Are Jewish settlers “driving out” Christians from the Holy Land?
That’s what Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Palestinian Anglican Bishop Hosam Naoum, insisted in a piece in the Times of London. Not everyone was impressed. Many were outraged. A report on this charge is here: “The Sunday Times Joins Media Tradition of Blaming Israel for Ruining Christmas,” by Adam Levick, CAMERA UK, December 22, 2021:
There’s nothing new about British outlets peddling such smears about the Jewish state around Christmas, typically such propaganda is published at the Guardian, rather than The Times.
The piece reminds readers that the first Christmas took place against “the backdrop of the genocide of infants”, evoking toxic libels about the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians – or, possibly, something even darker. It then notes that “Christmas is a time when we think about the land of the Bible” before citing complaints by Jerusalem church leaders that radical groups are, through vandalism of and physical attacks, engaged “in a systematic attempt to drive the Christian community out of Jerusalem and other parts of the Holy Land.”
The Welby-Naoum piece was prompted by a statement earlier this month from Church leaders in Jerusalem, who warned the actions of radical Jewish groups were “diminishing the Christian presence” in the area. Such acts, they contended, have included the desecration of churches, as well as physical and verbal attacks on priests, monks and worshipers.
Offering some stark statistics to illustrate their point, Welby and Naoum state:
This crisis takes place against a century-long decline in the Christian population in the Holy Land. In 1922, at the end of the Ottoman era, the number of Christians in the Holy Land was estimated at 73,000; about 10 percent of the population. In 2019, Christians constituted less than 2 percent of the population of the Holy Land: a massive drop in less than 100 years.
The decline in the Christian share of the population in the Holy Land can hardly be attributed to Israel, which came into possession of Gaza, Judea, and Samaria in the Six-Day War. Before then, the Christian population of those areas – Egyptian-ruled Gaza and Jordanian-ruled Judea and Samaria (known as the “West Bank”) – kept steadily decreasing. It was only when Israel took control of those areas that the Christian populations stabilized. When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the decrease in the Christian population resumed. There were 6,000 Christians in Gaza when Hamas took over from Israel; today there are only 1,000 left. And the same was true in those parts of Judea and Samaria that Israel placed under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Christian numbers, never very large, decreased as they had been doing under Jordanian rule between 1949 and 1967. Wherever Israel pulled out – whether in Gaza or in parts of Judea and Samaria –the Christian population declined. But in Israel itself, the Christian population has steadily risen.
They [Welby and Naoum] concede in the following paragraph, however, that the Christian population in Israel proper has actually grown.
The two prelates were forced to recognize that in Israel itself, the Christian population has increased, unlike anywhere in the Muslim lands. But they pass quickly by this remark, not providing any numbers, for that increase clearly disproves their accusation that Israel has been hostile to Christians and Christianity. A handful of Jews have expressed their dismay at the efforts of some Christian clerics to convert Jews to Christianity and tried to impede them; that’s the extent of the anti-Christian “campaign” by individual Israelis, not by the government. It’s not Christians or Christianity whom those Israelis oppose but, rather, the campaign to convert Jews.
Strangely, though, the authors later acknowledge – consistent with Freedom House reports each year – that “Christians in Israel enjoy democratic and religious freedoms that are a beacon in the region”, and that “the overall number of Christians” in Israel “has risen”. In fact, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the Christian community grew 1.4% in 2020.
So which is it? Are Christians in Israel being driven out of the Holy Land, or do they enjoy in Israel complete religious freedom that Christians almost nowhere else in the region enjoy? Are there attacks on Christian churches in Israel the way there have so often been on Coptic churches in Egypt, or on Assyrian and Chaldean churches in Iraq, or on Christian churches and clerics in northern Nigeria, where Boko Haram demonstrates its demonic hatred by slitting the throats of priests? Can Christians in Israel be arrested and expelled merely for quietly singing Christmas carols inside their own homes, as has happened in Saudi Arabia? How is it that the Christian population of Iraq has dropped from 1.5 million in 2003 to 150,000 today? What has caused the steady decline in the Christian population of Lebanon since the mid-1970s? Why was it that during the Syrian civil war, when Christians no longer could reliably count on the protection of the Assad regime, the Christian population declined from one million to 300,000?
How can Justin Welby and Hosam Naoum claim that Christians are being “driven from the Holy Land” while also acknowledging that the number of Christians in Israel “has risen” and that the Jewish state is a “beacon in the region” for “religious freedom”?
Most of their argument seems based on unsubstantiated claims of Jerusalem “church leaders” who described “countless incidents” of “physical and verbal assaults against priests and other clergy, and attacks on Christian churches.” Yet while there have been some incidents of vandalism in recent years, the authors fail to cite even one actual example of physical violence – nor are any statistics provided.
