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Palestinian Christians

  • Today, there are roughly 200,000 Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land, descendants of some of the oldest Christian communities in the world.
  • The majority of Palestinian Christians are Greek Orthodox, with smaller numbers of Roman Catholics, Armenian Orthodox, Copts, Episcopalians, Ethiopian Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Lutherans, Maronites, Syrian Orthodox, and several other Protestant denominations.
  • There are no official figures on the number of Palestinian Christians in the occupied territories, but according to the Lutheran ecumenical institution the Diyar Consortium there are 51,710 Christians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. They are concentrated mainly in East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Nablus.
  • Christians comprise roughly 2% of the population of the West Bank, while Gaza’s estimated 3,000 Christians account for less than 1% of the coastal enclave’s population. The number of Christians in the occupied territories has continued to dwindle as many emigrate as a result of the difficulties of living under Israeli military occupation. (See here for a 2012 report from the program 60 Minutes on the plight of Palestinian Christians.)
  • According to Israeli government figures, as of 2009 there were about 154,000 Christian citizens of Israel, or about 2.1% of the population. Of those, approximately 80% are Palestinian Arabs, including 44,000 Roman Catholics, while the rest are non-Arab immigrants, mostly spouses of Jews who came from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
  • In recent years, settlers have begun so-called “price tag” attacks against Palestinians in response to Israeli government actions that displease them, such as the dismantling of settlement “outposts” (nascent settlements built without official approval from Israeli authorities). Often, such attacks take the form of vandalism and desecration of Muslim and Christian holy sites.
  • In the occupied territories, Palestinian Christians suffer from the same restrictions, including onmovement, applied to all Palestinians living under Israel’s 45-year-old military rule. These same restrictions do not apply to the more than 500,000 Jewish settlers living in illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
  • Although Israeli officials frequently claim that Palestinians, including Christians, have free access to their holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem and other areas under Israeli control, in reality Israeli restrictions make it difficult or impossible for most Palestinians in the occupied territories to worship freely. According to the US State Department 2011 Report on International Religious Freedom, published in July 2012:

    “Strict closures and curfews imposed by the Israeli government negatively affected residents’ ability to practice their religion at holy sites, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, as well as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

    “The separation barrier significantly impeded Bethlehem-area Christians from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and made visits to Christian sites in Bethany and Bethlehem difficult for Palestinian Christians who live on the Jerusalem side of the barrier.”

Bethlehem

See here for a map of settlements surrounding Bethlehem

  • The town of Bethlehem itself has a population of approximately 22,000.
  • Today, Christians comprise approximately 18% of Bethlehem’s population.
  • Bethlehem is surrounded on three sides by Israel’s West Bank wall, which has been deemedillegal by the International Court of Justice.
  • There are currently 22 Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land belonging to Bethlehem, including Nokdim, where recently resigned Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman lives. As with Israel’s West Bank wall, all Israeli settlements built on occupied land are illegal under international law.
  • In and around Bethlehem there are some 32 physical barriers to Palestinian movement erected by Israel, including checkpoints, roadblocks, dirt mounds, and gates.
  • In June 2012, the Church of the Nativity, where Christians believe Jesus was born, was namedby UNESCO as an endangered heritage site, in a move opposed by the Obama administration.

East Jerusalem

See here for 2010 map of settlements in and around East Jerusalem
See here for interactive “Jerusalem and its Environs” map

  • There are approximately 250,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem. They can travel inside Israel and vote in municipal elections, but do not have Israeli citizenship or the right to vote in national elections, and face the constant threat of losing their residency rights if they can’t prove the city is their “center of life” to Israeli authorities.
  • Following its capture in the 1967 War, Israel expanded the municipal boundaries of East Jerusalem, which comprised about four square miles, adding an additional 45 square miles (more than 17,000 acres) of the occupied West Bank to the city, which was then annexed to Israel. Neither move has been recognized by the international community, including the United States.
  • There are approximately 200,000 Jewish settlers living in the expanded boundaries of East Jerusalem, in violation of international law.
  • Although Israel has attempted to make a distinction between them, according to international law, there is no legal difference between East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories. As such, Israel has no internationally recognized legal claim to any part of East Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites.
  • In an attempt to separate and isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of the occupied West Bank, Israel has built a ring of settlements around its outskirts. This ring has been reinforced by the wall Israel is constructing, which also separates Israeli settlements in and near East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.
  • Since 1993, Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza have been forbidden by Israel to enter East Jerusalem without a difficult to obtain permit. As a result, millions of Palestinian Muslims and Christians living in the West Bank and Gaza are prevented from accessing their holy sites in Jerusalem.
  • According to the 2009 US State Department International Religious Freedom Report: “Many of the national and municipal policies in Jerusalem were designed to limit or diminish the non-Jewish population of Jerusalem.”
  • According to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem: “Since East Jerusalem was annexed in 1967, the government of Israel’s primary goal in Jerusalem has been to create a demographic and geographic situation that will thwart any future attempt to challenge Israeli sovereignty over the city. To achieve this goal, the government has been taking actions to increase the number of Jews, and reduce the number of Palestinians, living in the city.” Methods used by Israel as part of an effort to “Judaize” or alter the religious composition of Jerusalem by increasing the number of Jews while decreasing the number of Palestinians, include:
    • Revoking residency rights and social benefits of Palestinians who stay abroad for at least seven years, or who are unable to prove that their “center of life” is in Jerusalem.
    • Encouraging Jewish settlement in historically Palestinian-Arab areas through official and unofficial organizations.
    • Systematically discriminating against Palestinian neighborhoods in municipal planning and in the allocation of services and building permits.
    • Destroying Palestinian homes and structures built without difficult to obtain permission from Israeli authorities. Since 1967, approximately 2000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in East Jerusalem. According to official Israeli statistics, from 2000 to 2008 Israel demolished more than 670 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem. It’s estimated that the number of Palestinian housing units threatened with demolition is as high as 20,000.

 

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