What we really need to know about Palestine/Israel

David Neuhaus SJ was the guest speaker at a Zoom hub meeting of Jesuits, colleagues and friends, to launch his latest book Conquest or Leven: Reflections of a Catholic Priest in Palestine/Israel », published by Orbis Press. Members of the Mary Knoll publishing company in the US formed one of the hubs, along with the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice and the Manresa Jesuit Centre for Spirituality in Dublin, and members of the Belfast Jesuit Centre who organised the event which took place on 19 October, 2026 at 7pm. A warm welcome was extended to all, by Caren Collins of the Belfast Centre, who chaired the launch.

Fr David, a South African born Jewish Israeli who became a Catholic and a Jesuit priest, joined the meeting from Johannesburg where he is working on a series of short introductory books to the Bible before returning to his home in Jerusalem. In an half-hour address he told the story of his life, illustrated with photos and clippings. He spoke of his family who were proud German Jews, one of whom served in the German army during the First World War. The Second World War told a different tale when the family were forced to seek refuge in South Africa as the horror of the Shoah/Holocaust unfolded.

David was sent by his family to Palestine/Israel when he was 15. There he studied and learnt Hebrew, and met with the Palestinian people who became as family to him. Whilst there he also encountered the Catholic religious sisters who radiated to him the joy of Christ, and eventually he became a Catholic and joined the Jesuit Order.

All this time he was leaning about the history of the Israeli state, and the plight of the Palestinian people he had come to love. He witnessed daily the intolerable abused meted out to them in their own homeland – a homeland that was being forcibly and continuously taken from them.

These were the experiences which shaped him and gave rise his urge to share the reality that is Palestine /Israel, and the truth of the suffering of the Palestinian people. In his book he pulls on threads of biblical studies, theology, history, and political analysis to weave a coherent tapestry of truth that challenges Christians to work for justice and peace and an end to the genocidal violence inflicted on the Palestinian population.

After his exposition, Fr David was interviewed about his book by Pat Coyle of Irish Jesuit Communications. Having acknowledged himself that the book, Conquest or Leven, has been written largely in a time of conquest for the people of Gaza, she asked him to expand on his assertion that the white Christian western and North American worlds are complicit in the genocidal conquest inflicted upon them.

They discussed the importance and significanc of language when we create the world we live in with the words we use. And the positive but also profoundly negative roles that the bible and its interpretation plays in the ongoing conflict. David spoke about his chapter on the hugely problematic text of Joshua 6 where God delivers the land of Jericho into the hands of the Israelites after killing almost all of the city’s population. The history of the violence of Christendom was also referenced,including the centuries of ongoing antisemitism culminating in the Shoah, and the violence against Muslims graphically portrayed in the Crusades.

David also discussed his vision of a future of ‘hope’, of justice and peace (articulated at the end of his book) and what people can do to make it a reality by acting as prophets like the ‘Good Samaritan’, whose care of his ‘neighbour’ and refusal to walk by him was prophet like.

After a short break, questions from the various hub groups were collected and responded to by David, including how to address the assertion by some Jewish people that Christianity was founded on violence. It was, David replied, or at least Christendom was, and we must honestly and sorrowfully admit that.

The evening ended at 9pm with all in agreement that they had been privileged to hear David speak so movingly of his life and of his commitment to and love of the suffering Palestinian people. And to witness the steely and clear-eyed determination to continue to work for the justice that will bring a true and lasting peace to Palestine/Israel, and to pay the price that work demands.

About the author: David Mark Neuhaus SJ is a member of the Jesuit community in the Holy Land. He teaches Scripture in various institutions in Israel and Palestine, including the Latin Patriarchate Seminary in Beit Jala, Bethlehem University, and the Salesian Theological Institute in Jerusalem. He completed a BA, MA and PhD (Political Science) at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He then completed pontifical degrees in theology and Scripture in Paris (Centre Sevres) and Rome (Pontifical Biblical Institute). He is the author of numerous books and articles. He is emeritus Latin Patriarchal Vicar for Hebrew-speaking Catholics, Migrants and Asylum Seekers in Israel. At present, he is also a fellow at the Jesuit Institute of South Africa.