Demographics Don’t Lie: The Decline of the Christian Population in PA- and Hamas-Controlled Areas

Photo Credit: GPO

A Greek Orthodox priest, held hostage by Palestinians who took refuge in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, is holding a sign saying “PLEASE HELP,” April 2002.

The Christian population living under Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas rule has steeply declined. With the end of the Ottoman era in Palestine and the beginning of the British Mandate in 1922, Christians constituted 11% of the population of geographical Palestine, numbering 70,429 people. In 1946, as the British Mandate was about to end, the headcount had increased to 145,063 people, but they constituted only 8% of the population, reflecting the greater relative growth, due to immigration, of Jews and Muslims.¹

In 1949, the number of Christians living in Judea and Samaria, then under Jordanian rule, who renamed the area “the West Bank,” stood at 51,053. That number declined to 45,855, according to a Jordanian population census conducted in 1961. When Israel took control of Judea and Samaria in 1967, the Christian population had further declined, numbering 42,719 people, accounting for 6% of the population.

The PA’s first population census in 1997 recorded 40,055 Palestinian Christians, constituting 1.5% of the total Palestinian population. The second PA census in 2007 indicated a slight increase in the size of the Christian population, which numbered 42,565, but their percentage in the general population had declined to only 1.2%. In the third PA census conducted in 2017, the number of Christians had grown to 46,850, yet they accounted for only 1% of the population.²

The case of Bethlehem vividly illustrates Christian demographic erasure. In 1950, Bethlehem and the surrounding villages were 86% Christian.³ According to the Christian Information Center, in 1994, when the PA took control of Bethlehem, it was the most populous Christian town in the Holy Land.⁴ Since then, Bethlehem’s Christian population has dwindled to approximately 10% (according to the last census in 2017).⁵ Christian families are leaving Bethlehem due to systemic socio-economic hardships and instability, discrimination, and harassment (including of clergy) by Muslim Palestinians and the Islam-dominated Palestinian Authority. The mass exodus of the Christians risks undermining the survival of Christianity in its birthplace. ⁶

Anti-Christian Violence, the Failure of the Palestinian Security Forces and the Justice System

In Bethlehem, Christians frequently face violence and intimidation. Muslim clans use force to resolve disputes, leaving Christian families defenseless.⁷ In 2022, a Muslim man was accused of harassing young Christian women at the Forefathers Orthodox Church in Beit Sahour near Bethlehem. Soon after, the church was attacked by a mob of Palestinian men who hurled rocks at the building while congregants cowered inside, with several injured in the attack.⁸ In April 2022 Palestinian evangelical pastor Johnny Shahwan was arrested by the PA on charges of “promoting normalization” with Israel. PA security forces did nothing to counter this. In October 2022 an unidentified gunman shot at the Christian-owned Bethlehem Hotel after a video on social media associated the hotel with a display that included cardboard cutouts of a Star of David and a Menorah. No arrests were made in connection with the shooting.⁹

Added to this is the institutional persecution committed by PA police against Christians. As one member of the Protestant clergy under the PA explained: “Christians feel unprotected due to the failure of the PA police to intervene on their behalf in confrontations with Muslims.”¹⁰ When subjected to harassment and worse by Muslim extremists, Palestinian Christians usually opt not to report incidents to the PA police. According to Shafik, a Protestant clergyman, many are too scared to discuss their accounts, feeling it is dangerous since it may provoke further persecution, regarding the PA police as hostile. Sana Razi Nashash from Beit Jala recalls being harassed by a man in the street. The next day, on her way to file a complaint with the police, she saw the perpetrator wearing a PA police uniform. Needless to say, she did not bother filing the complaint.¹¹

Christian Palestinians also face significant bias when seeking justice in local courts. Discrimination within the legal system leaves them vulnerable to exploitation, perpetuating their marginalization. Christians encounter obstacles in accessing justice for crimes committed against them, leading to a culture of impunity. This lack of legal recourse discourages reporting of abuses and perpetuates victimization.¹² Christian women are especially vulnerable to legal discrimination.¹³

