Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine) 14.08.2026
Zionist propaganda is aimed at the ears of the Christian right in the United States, which is known as a Zionist. For this purpose, Israel establishes “research institutes” that concentrate on anti-Muslim propaganda claiming that the Christian population in the West Bank and Gaza allegedly suffers from persecution of Muslims.
The Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs and Security Affairs is a supposedly research institute that has served as Israel’s global embassy on national security and diplomacy since its establishment in 1976.
He writes:
“How can the decline in the number of Christians living under the control of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas be explained? The Christian population living under the rule of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas has steadily declined in recent years. At the end of the Ottoman period in the Land of Israel and the beginning of the British Mandate in 1922, Christians constituted 11% of the geographical population of the Land of Israel, which numbered 70,429 people. In 1946, with the end of the British Mandate, the population increased to 145,063, but they constituted only 8% of the population, reflecting the larger relative increase of Jews and Muslims due to immigration.
In 1949, the number of Christians living in Judea and Samaria, then under Jordanian rule, who changed the name of the area to “West Bank,” stood at 51,053. This number dropped to 45,855, according to a Jordanian census conducted in 1961. With Israel’s takeover of Judea and Samaria in 1967, the Christian population of 42,719 people, constituting 6% of the population, shrank even further.
In the first population census of the Palestinian Authority in 1997, 40,055 Palestinian Christians were recorded, constituting 1.5% of the total Palestinian population. The PA’s second census in 2007 indicated a slight increase in the size of the Christian population, which numbered 42,565 people, but their share of the general population dropped to only 1.2%. In the third PA census conducted in 2017, the number of Christians increased to 46,850, but they constituted only 1% of the population.
The case of Bethlehem illustrates well the demographic erasure of Christianity. In 1950, Bethlehem and the surrounding villages were 86% Christian. According to the Christian Information Center, in 1994, when the Palestinian Authority took control of Bethlehem, it was the most populous Christian city in the Holy Land. Since then, the Christian population in Bethlehem has shrunk to about 10% (according to the last census conducted in 2017). Christian families are leaving Bethlehem due to systemic socio-economic difficulties and instability, discrimination and harassment (including of clerics) by Palestinian Muslims and the Islamic-ruled Palestinian Authority
In Bethlehem, Christians often face violence and intimidation. Muslim clans use force to resolve disputes, leaving Christian families defenseless. In 2022, a Muslim man was accused of harassing young Christian women at the Orthodox Church of the Patriarchs in Beit Sahur, near Bethlehem. Soon after, the church was attacked by a mob of Palestinian men throwing stones at the building as worshippers bent inside, and several were injured in the attack. In April 2022, Palestinian evangelical pastor Johnny Shahwan was arrested by the Palestinian Authority on charges of “promoting normalization” with Israel. The Palestinian Authority’s security forces did nothing to deal with it. In October 2022, an unidentified gunman opened fire at the Christian-owned Bethlehem Hotel, after a video on social media linked the hotel to a display that included cardboard cutouts of the Star of David and a menorah. No arrests were made in connection with the shooting.
Added to this is the PA police’s institutional persecution of Christians. As one Protestant clergy under the PA explained: “Christians feel unprotected by the failure of the PA police to intervene on their behalf in conflicts with Muslims.”
Palestinian Christians also face a significant bias when seeking justice in local courts. Discrimination within the legal system leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and perpetuates their marginalization. Christians encounter obstacles in accessing justice for crimes committed against them, leading to a culture of impunity. This lack of legal recourse deters reporting of violations and perpetuates the victims. Christian women are particularly vulnerable to legal discrimination.
Today, Muslim Sharia law prevails.., under the Palestinian Authority, these positions continue. A 1997 statement by the PA Ministry of Information stated: “The Palestinian people are also governed by Sharia law… Any Muslim [who converts] or declares himself a heretic commits a grave sin punishable by death… The Palestinian Authority cannot take a different position on this matter.” In an attempt to reassure Christians, the statement goes on to say that the death penalty for conversion “has never happened, and is unlikely to happen” in the Palestinian territories, but that “norms and tradition will handle such situations if they occur.” This legal framework regarding heresy remains unchanged. Palestinian Authority Arrests Converts in the Northern West Bank, Nablus and Ramallah
Another similar institute called CAMERA says of itself that we specialize in monitoring, exposing and concentrating in one place inaccuracies and distortions that appear in the Israeli and international media
He attacks CNN and writes: “When CNN reporter Clarissa Ward set out to investigate the situation of Christians in the Holy Land, she apparently forgot to take off her glasses that filter out any fact, crime or injustice that cannot be blamed on Israel
Rather than exploring why Christians are leaving Jerusalem and the West Bank, Ward selectively chose her interviews and background materials in order to promote a narrative that Israel pushes Christians out, while ignoring a much more complex reality.
She began with footage of an Israeli pushing a nun to the ground in the Old City, noting that the Israeli government was quick to condemn the attack. She also presented footage of the police arresting the suspect, and explicitly stated that they suspected a nationalist motive.
Despite the clear condemnation and transparency of the law, Ward addressed a guiding question to Father Anthony Jambron, a researcher who teaches at the institution to which the nun who was attacked, raising the baseless hypothesis that the attacker was simply mentally ill. In doing so, it forced him to refute an unsubstantiated claim and created the unsubstantiated impression that Israelis were sweeping hate crimes under the rug.
Ward’s selection of interviewees revealed her bias even more. For example, it featured Pastor Munther Isaac, who attributed the decline in the Christian population to the “Nakba,” but ignored his sermon on October 8 , 2023, which justified Hamas’s massacres as a natural response to the “blockade” of Gaza. .”
In contrast to these research institutes, Haaretz wrote, “In the Palestinian Christian village of Taybeh, there is a growing sense that in the past almost did not characterize the place – the house no longer guarantees security. Residents of the village northeast of Ramallah report harassment by settlers, threats, damage to vehicles and agricultural equipment, arson and graffiti. But most of all, they talk about a change in the sense of security. “Taybeh used to be a safe place,” one resident told Haaretz.Even in the most difficult periods, during the first and second intifadas, in wars and conflicts, people knew that this is where it is possible to live. In the last three years, everything has changed.”
Life in the village goes on, but it’s hard to call it routine. In the morning, the workers, especially the salaried employees, leave for Ramallah. Local businesses are opening their doors and waiting for a customer to arrive. And farmers continue to look out over the slopes, at the olive trees that have accompanied their families for generations, wondering if they will be able to reach their lands in the upcoming olive harvest.”
Who, where, tells the truth? It is enough to understand that Netanyahu wants to heat up the West Bank in order to cancel the elections on the grounds of a security situation and that Israel is working to annex the West Bank in order to know who is telling the truth.