The recent attack by Israel’s military on Gaza’s only Catholic Church has been met with global outrage. The shell fired from an Israeli tank not only damaged the Holy Family Church compound that hundreds of Palestinians had been using as shelter, but also killed three people and wounded at least 10 more, including the parish priest. But this attack on Palestinian Christians is unfortunately not new, nor should it be surprising.
Living in Jerusalem for four years as a U.S. diplomat, I learned that we Christians in the West hold many misconceptions about Christianity in the Holy Land. Some are small, such as every Nativity scene in the United States showing a wooden stable, when in likelihood, the stable in which Jesus was born was a cave, like all stables in historic Palestine.
Some misconceptions, however, carry larger consequences, such as the idea that being a good Christian means supporting the Israeli government without question. Given the rising civilian death toll in Palestine and ongoing Israeli government actions targeting Christians, such unwavering support is problematic.
Nearly all Christians in the Holy Land are Palestinians, including Palestinian citizens of Israel. Christianity is foundationally tied to Palestinian culture and history, in the land where it all began.
Since October 2023, Presidents Biden and Trump have given Israel’s military close to $30 billion in military aid, and Israel has killed at least 59,000 Palestinians in Gaza—including over 19,000 children—in 21 months. Hundreds more have been killed in the other Palestinian territories Israel occupies, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Numerous well-respected human rights organizations, international humanitarian aid groups, and other experts—including famed Israeli genocide scholar Omer Bartov—assess these actions to be genocide. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government continues to destroy Palestinian homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to make room for illegal Israeli settlements. This seeming disregard for Palestinian lives runs in clear contradiction to Christian values. But the problem is much deeper than that.
During my years of service in Jerusalem, when we hosted members of Congress and other U.S. government representatives, we regularly arranged tours of Christian sites for them. But these same visitors mostly refused to meet with the leaders of Christian churches and communities, as though a meeting might force a factual, moral, and theological reckoning that these communities are both Christian and Palestinian.
Palestinian Christian communities face systemic violence and oppression at the hands of the Israeli government, which receives billions of dollars in U.S. aid each year, and from violent Israeli settler groups. Palestinian cities within Israel are chronically neglected and face rising crime rates, and their residents face an unequal system which an ever-growing number of human rights groups and international bodies, including the world’s top court, the International Court of Justice, have labeled as apartheid. In Jerusalem, church leaders describe Israeli government policies as designed to remove the Christian, and by extension Palestinian, character from the city.
Christian clergy in Jerusalem are regularly spat on, harassed, and assaulted by right-wing Israelis, often under the watchful eye—and sometimes direct participation—of Israeli police. Church properties are vandalized with little, if any, consequences. Violent Israeli settlers, backed by the police, have illegally occupied church properties in the Old City and evicted the Palestinian Christian tenants. Palestinian Christian homes outside of the Old City are often bulldozed, without due process, to make way for excavations designed to draw in tourists, and Palestinian Christians living in the West Bank are often prevented from visiting Bethlehem due to Israeli-imposed military checkpoints and road closures. Attacks on Palestinian Christians and churches in the West Bank are also common.
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In Gaza, the Christian community is small but influential. Numbering no more than a few thousand, the community provides education and health services to thousands of Gazans, both Christians and Muslims. Even before October 2023 the size of the community had decreased significantly as many chose to leave Gaza because of the inhumane, illegal 18-year-long blockade imposed by the Israeli government. Some church leaders worried that the community had shrunk below a sustainable number and was destined to continue declining.
Holy Family Church is not the only church in Gaza. The Church of St. Porphyrius, a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City, is believed to be the third oldest in the world, built in 425 AD. Despite being well-known as both a Christian church and a shelter for civilians, the Israeli military dropped a bomb in its vicinity on October 19, 2023, killing 18 civilians. A few days later, Israeli snipers shot and killed two women in its courtyard.
As Israel’s assault on Palestinians continues, I would encourage our government leaders—including President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee—as well as Christians everywhere, to recall Jesus, his origins, and his teachings, and to think deeply about whether supporting an Israeli government which is committing these attacks on Christians in the Holy Land is the best expression of our faith.
