After noting that there “has been a marked uptick in religiously motivated attacks by Palestinian Muslims on Christians in Bethlehem,” a Nov. 21, 2022 report offers some examples:
Just over two weeks ago, a Muslim man was accused of harassing young Christian women at a Forefathers Orthodox Church in Beit Sahour near the city of Bethlehem. Soon after, the church was attacked by a large mob of Palestinian men who hurled rocks at the building while congregants cowered inside. Several of the congregants were injured in the attack.
The Palestinian Authority, responsible for security in the area, did nothing.
In October, unidentified gunmen shot at the Christian-owned Bethlehem Hotel after a video on social media associated the hotel with a display that included cardboard cutouts of a Star of David and a Menorah. …
No arrests were made in connection with the shooting.
Perhaps the greatest shock to the community came in April when the Palestinian evangelical pastor, Johnny Shahwan, was arrested by the Palestinian Authority security forces on charges of ‘promoting normalization’ with Israel. …
In January, a large group of masked men carrying sticks and iron bars attacked Christian brothers, Daoud and Daher Nassar, on their farm near Bethlehem. The Palestinian courts have been working to confiscate the farm that has been owned by the family since the Ottoman Empire.
Although this report focuses on recent attacks, the persecution of Palestinian Christians is a longstanding problem. As Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, Director of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation, said:
Unfortunately, these recent attacks against churches are not new. Christians have been under attack in Bethlehem for many, many years. There have been bombings. There are near-constant physical attacks against Christians. They’re going on a regular basis, ever since the Palestinian Authority took over.
His words echo those of Kamal Tarazi, an elderly Christian man from Gaza who in 2019 said: “The moment they [Hamas] took control [of the Gaza Strip], they started persecuting us, ruining our churches and forcing Christians to convert to Islam.” Before fleeing, he tried to resist the Islamist takeover, including by calling on Muslims and Christians to unite against Hamas. As a result, “I was jailed several times. Do you know what a Hamas prison is? It is pure torture.”
Even mere numbers—which are inherently objective—confirm that Christians living under the PA are experiencing some sort of unpleasantry unexperienced by Muslims: In 1947, Christians made up 85% of the population of Bethlehem, an ancient Christian stronghold, whereas by 2016, they had declined to only 16%.
“In a society where Arab Christians have no voice and no protection it is no surprise that they are leaving,” Justus Reid Weiner, a lawyer acquainted with the region, said: “The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the international community, human rights activists, the media and NGOs.”
This final point cannot be overstated: incidents of persecution are never reported by international media. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Christian Arab resident of Bethlehem emphasized that all of the most recent instances listed above were even underreported within Israel itself, before adding:
This needs to be heard for the purpose of educating the Jewish world and the Christian world about the state of Bethlehem. There are incidents happening constantly, whether it be neighbors against each other, or people in the streets, or even organizations and churches. Most times, it is a case of the Muslim community overpowering the minority, which is the Christian community.
Why is the persecution of Christians in Bethlehem and other PA-controlled territories so un- or under-reported? Certainly it’s not because they experience less persecution than their coreligionists throughout the Muslim world, where the bulk of the world’s persecution of Christians occurs.
“The attacks by Muslims on Christians are often ignored by the international community and media, who seem to speak out only when they can find a way to blame Israel,” wrote the Muslim journalist Khaled Abu Toameh:
Another disturbing situation is that the leaders of the Christian community in the West Bank are reluctant to hold the Palestinian Authority and their Muslim neighbors responsible for the attacks. They are afraid of retribution and prefer to toe the official line of holding Israel solely responsible for the misery of the Christian minority.
Open Doors, a human rights group that follows the persecution of Christians, reports that Palestinian Christians suffer from a “high” level of persecution, the source of which is “Islamic Oppression”:
Those who convert to Christianity from Islam, however, face the worst Christian persecution and it is difficult for them to safely participate in existing churches. In the West Bank they are threatened and put under great pressure, in Gaza their situation is so dangerous that they live their Christian faith in utmost secrecy….The influence of radical Islamic ideology is rising, and historical churches have to be diplomatic in their approach towards Muslims.
The unique situation of Palestinian Christians—living in a politically contested arena where “public image” and therefore opinion is everything—perhaps best explains the lack of exposure. “The Persecution of Christians in the Palestinian Authority,” a report by Dr. Edy Cohen, published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in May 2019, goes a long way in validating this supposition.
