The Mayor of Bethlehem, Hanna Hanania, said that this year’s holiday message was titled “Christmas brings us together”, that is, it unites us on goodness, love and giving, and it is a message to the international community of the need to stand up to its responsibilities and to stop Israeli practices.

I don’t know about you, but the ending of that sentence brought me up short. Christmas brings us together: check. Christmas unites us in goodness, love and giving: Check.

But, Christmas is a wake-up call to the international community to intervene to stop Israeli occupation practices toward the oppressed Palestinians?

This last point makes sense only if you know that according to a 2020 poll 80% of Palestinian Christians worry about being attacked by militant Israeli squatters, that 83% worry that these colonizers will drive them from their homes, and 70% are concerned that the Israeli government will simply annex their land. Fully 62% of Palestinian Christians believe that the ultimate goal of the Israeli government is to expel Christians from their homeland.

A good 14% have actually lost land to the Israelis, and 42% have to regularly go through Israeli security checkpoints, which have carved the West Bank up into cantons and make it difficult to get to hospital.

Christmas is back this year in Bethlehem, a town of 25,000 or so, where about 11,000 are Christian and the rest Muslim, after two years during which tourism evaporated in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The municipality lit up the Christmas tree and held a Christmas market, and the tourists came flooding back in. The mayor cautioned, however, that it would take the local inhabitants time to recover from the deep economic recession caused by the pandemic. He thanked the Palestinian ministry of tourism and antiquities for its help in recovering some of the glitter of the holidays.

The West Bank, however, is a tinderbox, especially with the prospect of new government led by Likud, Jewish fundamentalists and hard line anti-Palestinian expulsionists. That shadow falls on Bethlehem, too, which has been boxed in by Israel’s Apartheid Wall, built on private land of Palestinians and cutting the town off from Jerusalem. The mayor, a Christian, explained that he was referring to deliberate Israeli practices and intentional escalation around Christmas time, involving major incursions by Israeli forces into the city and its refugee camps (such as Dheisha, which houses Palestinians expelled from their homes in what is now Israel in 1948). He said that Israeli forces had made arrests and had tightened what amounts to a siege on the town. He pledged that despite this harassment, Christmas celebrations would go forward as planned.

In this part of the world, holy days are political. Palestinian rights activist Mustafa al-Barghouti said that all Palestinians are devoted to celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ in the face of the new “fascist” Israeli government, adding that the Palestinians see Christ as “the first Palestinian who was tortured in this land and who triumphed over his torments.” He said that the message of the Palestinian people on Christmas is that they will triumph, as well, over their own torments, “over fascism and criminality.” He sees Palestinian participation in Christmas festivities in Bethlehem as “a form of resistance” to the Israeli occupation.

Jesus was crucified by imperial Roman authorities in the province of Palaestina on suspicion of sedition, which makes him a sympathetic figure to contemporary Palestinian Christians and Muslims (Muslims believe in Jesus as one of God’s prophets).

The paragraph I wrote over a decade ago still holds true:

““Most Americans when polled are not able to say where exactly Bethlehem is or who lives there. Only 1 in 6 know that it is a Palestinian city of 30,000 in the West Bank with a mixed Christian (40%) and Muslim (60%) population. Almost no one in the US knows that the Israeli wall or separation barrier, which has ghettoized many Palestinians and expropriated from them property and farm land, is strangling Bethlehem. The barrier cuts Bethlehem off from Jerusalem and steals private property from its residents. It has created an economic crisis that has caused Palestinian Christians to emigrate from the city. The “Christians of Bethlehem overwhelmingly (78%) blame the exodus of Christians from the town on Israel’s blockade . . .”

Jason Casper at Christianity Today did a deep dive on the Christian Palestinians of the Occupied West Bank. He cites a poll from a couple of years ago that showed that where Palestinians want to emigrate to Europe or the Americas, it is overwhelmingly because of straitened economic circumstances. The economic problems in the area, in turn, stem from Israel’s occupation.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimates that since the year 2000 the Israeli Occupation has cost the Palestinian economy $58 billion.

