This article was first published in German in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger on July 22nd, 2026.
Church representatives in the Holy Land have often reported repression and emigration in recent years. This is probably why Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar took up the topic on his own initiative at the press conference with Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (CDU) on May 5. Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Christians can live in safety while being oppressed or displaced in many neighboring countries, he said. Whoever raises his hand against Israel’s Christian fellow citizens will be severely punished. In 1950, 43,000 Christians lived in Israel, today there are more than 188,000, he underlined.
Nicodemus Schnabel, abbot of the Benedictine abbey Dormitio on Mount Zion, knows these figures. The Israeli authorities often counted the non-Jewish family members of the wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from 1989 onwards, who do not feel they belong to the Christian community, he explains. Even if the number of 188,000 is taken as a basis, this is about 1.5 percent of the total population of 10.1 million, a significant decrease compared to 1950, when 43,000 was 3.3 percent of the 1.3 million at that time.
The proportion of Christian Arabs in East Jerusalem has declined from 15-20 percent in the 1950s to just under 2 percent today. While this was previously mainly due to a lack of economic prospects, it is now also because of the reprisals of extremist Orthodox Jews. There are still about 45,000 Christians living in the West Bank, but their number is also steadily declining due to settler violence. In Gaza, there were 1,200 before the war, and now there are only about 300.
All this does not correspond with the account of Foreign Minister Sa’ar. Yoav Shemer-Kunz of the Israeli NGO B’Tselem states it clearly: the vision of peaceful coexistence of Jews and Arabs is only propaganda under the current government. In Israeli society, the idea of “Jewish supremacy” prevails, to which also the separation of the Jewish-Israeli from the Arab-Palestinian population, starting with the separate school system, has led. The “Nation-State Law” of 2018 with constitutional status, in which collective Jewish rights are placed above individual freedoms, reflects this. The international community is partly to blame for the fact that it has come that far, because it has let things run their course in Israel, he says.
The Benedictine monks know the consequences. In June 2015, an arson attack on their monastery in Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee caused damage amounting to €1.6 million. On the monastery wall, the perpetrators had sprayed “False idols must be smashed” in Hebrew. The monks are traumatized to this day, says Abbot Nicodemus. Similar graffiti is also sprayed on the walls of his monastery again and again. In April, a Jewish extremist brutally knocked down, spat on, and kicked a French nun who had just come out of Dormition Abbey. The video from the surveillance camera went viral and caused an uproar. The Israeli government then condemned the attack.
Where does the aggressiveness, which is particularly noticeable in East Jerusalem, come from? Most of the holy sites of the three Abrahamic religions are located there. Of the oldest, the Jewish, the fewest archaeological traces remain after 2-3000 years, while the Christian and Islamic cultures built countless places of worship there in the following centuries. Especially for nationalist Jews, however, the proof of former Jewish life turned into stone is proof of their claim to the Old City. Consequently, a struggle for historical or supposedly historical sites is unfolding, threatening the grown structure of the Old City of Jerusalem.
Armenian Orthodox Patriarch Nourhan Manougian seems resigned and, like all those affected, complains that the Israeli state does not seriously prosecute attacks. Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir refuses to qualify spitting attacks on Christians as “hate crimes.” On the other hand, there is support from Israeli civil society. After the arson attack in Tabgha, Israeli neighbors expressed their solidarity with the monks, and the perpetrator of the attack on the French nun was finally pushed aside by an Israeli fellow citizen, says Abbot Nicodemus. Israeli civil society is wonderful, other church representatives also confirm.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, has denounced the extent of the destruction in Gaza after the atrocities committed by Hamas in October 2023 from the beginning of Israel’s military action and has regularly visited Gaza under bombs. He speaks Hebrew and Arabic and is a widely respected voice. At the beginning of June, French President Emmanuel Macron awarded the cardinal the Order of the Legion of Honor for his commitment, expressly reaffirming France’s commitment to preserving the status quo of the holy sites in Jerusalem.
After recent visits to Gaza, Pizzaballa sees hardly any positive developments. To protect Christians and Christian sites in the Holy Land, he works closely with Israeli organizations, he says, but unfortunately the legal situation is very ambivalent.
Germany, on the other hand, maintains excellent institutions in the region through the German Association of the Holy Land. Supporting them is particularly important today. But a political signal, as France has set, is also appropriate. We cannot be indifferent to the vision of an open Jerusalem and the preservation of its historical character. The population needs prospects and security to stay. The Israeli state can act more decisively against settler violence and abuses, the question is, when will it do that?
Birgitta Siefker joined the German Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) in 1982 and held a number of diplomatic postings, including at NATO and the United Nations. She later served as German Ambassador to Lebanon, Mauritania and Jordan.
Cover photo: A Christian pilgrim prays the site of Golgotha (Calvary), the location where according to tradition Jesus Christ was crucified, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the old city of Jerusalem on August 4, 2026. (Photo by ilia YEFIMOVICH / AFP)
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to see and interact with our latest contents.
If you like our stories, events, publications and dossiers, sign up for our newsletter (twice a month).