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.

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.

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.

“Come and see,” 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.

“Our 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 — that’s when their eyes are opened,” Isaac said.

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.

But they argue that ignores the communities of Palestinian Christians and goes against the Christian ethos of loving your neighbor.

“Theology has been weaponized,” Isaac said. “These are Christians who are funding and supporting the major threat on our existence in the land today.”

Ancient communities under new threats

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’s separation wall that rises to 26 feet high and was introduced to stop suicide bombers during the Second Intifada from easily reaching Jerusalem.

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

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.

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. “If 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,” he said.

Troubling to the Christian leaders is that moral and financial support for the settlement growth is coming from many individuals faithful to “Christian Zionism.” In January, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem issued a statement calling it a “damaging” ideology.

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.

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.

CFOIC says it supports 80 Israeli “communities” in the occupied West Bank, which it calls by the Biblical names of Judea and Samaria. On its website, it urges supporters to “give generously, so that the communities of Biblical Israel may flourish.”

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.

In an email she wrote: “Christian 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’s word as stated in the Bible that He gave the Land of Israel to the Jewish people.”

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.

“Given the threat of settlers over our lives these days — an actual threat against our lives as Palestinian Christians — these are Christians who are funding and supporting the major threat on our existence in the land today,” Isaac said. “What this shows is, again, that we are not in their plan. They don’t think of us. They don’t see us.”

CUFI said in an emailed statement that it supported the Israeli government and declined to respond to Isaac.

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.

In a statement to CNN, Huckabee rejected Isaac’s criticism, and said he personally knew Palestinian Christians who were themselves Christian Zionists.

“No one overlooks the experiences of Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land. But Evangelicals believe the Bible — ALL of it,” Huckabee continued. “It’s not a cafeteria where we pick and choose what fits our own prejudices and desires. There is nothing ‘racist’ about believing what the Bible clearly says about God’s 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.”

Younger evangelicals have different views

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.

“I think many evangelicals are warming up to our perspective,” he said.

“We’re not coming into this discussion by saying, ‘Forget the Bible. Let’s talk about politics.’ It’s not our approach. Our approach is ‘Let’s read the Bible together,’ but let’s also read it with Palestinian Christians and connect it to the reality on the ground.”

Last year, Isaac spoke at Wheaton College, one of America’s best-known evangelical institutions, while touring his book “Christ in the Rubble.” For him, invitations from traditionally conservative evangelical spaces suggest younger Christians are increasingly willing to question long-held assumptions.

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

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.

“Palestinians were invisible to me,” 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.

“Something that’s important about what happened for me is that that process didn’t make me less Christian, so to speak. I didn’t 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’s how I feel even today.”

Both Isaac and Fawadleh believe they have a special role to play as Christians in the Holy Land.

Fawadleh welcomes all to visit. “As Jesus invited the two disciples of John the Baptist, come and see. Hear our stories,” he said.

Isaac echoed the peaceful call. “We 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.” (CNN)

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