By Sardar Khan Niazi

For decades, Israel has projected itself to the West as a guardian of democracy and religious freedom in the Middle East. Yet the lived reality of many Palestinian and Lebanese Christians tells a different story — one marked by intimidation, displacement, attacks on churches and convents, and rising sectarian hatred from extremist settlers and ultranationalist groups. The suffering of Christians in the occupied Palestinian territories is too often erased from mainstream discourse. Palestinian Christians are routinely spoken of as though they barely exist, despite being among the oldest Christian communities on earth. There is a specifically anti-Christian dimension to the violence that deserves urgent international attention. In Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, attacks against clergy, pilgrims, churches, cemeteries and Christian communities have sharply increased in recent years. Reports document incidents ranging from spitting at priests and nuns to vandalism, arson and physical assault.  The Palestinian Christian village of Taybeh — the last entirely Christian Palestinian town in the West Bank — has become a symbol of this mounting persecution. Residents and clergy have repeatedly accused extremist Israeli settlers of torching cars, setting fires near ancient churches, destroying olive groves and terrorizing villagers while Israeli soldiers either stood by or arrived too late to intervene.  Church leaders in Taybeh have warned that the objective appears to be the gradual expulsion of Palestinians from their ancestral land, Christians included.  This is not merely random hooliganism. It is the poisonous outcome of years of ultranationalist rhetoric that dehumanizes Palestinians and treats non-Jewish communities as obstacles to a maximalist ideological project. Some extremist settler groups openly invoke religious supremacy while carrying out acts of intimidation against Palestinian Muslims and Christians alike. The violence has extended beyond Palestine into Lebanon as well. During Israel’s military operations in southern Lebanon, Christian sites have not been spared. Recent reports described the destruction of parts of a Catholic convent in Yaroun during Israeli military activity, provoking outrage from church authorities and humanitarian organizations. The desecration of Christian symbols and attacks on religious infrastructure deepen fears among Lebanese Christians already trapped between war and regional instability. To acknowledge these realities is not to deny the suffering of Israeli civilians or the complexity of the conflict. Nor is it an attack on Judaism. Criticism of extremist settler violence and state policies is not antisemitism. Democracies should be held accountable precisely because they claim adherence to international law and human rights. What is morally indefensible is the selective outrage of much of the international community. When Christians are attacked elsewhere in the Middle East, Western leaders rightly condemn sectarian violence. But when Palestinian Christians face harassment, dispossession or attacks linked to Israeli settlers or military operations, the response is often muted, evasive or entirely absent. This silence has consequences. The Christian population of the Holy Land has steadily declined over the decades. Emigration is driven not only by economic hardship but also by fear, insecurity and the suffocating conditions of occupation. Ancient Christian communities that have survived for two millennia now face an uncertain future. The world must stop treating Palestinian Christians as invisible. Churches, human rights organizations and governments should demand independent investigations into settler violence, attacks on religious sites and abuses committed under military occupation. The protection of holy places and vulnerable communities cannot depend on geopolitical convenience. The tragedy unfolding in Palestine and southern Lebanon is not solely a Muslim story or a Christian story. It is a human story — about what happens when impunity replaces justice and when extremist ideologies are allowed to flourish unchecked. If the international community genuinely values religious freedom and human dignity, then the cries of Palestinian and Lebanese Christians deserve to be heard with the same urgency as anyone else’s.