Mayor of Ramallah, Janet Michael

Honorable guests, ladies & gentlemen


Christians have been residents in the Holy Land and the area of the Middle East since 2000.

Christians have kept their beliefs & religion in spite of all the political & religious changes & revolutions.  They have kept their habits, culture & religion. The church had a great responsibility of keeping & reviving the relation of love between the Christians & the church.

Ramallah as a Christian city located 10 miles north of Jerusalem and 20 miles away from the Mediterranean was founded in 1550 as an entirely Christian village.  The first church was established at the beginning of the seventeenth century by the Greek Orthodox.  Later on Christian Missions started arriving in Ramallah.    First the Roman Catholics and Greek then the Quakers followed by the Anglicans the Lutherans and Baptists.  All these churches started their schools and the largest and most famous was the Friends Boys & Girls School, where they had a boarding school educating students from Ramallah and surrounding communities. Including Jerusalem, ludd, Jaffa, Gaza and even as for as Beirut.  Recently a new Coptic church is being built .

Meanwhile, Ramallah became bigger during the Turkish Rule.  It was the main town in the area surrounded by 88 villages, among these the Christian villages of Birzeit, which has the most distinguished university, Jifna, Abood, Ein Areek and Taybeh.  These villages contain the ruins of the most ancient churches and sights.

In 1945, Ramallah had a population of 4,520 Christians. This population should have increased –according to a prediction for- mula to13,560 in 2007 while in the Christian villages around Ramallah was 3890 in 1945 and was expected to reach 11,670 by the end of 2007.

Today, the number of Christians in Ramallah is around 6450 and in the villages of Abood, Ein Arik, Jifna, Taybeh & Birzeit is 6500.  Including the Christian refugees of 1948 who were kicked from their homeland in Ramleh, Lod, Jaffa and other cities.

At that time the population of Ramallah mounted to 13500 including Moslem refugees.

by 1953 Ramallah 's population had doubled and the town's economy & infrastructure were not equipped to handle such a rapid growing increase of population.  The worsening of the economical & political situations lead native Ramallah Christians to emigrate to USA seeking a better and safer life. 

Today Ramallah acts as the temporary administrative capital of Palestine.  It is the cultural, economic & medical centre of Palestine.  Ramallah now is not the home of its inhabitants.  It is an open city and its arms are always welcoming Palestinian from North & South enjoying its moderate weather & liberal atmosphere seeking work, education, medication, recreation & establishing businesses.

Being the temporary capital of Palestine, you can find the consulates & representative of the world, banks & financial institutions whether governmental or nongovernmental, also the residence of political & government people.

Christians in Ramallah live side by side with Muslems in harmony, sharing the same hopes, aspirations and fate.  They live under the unlawful Israeli occupation & work with many peoples of the world who are peace loving to end this occupation,

Our Palestinian authority does not differentiate between Muslems & Christians, although Christians are a minority, we are respected and according to ????? ????? a cota, Christians Mayors were elected for historically Christian cities.  I can feel that being a previous head mistress of a government school with a majority of Muslems, I was highly respected by the ministry of education and by the students, their parents & the community I was dealing with.

Ramallah population is now 35,000 in habitants, but during the day is about 80,000.  Ramallah is growing fast but the area is restricted to 20,000 dunums.  Israeli settlements surrounded us and there is no way to expand.

Most of our Ramallah natives have emigrated to the United States of America running away from the miseries of the occupation, but they never forget their home town, they are about 40,000.

They have established the Ramallah Federation.  This year they are celebrating its 50th anniversary in Detroit where it was first started.

Every year they hold a week convention in one city of 52 states.  In this convention, they plan for the coming year they revive their memories of their homeland.  Also, every Easter, they plan a trip to Ramallah and celebrate Palm Sunday and the holy week of Easter ceremony. They pay a visit to Jerusalem & Bethlehem & Nazareth.

They would like to come back and help develop their home town or stay for some time but they are denied that right.

The federation has many projects for the benefit & their hometown. The most important was buying 26 dunums + establishing the Ramallah Hospital which is the main hospital which is the main hospital in the area.  Now, other hospitals are being built on the land.  They also offer grants about $1200 for Ramallah Students to help them pursue their studies at the university.

Within the yearly visit, they donate for the charity societies and clubs in Ramallah.

We in Ramallah have excellent relationship with Bethlehem.  Ramllees share with other Palestinians in renovating the Church of Nativity in the early seventeenth century. 

Before the occupation, the distance was short.  In thirty minutes, we used to visit all holy places, visit our friends, go to restaurants.  But now, it takes hours besides the pain & suffering.  I pity our students who study at Bethlehem University, because may of them study their.  They have to rent & study.

Every Christmas night, we used to go in buses to Bethlehem to attend the mass.  Now we watch it on T.V.  We used to go to the YMCA in Beit Sahour.  They used to make a barbeque after the ceremony, and mingle with tourists from the entire world-All this is gone.

Palestinians are suffering from the occupation, the apartheid wall, road blocks, family separation, uprooting of trees, insurgencies, confiscating land & water, and so preventing and refusing to allow the creation of a sovereign state on the land that was occupied in 1967.

We appeal to you for help to get our legitimate rights to live in peace as well as all other nations.  We need your support to have work opportunities for employment & jobs for our people to support themselves and stay in their homes and on what was left of their land.

We are ready to cooperate with all representatives of the world to help us hear our voice & relay what they see with their own eyes on what is happening on this Holy land.