Debunking Netanyahu’s Christmas Claims: Is Israel Protecting Christians?

On Christmas Eve, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a video wishing his “Christian friends around the world” a Merry Christmas.

In the video, Netanyahu repeated his long-standing claim that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian community is thriving and can practice its faith with full rights and total freedom, adding that Christian pilgrims are welcomed “with open arms” and deeply appreciated.

To support this narrative, Netanyahu pointed to the recent burning of a Christmas tree in the city of Jenin, using the incident to argue that Israel stands as a protector of Christians in the region.

He further claimed that while the Christian population in Israel is growing, Christian communities elsewhere in the Middle East have been steadily declining due to discrimination.

Misbar identified the misleading claims in Netanyahu’s statement, aimed at reinforcing an Israeli narrative that denies decades of violence against Christians.

A Decade of Israel’s Attacks on Christians

Netanyahu’s claim is not new; it has accompanied his political discourse since his return to power in 2009. Over the years, he has repeatedly portrayed Israel as a regional exception amid what he describes as instability and intolerance in the Middle East. In 2011, Netanyahu argued that despite what he called widespread uncertainty in the region, Israel remained “a beacon of religious freedom and pluralism.”

He contrasted Israel with neighboring countries, claiming that Christians elsewhere in the Middle East face routine persecution, while Israel safeguards holy sites and guarantees freedom of worship for followers of all religions. However, a year earlier, in December 2010, the mayor of occupied Upper Nazareth, a city with a significant Christian minority, banned the public display of Christmas trees.

“Nazareth Illit is a Jewish city, and it will not happen, not this year and not next year, as long as I am mayor,” declared Mayor Shimon Gapso. This incident was neither the first nor the last. In October 2012, a Franciscan monastery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem was vandalized, with derogatory words about Jesus painted on its entrance gate alongside the phrase “Price tag” in Hebrew.

“Price tag” attacks refer to acts of vandalism usually carried out by Jewish Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank in retaliation for Israeli government decisions with which they disagree. Later, in the lead-up to Pope Francis’s visit to Jerusalem in 2014, vandals spray-painted the words “Death to Arabs and Christians” in Hebrew on the Vatican’s Notre Dame Centre in Jerusalem’s Old City, where Pope Francis was scheduled to stay. On the same night, offensive graffiti appeared on a wall near the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Both incidents followed a wave of attacks against Christians in Al Jalil, where a place of worship was vandalized and stones were thrown at pilgrims.

In 2018, Christians in Jerusalem’s Old City warned that their presence “at the geographical heart of their faith is under threat from intimidation and aggressive property acquisition by hardline Jewish settlers.”

Church leaders said they were facing an “onslaught on three fronts: a war of attrition waged by hardline settlers, unprecedented tax demands by the Jerusalem city council, and a proposal to allow the expropriation of church land sold to private developers.”

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem and the most senior Christian leader in the Holy Land, Theophilos III, told The Guardian at the time: “These radical settler groups are highly organized. Over the last years we have witnessed the desecration and vandalism of an unprecedented number of churches and holy sites and received growing numbers of reports from priests and local worshippers who have been assaulted and attacked.”

In 2020, Protecting Holy Land Christians, a campaign organized by Christian leaders in Jerusalem to raise awareness of the community’s challenges, emphasized that 2022 was “one of the worst years for Christians in Jerusalem to date.”

The campaign warned that the number of Christians in Jerusalem had dwindled to a level bordering on extinction, with estimates placing Christians at less than 1% of the city’s population, a sharp decline from 11% in the mid-20th century.

Over the years, the threat to Christians continued to rise. By 2023, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land, the Vatican-appointed Latin Patriarch, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, stated that the Christian community had come under increasing attack.

Pizzaballa told the Associated Press that “The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new,” adding: “These people feel they are protected … that the cultural and political atmosphere now can justify, or tolerate, actions against Christians.”

In the same year, the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue documented 32 attacks on church property, seven violent attacks on Christians, 11 cases of verbal harassment, incidents of cemetery desecration, and 30 cases of spitting on or toward clergy and pilgrims.

Rise in Attacks Targeting Christians Following the Gaza War

However, following Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue’s 2024 annual report documented a rise in incidents of intimidation and aggression targeting Christian communities throughout the year.