Palestinian Christians for the most part don’t leave their homeland because of religious persecution or fear of their Muslim compatriots. Only about a third of them consider themselves religious, and they are the least likely to emigrate. Palestinian Christians find it easier to go to Europe and the Americas than do the Muslims, but even so most say they are committed to staying with their family and friends in the place they love.

Some of the points in the article and the interview are elaborations of ideas I first expressed in my recent book,

The Eastern Orthodox church that predominates among Christians in Syria, Palestine, and in Greece, Russia and most of Ukraine, holds and annual ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in which priests go into a chamber said to have been built directly over Christ’s tomb and light candles from a mysterious source of fire. They then return to the nave of the church and light congregants’ candles from their own. Some of the lit candles are flown to countries that are important centers of Eastern Orthodoxy. For the past two years the ceremony could not be held because of the pandemic. In 2019, over 10,000 Christians flocked to the church and its environs.

This year the Israeli state placed severe restrictions on how many Christians could attend, and on Saturday they set up metal barriers to enforce those limits, of only 4,000 attendees. Israeli government officials said they were afraid of a stampede. The Eastern Orthodox authorities in Jerusalem dismissed this fear as a pretext, pointing out that the ceremony had been held annually without incident. Controlling the some 370,000 Palestinians of East Jerusalem has become an obsession of the Israeli security forces, as the state and Israeli civil society make a press to implant Jewish squatters on Palestinian property there and to exercise increased control over civic and religious life.

The complaints of Christians come after a week of Israeli attacks on Palestinian worshipers at the sacred al-Aqsa Mosque compound during the holy month of Ramadan. Christian Palestinians have been known to join in demanding that Israel keep its mitts off both al-Aqsa and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Israel seized East Jerusalem in 1967 by military main force and is recognized as the Occupying power there. International law forbids occupiers to flood their own citizens into occupied territories or to annex them, but Israel has defied UN Security Council Resolutions to do both. The Geneva Convention of 1949 governing the treatment of occupied peoples was an attempt to forestall the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Europe from happening again.

The Israeli security forces set up barriers at the entrances to the Old City, according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent there, especially at Bab El-Jadid (New Gate) near to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Christian Palestinians from all over the Palestinian West Bank and from inside Israel, along with many foreign pilgrims, were kept away from the church by these obstacles.

Eastern Orthodox church officials denounced Israel for interfering in freedom of worship.

Turkey’s Anadolu Agency reported that Israeli security forces slapped around some of the Christians who tried to push through the checkpoints, though there were no injuries, reporting from eyewitnesses, “there were several skirmishes between the police and the celebrants, at the checkpoints set up by the police in the city. They alleged that the Israeli police beat Christians who tried to reach the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, without causing any injuries.”

The Greek Church is also upset at the Israelis. Because of current Covid policies, a representative of the church would have had to arrive in Jerusalem on Good Friday in order to be allowed at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Saturday. But the priests were all committed to Good Friday services in Greece and could not get away. The church complained of Draconian Israeli restrictions. An Aegean Air flight did bring candles lit by the holy fire to Greece, after which they were distributed to 8 cities in the country.

Xinhua’s reporter visited Syria and found that the Christians in Damascus don’t appear to be able to put up much in the way of Christmas lights in the Christian district of Bab Touma. They complain of a lack of electricity and a lack of money.

The Christians aren’t different in that regard from all the other Syrian civilians. US sanctions on Syria are part of the reason for this dilemma.

United States foreign policy has become so opaque that it is hard to divine what President Biden is up to in Syria, where the Department of Defense still has about 900 troops — even though the legality of their presence is highly questionable. One of their tasks appears to be to keep the petroleum pumped from Syria’s eastern fields out of the hand of the Syrian government. One thing is clear, however, which is that U.S. sanctions on Syria are mainly hurting ordinary people and interfering with rebuilding the country.