First, it documents more instances of persecution of Christians, all of which were back-to-back and occurred right before the report’s publication, and none of which were reported by so-called “mainstream media”:
- April 25: “[T]he terrified residents of the Christian village of Jifna near Ramallah … were attacked by Muslim gunmen … after a woman from the village submitted a complaint to the police that the son of a prominent, Fatah-affiliated leader had attacked her family. In response, dozens of Fatah gunmen came to the village, fired hundreds of bullets in the air, threw petrol bombs while shouting curses, and caused severe damage to public property. It was a miracle that there were no dead or wounded.”
- May 13: “Vandals broke into a church of the Maronite community in the center of Bethlehem, desecrated it, and stole expensive equipment belonging to the church, including the security cameras…. [T]his is the sixth time the Maronite church in Bethlehem has been subjected to acts of vandalism and theft, including an arson attack in 2015 that caused considerable damage and forced the church to close for a lengthy period.”
- May 16: “[I]t was the turn of the Anglican church in the village of Aboud, west of Ramallah. Vandals cut through the fence, broke the windows of the church, and broke in. They desecrated it, looked for valuable items, and stole a great deal of equipment.”
These three attacks, which occurred over the course of three weeks, fit the same pattern of abuse that Christians in other Muslim majority regions habitually experience. While the desecration and plundering of churches is prevalent, so too are Muslim mob uprisings against Christian minorities—who tend to be perceived as dhimmis, or second-class “citizens” that should be grateful to receive any toleration at all—whenever they dare speak up for their rights, as occurred in the village of Jifna on April 25: “[T]he rioters” in Jifna, the report continues, “called on the [Christian] residents to pay jizya—a head tax that was levied throughout history on non-Muslim minorities under Islamic rule. The most recent victims of the jizya were the Christian communities of Iraq and Syria under ISIS rule.”
Moreover, as often happens whenever Christian minorities are attacked in Muslim majority nations, “Despite the [Christian] residents’ cries for help” in Jifna, “the PA police did not intervene during the hours of mayhem. They have not arrested any suspects.” Similarly, “no suspects were arrested” in the two church attacks.
However, whereas Palestinian Christians are suffering from the same patterns of persecution—including church attacks, kidnappings and forced conversion—that their coreligionists suffer in other Muslim nations, the persecution of Palestinian Christians has “received no coverage in the Palestinian media. In fact,” Cohen continues, “a full gag order was imposed in many cases”:
The only thing that interests the PA is that events of this kind not be leaked to the media. Fatah regularly exerts heavy pressure on Christians not to report the acts of violence and vandalism from which they frequently suffer, as such publicity could damage the PA’s image as an actor capable of protecting the lives and property of the Christian minority under its rule. Even less does the PA want to be depicted as a radical entity that persecutes religious minorities. That image could have negative repercussions for the massive international, and particularly European, aid the PA receives.
Put differently, the bread and butter of the PA and its supporters, particularly in the media, is to portray Palestinians in general as victims of unjust aggression and discrimination from Israel. This narrative would be jeopardized if the international community learned that Palestinians are themselves persecuting fellow Palestinians—solely on account of religion. It might be hard to muster sympathy for a supposedly oppressed people when one realizes that they themselves are doing the oppressing of the minorities in their midst—and for no other reason than religious bigotry.
Because they are so sensitive to this potential difficulty, “PA officials exert pressure on local Christian[s] to not report such incidents, which threaten to unmask the Palestinian Authority as yet another Middle East regime beholden to a radical Islamic ideology,” Cohen concludes.
Certain Palestinian Christians are also complicit. In his recent book, The Politics of Persecution, Mitri Rehab, a Palestinian academic and Lutheran clergyman living in Bethlehem, insists that whatever persecution Christians may experience in the Middle East has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with Western or Israeli actions. In his attempt to lay the blame on anything and everything else, he even offers a section in his book on “climate change [which] will take its toll on the Christian community.”
Finally, it’s worth noting that the PA does not merely suppress news of Christian persecution; it actively advertises a false picture. Despite the rapidly dwindling number of Christians in Bethlehem, “The fact that the Palestinian Authority continues to make sure that there is a Christian mayor in Bethlehem is only window dressing,” said Rabbi Wolicki. “It’s a show used to convince the world that Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christianity is still a Christian town. It is not Christian. It is Muslim in every regard.”