Physical attacks emerged as the most prevalent category among the 111 documented cases, with the majority targeting clergy, who are easily identifiable by their religious attire.

Spitting was noted as a common form of physical harassment. Vandalism and desecration of Christian churches, including graffiti, stone-throwing, and arson, were also documented.

According to the report, the perpetrators in “all known cases were Jewish individuals, primarily young men from ultra-Orthodox and national religious circles, motivated by a combination of nationalist fervor and religious extremism.”

The report also noted that following the approval of the Basic Law “Israel: The Nation State of the Jewish People” in 2018, 64.8% of respondents believe the law confirms Christians as second-class citizens.

Regarding religious freedom, a majority of 58.5% reported “feeling comfortable wearing visible religious symbols in mixed or predominantly Israeli Jewish areas.”

Churches still face several challenges in dealing with Israeli occupation authorities, including “obtaining visas for clergy, securing permits for religious holidays, navigating the tax status of church properties, and resisting attempts to expropriate certain church lands.”

The year 2025 also saw a rise in attacks against Christians.

In February, Old City of Jerusalem Police Commander Dvir Tamim stated: “We are witnessing a phenomenon of hatred directed toward Christians in the Old City, particularly extremist individuals spitting on the ground as they pass near Christians or even directly at churches.”

Later in the year, in July 2025, during a visit to the predominantly Christian town of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank following intensified attacks by settlers, representatives from more than 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, Russia, China, Japan, Jordan, and the European Union, urged that those responsible be held accountable.

In Beit Sahour, a largely Christian town east of Bethlehem, settlers, with military support, destroyed the historic Ush al-Ghurab hilltop in November to make way for a new unauthorized settlement outpost.

As the December holiday season approached, several additional attacks were reported, including the storming of a site in Haifa and the detention of a person dressed as Santa Claus.

Israel Destroyed Christian Presence in Gaza

Throughout its war on Gaza, Israel has targeted Christian churches, hospitals, and civilians.

According to an Open Doors report, since the outbreak of the war in October 2023, roughly 75% of Christian-owned homes in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.

The Christian population has fallen from about 1,000 to just 700, with at least 300 individuals fleeing and 43 reported deaths resulting from the hostilities.

In response to Netanyahu’s September 2025 speech at the UN General Assembly, the Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine highlighted that during the war on Gaza, Israel had bombed the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius and the Catholic Holy Family Church, killing civilians who had sought refuge there.

Church-affiliated institutions such as Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital and the Orthodox Arab Cultural and Social Center were also targeted.

Christian homes were not spared, forcing families to seek shelter in churches, which themselves were hit by Israeli strikes.

The committee stated: “The truth is clear: Israel’s colonial policies of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide have destroyed the Christian presence in Palestine.”

Christians Across the Middle East

Across the Middle East, Christians remain a small but symbolically important minority, according to the Pew Research Center.

Christians currently represent roughly 3% of the region’s population, a decline from 3.3% in 2010 and a significant decrease from nearly 13% at the beginning of the 20th century.

However, experts attribute this decline to several factors: emigration from unstable countries such as Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq; lower birth rates compared with neighboring Muslim communities; and, in some areas, conversion away from Christianity or religious disaffiliation.

In Lebanon, Christians now make up approximately 28% of the population, down from around 33% in previous decades. Much of this shift is attributed to the large influx of predominantly Muslim refugees from Syria. Despite holding prominent political positions, including the presidency and substantial representation in parliament, Lebanese Christians face the same economic, political, and social challenges affecting the broader population.

Egypt is home to the region’s largest Christian community, and estimates continue to place Christians at around 10% of the population, although their share has gradually decreased over time.

Iraq and Syria have experienced the most dramatic declines in Christian populations, as decades of war, sectarian conflict, and economic hardship have forced hundreds of thousands to flee, leaving historic towns and villages with only a small fraction of their original Christian inhabitants.

In contrast, the Gulf states have seen growth in Christian populations due to large numbers of migrant workers from Asia and Africa. While citizens in countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar remain overwhelmingly Muslim, the presence of Christians in the Gulf has increased significantly.

It is worth noting that before 1948, Palestinian Christians made up 12.5% of the population of historic Palestine. Today, only 1.2% remain in historic Palestine, and just 1% in the occupied Palestinian territories.

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