But the dearth of real evidence that Christians are under siege and being ‘driven from Israel’ doesn’t prevent them from citing an ominous, though anonymous and anecdotal, remark such as this: “…when you speak to Palestinian Christians in Jerusalem today, you will often hear this cry: ‘In 15 years’ time, there’ll be none of us left!’”
That statement is absurd, part of the endless propaganda war against Israel that Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian, wage against Israel. The Christian population of Israel – including the country’s capital, Jerusalem – has gone up every year since the Six-Day War in 1967.
Interestingly, the article often speaks of the threat to Christianity in the “Holy Land,” a term which elides the fact that the area of greatest concern for Christians in the region is not within Israel, but in the Palestinian territories.
Whilst annual reports by Open Doors, which fights the persecution of Christians around the world, shows that Israel is one of the few Mid-East countries where Christians are NOT endangered, a 2019 Open Doors report put “the Palestinian Territories” on its World Watch List of countries where the persecution of Christians was especially problematic. The report cited “Islamic oppression” as the main source of persecution.
Further, as Jake Wallis Simons noted in an article at the Spectator, not only do Christians in Israel enjoy religious freedom, but the community, by most empirical measures, is thriving:
The education figures alone tell their own story. More Christian Arabs leave school with grades that will get them into university than any other group in the country (71.2 per cent). More Christian women attend higher education than from any other background, excelling particularly in medicine, engineering, architecture, and law.
A greater proportion of Christian Arabs qualify for admission to university than does any other group in Israel, including Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. And more Christian women in Israel go to university than do Muslim or Jewish women. It sounds as if the Christians are doing not at all badly.
Moreover, according to data from Israel’s CBS, surveys shows that “84% of Christians are satisfied with their life: 24% answered ‘very satisfied’ and 60% were ‘satisfied’.” Far from being “driven out” of Israel, the Christian community in the world’s only Jewish state is growing, well-educated, successful, and thriving.
If the Christians in Israel are not emigrating, but staying put, if their numbers are steadily rising (as they are nowhere else in the Middle East, where there has been a colossal outmigration of Christians), if their preparation for university is equal to that of Israeli Jews, if the numbers of Christian women studying at the university level is greater than the numbers of non-Christians, it sounds as if they are doing remarkably well. Finally, if 84% of the Christians in Israel say they are either “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with their lives, who are the officious and presumptuous and bigoted Archbishop Welby and Bishop Naoum to say them nay?
Roland says
The bishops were quite malicious and, in Justin Welby’s case, credulous and stupid.
Mike says
here’s the expert on the world I just love millions Monday mornings QB yet the Churches pushing the vax what will there story be what the vax kills million
bill says
Try to be literate
mortimer says
Justin Welby is normally well-informed, but in this case he seems to have been misinformed by some very slick propaganda from the Pally perspective. There perhaps 3,5 million people self-identifying as ‘Palestinian’ in the so-called Palestinian Diaspora. They are not all leaving the Near East because of Israel. 1.5 million Arabs live in Israel. If anything, the young, educated Arabs of the region realize they have a bleak future without stability and without opportunities if they stay in this fossilized, unprogressive, non-innovative culture that is maintained by Islam. They want out and very large numbers are in South America, especially Pallies in Chile (500,000) and Lebanese in Brazil (as many as 6 million) and other Arabs in Brazil … making Brazil the biggest Arab country outside the Middle East.
Justin Welby needs to consult a serious demographer to check the accuracy of the hot, steaming taqiyya that the Pallies are shovelling.
Terry Gain says
Welty isn’t misinformed. He’s a cowardly liar.
bill says
Nobody in UK except his devoted followers takes any notice of what he says
somehistory says
People often open their mouths and show their stupidity, and this guy, along with so many, many more in these days, are doing that with such regularity.
There was a “Get Smart” episode where all of the words spoken inside the cone of silence were visible above Smart’s and the Chief’s heads. These stupid words of a fool should be floating above his head and reminding him that he has shown his stupidity and willingness to work for mozlums who hate both Christians and Jews.
Just yesterday, I saw a headline on the msn thread that proclaimed, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Israel.” It was about immigrants moving into the Land. so, someone is wrong on this issue. If Christians are leaving, it is due to mozlum aggression and violence.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-a-growing-number-of-jews-in-israel-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-christmas/#:~
jewdog says
Hey Justin, why don’t you spend your time writing op-eds about the Christians being slaughtered by jihadist groups in Africa, like Boko Haram, instead of slandering Israel? Israel should take a bulldozer to your filthy churches in Jerusalem.
