A strategy ‘to make life intolerable’: Israeli settlers are driving Christians out of West Bank

The Taybeh community has survived crusaders and the Ottoman and British empires, but the latest attacks leave its future in question

Julian Borger

The Guardian:  5 Apr 2026

Taybeh, a small hilltop town in the heart of the West Bank is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. After increasing attacks from Israeli settlers it now feels itself under siege and is fighting for its very existence.

The town’s ancient Greek name was Ephraim where, according to the gospels, Jesus hid with his disciples from the Jewish religious hierarchy, the Sanhedrin, before making his final fateful trip to Jerusalem.

A church was built here in the fifth century, and the entirely Christian community survived the crusaders, conquest by Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub or Saladin, the Ottoman empire, the British empire, and three Arab-Israeli wars, but its inhabitants say its long-term future is in question.

There are four substantial Israeli settlements around Taybeh have been set up by messianic Jews who send their young people, the “hilltop youth”, to harass and intimidate local Palestinians in the surrounding countryside.

The relentless land grabs and intimidation is a pattern repeated up and down the West Bank in a campaign the UN has called ethnic cleansing, which has been driven by hardline members of the ruling coalition, the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“First they kicked the Bedouin out in the last three years and put up their caravans and bring their cows and sheep. They are using the land without any permission from the owners and from ourselves,” said Father Bashar Fawadleh, the parish priest of Christ the Redeemer church.

After driving out Bedouin nomads and their flocks, Fawadleh said the settlers began to drive their cows and sheep into the olive groves and fields which have been Taybeh’s lifeblood for millennia.

“For three years now, we have been forbidden to visit our land. We are forbidden from tending the olive trees,” he said. Over the past year, the pressure has been turned up further. In July last year, settlers set fire to the grounds of the fifth–century Byzantine church, St Peter’s. Since then, bands of hilltop youth have raided the town four times, setting fire to cars, slashing tires and smashing windows.

After the attack on St Peter’s church in July, the US ambassador, Mike Huckabee, visited the town to condemn what he called “an act of terror” and to appeal for prosecutions. No prosecutions have been reported.

In the West Bank, the Christian population has shrunk from 5% of the total population in 1967 to roughly 1% today, about 45,000 people.

The fierce religious nationalism that the Israeli government has cultivated in recent years has largely been directed at Palestinian Muslims but there has been a rising tide of anti-Christian incidents. The Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC), an Israeli-run organisation that documents such incidents in Jerusalem, recorded a 65% rise in cases of harassment, many of them involving spitting on Christians.

Jad Isaac, the director general of the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem, which tracks the Israeli takeover of land and resources on the West Bank, said: “When Netanyahu says we are the only country which is taking care of the Christians, he’s a liar. He said that in Palestinian Christian communities in the West Bank “the strategy is to make life intolerable”.

So far this year, according to UN figures, there were 1,828 settler attacks on 270 Palestinian communities in 2025 – an average of five per day.

Israel now controls 87% of historic Bethlehem.

The way this is presented sounds intentionally MISLEADING.

It implies that this about Jews vs. Christians.

It sounds like it's part of the general conflict in the west bank of Jews vs. Arabs.

Not saying this in support of the behavior of the Jewish settlers there as that sounds horrible, but I think the way this is presented is a sleazy attempt at anti-Jewish propaganda knowing that westerners in general are usually going to be more horrified to hear about bad treatment of Christians than of Arabs.

Maybe, Jing. I certainly didn't read it that way. Just that the settlers were committing violence against anyone they considered 'others'.

17 minutes ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Maybe, Jing. I certainly didn't read it that way. Just that the settlers were committing violence against anyone they considered 'others'.

Of course you didn't.

Also to note what's with posting the entire article?

23 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Of course you didn't.

Also to note what's with posting the entire article?

23 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Of course you didn't.

Also to note what's with posting the entire article?

Actually, it was really, really long. I posted about 20%!

6 hours ago, Jingthing said:

The way this is presented sounds intentionally MISLEADING.

It implies that this about Jews vs. Christians.

It sounds like it's part of the general conflict in the west bank of Jews vs. Arabs.

Not saying this in support of the behavior of the Jewish settlers there as that sounds horrible, but I think the way this is presented is a sleazy attempt at anti-Jewish propaganda knowing that westerners in general are usually going to be more horrified to hear about bad treatment of Christians than of Arabs.

That is not anti-Jewish propaganda except you believe all Jews on our plantet support the land theft.

It is simply a report showing the settlers stealing land and mistreating Christians same as Arabs, which actually is a part of the conflict if not the whole conflict, which started with Jews claiming and stealing land which was not theirs, at least not according to any known law.

But I agree with you about the West in general being more horrified about bad treatment of Christians and Jews compared to Arabs.

