In the fall of 1991, broadcasting from Jerusalem (a short distance to Bethlehem) as a radio talk show host on WMCA-New York, I sat down for an interview with the mayor of Bethlehem, Elias Freij, at Bethlehem’s city hall, a stone’s throw away from the Church of the Nativity.  A jovial man, Freij clearly had to have a thick skin, as a Christian surrounded by a majority of Muslims in his city.  Despite not being formally part of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), he fully identified with the PLO out of necessity and self-preservation.  He would subsequently serve as part of the Jordanian/Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Conference, which took place about a month following our interview. 

In typical Arab hospitality, Freij had a servant bring us strong black Turkish coffee and sweets as we sat on the balcony overlooking much of the city.  Following my questions about Arafat and the terror campaigns waged by the PLO against Israelis, which he largely defended, I asked him the cardinal question: Where are the Christians in this, the birth city of Jesus?  He hesitated for a moment and then pointed his finger westward, toward the Mediterranean Sea, and responded, “In Santiago de Chile!”

In 1950, two years after Israel’s independence, there were 36,000 Christians in Israel.  Today, there are 187,900 Christians in Israel.  As of 2021, the Christians in Israel were the only growing Christian community in the Middle East.

Whereas the number of Christians in the Jewish state continues to grow, a different story occurs in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Arabs, including Gaza.  The Greek Orthodox Church recently declared that “terrorist attacks against Christians, assaults on churches, cemeteries, and Christian properties in the Palestinian Authority ... have become daily occurrences, and their severity clearly intensifies during Christian holidays.”

The demographic tendencies of Christians, as compared to Muslims, and the rate of emigration have drastically reduced the Christian population in the Middle East.  Whereas in 1914 they represented 26.4 percent of the population in the whole of the Near East (what today is known as Israel, the P.A., Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria), today they are estimated at no more than 1 to 2 percent (in the West Bank and Gaza), or 9.2% throughout the region (a 1998 estimate by Fargues).

There are conflicting statistics regarding the extent to which Palestinian Christians are leaving and have left their ancestral residences in what is now P.A.-administered territory.  One reason for differing figures is that some provide overly optimistic estimates of the remaining Christian population in order to retain whatever residual political and economic clout the various communities enjoy.

All informed opinions, however, accept that the Christian population has declined, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the total population of Palestinians.  Palestinian Christian emigration peaked during the First Intifada and increased rapidly at the onset of the Second Intifada.  Between October 2000 and November 2001, 2,766 Palestinian Christians left the West Bank; 1,640 left the Bethlehem area.

Bethlehem, long considered a Christian city, exemplifies these trends of demographic and cultural decline.  According to the Christian Information Center, in 1950, Christians made up 86% of Bethlehem’s population.  Until the Oslo Accords, Bethlehem had the largest Christian majority of any city in the area.  However, since the Palestinian Authority assumed control, the Christian population has decreased precipitously.

In Gaza, the situation is even worse.  Since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, the Christian population has shrunk from 5,000 to approximately 600 today.  Testimonies from Palestinian Christians in Gaza, collected by Christian organizations, describe a constant threat to their lives.

What Westerners don’t understand is that in the Muslim world, religion is the primary form of self-identification.  In Palestinian-administered territories (the West Bank and Gaza) and in the greater Middle East (all governed by some form of sharia Islamic law), Christians and Jews occupy the status of dhimmi, meaning “protected people,” who must pay a special tax known historically as jizya.  It is intended to compel Christians and Jews to convert to Islam.

Salafi Muslims, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), seek to emulate the successors of the Prophet Mohammad, known as the Rashidun (an Arabic word for “rightly guided” that refers to the first four caliphs of the Islamic community after the death of Muhammad).  These caliphs (especially Omar) colonized the Middle East and were responsible for the mass conversion of Christians and some Jews to Islam — by force of the sword and through economic pressure.  It is therefore not surprising that they would oppress the Christian minority in Gaza.

Whenever the opportunity presented itself, Palestinian Islamists desecrated the Christians’ holiest sites.  On March 29, 2002, IDF Infantry Brigade 310 and Tank Battalion 445 rolled into northern Bethlehem as part of Operation Defensive Shield.  The two reserve units were on a mission to retake the West Bank city, two days after a suicide bomber killed 30 Israelis and injured 160 during a Passover seder dinner at the Park Hotel in Netanya, in an attack that shocked the nation and spurred the army into action.  The Palestinian terrorist perpetrators fled to Bethlehem’s holiest Christian site: the Church of the Nativity.

The priests who were present inside the church during the siege reported the theft of valuable icons and the use of pages from prayer books as toilet paper.  One Christian resident of Bethlehem, who spoke to the Times of Israel on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said some gunmen defecated inside the grotto of the nativity.

Western societies, by and large, have discarded God and religion, particularly West Europeans.  Yet they have a reverence for Islam, which is slowly conquering Europe after a failed attempt in the 8th century.  The Europeans murdered their Jews, who gave them culture and Nobel prizes, and replaced them with millions of Muslims who will eventually end their “good life.”  In the meantime, these same Western Christians are silent about the Muslim oppression of their co-religionists, and about the fate of the Christians in the birthplace of Jesus.

Image: Ian and Wendy Sewell via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.