Every year at Christmas, some Christian prelate warns of the fate of Christians in the Holy Land. This year it was Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem Hosam Naoum, who warned of an “unprecedented and urgent” crisis in the Holy Land. “This crisis,” their graces explain, “takes place against a century-long decline in the Christian population in the Holy Land.”
But the state of Israel is the best thing to happen to Christians and other minorities in over a thousand years: a revolution for freedom against religious empire, a refuge for Jews, and a model of multi-ethnic pluralism at the same time. To the Archbishops’ credit, they acknowledge certain facts. “In Israel, the overall number of Christians has risen,” they admit, yet fail to note that this is the first time in 13 centuries that such a thing has happened.
“Christians in Israel enjoy democratic and religious freedoms that are a beacon in the region,” they continue, but quickly pass over the fact that Israel’s Christian community is also a free Christian community, something that cannot be said about communities in places such as Syria and Iraq that face extreme tragedy and even extinction.
Some of this tragedy is evident much closer to home. There are, in fact, two Christian communities in the Holy Land: a large and prosperous Arabic-speaking population in Israel, where 182,000 live as citizens, mainly in the Galilee, one of the most diverse pockets of the Near East; and a smaller group of 50,000 Christian Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Welby and Naoum are right to be concerned, but they’re looking at the wrong side of the Green Line. The real crisis is here, under Palestinian rule, as detailed in a recent survey.
Data from a study by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research show that the conflict has taken its toll on Palestinian Christians but that deeper dynamics are also at play. Like their co-religionists across the Islamic world, Christians in the Palestinian Territories are caught between a rock and a hard place: most crave democracy (73 per cent), yet only a few believe their government is democratic (11 per cent); meanwhile, two-thirds worry about rising Islamic sentiment, which curbs any would-be push for democracy. It’s a dilemma that drives economic hardship, emigration and decline.
Christmas offers an opportunity to thank Israel for safeguarding Christianity. If the Church of England wants a Christian renaissance in the Near East, it should extend a hand of friendship to the only country where that project is still viable. If its prelates are vexed by events in Israel, they might consider lodging a complaint with the local police instead of the international press. And if they care about Christianity in the Holy Land, they should turn their eyes to the West Bank and Gaza to address the real crisis.
Robert Nicholson is president and executive director of The Philos Project