Remember the Bibas twins?

That sparked profound grief, anger, and international condemnation. The family had become a global symbol of innocent victims. Tens of thousands of Israelis lined the roads to pay respects during the funeral.

World Leaders and Organizations: Leaders globally expressed shock, horror, and condemnation of Hamas highlighting the atrocity of kidnapping and killing infants.

But Hind Rajab and 20.000 murdered Gazan kids, some of them intentionally shot by snipers, footage of drones slaughtering unarmed women and children and right now 10.000 in Israeli prison some of them underage?

Where is the outrage?

Only deafening silence proving the moral bankruptcy of the West and the failure of humanity.

4 hours ago, Somjot said:

That is not anti-Jewish propaganda except you believe all Jews on our plantet support the land theft.

It is simply a report showing the settlers stealing land and mistreating Christians same as Arabs, which actually is a part of the conflict if not the whole conflict, which started with Jews claiming and stealing land which was not theirs, at least not according to any known law.

But I agree with you about the West in general being more horrified about bad treatment of Christians and Jews compared to Arabs.

Remember the Bibas twins?

That sparked profound grief, anger, and international condemnation. The family had become a global symbol of innocent victims. Tens of thousands of Israelis lined the roads to pay respects during the funeral.

World Leaders and Organizations: Leaders globally expressed shock, horror, and condemnation of Hamas highlighting the atrocity of kidnapping and killing infants.

But Hind Rajab and 20.000 murdered Gazan kids, some of them intentionally shot by snipers, footage of drones slaughtering unarmed women and children and right now 10.000 in Israeli prison some of them underage?

Where is the outrage?

Only deafening silence proving the moral bankruptcy of the West and the failure of humanity.

More lies from you.

Stop making up straw man garbage about what I believe.

About the Christians in the story.

Describing them as Christian Arabs or Palestinian Arabs would have been accurate and not intentionally misleading.

Describing them only as Christians was a sleazy dog whistle.

Words matter. Truth should matter but obviously much less so in our current post truth world.

I'm taking a break from topics about Israel and Jewish people.

It's doing my head in.

Good luck to all of you.

On 4/5/2026 at 6:39 PM, Jingthing said:

I think the way this is presented is a sleazy attempt at anti-Jewish propaganda knowing that westerners in general are usually going to be more horrified to hear about bad treatment of Christians than of Arabs.

16 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Describing them as Christian Arabs or Palestinian Arabs would have been accurate and not intentionally misleading.

Describing them only as Christians was a sleazy dog whistle.

Words matter. Truth should matter but obviously much less so in our current post truth world.

So basically you are saying:

Calling the victims of the settler attacks Christians (which they are) is misleading and just sleazy anti - Jewish propaganda.

The report should "correctly" describe them as Palestinian Arabs or Christian Arabs so that Westerners are less horrified.

Don´t you realize how racist that is?

By the way, Taybeh is an ancient Palestinian Christian village in the West Bank with roots dating back to the Canaanite period and the New Testament city of Ephraim, known as the last fully Christian village in the region.

Based on genetic and historical studies, the inhabitants of Taybeh—like most Palestinians—are not descended from the Arabian Peninsula, but are rather indigenous Levantine people deriving mostly from ancient Canaanites and other early inhabitants of the Southern Levant.

Genetically they are way more indigenous to the area than Israelis, who have up to 60% European or Mediterranean DNA, which also leads to them having way higher rates of bein allergic to the indigenous olive tree.

Truth should matter? Agreed. Why don´t you tell the Israeli government to allow gen tests?

Or did you mean YOUR version of the truth should be the only one which matters?

You write

On 4/5/2026 at 6:39 PM, Jingthing said:

Not saying this in support of the behavior of the Jewish settlers

while this is exactly what you do as you are trying to downplay their crimes and make them more acceptable to the West by using a different description of the victims.

You seem to have no problem with the crime as such but only with the description of the victims in the report as it makes the Israelis look bad and therefore is "intentional anti-Jewish propaganda".

Instead of condemning the perpetrators you condemn the way their victims are described.

You are making the mistake to think that the rest of the world or at least the western world has dehumanized Arabs same as Israel and you did and therefore is much more comfortable with Israel killing Arabs, which might even be the truth with those Evangelicals who see themselves as the true Christians while not realizing that their support of the mass murder of the Palestinians is exactly the opposite of Christian beliefs.

But the majority of the world sees Palestinians, Palestinian women and children exactly as what they are: sentient human beings like you and me who love their kids and families and are now mass murdered by the Tens of Thousands by the hands of Israel and is deeply shocked and disgusted.

17 hours ago, save the frogs said:

I'm taking a break from topics about Israel and Jewish people.

It's doing my head in.

I hear you.

