For most Christians in America, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and Tel Aviv usually are just names in the news, far-away places where there always seems to be a bloody conflict between Jews and Muslims.

But for bishop Samir Kafity of Rancho Bernardo, those names remind him of home.

"I'm an American citizen, naturalized, but I'm a Palestinian," said Kafity, 71. "I was born a Palestinian, Arab Christian."

Christians make up just 1.4 percent of the roughly 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank. Before 1948, when the state of Israel formed, about 10 percent of the Palestinian population was Christian.

"Arab Christians were there since the time of Christ, but we don't seem to know," Kafity said. "We think Christianity was born in New York. It was not. It was born in Jerusalem."

Kafity is scheduled to talk about Palestinians and the Middle East conflict in a three-lecture series each Wednesday night beginning Dec. 1 at the Episcopal Church of St Andrew the Apostle, 890 Balour Drive in Encinitas.

The free program begins at 6 p.m. with a light supper and concludes at 8 p.m.

Kafity said Palestinian Christians and Muslims get along well in his home country.

"They don't see themselves as separate from the Muslim Palestinians," he said about the Christians. "This is another point of misunderstanding. We think to be a Palestinian, you must be Muslim."

Kafity has been a bishop since 1982 and has lived in the United States since 1998 when he moved here with his wife to be near his two daughters, four grandchildren and other relatives living in San Diego County. He is a retired Bishop of Jerusalem and serves at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Poway.

In his three-part lecture, Kafity said he will talk about who Arab Christians are, explain what he calls the real crisis between Israel and Palestine and finally how everybody can be instruments of peace.

"I think the problem is, Americans don't understand the situation and they don't want to understand," he said. "I think they're more prone to the Israel point of view, and they look at the issue only through the spectacle of the Israeli."

Kafity noted that the United States has given financial aid to Israel and vetoed United Nations resolutions critical of Israeli actions or supportive of Palestine.

The bishop does not see a solution coming from violence, but also said Americans have been too quick to judge Palestinians, and the late Yasser Arafat, as terrorists.

"His image is very much distorted by politicians labeling him as a terrorist," Kafity said about Arafat, the former chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, whom he knew since 1977. "It's not that simple, just to call them terrorists. He was trying to regain his country."

The state of Israel was formed in 1948 and fighting in the region broke out almost immediately. The original United Nations resolution called for an even division of land, but by the end of the 1948 war, Palestine had lost much of its territory to Israel.

About nine years after the war, Arafat and others founded the Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine, or Fatah, which began launching strikes against Israel in 1965. Fatah took over control the PLO in 1968.

"I think Arafat was a great leader, a symbol of peace," said Kafity, who sees the roots of the Middle East conflict as a fight for a people to reclaim their land.

"The Palestinians were dispossessed, and they've lived with this dispossession for the last 55 years," he said.

Kafity was in Oslo, Norway in 1994 to witness Arafat receive a Nobel Peace Prize with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin after peace talks between the two sides saw Gaza and Jericho returned to Palestinian territory.

Since Rabin's assassination, Kafity has not been impressed with Israel's commitment to peace.

"After Rabin, there was no serious part on Israel's part to make peace," he said. "I think we missed an opportunity by losing Arafat, because I think he was a leader who could have found a peace treaty with Israel."

With Arafat's death, Kafity still sees hope for the region if there is a free election to find a new Palestinian leader. "This is the first element of democracy," he said. "Let the people determine their own destiny, not tell them, 'This is a good leader' or 'This is an evil leader.'"

At the same time, the United States must begin treating Palestine and Israel equally, he said.

"We should give support and interest and aid as much to Israel as the Palestinians," he said. "Everybody wants this two-state solution. We want real implementation. We can't keep postponing. There is death there. People, civilians, keep getting killed on both sides. the situation is not tolerable anymore."

Kafity said Arafat at the end of his life knew that military actions would not lead to a lasting solution, and he agrees.

"I am a pacifist," he said. "I want the state of Israel to be secure and the same justice for the Palestinians. They deserve better."

Kafity said Israel should recognize it took land, apologize for it and give land that would connect the West Bank with the Gaza Strip so the Palestinians are not physically divided. Then, he said, both sides could coexist.

"Israel must stay and Palestine must stay, also," he said. "This is the right formula for peace."

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at gwarth@nctimes.com or (760) 740-5410.