Meanwhile, Christians in Jerusalem, who are Palestinians, are warning that Israeli squatters are attempting to take their homes and that they may find it difficult to remain in the city. While the Biden administration has complained to the Israelis about their policy of taking away the homes of Palestinians who have lived in them for decades, Washington is never willing to punish Israel for breaking international law, and so the expulsions continue.

Things are pretty glum in Lebanon, as well, this year, with an ongoing political and economic crisis. A few years ago, one in three Lebanese were living under the poverty line. This year it is four out of five. Power blackouts have also blacked out Christmas lights. Some parents have warned their children that Santa Claus won’t be coming this year. Christians there, who make up a sizeable proportion of the population and from whom the president is drawn, are trying to extract what cheer they can from the holy day.

Lebanese typically spend $250 million on gifts in the week before Christmas. Arab News says this year people only spent $10 million to $15 million, the worst performance since 1975 when Civil War broke out.

Many Muslims are happy to join in the Christmas festivities, posting Qur’an verses about Jesus’ birth to social media and pointing to Jesus’ birthday as something that can unite all Lebanese.

Lebanon’s crisis is complicated, but let us just say that American sanctions on Syria have also hurt its people, including its Christians. Lebanon is a small country and Syria is its much larger neighbor, with which it does a great deal of trade, commerce and finance. Sanctions on Syria make businesses wary of those interactions, which has a deflationary effect.

If you want to help Lebanon, the UNICEF appeal is here

The sanctions-crazy foreign policy Blob in Washington, D.C. have invoked the Caesar Act against the Baathist Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad have imposed other sanctions. That government is full of genocidal monsters, so fair enough. But US sanctions on government officials have knock-on effects, making charities nervous about operating in that country lest they be sanctioned themselves, and making banks and lenders nervous about lending to or even doing business with the central back of the country, as Sam Heller points out.

Similar considerations obtain in Afghanistan, where US sanctions on the Taliban may contribute to a horrible humanitarian catastrophe this winter.

Sam Heller explains that at least the Biden administration approved a World Bank plan to bring Egyptian natural gas through Jordan and Syria to Lebanon. Syria will likely get some of the gas as barter for tolls for the pipeline going through the country. The Biden administration is eager that Lebanon’s energy come from Egypt, even if via Syria, because the alternative is for the Lebanese Shiite party-militia, Hezbollah, to bring it in from Iran. That makes Lebanon more dependent on Iran and also strengthens Hezbollah’s hand in national politics. Analysts whose main concern is using sanctions to overthrow the Syrian government were angered by the move, but sanctions don’t usually actually overthrow governments. Ruling elites can insulate themselves from the effect of sanctions, so they mostly harm the poorest people in the society.

People with different orientations are responding to this announcement differently. Some are reacting against modern Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s 1935 decision to convert the facility to a museum. Many from this same group of people seem to be concerned about the honor and respect for Sultan Mehmet II, the Conqueror, who took Constantinople in 1453, who is reported to have been praised in the hadith that predicted the liberation of Constantinople. Another group appears to be motivated by Turkey’s glorious past and for them the Sultan had made significant contribution to build Turkey’s global image and any action that undermines Sultan Mehmet’s legacy would harm this image. Meanwhile the Turkish apex court has come forward with a judgement that the 1935 decision to change the status from a place of worship to a museum as illegal and therefore returning the facility to worshipers would be the only right action to take.