The worst part for me is not even the mass slaughter in Gaza or the killings in the West Bank as I do not see them and try to avoid watching any of it on YouTube in order to protect myself from nightmares.

The most horrific part for me is to realize how some members, who same as me, were born and grew up in a Western country and share the same values, morals and sense of justice are capable of rightfully condemning the murder of 1200 innocent people but at the same time support the mass slaughter of 100.000, most of them women and children, by justifying it with breathtaking mind gymnastics, disgusting double standards and oppressing methods to silence those who think differently like labeling, branding, framing or simply calling them anti-semitic.

35 minutes ago, Somjot said:

So basically you are saying:

Calling the victims of the settler attacks Christians (which they are) is misleading and just sleazy anti - Jewish propaganda.

The report should "correctly" describe them as Palestinian Arabs or Christian Arabs so that Westerners are less horrified.

Don´t you realize how racist that is?

By the way, Taybeh is an ancient Palestinian Christian village in the West Bank with roots dating back to the Canaanite period and the New Testament city of Ephraim, known as the last fully Christian village in the region.

Based on genetic and historical studies, the inhabitants of Taybeh—like most Palestinians—are not descended from the Arabian Peninsula, but are rather indigenous Levantine people deriving mostly from ancient Canaanites and other early inhabitants of the Southern Levant.

Genetically they are way more indigenous to the area than Israelis, who have up to 60% European or Mediterranean DNA, which also leads to them having way higher rates of bein allergic to the indigenous olive tree.

Truth should matter? Agreed. Why don´t you tell the Israeli government to allow gen tests?

Or did you mean YOUR version of the truth should be the only one which matters?

You write

while this is exactly what you do as you are trying to downplay their crimes and make them more acceptable to the West by using a different description of the victims.

You seem to have no problem with the crime as such but only with the description of the victims in the report as it makes the Israelis look bad and therefore is "intentional anti-Jewish propaganda".

Instead of condemning the perpetrators you condemn the way their victims are described.

You are making the mistake to think that the rest of the world or at least the western world has dehumanized Arabs same as Israel and you did and therefore is much more comfortable with Israel killing Arabs, which might even be the truth with those Evangelicals who see themselves as the true Christians while not realizing that their support of the mass murder of the Palestinians is exactly the opposite of Christian beliefs.

But the majority of the world sees Palestinians, Palestinian women and children exactly as what they are: sentient human beings like you and me who love their kids and families and are now mass murdered by the Tens of Thousands by the hands of Israel and is deeply shocked and disgusted.

More straw man garbage telling me what I think that I don't think. Talk about sleazy!

I should have said Palestinian Christians not Palestinian Arabs so thanks for pointing out that brain fart error which I have now duly corrected.

35 minutes ago, Somjot said:

I hear you.

The worst part for me is not even the mass slaughter in Gaza or the killings in the West Bank as I do not see them and try to avoid watching any of it on YouTube in order to protect myself from nightmares.

The most horrific part for me is to realize how some members, who same as me, were born and grew up in a Western country and share the same values, morals and sense of justice are capable of rightfully condemning the murder of 1200 innocent people but at the same time support the mass slaughter of 100.000, most of them women and children, by justifying it with breathtaking mind gymnastics, disgusting double standards and oppressing methods to silence those who think differently like labeling, branding, framing or simply calling them anti-semitic.

Speaking only for myself I do not support the slaughter you speak.of.

Israel needed to respond to the music festival massacre but they didn’t need to.go nearly as far as they have.

46 minutes ago, Somjot said:

I hear you.

The worst part for me is not even the mass slaughter in Gaza or the killings in the West Bank as I do not see them and try to avoid watching any of it on YouTube in order to protect myself from nightmares.

The most horrific part for me is to realize how some members, who same as me, were born and grew up in a Western country and share the same values, morals and sense of justice are capable of rightfully condemning the murder of 1200 innocent people but at the same time support the mass slaughter of 100.000, most of them women and children, by justifying it with breathtaking mind gymnastics, disgusting double standards and oppressing methods to silence those who think differently like labeling, branding, framing or simply calling them anti-semitic.

No reasonable person is “supporting the slaughter of civilians” in Gaza. That framing is part of the problem - it turns a brutal, complex war into a cartoon where one side is purely evil and the other is purely innocent.

People can absolutely condemn the murder of civilians in Gaza and recognise that Israel has a duty to defend itself after the October 7 attacks, where around 1,200 people were killed and others taken hostage. That wasn’t a border skirmish - it was a mass-casualty terrorist attack deliberately targeting civilians. Any country on earth would respond.

The uncomfortable question is the one people tend to avoid: how exactly is Israel supposed to deal with Hamas? This isn’t a conventional army you can deter with diplomacy. Hamas openly calls for Israel’s destruction, embeds itself within civilian areas, operates from tunnels under homes, schools, and hospitals, and launches rockets indiscriminately.

