Taybeh is the last village in the West Bank whose population is entirely Christian, without exception. In his series "In the Lawless Land", Rabbi Benny Lau noted that Christians between the Jordan and the sea are in a process of steady decline, and now make up less than one percent of the Palestinian population in the region. The signs of departure are visible in houses standing empty in the village. Fifteen families have left Taybeh, and the country, since October 7, for other places where a large Taybeh community already exists.
Translation:
Fr. Jacques: From '67, the year of the occupation, the Six-Day War, until the first intifada in '87, we lived without problems.
Lau: 20 years.
Fr. Jacques: 20 years. We lived under Israeli occupation for 20 years and we still do, but in that period it was something else, completely different.
Lau: Would you want to go back to that period?
Fr. Jacques: Many people want to go back to that period.
Lau: Ah, Father Jacques, I'm asking about you.
Fr. Jacques: Me, personally? I want to. I hope. I pray to go back to that period, when I'd put the key in the ignition and drive to Jaffa, to the beach, to have a barbecue. Settlers would pass in their cars, come into the village in the yellow buses, park on the side, and get out to buy ice pops, ice cream bars, and water.
Lau: But if I have here the Jewish people saying we want a state for the Jewish people, a national state. And then the Muslim comes and says I want this place, Israel/Palestine, to be the nation-state of the Arab nation. Does that fit together or not?
Fr. Jacques: What do we agree on?
Lau: On this.
Fr. Jacques: On land? You and I, when we die, what do we take with us to the grave? The Holy One, blessed be He, the Master of the Universe, when He created man took dust; from dust came man, dust. But if a person thinks about exactly where he is returning to [...]