Our question here, however, is whether the Sultan made a mistake by converting the functioning church to a mosque and whether we must – the later generations – approve all actions of our heroes irrespective of their validity and consequences. In my humble opinion, it was a mistake on the part of the Sultan to convert the venue to a mosque. In this context, one must keep in mind that committing mistakes is human and our father Prophet Adam (on whom be peace) committed a mistake in the beginning of human history. In the current milieu, one should remember an event during the liberation of Makkah under the leadership of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Following the liberation ‘Abbas, the prophet’s uncle, demanded the key of the Ka‘ba from the clan Bani ‘Abd ad-Dar who were not yet Muslim. The Prophet granted the request. Immediately the Prophet received the verse “Allah commands you to deliver trusts to those worthy of them; and when you judge between people, judge with justice. Excellent is the admonition Allah gives you. Allah is All-Hearing, All-Seeing (4: 58).” The Prophet understood the implication and instantaneously returned the key back to ‘Uthman ibn Abi Talha and his cousin Shaybah ibn ‘Uthman, the two representative figures of Bani ‘Abd ad-Dar. The rationale behind this act seems to have been that the clan was traditionally maintaining the trust of the people with the key and had been providing the necessary services to pilgrims, and therefore there was no need to deprive them of the charge. The Prophet received guidance from the Creator because he was in direct touch with Him, but for followers the mechanism is, as has been suggested in the Qur’an, is to counsel one another (103: 3). Therefore, the followers of the Qur’an must analyze ideas and events to counsel and correct one another’s mistake even though centuries might have passed.

One should also look at the prophetic teachings about treatment of non-Muslims. The Prophet in his covenant with the Christians of Najran pledged: “I commit myself to support them, to place their persons under my protection, as well as their churches, chapels, oratories, the monasteries of their monks, the residences of their anchorites, wherever they are found, … Nor is it permitted to destroy any part of their churches, to take parts of their buildings to construct mosques or the homes of Muslims.” He extended similar covenant to other Christian communities living in other areas of Arabia. Following the prophetic tradition the second caliph ‘Umar (may God be pleased with him) extended similar pledge to non-Muslim communities in Jerusalem when it came under Muslim rule.

Ideally, Sultan Mehmet II should have extended similar treaty to the Orthodox Church when he liberated Constantinople in 1453, but circumstances at the time were different. Indeed the Sultan seems to have taken the action in accordance to demands of his time. Muslim places of worship at the time were being confiscated and converted to churches and other miscellaneous treatments in the Iberian Peninsula. In addition, one should note that at this time there was no Muslim places of worship in Istanbul. The Fatih Sultan Mehmed Mosque which is located about four kilometer away from Hagia Sophia, came about decade and a half later, the Suleymaniye mosque, which is over three kilometer away, came more than a century later. The Sultan Ahmet Mosque next door to Hagia Sophia was founded in 1617, more than century and a half later. Therefore, there was a genuine need for Muslim place of worship in the city. However, circumstances have changed in the 21^st century, no mosque is being converted to church in Spain these days, and the need for prayer space for Muslims in Istanbul does not apply any more. In fact, churches in many western countries have now opened their doors to Muslims for worship. Therefore, it is only proper for the Turkish government to reconsider the whole situation in the light of changed circumstances.

Questions are being raised about the legal implications of wars of conquest – what happens when wars end – how should victorious parties treat defeated parties? What happens to properties of the subjugated? Should one treat places of worship differently from other properties? Some apologetics have come forward with a document suggesting that the Sultan purchased the property where Hagia Sophia is located from priests who were responsible for it. Argument has also been put forward that the venue was vandalized by Catholics in one of the Crusades and was not being used for religious purposes when the Sultan liberated the city, and therefore the Sultan was absolutely justified to restore the facility to a place of worship. However, in our view, Hagia Sophia should not be compared with any normal place of worship. In fact, the abode is reported to have been a place of worship for centuries before the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I had built what he called Hagia Sophia or the House of Divine Wisdom. One should ignore occasional lawlessness in such places. Could we not maintain the same status for which it was built? If the Prophet of God could afford to trust a non-Muslim clan to administer the key to the Ka’ba, who are we to deny key to the house of Divine Wisdom to its original holder? However, handing over Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox Church could happen only in an ideal world and we hardly live in an ideal realm.

