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Abboud, who has served Mughar for 27 years, said that "angry is the smallest word that you can say" for how he feels about what happened.

Druze unleashed attacks on Mughar's Christians in 1981, though the town's priest and other Christians say the recent attacks were far more damaging than those 24 years ago. Other Galilean towns have suffered attacks in recent decades, though Christians here say the February raid on Mughar has been among the most serious.

Some victims believe envy was a motivating factor. Mughar's Christians, among the town's wealthier citizens, are successful in business. "The Druze just wanted an excuse to attack," said Yaub, who asked that his real name not be used. His family owns a restaurant now littered with glass shards and destroyed appliances. During the attacks, Yaub heard the gangs converge on his shop. He and others said they saw hundreds of attackers fill the streets. Fearing for his life, he ran upstairs and hid. Marauders smashed his shop's new refrigerators and damaged a new oven. Two-week-old cake icing covers the plastic top of the cash register. Its empty cash drawer and base lie upside down on the floor. Unlike other Christian businesses throughout Mughar, however, the restaurant was not burned because Yaub's Druze neighbor tossed out a Molotov cocktail the attackers had hurled into his shop. Fire gutted at least three shops on his block.

Yaub said that the oven alone cost the equivalent of $22,000. Any insurance that he or others may have had will probably not cover the damages caused by violence. Total damage to his shop was more than $100,000.

"I saw my own death with my own eyes," Yaub said. Even though he's afraid of more attacks, he's determined to rebuild. "We're going to fix this and reopen. I'm going to stay here."

Other Christians have decided that staying to rebuild poses too much danger. One family on a street marked with fire-ravaged homes was removing belongings from their dwelling at the end of February.

A woman who introduced herself as Claudia, arms full of kitchen goods, stood beneath the blackened stairway of her parents' torched apartment. Claudia cried as she moved her parents to Ramah, the town where she lives. But as the family's van drove away to Ramah with an armoire strapped to its roof, human-rights lawyer Botrus Mansour of Nazareth told CT that Druze unleashed a longer though less destructive pogrom against Christians in Ramah two years ago.

St. George's Abboud said Druze leaders are not always able to stop violence once it starts. "Even the Druze sheiks have suffered for what happened," Abboud said. "They don't have control. Even the big chief of the Druze has been here. They are doing their best."

Christians want to dwell peacefully with their neighbors. "We aren't looking for separation," the priest said. "We're looking to live together. Christians can't live in a ghetto. Christians have to live in the world as a testimony of the love of God. This is what our parish has done."

Abboud said church attendance has been sparse because people fear leaving their homes. "I'd like to ask Christian people around the world to think about their brothers in the Holy Land and to pray for them and to know there's the remnant of Israel still living here."

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May 2005, Vol. 49, No. 5