And so, during this Christmas season, it is well to remember that, due to ongoing but silenced persecution, Christianity is on the verge of disappearing in the place of its birth—Bethlehem, scene of the Nativity—thereby giving the otherwise seasonally relevant words, “Silent Night,” an ominous meaning. As the most recent report asserts, “The persecution is threatening the existence of the oldest Christian community in the world.”
This article first appeared in Gatestone Institute.
Kevin says
Too bad Israel did not keep this area.
Scott says
I went to Israel in 1984. I drove from Jerusalem to Bethlehem by taking the road leading from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea and then turning south onto a sand road just outside of town that quickly turned into a goat trail. When I got to the Church of the Nativity, I was surprised at how few people were out on street. Inside was no different. The door leading into the church was made smaller 100s of years ago to prevent people from riding camels into the supposed birthplace of Jesus.
Once I got inside and my eyes adjusted, I saw that no one was inside. Not one person. The church is built over a grotto where the birth took place. When I entered the grotto, I thought I was the only one there, but after a few minutes, I noticed a single priest praying in the shadows. It was surreal. There were no signs of unrest or even tension that day, but I have watched as the Muslims have ratcheted up their discontent.
Christian sites in Israel are open to all. Muslim sites like Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque are made very difficult to visit by non-Muslims. I guess if they continue to attack Christians and Christian sites, I would not mind if the next time rockets reign down, a couple of them scrape the Temple Mount clean. However that may happen.
Sword of the Spirit says
As long as we are in this dispensation of time ( known as The Church Age, or Grace Age ) the persecution of Christians will not end. God has ordained that Christians suffer persecution. It is God’s will. If you want proof of that, just let me know.
Walter Sieruk says
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There are many Muslims who strongly dislike Christians. Some Muslims even hate Christians so much that they even become violence against them and burn their Bibles. One reason for this is that in the mosques and madrasas the Muslim clerics, as the imams who speak many awful and unproven terrible things against Christians and Christian doctrine. So much so the many Muslims get all worked up against Christians and Christian teachings and some those Muslims commit violent actions against Christians. Such false religious teachers, as those Muslim clerics, who speak to people unfounded and invalid evil things about Christians and Christian doctrines have been described in the Bible. For the Bible informs the reader in Second Peter 2:12. “They speak evil of things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption.” [N.K.J.V.]
It also should be make clear that in this specific above Bible verse, as well as in John 3:16. The word “Perish” does not mean loss of being but loss of well-being. As in going to ruin by ending up in languishing in torment in a terrible place of suffering that the Bible calls hell. Luke 16:19-31.
Mo de Profit says
When the muslims drive out the Christians they will fight amongst themselves always have done always will, we can sit back and watch while the liberals beg for military intervention and refugees to flood our borders.
Fritz the Cat says
The Jews will eventually remove the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque and build their Third Temple, to which Jesus will return. And He won’t be in a good mood.
Jean-Pierre Demol says
Il est dit dans certaines presses, que les autorités israéliennes avaient empêché des chrétiens palestiniens à fêter Noël en famille à Jérusalem, si c’est vrai, cela s’ajoute aux persécutions des chrétiens d’Orient par les musulmans …
11bravo says
This is why the citizens of the US have guns – lots of them. Israel should start issuing them to these put upon churches, and their members.
psalm2 says
And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,” NOT ALL JEWS ARE SAVED!!! As Christians we can’t just automatically support all JEWS. Many are EVIL, Just like those who are evil KILLING SOME JEWs. The JEWS who aren’t saved are also children of the devil just LIKE HAMAS are children of the devil. NEVER FORGET THAT> DOn’t be fooled. If you confess with your mouth that JESUS IS LORD YOU SHALL BE SAVED…but if you REJECT JESUS you are not saved…Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ONLY JESUS IS LORD. NOT ALLAH, ALLAH IS OF THE DEVIL..if you want to be saved BELIEVE IN JESUS. YOu think this is a joke. oh it’s no joke IT”S THE TRUTH 100% TRUTH. DOn’t gamble with the truth. BELIEVE what is said here. Even if you think it’s BS okay, at least beleive because if you don’t you’ve lost everything and so have your children and grandchildren..
TrueVine says
You forgot Romans 11:26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion.