Three Christians were killed and ten others wounded last Thursday when an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) mortar round struck Holy Family Church—Gaza’s only Catholic parish—where civilians, Muslim and Christian, had been sheltering since the war began after October 7, 2023. As of today, the IDF confirmed that the church was hit by stray munitions (from a mortar, not a tank as previously alleged). While the tragic incident underscores the vulnerability of civilians in conflict zones, Western outrage—if lacking nuance—risks playing into Hamas’s narrative of indiscriminate Israeli aggression, ultimately serving its strategic aims.
Hamas’s strategic objective in the war has been to get its adversary, the IDF, to kill as many Palestinians as possible—a strategic end that may be without precedent—by using human shields. It embeds in schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, mosques, and churches, and then attacks the IDF in the hopes that it will return fire and kill civilians, condemning the IDF in the eyes of the world. The IDF, in contrast, has sought to minimize civilian casualties in pursuit of Israel’s war aims: to rescue the hostages (fifty of whom are still being held) and destroy Hamas. Yet the moral scrutiny of much of the world has been on the IDF exclusively; it’s difficult to see how that exclusive attention on the IDF has disincentivized the use of human shields or lowered civilian casualties.
Shortly after the war began on October 7, Pope Francis elevated Holy Family into a symbol of Christianity’s survival in the Holy Land, calling the parish daily. But the Church, and much of the West, fails to grasp that their advocacy for Palestinian Christians is often interpreted as an implicit affirmation of the cause of Palestinian nationalism, rather than an affirmation of religious minority rights—though Palestinian statehood has been jettisoned time and again in favor of the destruction of Israel. In recent years, that cause has gone beyond national liberation to become the ideological spearhead of a global liberation movement against “oppressor” classes everywhere, merely starting with Israel. The Church must take care not to feed into this movement.
Furthermore, Palestinian Christians garner a degree of disproportionate attention compared to the millions of other Christian communities in the region. This is not to say that Palestinian Christians don’t matter, but many Western onlookers may be forgiven for not knowing that other Christian communities, even nation-states, exist in the Middle East. Christians in the West Bank number perhaps 20,000; in Gaza, a few hundred. Combined, that’s roughly 1 percent of the size of Lebanon’s Christian community, half of 1 percent of Armenia’s population, perhaps a quarter of 1 percent of Egypt’s Copts, and 1 percent of the size of Christian guest workers in the Arab Gulf, most of whom are from the Philippines.
Since October 7, Palestinian Christians have been trying to leave the West Bank, which has suffered from a lack of tourism and rise in both crime and Islamist sympathies. There are incidents with settlers, and these garner headlines, but they have very little to do with this final exodus of Christians from the West Bank.
All but a few Christians in Bethlehem are trying to migrate. Neither the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem nor the Israeli government wishes to see the last Christians leave Bethlehem, but nor can either provide for their safety or help them make a living.
Such truths may only be whispered among Palestinian Christians but seldom to others. Thus truths about Palestinian Christians are obscured, including by Church leaders who know that to speak with candor about Hamas or Islamism will endanger Christians.
The deeper and related challenge, both for many Middle East Christians and the Church’s advocacy on their behalf, is that many Christians in the region have long lived in a state of dhimmitude, or as dhimmi—a practice that sets conditions of toleration for non-Muslim Abrahamic peoples. The term has no real equivalent in English, but it is indispensable to understanding the region and its minorities, as scholar Habib Malik and others have noted. Dhimmi have conditional rights, no political voice, and often pay a tax for their “protection.” The effect of this institution over generations has contributed to the catastrophic decline of Christians in the region, as they leave their homelands in search of religious freedom and opportunity in the West.
Palestinian Christians are dhimmi. Many have been driven out by Hamas such that few remain today. Those who do are instrumentalized in a global ideological campaign whose target is not Israel but the entire West.
The Church should tread carefully, both for the sake of imperiled Christians and for the West. Of course we have compassion for those suffering. But strong moral sentiments, imperfectly informed and manipulated, may lead to worse suffering—not merely for Christians but for Muslims and Jews.
Islamist terrorists surely watched the attention Holy Family garnered and how the incident was used to weaken an adversary, in this case bringing pressure to bear for accountability and renewing calls to stop arming Israel. They will no doubt endeavor to engineer similar scenarios in the future, as is their modus operandi. Middle East Christians deserve better than tragic symbols that make for emotionally compelling headlines for Westerners but do nothing to help them survive in the region—and nothing to protect their dignity.
Church leaders should speak the truth and do so fearlessly. Part of this fearlessness means the courage to focus not merely on what the media decides is important but what is important to Christians in the region. Where Church leaders find themselves unable to speak with moral clarity and candor, or suspect they are the pawns of malicious actors, they should consider whether silence would do less harm. They should also pause to contemplate whether harm has come from criticizing only one side in the war in Gaza, and whether this made civilians safer or placed them in greater peril.
The Church should also consider whether it’s of any benefit to the region’s Christians to speak almost exclusively of Palestinian Christians, whether this worsens their plight, and whether they should confront deeper problems such as dhimmitude. They should even ask what they can do to help Christians who have fought for and won the freedom to protect their families and communities and churches from Islamists—from the very tragedy that occurred last Thursday.
Image by Omar Al-Qattaa , via Getty Images.
