The small Christian community in the Holy Land has come under severe pressure over the past five years. Some experts warn that the region could become a “Christian Disneyland”, with pilgrims visiting the holy sites associated with the life of Jesus Christ while no native Christians remain.
The situation is “very bad” for local Christians, according to Bishop William Hanna Shomali, an auxiliary bishop of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. First the pandemic and now a cycle of wars have wiped out pilgrimage revenue. Escalating violence, along with the economic and political problems between Israel and Palestine, has also left many local Christians struggling to find stable work.
Shomali has served Christians in the Holy Land for more than 50 years. Born in Beit Sahour, a small town on the outskirts of Bethlehem, the Palestinian cleric was ordained a priest in 1972 and rose through the ranks of the Latin Patriarchate. He now has responsibility for Latin-rite Christians in Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Cyprus.
Christians make up just under 2% of the population in the Holy Land. Most come from the Arabic-speaking Catholic community, which has lived in the region for centuries.
Statement: What is the situation like for Christians in the Holy Land?
Shomali: The Christians of the Holy Land are part of the Palestinian people, and the situation is bad for everyone, from both a political and an economic point of view. There is no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem because the international resolution on the two-state solution was rejected by Israel.
Now there is a government called the Palestinian Authority. It is not a full member state. This government is limited in its ability to manage the situation. The taxes, which should be the source of income for this authority, are being withheld by the Israeli finance minister because the minister considers that the money should go towards repairing the damage to villages and towns on the border with Gaza that suffered during the war.
In practice, the tax revenue is withheld and the government relies mainly on donations and grants, which come from European governments, Arab countries and, to a lesser extent, the United States.
"The financial situation is bad"
The financial situation is bad because many employees receive only half of their salary. The government is not able to pay for its hospitals or for the projects it starts. Workers who used to work in Israel, amounting to 160,000 people, no longer have permits to work in Israel. They suffer from unemployment.
The absence of pilgrimages has reduced tourism, and there is no revenue coming in, especially for Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Nazareth. All these things combined make the economic situation very bad.
To this we have to add violence committed by the settlers. When we say settlers, we mean the 200 settlements constructed in the West Bank in Area C. Area C covers 53% of all Palestinian territories. These settlements seek to expand, and they do so at the expense of Palestinian land, which may belong to Muslims or Christians.
Even Christians are now suffering from the seizure of their properties and are being prevented from reaching their agricultural lands for harvesting and olive picking. Many families in Palestine live off the olive tree, making oil or selling the olives themselves. Not being able to reach one’s own land means being deprived of revenue. Many Palestinian farmers suffer from these measures. On the one hand, they lose their land; on the other, they are prevented from earning the revenue that belongs to them.
These are some aspects of the situation. Then we have 10,000 to 12,000 prisoners in Israeli prisons for political reasons - this is also humiliating for the Palestinian people. To this we have to add the checkpoints. We have more than 2,000 checkpoints between villages and cities, and between the Palestinian territories and Israel, and this makes movement between different places very difficult.
Statement: Is there a danger that the Holy Land will become a place where pilgrims come, but no native Christians live?
Shomali: It is a fact that the percentage of Christians in the Holy Land is decreasing. I remember reading that in 1848, the percentage of Christians in the Holy Land was 9%. Now we are between 1% and 1.5%. In Israel, the percentage is around the same, but slightly higher.
The Christian Share Has Fallen Sharply
This means that the percentage has decreased significantly, for many reasons. Because of the emigration of Christians to South and North America, Australia and Canada. Also because the birth rate is low in Christian families, while it is high in Muslim and Jewish families. All these reasons together make our percentage lower. And many Jews moved to Israel from abroad. This increases the number of Israelis and, as a result, the percentage of Christians becomes lower.
However, things are not so bad, since the numbers are being maintained and are even increasing. When we were 9%, the total number of Christians in historical Palestine - which today is Israel and the Palestinian territories - was only 21,500 Christians. Now, even if we are 10 times fewer in percentage terms, our numbers are 10 times greater. On the one hand, Christians are decreasing as a percentage of the population, but there is still a continuing Christian presence around the holy places.
Statement: What can Christians outside of the Holy Land do to support native Christians?
Shomali: First of all, to pray for us. We believe in prayer, prayer brings peace. Even if it is in the long term, the Lord always answers prayers. They can make pilgrimages to the Holy Land, because pilgrims are messengers of peace and improve the well-being of local Christians through their visit. Since the main guest houses are administered and run by Christians, this helps the community to sustain itself.
Then we rely on Christians for help with our schools and two universities, our hospitals and our humanitarian aid. We rely on the generosity of donors, who may be from the USA or different European countries.
There are two main donors to the Holy Land and to the Latin Patriarchate. One is the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, which was charged by Pope Pius IX with supporting the Latin Patriarchate. And the other is Aid to the Church in Need.
Hamas See Christians as "second-class citizens"
Statement: How is the relationship with officials inside Palestine? We read about Hamas and other organizations - how does their presence affect Christians?
