We will begin with the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which reduces the Christians and the Muslims to a “non-Jewish” category, without recognizing their religious, cultural, or historical identity:
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine …”
Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem © IMAGO
The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine continued the cancel culture, yet elaborate eleven times the use of “Jewish”.
Such positions, where there is no room for the indigenous Palestinians in their own home country, capture the letter and spirit of Herzel’s vision in his diaries from 1895: where he outlined plans to “spirit the penniless population across the border” by procuring jobs in transit countries, while “denying it any employment in our country” to encourage demographic departure, especially that the Palestinians, which originally included the local Jews, were the majority, and owned more than 90% of the land.
Israeli border police stops nuns at the first station of the cross on the Via Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross on Good Friday in the Old City of Jerusalem © IMAGO / Debbie Hill
The logical conclusion can be read in former Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabbin’s memoir. David K. Shipler wrote Israel Bars Rabin from Relating ’48 Eviction of Arabs for The New York Times (Oct. 23, 1979). Rabin and Yigal Alon met with Ben Gurion to decide the fate of the 50,000 to 70,000 Palestinian inhabitants of Lod and Ramlah: “We walked outside, Ben Gurion accompanying us. Alon repeated his question: ‘What is to be done with the population?’ B.G. waved his hand in a gesture which said, ‘Drive them out!’ “Allon and I held a consultation. I agreed that it was essential to drive the inhabitants out. We took them on foot towards the Bet Horon Road, assuming that the [Arab] legion would be obliged to look after them, thereby shouldering logistic difficulties which would burden its fighting capacity, making things easier for us.”
The 1948 Nakbah was the result of massacres intended to ethnic cleanse the Palestinians. When the Deir Yasin’s massacre took place in West Jerusalem, it resulted in all nearby villagers fleeing the area. One of these villages is Ein Karem. It is located in the valley near Deir Yasin. It had a population of Christians and Muslims close to 4,000 in 1948. According to Benny Morris, the Israeli revisionist historian who revealed many of the atrocities that took place in 1948, some of the people of Ein Karem fled in the aftermath of the Deir Yasin massacre. The rest were forced out of their homes when Ein Karem was invaded in violation of the truce. Ein Karem had mosques and churches. According to the Christian tradition, it was home to John the Baptist, and was visited by Jesus Christ and Mary, peace be upon them.
The total number of Christians in Jerusalem in 1948 was 30,000. Today, rather than growing, it decreased to 10,000. The Christians are only 1% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank. This is a direct rebuttal of Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s claims that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christians are growing and thriving.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem held a joint press conference on July 2025 with the Greek Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, on the severe suffering they witnessed during their visit to Gaza © IMAGO / Debbie Hill
Dr Bernard Sabella, a Palestinian Christian sociologist, responded to the so-called leaked report from Netanyahu’s office during his first term, blaming the PLO for the dwindling number of Palestinian Christians. It is the occupation that drives Christians to immigrate, Dr Sabella said.
The attacks on Christian clergy, churches, and Christian cemeteries, are on the rise. There were 88 such attacks since the beginning of 2026. In 2025, there were 181 hate crimes against churches. The Jewish extremist who pushed the 48-year-old Christian nun to the ground and kicked her repeatedly was arrested within a few hours after Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, demanded the Israeli police take action. No serious legal action is taken against the perpetrators of these crimes.
The total number of Christians in Jerusalem in 1948 was 30,000. Today, rather than growing, it decreased to 10,000. The Christians are only 1% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank. This is a direct rebuttal of Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s claims that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christians are growing and thriving
In a separate event during the 2026 Easter season, Israeli police stopped Cardinal Pizzaballa from privately entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday. This incident sparked a major international outcry as it marked the first time in centuries that Catholic heads were prevented from accessing the church for Palm Sunday Mass.
The Churches in Jerusalem face Israeli taxation, something that has not happened before during Jordanian rule. HM King Abdullah II of Jordan, the Custodian of the Christian and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, has personally funded two major restorations at the Holy Sepulchre Church.
From Attacking Holy Sites in Jerusalem to Violence Against Palestinian Communities in the West Bank
The Israeli settlers’ attacks in the West Bank did not spare Taibeh, a Christian town near Ramallah. Vatican News (March 19, 2026) reported that “[t]he town of Taybeh, widely known as the last fully Christian Palestinian town in the West Bank, has faced repeated attacks on homes and property, with a sharp rise of incursions since June 2025.”
