Netanyahu at the UN: The “Protection of Christians” narrative collapses under the weight of facts
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked widespread controversy during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last week when he claimed that Christians made up 80 per cent of Bethlehem’s population under Israeli control, but that the number dropped to less than 20 per cent after the Palestinian Authority took over. He further asserted that Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Christians feel safe.
However, these claims collapse under scrutiny. Historical and social facts, documented in academic studies and official statements issued by Palestinian churches, show that the decline of the Christian presence in Palestine is primarily linked to Israeli policies since 1948, not to those of the Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu’s speech: Deceptive simplicity concealing deep complexity
Netanyahu presented a simplistic political comparison between the periods of Israeli control and Palestinian administration in Bethlehem, blaming the latter for the decline in the Christian population. Yet this narrative ignores a long historical trajectory of events that deeply affected the Christian presence in Palestine.
Since the Nakba of 1948, the demographic landscape changed dramatically. The war and the establishment of the State of Israel led to the displacement of around 700,000 Palestinians, including some 60,000 Christians who became refugees. Before the Nakba, Palestine’s population was approximately 1.98 million, of whom 145,000 were Christians (7.6 per cent). After the war, only about 34,000 Christians remained within the territory that became Israel, reducing their share to about 2.4 per cent.
This sharp decline was not the result of “poor Palestinian governance” but of occupation and forced displacement — particularly significant given that around 34 per cent of the land in West Jerusalem occupied by Israel was owned by Christian churches.
The 1967 occupation further deepened the crisis through policies aimed at reducing the Palestinian population — especially Christians — and driving them to emigrate by confiscating land and property and placing it under the control of the Custodian of Absentee Property, which leases it to Israelis.
Christians were targeted for two main reasons:
- Political: To support the “Jewish state” project by portraying Palestine as an exclusively Islamic land, thereby justifying the denial of non-Jewish rights.
- Economic/Land-based: Much of the land in historic Palestine was owned by Islamic and Christian religious endowments, and a shrinking Christian presence makes it easier to seize.
The Old City of Jerusalem is a stark example of these policies. In 1967, its population was about 70,000, with Christians making up 40 per cent. Today, that figure has dropped to just 1.5 per cent due to systematic pressure and displacement.
In response to this demographic erosion, President Mahmoud Abbas established the Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in 2012 to protect the Christian presence, reduce emigration, and preserve Palestine’s multi-religious identity.
Religious tolerance: A core element of Palestinian identity
Academic research — including a study titled “Religious Tolerance as a Pillar of National Security” — highlights that Muslim-Christian coexistence in Palestine is not a recent phenomenon but an integral part of national identity.
For centuries, Muslims and Christians have formed a single social fabric that has resisted sectarian division. These studies emphasize that the real threat to this coexistence does not come from within Palestinian society, but from Israeli colonial and occupation policies that apply a “divide and rule” strategy to fracture Palestinian society and weaken its internal cohesion.
Thus, claims linking the decline in the Christian population to mismanagement by the Palestinian Authority are unfounded; the real causes are political, economic, and security-related, created by Israel itself.
Palestinian churches: The occupation is to blame
Palestinian church bodies were quick to respond to Netanyahu’s remarks. The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs issued a statement describing his comments as “lies aimed at whitewashing the occupation and distorting the truth.”
The committee asserted that Israeli settlement and military policies are what destroyed the historic Christian presence in Palestine — through the confiscation of church lands, closure of roads leading to places of worship, restrictions on freedom of movement, and even direct attacks on churches in Jerusalem and Gaza during military operations.
The statement noted that Christians made up about 12.5 per cent of the population of historic Palestine before 1948, but today they constitute just 1.2 per cent. It concluded that this dramatic decline is primarily the result of Israeli policies, not Palestinian Authority governance as Netanyahu claims.
Deconstructing Netanyahu’s numbers
The figures Netanyahu cited in his speech do not stand up to scrutiny. There are no reliable statistics confirming that Bethlehem was ever “80 per cent Christian” under Israeli control. Historical estimates indicate that the proportion of Christians began to decline gradually after the Nakba, due to emigration and socioeconomic and political conditions, not solely after the Oslo Accords.
Today, Christians make up between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of the population of Bethlehem and its surrounding areas, according to local estimates. This percentage is shaped more by broader economic and political factors than by the policies of the Palestinian Authority.
It is clear that Netanyahu’s goal was not to provide an accurate picture of reality but to use selective data to advance a political narrative portraying Israel as a “haven of tolerance” in contrast to “Palestinian extremism.” However, this narrative collapses under the weight of historical facts, academic research, and statements from Christian institutions themselves — all of which confirm that the occupation is the most significant factor behind the decline of the Christian presence.
Conclusion
Historical evidence, academic studies, and statements from the churches themselves make it clear that Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations was little more than a political attempt to distort reality and blame the Palestinian Authority for outcomes created by Israel’s colonial policies.
From the Nakba to the present day, war, occupation, forced displacement, land confiscation, and economic pressure have reduced the Christian population in Palestine from more than 12 per cent before 1948 to around 1.2 per cent today.
Despite ongoing attempts to undermine it, Muslim-Christian coexistence remains resilient — a fact underscored by scholarly research and Palestinian official efforts to protect this essential component of the national fabric.
The “protection of Christians” narrative promoted by Netanyahu crumbles before the facts, which clearly indicate that it is the occupation — not the Palestinian Authority — that is chiefly responsible for the demographic changes in Palestine.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.