Religious Coercion: Freedom of Worship Stifled under Palestinian Rule

Besides the physical property desecration of Christian religious sites in the Palestinian territories including incidents of graffiti and arson attacks,¹⁴ Christians in Gaza and the West Bank also frequently face personal harassment for practicing their religion. Muslim extremists often disrupt Christian religious celebrations, public festivities face threats, and participants fear for their safety. Christmas trees are often burnt by Islamists, as was the case, in the village of Zababdeh in 2015.¹⁵

Reports of church desecration and restrictions on worship services also paint a bleak picture.¹⁶ In 2019, vandals broke into a Maronite church in Bethlehem, desecrated it, and stole valuable equipment, with similar incidents at other churches, including an Anglican church in Aboud. These events often go unreported in the Palestinian media, since the PA pressures Christians not to publicize them.¹⁷

Personal religious freedom is also curtailed. Converts from Islam to Christianity in the West Bank face threats and extreme pressure to give up their new faith. In Gaza, their situation under Hamas rule is so dangerous, that they practice their Christian faith in utmost secrecy,¹⁸ with some Christian men growing beards to blend into the general Muslim population.¹⁹

On the flip side, Palestinian Christians have reported being forcibly converted to Islam and abducted, raising serious concerns about religious freedom violations. In 2012, the Orthodox Christian Church in Gaza claimed that armed Islamists kidnapped five Christian Palestinians to compel their conversion to Islam. In 2016, Bishop Alexios of Gaza “confirmed that the Christians who converted to Islam did so under threats, coercion, compulsion, and force.” His church submitted a formal petition to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to investigate matters, which received no response.²⁰

Though, unlike the zealously religious Hamas, the Fatah-dominated PA presents itself as a secular, nondenominational entity, its pervasive mistreatment of Christians proves that bias against religious minorities is an ingrained cultural phenomenon. While Islamic tradition sees Christians and Jews as the “People of the Book,” they still retain only second-class status as “protected” dhimmi, an inferior status for not having accepted Islam. The dhimmi “protection pact” suspends the Muslim conqueror’s initial right to kill or enslave Jews and Christians in exchange for tribute – the jizya tax. Anecdotes of tolerance aside, dhimmi communities and individuals have been made to live in a state of perpetual, intentional humiliation by Islamic precepts, to emphasize their inferiority. The British consul in Jerusalem wrote that in Jerusalem until 1839, Christians were pushed into the gutter by any Muslim, who would swear, “turn to my left, thou dog.” They were forbidden to ride on a mount in town or to wear bright clothes.²¹

Today, Muslim Sharia Law Rules

One hundred sixty years later, under the PA, these attitudes persist. A PA Information Ministry statement in 1997 stated: “The Palestinian people are also governed by Sharia law….According to Sharia Law…any Muslim who [converts] or declares becoming an unbeliever is committing a major sin punishable by capital punishment…the [Palestinian Authority] cannot take a different position on this matter.”²² In attempting to assuage Christians, the statement goes on to say that capital punishment for conversion “has never happened, nor is it likely to happen” in the Palestinian territories, but that “norms and tradition will take care of such situations should they occur.” This legal framework regarding apostasy remains unchanged.²³ The PA has arrested converts to Christianity in the northern West Bank, Nablus, and Ramallah.²⁴

Gender-Specific Crimes and Coercion Against Christian Women

The PA’s ineffectiveness or unwillingness to address the abuse of Christian women has led to a significant increase in pervasive sexual harassment and rape.²⁵ Inaz Jiries Hanna Muslah, a 23-year-old Palestinian Christian teacher at the Joy School in Beit Sahour, stated in a rare 2002 interview in Beit Jallah that public harassment of Christian girls began when the PA came to power “after 1993. Before, [there were] no things like this.” Originally, “we could go to everyplace we wanted; we could walk in the streets,” but now, “I don’t walk alone on the street because of this bad thing, so I prefer to walk with my brother, my mother, my father.”²⁶