According to B’Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories): “Since 7 October 2023, military attacks and settler violence in the West Bank have led to the displacement of Palestinians on a scale not seen since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967. As of 22 April 2026, Israel forcibly displaced 62 Palestinian communities, home to more than 4,181 people, in Areas C and B, and 454 more residents were forced out of their homes in 15 partially displaced communities. At least 9 additional communities were displaced before 7 October 2023.
Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, marches through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem on May 2025 with right wing Zionists. Ben-Gvir is wanted by the International Criminal Court © IMAGO / Eyal Warshavsky
In early 2025, at least 32,000 people were displaced as a result of military attacks on refugee camps in the northern West Bank. As of February 2026, none have been permitted to return to their homes, many of which were deliberately destroyed in the attacks.” (Rolling list: Ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities and lone families in the West Bank [Last updated: 22 April 2026])
Hundreds of mosques were destroyed, closed, or desecrated since 1948. The Grand Mosque of Beersheba was turned into a museum. Ukasha Mosque on Strauss Street in Jerusalem, a short walk from Damascus Gate, has been closed since 1948. The Lajjun Mosque, north of Um Al-Fahm, was turned into a carpentry, to name a few. In Gaza, as if the genocidal violence is not enough, 909 mosques were destroyed.
Many Muslim cemeteries were “developed” as real estate. The most famous example is that of the Mamilla (Ma’man Allah) Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, where the grandiose Jewish Museum of Tolerance was built.
According to Emek Shaveh, an Israeli NGO working to defend cultural heritage rights and to protect ancient sites of all communities, faiths, and peoples, the area of the Mamilla cemetery decreased from 200 dunums in 1948 to 20 dunums. The Israeli authorities built schools, a parking lot, and the Independence park on the land of this ancient Muslim cemetery. The Jerusalem municipality granted Rabbi Marvin Hier from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles the building permits to build a museum of tolerance. The Palestinian families with loved ones buried in this cemetery went all the way to the Israeli High Court which ruled in favour of the Jerusalem Municipality’s decision. Israeli newspapers wrote about 400 graves were exhumed to make room for the Museum of Tolerance. Emek Shaveh reported exhuming 1,000 skeletons. He pleaded for protection of the Mamilla cemetery as an integral part of the history of Jerusalem. The title of Nir Hasoun’s article he wrote for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz sums up the nature of this project: “Jerusalem’s Museum of Tolerance Has Little to Do With Museums or Tolerance”.
Zionist settlers walking on grounds of the Dome of the Rock Shrine at the Aqsa Mosque compound in the old city of Jerusalem © IMAGO / Simon Beni
The Israeli municipality of Jerusalem might still have other surprises at the expense of the Mamilla cemetery. What is left of the Muslim graves is surrounded by high boards saying: “We are renewing for you!”
The al-Aqsa Mosque continues its fifteen centuries legacy, despite the challenges that extremist settlers and cabinet ministers who are bent on challenging the historical status quo. Both Christian and Muslim worshippers from the West Bank need special permits to visit their respective holy sites.
Not all Muslims who have Jerusalem residency or Israeli citizenship are granted freedom of worship. The Israeli police systematically prevent some Muslim worshippers from entering al-Aqsa Mosque, using draconian rules. For example, a Palestinian from the West Bank who has a medical permit to be treated in Jerusalem hospitals is denied entry. Elderly people, women, and boys are not spared the surreal measures.
After sixty years of Israeli occupation and frantic measures to alter the inclusive history of Jerusalem, its cultural and religious soul continues to be true to its centuries’ old heritage. The Israeli occupation was born shortsighted, failed to respect the other, but succeeded in creating a thin layer on the ground covering the deep layers that represent thousands of years of many peoples, faiths, cultures, and civilizations, sometimes of conflict, and sometimes of Convivencia. A sense of humility would go a long way.
Author
Mustafa Abu Sway
Professor Mustafa Abu Sway is a scholar who lectures globally as well as in the heart of Jerusalem, Palestine, at al-Aqsa Mosque, where he also reads from Imam Ghazali’s Ihya’ Ulum ud-Din, making it accessible to English-speaking Muslims. He is a member of the Hashemite Fund for the Restoration of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, and the Islamic Waqf Council in Jerusalem.