In a world mired by the clash of civilizations thesis, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) seems to be a good platform to initiate any such discussion. In order to reduce world tension the Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero called for an alliance of civilizations at the United Nations General Assembly in 2004 and the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came forward to co-sponsor it. Although the institution began its journey for conflict resolution in 2005 with the blessings of the UN Secretary General with a lot of enthusiasm, with the passage of time it seems to have lost excitement. In an atmosphere of nation-state sovereignty, it is always difficult for international organizations such as UNAOC to make an impact in international politics. This is particularly true for nations such as Spain and Turkey, which do not have veto power in the United Nation Security Council. Yet for Spain and Turkey to come forward in order to address a crisis created in the name of clash of civilizations. Keeping in view Spain’s past record, it was a great gesture on the part of the Spanish government to come forward not only with the proposal of an alliance of civilizations, Spain also withdrew its troops from Iraq at a time when many Muslims had become victim of the so-called War on Terror. Perhaps that is why Turkey came forward to co-sponsor the Spanish proposal. However, circumstances have changed over the past decade or so. Mr. Zapatero is no more in power and Spain does not seem to be following the alliance of civilizations agenda actively any more.

If the Turkish people were to be convinced in returning Hagia Sophia to Christians, they would like to see the return of mosques that were converted to churches and other facilities in the 14^th and 15^th centuries in Spain back to Muslim hands. In other words, both Spain and the Catholic Church will have to revise their history and correct their mistakes. Pope Francis has expressed his “pain” and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has expressed that he has been “saddened and shaken” at Turkey’s decision on Hagia Sophia but, in our opinion, both must do more to earn respect and trust of Muslims. The UNESCO too must do more to help Muslims regain their civilizational heritage in Spain. As for the government in Turkey, it too does not seem to enjoy the same higher moral ground that it had enjoyed in 2005 to impress the Spanish government. Mr. Erdogan’s AK Party has slowly centralized power through a new presidential system. In addition, the cordial relationship Turkey had developed with neighboring countries, particularly with Greece and Armenia during first decade in power, does not seem to be continuing any more. These are not good signs for gaining trust either nationally or internationally.

In our view, Hagia Sophia issue has the potential to not only revive the moribund institution and rekindle its mission and vision; it has the potential to generate trust among all world civilizations. It is always difficult to relate ideals with realities. The Hagia Sophia issue principally demands spiritual consideration. Both political and religious leaders should put their hands on their heart and think what Mawlana Rumi would have done in this situation. My faith tells me that not only Rumi, Sultan Mehmed II too would now have been pleased if a decision on the matter were made based on Divine Wisdom.

—–

Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

CBC News: “Turkey’s Hagia Sophia turned back into a mosque, causing a divide”

Gay-hating is deeply rooted in Puritanical religion. The Bible (Lev. 20:13) says male homosexuals “shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” Evangelist Jerry Falwell, who led fundamentalists into the GOP, wrote: “Homosexuality is Satan’s diabolical attack upon the family, God’s order in Creation.”

Many churches supported laws mandating prison for gay sex. Clergy backed hundreds – thousands – of attempts to demonize gays, strip them of jobs and ostracise them from society.

But religion was refuted in 2003 when the Supreme Court ruled that gay sex isn’t a crime – and in 2015 when the court let same-sex couples marry – and in 2020 when the justices banned gay firings.

This month’s 6-3 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County applied simple logic. It said the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbids discrimination based on sex, protects homosexual, lesbian and transgender people. Some religious groups are howling. The Colson Center for Christian Worldview called parts of the ruling “patent nonsense.” Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore said the decision “will have seismic implications for religious liberty.”

Fundamentalist pillar James Dobson called the ruling “an affront to God.” Archbishop Jose Gomez, head of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, said it’s “an injustice.”

Actually, looking at the long range of history, the new ruling is another step for human rights – a glacial process that began with The Enlightenment three centuries ago. Time after time, progressive crusaders won victories allowing more personal freedoms. Time after time, they defeated entrenched conservative resistance. Here’s a history record I once compiled:

Conservatives tried to retain slavery, but they lost.

They tried to block voting by women, but lost.

They tried to prevent couples from using birth control, but lost.

They tried to obstruct Social Security pensions for oldsters, but lost.

They tried to outlaw labor unions, but lost.

