Holy Land Christians Suffer Increasing Attacks by Israeli Settlers

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The 2,000-year-old Christian community in Israel has come under increasing attack, as the current government has emboldened Zionist settler extremists who have harassed, beaten and spat on clergy, and have vandalized religious property at an increasing rate. An Anglican priest said, “The right-wing elements are out to Judaize the Old City and the other lands, and we feel nothing is holding them back now.” There are over 200,000 Jewish settlers that already encircle the Old City. Most top Israeli officials have stayed quiet on the violence and vandalism. Meanwhile, the Israeli government proposed a law criminalizing Christian proselytizing; Netanyahu vowed to block after coming under pressure from outraged evangelical Christians in the United States. Among the strongest backers of Israel, evangelicals view a Jewish state as the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy.

Christian leaders are alarmed that the Israeli government plans to create a national park on the Mount of Olives, the place where Jesus was reported to have ascended into heaven. The roughly 15,000 Christians in Jerusalem today, the majority of them Palestinians, were once 27,000 — before hardships that followed the 1967 Mideast war.

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The head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land has warned in an interview that the rise of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government has made life worse for Christians in the birthplace of Christianity.

The influential Vatican-appointed Latin Patriarch, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, told The Associated Press that the region’s 2,000-year-old Christian community has come under increasing attack, with the most right-wing government in Israel’s history emboldening extremists who have harassed clergy and vandalized religious property at a quickening pace.

The uptick in anti-Christian incidents comes as the Israeli settler movement, galvanized by its allies in government, appears to have seized the moment to expand its enterprise in the contested capital.

“The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new,” Pizzaballa said during Easter week from his office, tucked in the limestone passageways of the Old City’s Christian Quarter. “These people feel they are protected … that the cultural and political atmosphere now can justify, or tolerate, actions against Christians.”

Pizzaballa’s concerns appear to undercut Israel’s stated commitment to freedom of worship, enshrined in the declaration that marked its founding 75 years ago. The Israeli government stressed it prioritizes religious freedom and relations with the churches, which have powerful links abroad.

“Israel’s commitment to freedom of religion has been important to us forever,” said Tania Berg-Rafaeli, the director of the world religions department at the Israeli Foreign Ministry. “It’s the case for all religions and all minorities that have free access to holy sites.”

But Christians say they feel authorities don’t protect their sites from targeted attacks. And tensions have surged after an Israeli police raid on the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque compound set off outrage among Muslims, and a regional confrontation last week.

For Christians, Jerusalem is where Jesus was crucified and resurrected. For Jews, it’s the ancient capital, home to two biblical Jewish temples. For Muslims, it’s where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

The scorn heaped upon minority Christians is nothing new in the teeming Old City, a crucible of tension that the Israeli government annexed in 1967. Many Christians feel squeezed between Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians.

But now Netanyahu’s far-right government includes settler leaders in key roles — such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who holds criminal convictions from 2007 for incitement of anti-Arab racism and support for a Jewish militant group.

Their influence has empowered Israeli settlers seeking to entrench Jewish control of the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, alarming church leaders who see such efforts — including government plans to create a national park on the Mount of Olives — as a threat to the Christian presence in the holy city. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for state.

“The right-wing elements are out to Judaize the Old City and the other lands, and we feel nothing is holding them back now,” said Father Don Binder, a pastor at St. George’s Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem. “Churches have been the major stumbling block.”

The roughly 15,000 Christians in Jerusalem today, the majority of them Palestinians, were once 27,000 — before hardships that followed the 1967 Mideast war spurred many in the traditionally prosperous group to emigrate.

Now, 2023 is shaping up to be the worst year for Christians in a decade, according to Yusef Daher from the Inter-Church Center, a group that coordinates between the denominations.

Physical assaults and harassment of clergy often go unreported, the center said. It has documented at least seven serious cases of vandalism of church properties from January to mid-March — a sharp increase from six anti-Christian cases recorded in all of 2022. Church leaders blame Israeli extremists for most of the incidents, and say they fear an even greater surge.

“This escalation will bring more and more violence,” Pizzaballa said. “It will create a situation that will be very difficult to correct.”

In March, a pair of Israelis burst into the basilica beside the Garden of Gethsemane, where the Virgin Mary is said to have been buried. They pounced on a priest with a metal rod before being arrested.

In February, a religious American Jew yanked a 10-foot rendering of Christ from its pedestal and smashed it onto the floor, striking its face with a hammer a dozen times at the Church of the Flagellation on the Via Dolorosa, along which it’s believed Jesus hauled his cross toward his crucifixion. “No idols in the holy city of Jerusalem!” he yelled.

Armenians found hateful graffiti on the walls of their convent. Priests of all denominations say they’ve been stalked, spat on and beaten during their walks to church. In January, religious Jews knocked over and vandalized 30 graves marked with stone crosses at a historic Christian cemetery in the city. Two teenagers were arrested and charged with causing damage and insulting religion.

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Milton Farrow
Milton Farrow
11 months ago

AS A PERSON OF JEWISH HERITAGE I FIND THE ACTIONS OF THESE
CHASIDIC JEWS” UNACCEPTABLE-IT IS ESPECIALLY EGREGIOUS FOR OUR RACE WHICH WAS NEARLY WIPED OUT BY THE GENOCIDE SUFFERED BY IT’S PEOPLES UNDER NAZI GERMANY-

G.
G.
11 months ago

Your use of YouTube as video sources doesn’t work – they are blocked…by YouTube.

Phillip Mezzapelle
Phillip Mezzapelle
11 months ago

The Neocons and Zionists have to eliminate all the real Christians. This way they can have the rapture all to themselves. 🤣

tom ball
tom ball
11 months ago

“Among the strongest backers of Israel, evangelicals view a Jewish state as the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy.”

Without the millennialist heresay we wouldn’t be on the brink of destruction.

This has made 9/11 coup possible.

There is an organized crime syndicate that has been entirely overlooked.
Half of them don’t believe in “G-d” anyway.

What do you expect from the biblical definition of “anti-christ”.

John Hingson IV
John Hingson IV
11 months ago

The title of the original article includes “far-right” so you know they’re trying to paint the sincerely religious as “Y’all-Qaeda” as they have been doing for years here in the USA. GEG obviously doesn’t automatically believe what is written in this AP article because it’s government-approved news, of course, but he posted here on Need To Know News because it is certainly an interesting article. I would say the article assumes from the start that agent provocateurs would never act in Israel. It reads like something that would have been written by the Third Reich to imply that religious Jews… Read more »