From Jesus to Real Genocide: Palestinian Reckoning |
The Christian presence in Palestinian society—once ancient, visible, and integral—should never need an obituary. Yet today, it does.
In recent years, repeated incidents across Palestinian Authority–controlled areas have revealed a troubling pattern: Christian symbols vandalized, churches threatened, religious minorities intimidated—not by foreign occupiers, not by invading armies, but by fellow Palestinians shaped by a growing culture of Islamist intolerance.
One such incident occurred recently in Jenin, where a Christmas tree was set on fire and desecrated in public view. The episode was quickly dismissed by local officials as vandalism, an aberration, or youthful provocation. But its symbolism was unmistakable—and familiar to Palestinian Christians who have watched their space in society steadily shrink.
These incidents are often dismissed as isolated; but they are not. They are symptoms.
The flames that periodically consume Christian symbols in Palestinian towns are not random acts of vandalism. They are symbolic. A warning. A continuation of a long, quiet purge.
This is not an anecdote; it is demography.
Before the Oslo Accords and Israel’s withdrawal from major Palestinian population centers in the mid-1990s, Christians constituted a substantial share of Palestinian society—particularly in historic urban and semi-urban centers such as Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Ramallah, and surrounding areas. In several of these communities, Christians once formed pluralities or outright majorities.
The........