Christian Palestinian's family part of exodus from the Holy Land

As part of a Jewish-Palestinian economic delegation led by U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, she entered the city on roads reserved for Israelis.

Palestinians are restricted to roads that pass Israeli checkpoints, designed to keep suicide bombers from crossing into Jerusalem.

"You could walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem," Ahwal said. "A five-minute commute takes an hour and a half on a good day."

Ahwal, 49, a former Haslett resident who now lives in Canton, is part of a decades-long exodus of Christians from the Holy Land.

Her Roman Catholic family traces its ancestry to 16th-century Ramallah. Of the 33,000 descendants of seven 16th century brothers, only 1,000 remain in Ramallah: "There will be no Christians left," she said. "No living church. Just a museum."

Ahwal does have happy memories of celebrating Christmas in Bethlehem. Santa Claus would arrive in a red Cadillac, but as a bit player in the story of Jesus.

"There, it's the celebration of the birth," she said.

Ahwal's family has suffered, too. In 1948, during Israel's war of independence, her mother's family was given two hours to leave home.

During the Arab-Israeli war in 1967, a cousin disappeared one day on his way to work. No one was charged in his killing.

After the war, Israeli soldiers once dragged Ahwal's father outside and beat him.

"You don't have one person that ever met my dad that does not have a kind word about him," she said. "Yet young Israeli soldiers did not see his humanity."

Ahwal and her sister were sent to live with an uncle in Livonia when she was 15. The family followed later.

Ahwal thinks there is room to create two states: one Jewish, one Palestinian.

"I do not want an Israeli to be evicted from the house they took from my mother," she said. "But I want my mother, as a refugee, to be able to say, 'I have been wronged, and there is something that should be done about this.' I don't know what the compensation is. Maybe somebody saying, 'I'm sorry.' "

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