Over the past few days, some voices in the U.S. resurfaced a long-standing distortion, according to which Israel is responsible for the draining out of the Christian community in Palestinian-controlled areas. What they missed, however, cannot be more emboldened in hard facts.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already said in the past, “If you are a Christian in the Middle East, there is only one place where you are safe,” and “that’s in the State of Israel.” Indeed, Israel’s Christian population has been growing in recent years, whilst the numbers in Palestinian Authority-controlled territories have almost vanished.
For example, when Israel had jurisdiction over Bethlehem, the city had a 60% Christian population to just 16% in 2016, after more than two decades of PA control. Palestinian Christians now make up just 1% of the entire population in Judea and Samaria (“the West Bank”). Israel’s Christian community, by contrast, grew by 1.4% in 2020 and numbered some 182,000 people.
This has little to do with Israel’s “occupation”, as the Palestinian Area A is fully controlled by the PA, nor can it explain the mass emigration of Christians after Israel delivered these territories to the Palestinians. The massive emigration of Palestinian Christians from the territories can be demonstratively linked to the political empowerment of the Palestinian Authority. The remaining Palestinian Christians have all but been abandoned by the people tasked to protect them.
The rift between U.S. conservatives and alt-right
Yet on April 10, 2024, prominent American Conservative Political Commentator Tucker Carlson used X to spread misinformation on Palestinian Christians. He spoke to Palestinian Christian pastor Munther Isaac who founded the anti-Israel organization Kairos Palestine and justified Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.
The interview further exposed a deepening rift between traditional conservatives and the American alt-right that threatens to divide an already uneasy alliance holding the coalition together. Much like his distortion of the banning of an “entire Christian denomination” in Ukraine by President Zelenskyy, which was an organization linked to the Russian government, Carlson seems to believe that the American Christian electorate are easy targets. Nevertheless, a robust 64% of the Republican Party still remains firmly behind Israel.
This rift may well lead to the pro-Israel conservatives turning their back on Tucker Carlson. At the very least the latest feud will lead some pro-Israel conservatives to question the accuracy of other information he is presenting.
The House on Tuesday adopted a resolution condemning the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as antisemitic. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) opposed the resolution, as did Rep. Rashida Tlaib who called the phrase “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful co-existence” in her video on X in November.
The abuse of Christians in PA-controlled territories stretch back some three decades. In 2000, the Palestinian Christian Communities Department lost its office within the Palestinian Ministry for Religious Affairs and in 2003 the ministry was entirely dismantled. Via its Draft Constitution, the PA makes clear its intent to impose Islamic Sharia law on all Palestinians regardless of religion.
Palestinian Christians feeling political chaos
Bethlehem City Council member and Hamas leader El-Masalmeh has stated that, “We in Hamas intend to implement a tax on all non-Muslim residents tax someday. We say it openly and we welcome everyone to Palestine only if they agree to live under our rules.” Palestinian law indicates that the majority of members on the Bethlehem City Council should be Christian, but Hamas today holds six of the fifteen council seats and Christians hold only four.
Palestinian Christians have been fleeing the political chaos, internal instability and lawlessness in the PA, often for better job prospects in Israel. In contrast, Israel is committed to ensuring that people of all faiths can live and worship safely as a core democratic value, pointing to Israel’s founding documents enshrining freedom of religion to all “by law and in practice.”
Some 44% of Palestinian Christians said they were discriminated against when applying for jobs in PA. One long-term proposal brought forward in Israel in August 2023 would see a “special Christian worker” visa category created for Palestinian Christian evangelical staff. At the same time, Christians from the former Southern Lebanon Army relocated to Israel for state protection following the 2000 withdrawal, where they prosper and enjoy full equal rights.
As part of their founding principles, Israel has been taking concrete action to combat religious harassment against Christians, as marginal as it may be. In early October 2023, police arrested five Orthodox Jews on suspicion of spitting at Christian worshippers in Jerusalem.
After the spitting incident, Prime Minister Netanyahu said: “derogatory conduct towards worshipers is sacrilege… unacceptable and any form of hostility towards individuals engaged in worship will not be tolerated.” The Israeli police force is in “continuous contact” with religious leaders to investigate attacks and efforts to bring justice are unwavering. Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, believes that police are now taking such issues seriously by arresting those responsible for Christian harassment.”
Meanwhile, “terrorist attacks against Christians, targeting churches, cemeteries, and Christian properties in the PA … have become almost a daily occurrence that evidently increases in intensity during Christian holidays,” said the Greek Orthodox Church. Justus Reid Weiner remarks “Over a ten-year period, my research assistants and I have interviewed scores of Palestinian Christian victims. Many of those interviewed were too terrified to tell their stories”.
In Ramallah in February 2002, Palestinian Muslims burned down a store belonging to the brother of a Christian man who allegedly killed a Muslim construction contractor. Hundreds of men from Kalandia continued damaging Christian stores unrelated to the initial incident.
Palestinian police allowed the destruction to continue and only intervened when rioters moved onto Christian churches. Also in 2002 in Jerusalem’s eastern neighborhoods, a group of Muslim youths attacked a pool hall near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Four Christian youths were stabbed, with one requiring hospitalization.
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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
(Photo: JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/Pool via REUTERS )
Palestinian Christian women are also frequently sexually assaulted or abducted in Palestinian areas. In May 2004, a sixteen-year-old Christian from Bethlehem went missing for five days. The girl was kidnapped by a twenty-three-year-old Muslim man with high-ranking family in the PA security services. When a crowd of Christian men attempted to stage a demonstration outside the kidnapper’s residence, Palestinian police injured thirty-five Christian men whilst dispersing the crowd.
Those in the most danger are Muslims who decide to convert to Christianity. Ahmad El-Achwal was an Arab Christian convert who was married and a father of eight. He was arrested on falsified charges of stealing gold.
The interrogation-related torture he experienced necessitated prolonged hospitalization. When Ahmad was released, he continued distributing bibles, and converted his apartment into an informal church. He was repeatedly searched and arrested for seven years, with the promise of release if he returned to Islam. Finally, on January 21, 2004, Ahmad was shot dead by masked gunmen.
It is to be mentioned that those Christians who did choose to remain in Palestinian-controlled areas have changed the polling data significantly, as they tend to be, by definition, more pro-Palestinian or nationalist Palestinian than Christians who desperately left these areas. Thus, 43% of 1,000 Palestinian Christians surveyed in 2020 wanted to demonstrate Palestinian solidarity. 70% of Palestinian Christians felt “fully integrated” into Palestinian society.
Six in 10 Christians in Palestinian Authority Areas reported being in favor of a ‘one-state solution’ (61%). Most local Christians increasingly identified with Palestinian nationalism because of the increasing opposition to what they view as “settlements in the West Bank”, or Jewish communities, and, in particular, the status of Christians in the PA as a religious minority. It is important to stress therefore that this is not a religious conflict — it is political.
Jennifer TealeIn contrast to what has been presented in American media, Israel’s Christian community has been growing in recent years. Israel is determined to ensure democratic freedom of religion to all. Terrorist attacks continue almost daily against Christians in the PA, as they have done for decades. The remaining Christians in the PA largely identify as pro or nationalist Palestinians. A majority of the Republican Party still remains firmly behind Israel but some echo Tucker Carlson’s rhetoric.