian Arab family from the nearby PA-controlled village Beit Jallah has filed several legal petitions. They seek post-facto ownership of structures they built in violation of the law, recognition of property rights, and claims of land ownership to which they have no legal claim. Israeli courts have repeatedly and unequivocally rejected these petitions, and their fraudulent ownership claims have been disproven. The court decisions have noted their lack of good faith and violation of injunctions and administrative orders.
The Palestinian Authority, frustrated by its failed legal and political attempts to thwart Israeli control of this strategic area, launched a worldwide propaganda campaign to block the development of the planned community. This has generated a powerful Christian-based outcry based on misrepresentation of the facts focused on the Ksiya family, a Christian Arab family with Israeli and French citizenship.
The campaign is decidedly “anti-Occupation” and is focused on the photogenic 30-year-old Alice Ksiya, who established a GoFundMe to “fight against settler land theft.” Her Instagram page cites her accomplishments as placing second in the Middle East Broadcasting’s “Miss Fitness Contest” and fourth in the organization’s “Miss Bikini Contest.” Alice, her brother, and her mother, Michelle, were arrested after protesting the land.
Despite claims of ancestral ownership, the family did not lay claim to the 5,000-square-meter plot until 2001, when they illegally built a restaurant there. In 2005, Ramzi Ksiyeh got a stop-work order from the Israeli Civil Administration. Despite the court order, he added a house in 2012. He contested the stop-work order, but it was upheld in court. The house was demolished by court order. The family rebuilt, but the buildings were destroyed again in 2013 and again in 2015. A final court decision in 2023 clearly stated that the property claimed by Ksiyeh is not owned by the family, and they were forbidden from even entering the plot. One year later, illegal construction was again found and taken down on July 30, 2024.
While the family claims the land is ancestral, they have never been able to produce a bill of sale transferring the land from the previous owner to anyone in the family or a will bequeathing the land to them. The document they put into evidence to support their claim of ownership simply said they had paid taxes as renters.
On the other hand, Hemnutah (a subsidiary of the Jewish National Fund aka Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael) did provide proof of officially having registered their ownership of the property in 1969. Ironically, Hemnutah won their countersuit against the Ksiyeh family, who had to pay NIS 18,000 in rent for having used the land since 2012 plus NIS 20,000 in court costs.
An article in Iranian Press TV described the Ksiya family as being “among the last remaining Christian families in the area.” Indeed, anti-Christian oppression carried out by the Palestinian Authority in nearby Bethlehem and the surrounding area has driven Christians away. The article describes the land as the “ancestral property” of the family, despite the opposite being true.
An article in The Art Newspaper noted that the claims by the Ksiya family are only the tip of the iceberg and that “around 90% of the land in this area is owned by Palestinian Christians”.
“Many Christians in the West do very little to help those Christians who are struggling to stay. And on the contrary, we see that they are actually supporting those who are making the Christian presence in Palestine disappear, which is the Israeli occupation,” one of the Arab Christians told the site.
The Ksiya family’s cause has been taken up by anti-Israel advocates. Reverend Munther Isaac is a strong voice in their favor. Munthere founded Kairos Palestine, an organization launched in 2009 whose founding document makes antisemitic statements, such as engaging in replacement theology to deny the Jewish people’s historical connection to Israel. The Kairos Document calls the Torah a “dead letter…used as a weapon in our present history in order to deprive us of our rights in our own land.” Kairos describes the First Intifada, a campaign of attacks on Israelis as a “peaceful struggle.” Kairos justified Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Munthere became famous when Tucker Carlson interviewed him on how Israel treats Christians.
The Ksiya family is also supported by the European-funded Rabbis for Human Rights and the World Council of Churches, a collective of “347 churches, denominations, and church fellowships in more than 110 countries and territories.” NGO Monitor has documented the organization’s history of antisemitism and anti-Israel activism. The WCC condemns Christian Zionism as distorting “the interpretation of the Word of God and the historic connection of Palestinians—Christians and Muslims—to the Holy Land.” According to the WCC, Christian Zionism “enables the manipulation of public opinion by Zionist lobbies and damages intra-Christian relations.”
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