They tried to prevent unemployment compensation for the jobless, but lost.

They tried to keep stores closed on the Sabbath, but lost.

They banned alcohol during Prohibition, but eventually lost.

They tried to sustain racial segregation, but lost.

They supported government-mandated prayer in school, but lost.

They tried to continue throwing gays in prison, but lost.

They tried to defeat Medicare and Medicaid, but lost.

They opposed food stamps for the poor, but lost.

They banned mixed-race marriage, but lost.

They forbade teaching of evolution in schools, but lost.

They fought against equal human rights laws, but lost.

They tried to censor sexy magazines, books and movies, but lost.

They sought to jail girls and doctors who end pregnancies, but lost.

They tried to block liquor clubs and lotteries, but lost.

They tried to prevent more health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, but lost.

They tried to halt same-sex marriage, but lost.

And now they’ve lost their effort to fire gays from jobs.

Ever since The Enlightenment, the tide of civilization flows left. Human decency wins. Abraham Lincoln called it “the better angels of our nature.” Martin Luther King Jr. said the moral arc of the universe “bends toward justice.” This month’s Supreme Court ruling was another step in the slow advance.

——–

Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

WSPA 7 News: “Supreme Court ruling big news for LGBTQ community in SC”

If history matters, then getting right the history of the first encounters of the world’s two largest religions—Christianity and Islam—really matters. In this fascinating video, Prof. Michael Penn, the Teresa Hihn Moore Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, sheds light on the extremely important but little-known aspects of the early history of Christian-Muslim encounters. Prof. Penn’s books referenced in the video: – When Christians First Met Muslims: A Sourcebook of the Earliest Syriac Writings on Islam – Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World (Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion)

Prof. Michael Penn, the Teresa Hihn Moore Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, via Emir Stein Center: “When Christians First Met Muslims”

Script: If history matters, then getting right the history of the first encounters of the modern world’s two largest religions—Christianity and Islam— really matters. The problem is, we likely have that history wrong. The received story of Christian-Muslim interactions is a story of unrelenting military conflict beginning with Islamic expansion shortly after the birth of the new religion in seventh-century Arabia, and ending with the siege of Constantinople, with a few crusades thrown in the middle for good measure. Now there’s nothing factually inaccurate about this narrative.

The problem is simply that it’s only a small part of a much larger story. Let me explain… Early Christianity is primarily seen as a religion of the Mediterranean Basin that spread with the Roman Empire, and was recorded in Greek and Latin. But, a large number of early Christians lived in what would be modern day Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Eastern Turkey, while generally writing in a dialect of Aramaic called Syriac. Due to a series of fifth-century theological controversies, most western Christians considered these Syriac Christians heretics and essentially wrote them out of history. My own research focuses on how the history of Christianity changes if we no longer ignore that for centuries the geographic center of Christianity was not Rome or even Constantinople but rather Baghdad.

The recovery of this essentially lost history of Christianity profoundly affects our understanding of early Christian-Muslims relations. Again, let me explain… The prophet Muhammad was born around the year 570 in the city of Mecca. According to Islamic tradition, his prophecy began in 610, when he first received divine revelation; in 622, he fled to the city of Medina to escape persecution; there, he and his growing followers thrived, and, eight years later, he triumphantly led a Medinan army into Mecca, where he died in 632. His first successor, oversaw the beginning of a dramatic expansion often known as the Islamic Conquests. Muslim forces experienced unbelievable success in the following decades. In just a few years they took over the entire Persian empire and two thirds of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine empire.

They soon controlled all of North Africa, Spain, and were only repelled in France. In the eastern Mediterranean, military conflicts between the Islamic and Byzantine empire continued for over eight centuries, resolved only in 1453 when Islamic forces finally took the city of Constantinople, what is modern day Istanbul. However, this well-accepted narrative is overly simplified because there are only a handful of modern scholars who can read writings in Syriac from the majority of early Christians who lived under Muslim rule. The problem is if you stick to Greek and Latin sources, you are building your history of Christian reactions to Islam solely on the writings of Christians who were primarily in military conflict with Muslims.