Infidel says
They should start w/ the Al Aqsa mosque, though, but other than that, I agree w/ you! How many Anglican churches are there in Jerusalem?
jewdog says
I don’t know, but it’s the thought that counts.
gravenimage says
There is a St. George’s Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem, as well as an Anglican diocese.
There is an Anglican run and funded hospital in Gaza, but–unless there is a chapel in the hospital–there doesn’t appear to be any Anglican Churche in Gaza. Gee, I wonder if the Archbishop with think about that? Nah…
Infidel says
When the Archbishop of Canterbury says ‘Holy Land’, is he only referring to Judea and Gaza? B’cos the Christians who’ve left either of those 2 places, as mentioned by Hugh, have moved on to Israel: they’ve not been fleeing to Europe or America instead
Apparently, that institution – Canterbury – hasn’t improved much since the era of Thomas Beckett
Same story in India, vis a vis Hindus, resulting in India being bunched together w/ muslim countries for persecution of Christians. However no one – not Jews, not Hindus, not Buddhists – no one would appreciate their adherents being poached by proselytizers from other religions
nicholas tesdorf says
The people who throw stones at one in Bethlehem in Judea are Muslims and not Jews.
libertyORdeath says
Is this guy insane? If the “Palestinians” had their way, Jerusalem would join the ranks of Mecca and medina as “muslim only” cities. The only country that is protecting the rights of Christian pilgrims to visit the holy land is Israel.
I’ve also never seen jews try to murder those who proselytize in the name of Christianity. The same cannot be said of muslims.
gravenimage says
Archbishop of Canterbury Blames Israel for Christians Leaving the Holy Land
…………..
What tripe. It is Muslims and the “Palestinian Authority” that are driving out, forcibly converting, and murdering Christians. Note that Israel has *no* control over Gaza, and that has been rendered almost completely “Christian-rein”.
Jim says
The archbishop may be scapegoating the Jews to make himself more sympathetic to Muslims in the UK. We know that Jews and Christians should be natural allies, since both are threatened by Islam. What Christian countries have been conquered by the Jews? What Christian church was transformed into a synagogue? Where is the anti-Christian propaganda by Jews aimed to create hatred and fear of Christians?
Jerry says
He is perfectly correct.
It is the fault of the Israelis, that they failed to stop the Arab Legion, (the then Trans Jordan) military financed, clothed, equipped, armed by Britain and led, in part by British officers from illegally occupying the “West Bank” and East Jerusalem.
In the birth place of Christ, Bethlehem, before the Jordanian illegal occupation with which the British were complicit, 85% of the population wasl Christian.
Under Jordanian Muslim occupation with British complicity, between the 1948 Muslim invasion, and until liberated, or conquered, by the Israeli Jews in.1967, the Christian population of Bethlehem shrank fro 85% to less than 15%.
Taking into consideration the largely undocumented and unacknowledged genocide of about 3.5 million Christians, mainly Aramaic speaking Chaldeans and Assyrians in Iraq and Syria under mainly DAESH/ISIS; and so called Democratic but mainly Islamic “Liberation Movements”.
No wonder that in Israel, at least, Christian Arabs no longer want to be referred to as “Palestinians” or even “Arabs”, but prefer to be labeled either as Israeli Christians, or, better still, Israelis.
Over the last few years there was a large increase in the number of Israeli Christians, of Arab extraction, volunteering to serve in the Israeli military, Border Police and the police.
David Foot says
Let us face the truth and the facts, this is a very rare occasion when the Archbishop is right (in general I consider him a calamity), what is now Israel was taken over by a band of terrorists with the support of USA which were undermining the British Empire in the region instead of supporting it.
Same with India, thanks to Gandhi and USA we “made” Pakistan, and Truman did to China what Biden (without consulting his allies as well) did to Afghanistan.
Let us not forget that the blue prints of the West were handed to China by USA, as well, without the cost of researth just for not to pay USA workers proper wages and getting away with cheap Chinese labour China was turned in to a technological giant by the penny pinchers in Washington!
When the BIG ONE starts USA may regret undermining the power of the Anglosphere and even supporting the power of its enemies as it falls behind China slowly in a death of a thousand cuts today full of Marxists inside USA who destroy it form inside, Biden is doing this in a similar way to the one in which the Empire fell under Marxist Attlee. The greatest Empire ever destroyed from inside without Moscow having to fire a shot, thanks to its “friends” as well!
David Foot says
Decolonization and nation building strongly pushed by USA have been a self inflicted catastrophe everywere, it even gave Vietnam to the USA and why didn’t Truman and his 300 Marxists not apply the “Truman Doctrine” to China, THAT may end up being fatal for USA