Shomali: Hamas is a radical Islamic movement with an ideology. The ideology requires Islam to be practiced in all its details and leads to greater fanaticism, considering Christians as second-class citizens. Meanwhile, the other Palestinian faction, Fatah - the Palestinian liberation movement - is a secular movement which considers Palestinian Christians to be full citizens with all rights. So there is a difference between the treatment given by Hamas and Fatah. This is a description of what is happening around us.
We have full rights in Palestine to practice our faith, to open schools, to run our ecclesiastical courts and to have more members in parliament than our percentage of the population might require. Every time there is an election, we have two or three members of the government who are Christian. So this gives us dignity. In Jordan, it is the same - we have full freedom, as in Palestine. So we do not feel any segregation, harassment or persecution.
Statement: What is the situation like for Gaza Christians?
Shomali: In Gaza, the number is below 600. Most of them are living inside the Holy Family parish complex, in classrooms. Now, in each classroom, at least two families are being hosted. These people do not work. Some may receive a salary for one reason or another. But others are unemployed. There is no work to do in Gaza. So they rely on us for all kinds of help. We have sent them 1,500 tonnes of food during the last two years. They help their neighbors because Christian charity embraces not only our own people, but also neighboring hungry people. The situation is bad.
They lack medicine. When we went in December, they were even lacking antibiotics. For this reason, many died from illnesses. The hospitals are functioning very badly, either being closed or functioning only partially. They cannot get new machines to replace the old ones. In the whole of Gaza, there is no MRI machine.
"I consider the situation in Gaza hopeless"
The Christian people hope that Gaza will be reconstructed soon, but the reconstruction will take a lot of time, at least 15 years. Just clearing away the rubble will take a long time. Then there is the question of where to put the rubble. There is only the sea, because Gaza is very limited in terms of space - 2.3 million people are living in a very narrow area. Originally, Gaza was 350 km². Israel took half of it, even more, beyond the yellow line, and now the same population is living in half of this area.
For the time being, I consider the situation in Gaza hopeless. Mr Trump’s project, the Board of Peace, is delayed because of the war with Iran. For now, we do not see light at the end of the tunnel.
Statement: Do Christian leaders in the Latin Patriarchate interact with the Israeli authorities to raise concerns about the situation for Palestinians and Christians specifically?
Shomali: All we can obtain now are permits for employees to come to work in Jerusalem and visas for clergy to be able to work in Jerusalem and Israel. This is important for our survival as a Church.
We try to solve the problems regarding the taxes that are to be used for reconstruction. There are negotiations with the government for taxes to be paid to the Palestinian Authority. We try to maintain contact with the government on important Church issues. But for the time being, it is difficult to solve all these issues because of the war.
We also have problems with the schools. The schools in Israel are supported by the Israeli government, which is good. The government pays 70% of the expenditure of Christian schools and all private schools.
But the latest issue was that Israel wanted to prevent teachers coming from the Bethlehem area from working in our private schools in Jerusalem. We need teachers for different subjects whom we cannot find in Jerusalem but can easily find in the Bethlehem area. If permits are denied to them, our schools will suffer and the people themselves will suffer because they will lose possible employment.
Statement: You have had long experience serving the Christians of Palestine as a priest and bishop - how has the situation changed during that time?
Shomali: It has changed. For instance, at times it was easier to travel around, without checkpoints. The situation worsened after the first uprising, or Intifada, which took place in 1987. It became more and more difficult. Now the checkpoints are preventing easy movement, as I said, between different places.
Settler Attacks "main problem" at Present
The attacks by the settlers are the main problem at present, because the settlers want to expand the settlements at the expense of Palestinian territories in Area C. This creates friction between the people and the settlers. Often the army does not interfere, and the settlers are armed while Palestinians are not. There is an unequal relationship between the two, and the settlers are certainly the stronger side. There are now almost one million settlers in the West Bank.
Statement: What are your hopes for the future of the Christian community in Palestine?
Shomali: The future is in the hands of God. We pray, and we also try to engage in dialogue with people of faith because, through interreligious dialogue, we see that things may move in a better direction. We hope for a miracle, because the virtue of hope means that God can intervene for the good of the two peoples who live side by side.
We have examples in world history where things changed, although the situation was very difficult. One example is Northern Ireland, where things changed after a century of conflict. Another example is the reunification of Germany - it happened all of a sudden because millions of people prayed for it.
So for us, this gives hope that what happened there can happen again in the Holy Land, knowing that there are people of peace who want peace and work for it, but who are silenced for the time being. In the future they may become stronger and achieve a good peace agreement that ensures both security and dignity for the two peoples of the Holy Land.
Statement: Is it the case that the extreme voices on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict are the loudest?
Shomali: Yes, Hamas is extreme and the right-wing government is extreme. Their voices are very loud. But I am sure that there are people on both sides who are willing to work for peace and who can work together for a two-state solution, where there is mutual respect and where we accept a demilitarized Palestinian state in order not to threaten Israel’s security.
We hope that the good people on both sides will work for a solution. These people exist, we know most of them, but at the moment they are not able to act during this situation of war. But we will hear their voices in the future, hopefully.