{"id":257111,"date":"2026-08-01T12:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/257111\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T12:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:22:09","slug":"palestinian-christians-call-on-american-evangelicals-to-stop-ignoring-their-plight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/257111\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinian Christians call on American evangelicals to stop ignoring their plight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bethlehem, West Bank\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Father Munther Isaac can lean on a 2,000-year history of Christian faith and practice as he studies and promotes the teachings of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

But he fears the places where Christ was born and was killed could face a harder future, not only because of the ongoing strife between Israelis and Palestinians but because of actions by some of his fellow Christians.<\/p>\n

While Christians come under verbal and physical attack almost daily in Jerusalem, Isaac argues that the existence and experiences of the Palestinian faithful are almost invisible to American evangelicals who support returning the Holy Land to the Jews.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome and see,\u201d is the call from Isaac, the director of the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice, from Father Bashar Fawadleh of the last entirely Christian town in the occupied West Bank, and other clergy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur experience has been when pastors and lay people come to Palestine, see the walls, see the settlements, meet with families struggling just to survive in their land \u2014 that\u2019s when their eyes are opened,\u201d Isaac said.<\/p>\n

Isaac and Fawadleh want to reach evangelicals following the broad movement known as Christian Zionism, which sees the modern state of Israel as the fulfilment of biblical prophecy.<\/p>\n

But they argue that ignores the communities of Palestinian Christians and goes against the Christian ethos of loving your neighbor.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheology has been weaponized,\u201d Isaac said. \u201cThese are Christians who are funding and supporting the major threat on our existence in the land today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaac, 47, was born in the Christian town of Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem. Jewish settlements have spread over much of the land where he played as a child and he can no longer walk the couple of miles to the ancient churches, temples and mosques in Jerusalem from his home in Bethlehem. The West Bank town is encircled by Israel\u2019s separation wall that rises to 26 feet high and was introduced to stop suicide bombers during the Second Intifada from easily reaching Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Israel has been ramping up its support for building on Palestinian land in the last year. That\u2019s forced many Muslims to move and further splintered the 50,000 or so Christians who live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Fawadleh said more than 90 people had left Taybeh, known as Ephraim in the Gospel of John, over the last three years. Now the last fully Christian town in the West Bank has about 1,200 residents, and that number threatens to dwindle further.<\/p>\n

Fawadleh said his parishioners are afraid to get the harvest from their olive groves, and Roland Bassir said his cement factory just outside Taybeh comes under attack from settlers most days. \u201cIf I have the opportunity to leave, I would leave and not stay in this town, because there is no future for me or my children,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"Roland<\/p>\n

Troubling to the Christian leaders is that moral and financial support for the settlement growth is coming from many individuals faithful to \u201cChristian Zionism.\u201d In January, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem issued a statement<\/a> calling it a \u201cdamaging\u201d ideology.<\/p>\n

Christian Zionists see Scripture as telling them to support Jews living across the Holy Land to hasten a Second Coming of Christ, the end of the world, and transition to an eternal afterlife for Christians.<\/p>\n

Among the most prominent faith-centered organizations supporting Israeli settlements are US-based evangelical groups Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and Christian Friends of Israeli Communities (CFOIC), both of which highlight Bible verses for their missions.<\/p>\n

CFOIC says it supports 80 Israeli \u201ccommunities\u201d in the occupied West Bank, which it calls by the Biblical names of Judea and Samaria. On its website, it urges supporters to \u201cgive generously, so that the communities of Biblical Israel may flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimberly Troup, director of the US office for CFOIC, told CNN she was friends with a pastor in Bethlehem and understood that Palestinian Christians had left Bethlehem because of Muslim persecution, not the actions of Israel.<\/p>\n

In an email she wrote: \u201cChristian Zionism is an authentic expression of Biblical beliefs grounded in the Bible, which, as Christians, we believe is the word of God. Being a Christian Zionist means following God\u2019s word as stated in the Bible that He gave the Land of Israel to the Jewish people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaac argues that this does not consider the reality of life on the ground, that the land in question is already home to Christians and Muslims.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the threat of settlers over our lives these days \u2014 an actual threat against our lives as Palestinian Christians \u2014 these are Christians who are funding and supporting the major threat on our existence in the land today,\u201d Isaac said. \u201cWhat this shows is, again, that we are not in their plan. They don\u2019t think of us. They don\u2019t see us.\u201d<\/p>\n

CUFI said in an emailed statement that it supported the Israeli government and declined to respond to Isaac.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"Father<\/p>\n

Isaac jokes that it is as if evangelicals including US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, himself a Baptist minister, are living in the 7th Century BCE.<\/p>\n

In a statement to CNN, Huckabee rejected Isaac\u2019s criticism, and said he personally knew Palestinian Christians who were themselves Christian Zionists.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one overlooks the experiences of Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land. But Evangelicals believe the Bible \u2014 ALL of it,\u201d Huckabee continued. \u201cIt\u2019s not a cafeteria where we pick and choose what fits our own prejudices and desires. There is nothing \u2018racist\u2019 about believing what the Bible clearly says about God\u2019s promises to the Jews, and the Jewish faith is the foundation of the Christian faith. I hope Rev. Isaac joins evangelicals in calling for an adherence to the authority of Scripture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaac proselytizes through social media, doing interviews and traveling to the US for conferences where he can appeal for people to learn about the Palestinian Christian existence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think many evangelicals are warming up to our perspective,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not coming into this discussion by saying, \u2018Forget the Bible. Let\u2019s talk about politics.\u2019 It\u2019s not our approach. Our approach is \u2018Let\u2019s read the Bible together,\u2019 but let\u2019s also read it with Palestinian Christians and connect it to the reality on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, Isaac spoke at Wheaton College, one of America\u2019s best-known evangelical institutions, while touring his book\u202f\u201cChrist in the Rubble.\u201d For him, invitations from traditionally conservative evangelical spaces suggest younger Christians are increasingly willing to question long-held assumptions.<\/p>\n

Polling appears to reflect that shift. A 2025 University of Maryland study<\/a> found that 51% of older evangelical Americans sympathized more with Israelis than Palestinians, compared with 24% of younger evangelicals.<\/p>\n

Isaac is now supported by some converts, including Ben Norquist, who said he accepted Christian Zionism as a legitimate narrative while growing up in Minnesota, and never really thinking of who could be negatively affected.<\/p>\n

\u201cPalestinians were invisible to me,\u201d he recalled to CNN, saying his viewpoint only changed in his 20s when he began engaging with the stories of Palestinians and eventually travelled to the Holy Land for his PhD focusing on higher education in the Palestinian territories.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething that\u2019s important about what happened for me is that that process didn\u2019t make me less Christian, so to speak. I didn\u2019t ever question the foundations of my faith. What it felt like was I was actually discovering a truer version of what Jesus calling us to all along, and that\u2019s how I feel even today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Isaac and Fawadleh believe they have a special role to play as Christians in the Holy Land.<\/p>\n

Fawadleh welcomes all to visit. \u201cAs Jesus invited the two disciples of John the Baptist, come and see. Hear our stories,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Isaac echoed the peaceful call. \u201cWe feel the weight of history upon our shoulders to continue the Christian presence and message from the place where it all started, and that message has to be one of love your neighbor, justice, and peacemaking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bethlehem, West Bank\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Father Munther Isaac can lean on a 2,000-year history of Christian faith and practice as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,109339,456,5060,5061,24333,3766,5144],"class_list":["post-257111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-ceasefire-israel","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-israel","tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","tag-palestine","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}