But up to half of ancient Christians lived in the Middle East and had a very different experience with Muslims than did most Greek and Latin Christians, with any military encounters over in just a few years. By the 640s, they were firmly within the Islamic empire. How then would the history of Christian-Muslim relations change if, instead of reading Christians often at odds with Muslims, we focus on Syriac Christians who had daily interactions with Muslims and thus a much more direct knowledge of Islam.
I wrote two books exploring how in the Islamic Empire, these Christians held key government positions, attended the caliph’s court in Baghdad, collaborated with Muslim scholars to translate Greek knowledge into Arabic, accompanied Muslim leaders on their campaigns against the Byzantines, and helped fund monasteries through donations from Muslims—including money from the caliph himself. Middle Eastern Christians ate with Muslims, married Muslims, bequeathed estates to Muslim heirs, taught Muslim children, and were soldiers in Muslim armies. …
Follow us on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmirSteinCenter Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmirSteinCenter Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emirsteince… Website: http://www.emir-stein.org

Some have argued that Christianity is declining in the Middle East, and this allegation is certainly true in some ways and in some places. If Egyptian Christians declined from 8 percent to 5 percent over the past century, that is a proportional decrease.

But the people who make these arguments are only looking at *proportions* in Egypt, ignoring the tremendous increase over time in the *absolute* number. Moreover, Christians are often disproportionately influential economically or culturally. They aren’t on the verge of disappearing, contrary to what the headlines often suggest.

I’m not starry-eyed and admittedly it is no fun to be a minority in most societies, and radical extremists such as ISIL have targeted them on occasion. The Iraqi community has been devastated, and the Christian villages in Eastern Syria where ISIL gained sway were depopulated. The Christians in Palestine and Israel are under just as much pressure from Israeli Apartheid as other Palestinians.

But the president and chief of staff of Lebanon are Christians. Christians have some power in al-Assad’s part of Syria. Those in Jordan seem fairly well protected by the state and are mostly prosperous. Egyptian Copts have faced some terrorism or just pogrom-like attacks on churches, but they are numerous and powerful in some occupations and some of them are part of the economic elite. Last year they opened an enormous new cathedral.

Let me try to gather the statistics as we now estimate them. The citizen population of Lebanon is about 4 million, and my educated guess is that Christians form about 22 percent. That would yield 880,000 Christian citizens. (Official statistics put them as high as 40%, or 1.6 million). Some of the Syrian and Iraqi refugees (over a million people) are Christian, and it may be they will find a way to stay and become naturalized, increasing the Christian population (this happened to Armenians decades ago). Beirut and Jounieh are places were you really feel Christmas in the Middle East:

MTV Lebanon: “Aishti By The Sea – Christmas Edition”

Egypt is the biggest Christian center in the Arab world, in absolute numbers. Pew estimates Egyptian Christians at 5%, but admits that they may be under-counted. In 1927, when the Egyptian population was about 14 million, there is one estimate that Christians were 8.3 percent of the population. That would have amounted to 1.2 million Christians at that time.

The likelihood is that Christians today in Egypt are about 5-6 percent of the population. But since Egypt’s population growth rate is one of the highest in the world, the country has grown to nearly 100 million. That number would indicate that Egyptian Christians are roughly 5 or 6 million strong, and that their numbers have increased 4 or 5 fold in the last century!

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Even at the low end of current estimates (Copts themselves insist that they are at least 10% of the population), Egyptian Christians if they were their own country would be the size of Norway or Finland. That demographic weight is nothing to sneeze at. Egypt’s Christians celebrate Christmas on January 7.

CGTN: “Coptic Christians in Egypt celebrate Christmas on the January 7 [2018]”

Jordan’s citizen population is around 6.8 million now, and Christians form about 4 percent. That would be about 272,000 Christians today, or over a quarter million. In 1952, Jordan’s population was 586,000, giving 23,000 or so Christians. Christians have thus grown by a factor of almost 10 in Jordan.

