On the peeling walls of the Bandaq family's living room, Christian icons hang in lieu of the nationalist posters common in Palestinian homes.
But since Chris Bandaq was arrested by Israel this month, the prints of St. George spearing the Dragon and a doleful Madonna and Child have provided an apt backdrop to the family's mixed feelings at the young man's role in a 28-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"We must fight for our rights, but facing a tank with an M-16 (rifle) is not useful and attacking civilians is not right," Khader Bandaq told Reuters at their Bethlehem home.
His 24-year-old younger brother had just become the first Christian member of the militant al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to be captured by Israeli troops in continuing security sweeps.
An offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, the Brigades have carried out dozens of suicide gun and bomb attacks during the uprising using al-Aqsa, a major Muslim shrine in Jerusalem, as its rallying cry.
Al-Aqsa is seen as secular compared with Muslim militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and its nationalist fight against occupation elicits some support in a Christian community that makes up no more than 5 percent of the 3.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"Chris Bandaq symbolizes the unity of Christians and Muslims on the matter of the Palestinian national struggle," said Kamal Hmeid, Bethlehem secretary-general for Fatah and a Muslim.
This inter-religious understanding was most manifest early last year when dozens of Palestinian gunmen sought refuge from an Israeli dragnet in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity. Church leaders backed a deal in which the gunmen were released and sent into exile.
Yet according to Palestinian security sources, only around a dozen Christians serve in the Brigades -- reflecting, in relative terms, a reluctance on the part of the community to take up arms.
"All Christians agree that we need to resist Israeli occupation," said Sami Awwad, director of the Christian action group Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem. "But it seems to me that our upbringing and values put more emphasis on non-violent means."
MINORITY REPORT
Hundreds of Palestinian Christians have left since the violence erupted in September 2000 after peace talks stalled, many joining relatives already abroad. Christian families tend to be smaller and richer, making emigration more feasible.
Those who remain are still generally well-off, Awwad said, and have avoided the fate of Palestinians living in poverty-stricken refugee camps from where many youths are recruited by militant groups.
Bassam Eid, a Palestinian rights activist, said ties between Christians and Muslims grew uneasy at times during the uprising.
"There were some problems, like when Muslim gunmen came from outside to Beit Jala (near Bethlehem) and the Christians were afraid," Eid, himself a Muslim, told Reuters.
He agreed with Awwad's assessment that Christians had a more conciliatory approach than their Muslim compatriots. "Although Palestinians in every respect, Christians are still a minority and that creates a cautiousness, a survival instinct."
Chris Bandaq -- the name is derived from the medieval saint Benedict -- was an exception.
According to friends of the family, his mother married a Muslim after his father died. Distraught at this "betrayal," Chris disavowed her, the friends said.
Khader, 25, works as a computer programmer and recently became engaged to a Palestinian Catholic. He would not discuss family history except to say that Chris had joined the Brigades as a consequence of peer pressure rather than political ideology.
"He was in a street gang, and when the uprising came his friends became fighters so he did too," Khader said. "His being a Christian was never a big problem."
The Brigades' stipend of some 400 shekels ($82) a month further tempted the unemployed youth, according to Khader.
'MAJOR TERRORIST' OR CHRISTIAN 'CAVALIER'?
An Israeli military spokeswoman accused Chris Bandaq of being a "major terrorist" who had sniped at Israeli vehicles and homes and helped plan two suicide bombings in Jerusalem last year which killed 13 Israelis.
In Bethlehem he was described more as a cavalier rebelling against the ruined economy and Israeli military crackdowns.
"He made no secret of his affiliation, swaggering around with a big gun," said one acquaintance, who added that Bandaq was seen firing at Gilo, a southern Jerusalem neighborhood built on West Bank land which Israel captured, with Gaza, in the 1967 Middle East war. "But no one believes he killed anyone."
Khader Bandaq added: "He can't have been involved in 'martyrdom' operations. Our religion forbids suicide."
An Israeli special forces swoop ended Chris Bandaq's months on the run, catching him at a friend's house where the militant had come to celebrate his acquisition of a taxi-driver permit.
"He had dyed his hair and beard blond as a disguise, but he looked tired from hiding," said his friend Nada Khair. "Maybe he was ready to start a new life with a new profession."
Khader recalled an attempt by his brother to broker a Nativity Church-like exile deal for himself last autumn.
"Chris hired a lawyer to offer the Israelis that he would leave the country," Khader said. "But they said he must either hand over a Brigades cell or work as a collaborator for two years, so he refused."
Israeli intelligence has in the past entered such deals with "small fry" who agree to betray leading militants. Sources with Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency declined to comment on Bandaq's case.
To Awwad, it was more evidence of the limitations of militancy.
The day after the arrest, he was teaching non-violence by example -- defying a curfew on Bethlehem to hold a workshop on passive resistance for a class of 40 Muslims and Christians.
"Armed struggle is the right of an oppressed people, but not indiscriminate bloodshed," said Awwad, denouncing Palestinian suicide bombings which have wreaked havoc in Israeli cities.
"It is most important to remember that a nation liberated by violence will end up using it against its own people."