Netanyahu Says He’ll Save Christians. First, He Should Spare Them
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted to a crowd of Evangelicals in Florida last week that he will be a leading defender of persecuted Christians around the world.
Because of my familiarity with the sentiments of Christian victims of war and terrorism in the Holy Land and Gaza, my first reaction to Netanyahu’s promise was to dismiss it as ridiculous and insulting.
But after taking time to think about it, I’ve come up with a more constructive response: Yes, Netanyahu (like everyone with access to power) should defend persecuted Christians. But he has long been a leader with a direct hand in much of that persecution. And so he must begin his supposed plan to stand against anti-Christian persecution by putting a stop to his own people’s attacks on Christians in East Jerusalem, the wider West Bank, Gaza, and beyond — and he should publicly announce an end to Israel’s considerable support of the persecutions being perpetrated by its allies, including India and Azerbaijan.
If Netanyahu fails to take these steps, Christians must make sure the whole world knows his promise is an empty one.
Here Are the Persecutions Netanyahu Can Stop First
In just the past few years, Netanyahu and his regime (and, embarrassingly, the United States too insofar as it has entanglements with his actions) have become infamous for perpetrating and supporting the persecution of Christians on several fronts. It’s been going on for much longer. But the abuses have been most obvious and shocking in Gaza in the period following the October 7 terrorist attack in 2023. These most recent atrocities have justly drawn greater scrutiny, bringing to light a sprawling record of violence that will likely continue to diminish the international community’s respect for Israel until its current leadership faces a serious reckoning.
Israeli Attacks on Churches and Hospitals in Gaza
- On October 19th and 20th, 2023, an Israeli airstrike hit the church compound at Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City, killing at least 18 civilians who were sheltering there. Among the dead were a “six-month-old baby and a woman aged 80,” Amnesty International UK reported, and a connected “attack on homes in al-Nuseirat refugee camp killed another 28 civilians.”
- That December, two women were shot and killed while walking to the bathroom on the church compound at Holy Family Catholic Church, also in Gaza City. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem – the region’s highest Catholic authority – reported that the murders were committed by an IDF sniper. Israel dismissed the deaths and took no responsibility.
- On July 17th, 2025, Holy Family Catholic Church was struck by an Israeli shell. Three parishioners were killed by the strike as they were leaving Mass, and several others were seriously wounded. Israel said the incident was accidental. Pope Leo denounced the strike in the strongest terms, calling it “barbarity” and pleading for an end to the violence.
- October 17, 2023: hundreds killed in al-Ahli Hospital after Israeli attack
- An ambulance convoy was destroyed by an Israeli air attack outside al Shifa Hospital in Gaza on November 3rd, 2023, killing many. Weeks later, an Israeli air raid on al-Awda Hospital killed more, including physicians with Doctors Without Borders who were treating victims there. On March 20th, 2024, the Israeli military killed 90 more during a raid on al Shifa Hospital. By April 1st, an Israeli siege of the hospital had killed hundreds.
- There have been countless other attacks on the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza, on medics and Red Crescent workers, and on displaced people sleeping outside.
Israeli Violence and Harassment in East Jerusalem and the West Bank
From 2023 to 2024, there were repeated Israeli military incursions, closures, and clashes that disrupted access to the Church of the Nativity and surrounding Christian sites.
In addition, many instances of vandalism, harassment, and spitting attacks against clergy and church property have been reported by church leaders and human rights groups. The perpetrators have largely been radical Jewish settlers, and local Christians regularly report that Israeli officials are unwilling to arrest and prosecute their persecutors.
According to the Religious Data Freedom Center reports for 2024–2025, local Christians face dozens of persecutory actions per month, including spitting, verbal abuse, vandalism, assaults, and other forms of harassment.
But far from putting a stop to these attacks, the Netanyahu regime has encouraged illegal settlements in the West Bank — empowering thuggish efforts to intimidate Palestinian Christians out of their native homes and communities. A newly established settlement, Shdema, was established just last November, threatening the existence of the largest remaining Christian community in the West Bank today. All settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law — and the loudest voices decrying them are the Christians of the Holy Land, many of whose families have lived in the region since their ancient Christian communities’ founding in the first century AD.