Syria may have been 25% Christian in 1920 when the population was 2.5 million. That would have been 625,000. But Christians have probably declined to about 11 percent of the population, in part because they are more likely to be urban and have smaller families than Sunni and Allawi farmers. Syria’s resident population today is 18 million, but roughly another 4 million are outside the country, mainly in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, for a total of 22 million. It is likely that the majority of this 4 million will return. Christians would be about 2.5 million. Even with all the refugees and disruption, it seems likely that Syria has about 2 million Christians left. The ones in the Damascus area, most of which the al-Assad regime retained, were relatively protected from the civil war. The number of Christians in Syria has in absolute terms almost quadrupled since the beginning of the French Mandate in 1920.

Iraq is 38 million or so. The Internets say that only about 250,000 Christians are left. Iraq is the one place where the absolute number of Christians actually has fallen. In the 1980s when Iraq’s population was 16 million, the percentage of Christians was thought to be 3 percent, for 480,000. So the number of Christians has been halved in absolute numbers in the past 38 years or so.

There are about 170,000 Christian citizens of Israel. There are roughly 40,000 Christians in the Israeli-Occupied Palestinian territories (Christians find it easier to emigrate to Europe and the US than Muslims, and the pressure on Palestinian Christians of the Israeli squatters makes life unpleasant). Anyway, that is on the order of 210,000 Christians under Israeli rule.

Middle East Eye: “Palestinians perform ‘dabke’ as the Christmas lights go up in Ramallah”

Iran has about 300,000 Christians.

So Copts and other Egyptian Christians, Jordanian Christians, Syrian Christians and Lebanese Christians come to something on the order of 9.2 million.

The Christians in the region if they were all together as one country would be Hungary or Sweden. They have billionaires among them and the Levantine ones are disproportionately likely to be middle class. They are a much smaller proportion of the region’s population than they once were, but they can’t be dismissed as a social and economic and cultural force, and their absolute numbers have soared over the past century.

Proportional decline and absolute dramatic increase is a concept hard to communicate in journalism.

There are substantial Christian populations on the fringes of the Greater Middle East– 12 million or so in South Sudan (and these have a significant diaspora in Egypt), 2.5 million in Eritrea, and 65 million in Ethiopia (alongside 41 mn. Muslims). There are also millions of Filipino and European Christian guest workers in the Gulf, and some Gulf countries like Qatar are moving toward granting permanent residency and have licensed churches, though citizenship is not on offer.

Church leaders in Jerusalem shut the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday in protest at a new Israeli tax policy and a proposed land expropriation law which they called a “systematic and unprecedented attack against Christians in the Holy Land”.

Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian church leaders said the holy site, a popular stop for pilgrims and where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried, would remain closed until further notice.

A statement by the leaders accused Israel of a “systematic and unprecedented attack against Christians in the Holy Land” in pursuing a new tax policy and a proposed land appropriation law.

Later on Sunday, an Israeli cabinet committee is due to consider a bill that would allow the state to expropriate land in Jerusalem sold by churches to private real estate firms in recent years.

The stated aim of the bill is to protect homeowners against the possibility that private companies will not extend their leases. The churches, major landowners in the city, say such a law would make it harder for them to find buyers for their land.

Read: Greek Orthodox Archbishop says all conspiracies against Jerusalem will fail

“This abhorrent bill … if approved, would make the expropriation of the lands of churches possible,” said the statement by Theophilos III, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Francesco Patton, the Custos of the Holy Land, and Nourhan Manougian, the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem.

In addition, Israel’s Jerusalem municipality has cancelled a tax exemption granted to church-owned commercial properties in the city and has begun to demand back payments from the churches. The church leaders said:

Among other issues, last year, an Israeli military court ruled that settler groups have the right to seize two hotels and a large building in the Old City of Jerusalem which belongs to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.

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Via Middle East Monitor

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AFP: “Christian leaders close church at Jesus’ burial site in tax row”