In Gaza, Christian women were reportedly abducted or pressured into converting to Islam and marrying Muslim men.²⁷ Many cases go unreported due to fear of retaliation and lack of legal recourse.²⁸

Modern-Day “Dhimmitude”: Anti-Christian Discrimination in Employment, Business, Housing and Property Rights, and the Justice System

Palestinian Christians report systematic employment discrimination, forcing many to leave their communities to seek opportunities elsewhere. Studies show Christians in the West Bank feel excluded from leadership positions, weakening their social influence.²⁹ A 2022 study indicated a strong desire among Gaza’s Christian population to emigrate, twice as strong as that of Muslims. This explains how the Christian population of Gaza dwindled from 5,000 people before Hamas took control to just 1,000 in October 2023. They cited economic and social issues, corruption, security concerns, and religious persecution since Hamas took control in 2007. Reports document violence and discrimination against Christians in Gaza, leading to a significant decline in population.³⁰

Palestinian Christians have also encountered significant obstacles in housing and property rights, both purchasing and selling land. Even internationally recognized holy sites in the West Bank are threatened, vandalized, and desecrated by the PA without consequence.³¹

This has been a long-standing practice, with Fatah and Arafat’s intelligence network intimidating and maltreating the Christian population in Bethlehem with extortion, and confiscation of land and property. They “left them to the mercy of street gangs and other criminal activity, with no protection.”³² The PA’s judicial system also does not ensure equal protection to Christian landowners. In Bethlehem, a Muslim family from Hebron took possession of the Christian Comtsieh family’s land and built a business center atop it without permission. While the Comtsieh family initially won in court, the judge reversed his judgment with no due course.³³ In January 2022, a large group of masked men carrying sticks and iron bars attacked Christian brothers Daoud and Daher Nassar on their farm near Bethlehem. The Palestinian courts have worked to confiscate the family farm in their possession since Ottoman times.³⁴

Christian businesses are systematically boycotted and extorted, marginalizing Christian families and pushing them toward financial ruin, with many leaving for survival.³⁵

Cultural Erasure through Education and Social Ostracization

PA school curricula often omit or distort Christian history in the Holy Land. This fosters ignorance and prejudice against the Christian minority among Muslim students.³⁶ The only alternative for Arab-Christian parents is to enroll their children in expensive private Christian schools.³⁷ William Murray, Chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, said, “I have talked to Christian families about what is taught in the schools. From what they say, there is indeed a ‘culture of death’ that includes glorification of suicide bombers and training to kill Jews and Americans.” The popularity of Hamas and Islamic Jihad strengthens this culture.³⁸

As early as 2000, in a Friday sermon broadcast live on PA TV from a Gaza mosque, Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya declared: “Allah the Almighty has called upon us not to ally with the Jews or the Christians, not to like them, not to become their partners, not to support them, and not to sign agreements with them.”³⁹ This type of institutionalized social ostracization and harassment against Christians by segments of the Muslim majority creates a hostile environment, compelling many to leave.⁴⁰

Christians Are Treated as Political Pawns

Palestinian Christian leaders are often pressured to adopt anti-Israel rhetoric to fit the broader political narrative, deflecting attention from their own discrimination. They have also encouraged Western Christians to abandon post-Holocaust theology and adopt a supersessionist (replacement theology) view that blames Jews and Israel.⁴¹ Palestinian Christians are pressured to blame Israel for their plight, while Muslim leaders deny their role in persecution.

International Ignorance Enables Oppression

The international community often disregards the plight of the Palestinian Christian community.⁴² While minor clashes with some Israeli Jewish extremists are reported in hyper-focus in the media, the PA represses the reporting of grave incidents of Christian systemic oppression, the stories never seeing the light of day. Often, Christian individuals are afraid to report hate incidents in the PA for fear of being arrested or worse. This creates a skewed picture, one eagerly adopted by Western governments and media outlets.⁴³ The survival of Christianity in its birthplace depends on awareness and action. Silence emboldens perpetrators and leaves victims without international support. Highlighting these injustices is essential to breaking the cycle of abuse.

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Notes

{Reposted from JCPA}