Attacks on Christian Churches in Lebanon, As Well as Hospitals and Emergency Vehicles For Treating Victims
On October 9th, 2024, an Israeli strike hit the area of St. George Melkite Catholic Church in Derdghaya, South Lebanon, where civilians were being sheltered. At least eight were killed and the church was heavily damaged. Israeli attacks near Our Lady of Salvation Church and Mar Michael Church in the suburbs of Beirut have also resulted in reported damage to the Christian sites.
As in Gaza, Israel does not spare hospitals or healthcare workers in Lebanon either. The World Health Organization reported that “226 health workers and patients were killed in Lebanon and 199 injured between 7 October 2023 and 18 November 2024.” According to the Healthcare Attacks Monitoring System, there were 137 attacks on healthcare workers in Lebanon during that period, and nearly half (47%) of the attacks proved fatal to at least one health worker or patient — a higher proportion than other contemporaneous conflicts.
Israeli Arms to Azerbaijan / Artsakh Ahead of Anti-Christian Ethnic Cleansing of Armenians
Israel supplied approximately 69% of Azerbaijan’s major arms imports from 2016 to 2020, just ahead of that nation’s notorious ethnic cleansing of Armenian Christians in 2022 and 2023. Azerbaijan accounted for 17% of Israel’s total major arms exports.
Israeli weapons have been widely cited as a key factor in Azerbaijan’s military advantage, and were used during the horrific crackdown on Artsakh. As a result, over 100,000 ethnic Armenians were displaced from Artsakh following Azerbaijan’s brutal September 2023 operation in the region. Israel continued arms ties despite international concern over the horrific humanitarian impact.
Israel’s Relations with India Unaffected by Rising Hindu Supremacist Anti-Christian Attacks
Israel has had full diplomatic relations with India since 1992, and in 2017, Narendra Modi became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel. India is known as Israel’s main non-Western ally, and India is Israel’s largest arms export destination (2020–2024).
Given Netanyahu’s new promise to stand up for Christians and defend them wherever they are under threat, he will have to address the rising scourge of Hindu supremacist ideology that is threatening to erase India’s Christian community.
It is not a small matter. The whole international community is increasingly alarmed by the persecution of Christians in India — and by Indian officials’ ongoing refusal to take the threat to Christians seriously. Far from prosecuting Hindu mobs and their sympathizers in local government circles, India’s leaders are encouraging them as they baselessly accuse and marginalize Christians, often with the fraudulent use of “anti-conversion” laws.
Netanyahu’s Promise to Defend Christians: Just Trying to Shore Up Bad Poll Numbers?
Given all that baggage, it must have taken nerves of steel for Netanyahu to gravely present himself as a great defender of Christians in Florida last week. As The Times of Israel reported it, Israel is joining an emerging alliance of countries “that support Christian communities around the world, beleaguered communities who deserve our help,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Evangelical Christian leaders Wednesday in Palm Beach, Florida.
“In Africa, with intel, in the Middle East, with a lot of means that I won’t itemize each one,” he said, without explaining what this new “alliance” was in practice, or what other countries or parties were involved.
“But this is what our agenda is, it’s a main part of our agenda, and it’s going to continue with greater force and greater might in this coming year,” he said.
While Netanyahu’s Florida audience might have been enthusiastic, it wasn’t representative. Polling shows Israel’s actions under Netanyahu’s leadership have led to a cratering of support among historically pro-Zionist groups like white Evangelical Christians and even America’s Orthodox Jews.
Nonetheless, Netanyahu’s promise got quite a bit of traction on social media. It’s easy to see why: Late last year, as the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported, Justice Department filings revealed Netanyahu’s regime had contracted with U.S. PR professionals to get American social media influencers spreading its messaging “across TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms:”
The contracts allow for up to $900,000 in payments over several months and include a detailed pricing schedule: $60,000 in upfront payments to cover influencer recruitment and concept development, another $140,000 in development-phase payments as five or six influencers began posting, and monthly allocations of up to $250,000 earmarked for influencer fees, production, and agency costs.
And of course Netanyahu has also made similar efforts to use American Christian pastors as hired hands to influence public opinion in his favor.
Could Netanyahu’s announcement in Florida that he will rally an alliance in defense of persecuted Christians be nothing but a continuation of that same effort to shore up Israel’s image?
Easily!
But there’s just one surefire way to tell: If Netanyahu doesn’t reverse the persecutions happening under his own leadership, then the game is up. He has not become a defender of Christians. He has simply become another “influencer” — not aiming to defend Christians in any meaningful way at all, but instead running cover for the persecution of Christians that is still going on under his watch.
