Catholics in Israel and Jerusalem face rising wave of discrimination

Last week, a French nun was attacked unexpectedly on a street in East Jerusalem. The incident is not isolated: for the approximately 180,000 Christians living in Israel and around 10,000 in East Jerusalem, this is just the latest in a growing series of abuses, assaults, and threats. The community says this surge parallels the rise of far-right nationalism in Israel.

Violent incidents and arson often make headlines, but lower-level acts like spitting, insults, or graffiti on walls have become daily experiences for many Palestinian-origin Catholics. Nearly half of believers under 30 say they want to leave the area.

Israeli authorities condemned the attack on the nun, calling it a “despicable” act with “no place in Israeli society.” A suspect has been arrested. However, analysts say trust in the Israeli state is very low, and many incidents go unreported.

According to data from the Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC), in the first three months of this year, Christians reported 31 cases of harassment, mainly spitting or vandalism of church property. The Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue recorded 113 attacks on people and church property in Israel and East Jerusalem last year, including 61 assaults targeting easily identifiable clergy such as monks, nuns, and priests.

“Resentment toward Christianity existed in the past, but people didn’t dare to express it openly,” said Hana Bendcowsky, program director at the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations. “Over the past three years, the political climate in Israel has cared less about how the world sees us, making people feel more comfortable harassing Catholics.”

The rise of far-right nationalism, particularly in policy toward Palestinians, has intensified under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Once-marginal far-right voices now play a decisive role in the government. A Rossing Center survey found that most attacks on Catholics are carried out by ultra-Orthodox and ultranationalist Israelis.

“The hatred and efforts to harass non-Jews by certain elements, especially settlers, know no bounds,” Rabbi Arik Ascherman, an Israeli peace activist, told Al Jazeera. “From spitting, harassment, insults, to government actions preventing churches from bringing in clergy from abroad... it’s all part of the reality here.”

According to Bendcowsky, the complexity in Jewish-Christian relations dates back centuries. “Some churches have started rethinking their attitude toward Jews and Judaism, but this hasn’t happened in Israeli Jewish society. In education, the focus is on Jewish victimhood, so unfamiliarity with Christians, combined with historical memory of Christianity, is often negative. In the current political atmosphere, there are those who exploit this for retaliation.”

Researchers say incidents are rarely reported due to fears about foreign visas, a desire to avoid attention, and lack of trust in the state. “There’s a complete lack of trust in the police, and that leads to many unreported attacks,” Bendcowsky said. “Unless the incident garners international attention, especially from the U.S., it often goes uninvestigated or without a formal conclusion.”

High-level international condemnation of attacks on Christians, especially from Israel’s key ally the U.S., often prompts a quick Israeli government response. After a video of Israeli soldiers destroying a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon sparked global outrage, the prime minister’s office swiftly condemned it. In March, after backlash from world leaders including the U.S. ambassador to Israel when Israeli police blocked the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, formal apologies and “clarifications” were quickly issued. But attacks by the Israeli military on Christian churches in Gaza and Lebanon are only acknowledged when international sympathy, especially from the U.S., risks eroding.

In Israel, Christianity is often associated with Palestinians. As Israel becomes increasingly unapologetic in killing Palestinians and seizing their land, Palestinian Christians and other Christians in the region cannot help but be affected. Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, an Israeli analyst at Atlas Global Strategies, argues that growing intolerance toward Catholics, along with violence in Gaza and the wider region, is steadily eroding Israel’s global support, especially in the U.S., and making it harder for Christian Zionists to reconcile their views with the treatment of fellow believers.

“In the long run, these attacks on Christians are huge,” Ben-Ephraim told Al Jazeera. “Older Evangelicals might forgive, but the younger generation has turned away from Israel. This is eroding what little support Israel has left. While current leaders like President Trump and Ambassador Huckabee will pretend this isn’t happening, it will shape a whole generation of religious Christians in ways Israel can’t even imagine.”