That creates a horrific reality where military targets and civilian spaces are deliberately intertwined. It doesn’t make civilian deaths acceptable - but it does make them tragically difficult to avoid in a war Hamas itself chose to initiate and continue.

If Israel does nothing, it leaves its population exposed to repeated attacks. If it responds, it’s accused of disproportionate force. If it targets Hamas infrastructure, it’s criticised because that infrastructure is embedded in civilian areas. So what is the actual alternative being proposed? A ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact and able to repeat October 7? That’s not a solution - it’s a pause before the next round of violence.

None of this means Israel should be beyond criticism - of course its actions, strategy, and proportionality should be scrutinised. But pretending there’s a clean, consequence-free way to eliminate a group like Hamas, which is both a military force and embedded within a civilian population, is not serious.

You can oppose civilian suffering in Gaza and still recognise that Israel is dealing with an adversary whose stated goal is its destruction. Ignoring that reality doesn’t make the situation more moral - it just makes the analysis less honest.

4 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

Gaza and still recognise that Israel is dealing with an adversary whose stated goal is its destruction. Ignoring that reality doesn’t make the situation more moral - it just makes the analysis less honest.

Playing ping pong who did what and who killed who first is not solving anything. It's an endless perpetual cycle of violence.

If they really wanted to solve the problem for once and for all, they would enlist international aid and make an agreement.

There is a solution somewhere, there just is too much resistance to negotiate.

47 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

If they really wanted to solve the problem for once and for all, they would enlist international aid and make an agreement.

There is a solution somewhere, there just is too much resistance to negotiate.

The solution is straightforward and rather simple: all Arab and Muslim countries and organizations need to recognize Israel as the homeland of the world's Jews and acknowledge Israel's right for its citizens to live behind secure borders. With that as the starting point, all the other details can be settled through negotiation.

5 minutes ago, Evil Penevil said:

The solution is straightforward and rather simple: all Arab and Muslim countries and organizations need to recognize Israel as the homeland of the world's Jews and acknowledge Israel's right for its citizens to live behind secure borders. With that as the starting point, all the other details can be settled through negotiation.

So not a 2 state solution?

Where do the Palestinians live?

1 hour ago, save the frogs said:

So not a 2 state solution?

Where do the Palestinians live?

I don't think recognition of Israel precludes a two-state solution. If Israelis were convinced a Palestinian state wouldn't become a base for attacks on Israel, the Israeli government would probably be willing to trade land for peace.

However, because both sides are so intransigent, I doubt that will happen. Palestinians are basically generic Arabs and could live in any Arab or Muslim majority country. The Middle East- and the world- would be a very different place today if the Arabs had accepted the UN partition plan in 1947 or had recognized Israel's right to exist at any point after that.

They didn't accept defeat and recognize Israel and now it may be too late for anything short of expulsion of Palestinians who refuse to recognize Israel.

22 minutes ago, Evil Penevil said:

I don't think recognition of Israel precludes a two-state solution. If Israelis were convinced a Palestinian state wouldn't become a base for attacks on Israel, the Israeli government would probably be willing to trade land for peace.

However, because both sides are so intransigent, I doubt that will happen. Palestinians are basically generic Arabs and could live in any Arab or Muslim majority country. The Middle East- and the world- would be a very different place today if the Arabs had accepted the UN partition plan in 1947 or had recognized Israel's right to exist at any point after that.

They didn't accept defeat and recognize Israel and now it may be too late for anything short of expulsion of Palestinians who refuse to recognize Israel.

Palestinians could live in any other Arab or Muslim country if said countries would accept them. They don't, due to any number of factors.

15 hours ago, Somjot said:

So basically you are saying:

Calling the victims of the settler attacks Christians (which they are) is misleading and just sleazy anti - Jewish propaganda.

The report should "correctly" describe them as Palestinian Arabs or Christian Arabs so that Westerners are less horrified.

Don´t you realize how racist that is?

By the way, Taybeh is an ancient Palestinian Christian village in the West Bank with roots dating back to the Canaanite period and the New Testament city of Ephraim, known as the last fully Christian village in the region.

Based on genetic and historical studies, the inhabitants of Taybeh—like most Palestinians—are not descended from the Arabian Peninsula, but are rather indigenous Levantine people deriving mostly from ancient Canaanites and other early inhabitants of the Southern Levant.

Genetically they are way more indigenous to the area than Israelis, who have up to 60% European or Mediterranean DNA, which also leads to them having way higher rates of bein allergic to the indigenous olive tree.

Truth should matter? Agreed. Why don´t you tell the Israeli government to allow gen tests?

Or did you mean YOUR version of the truth should be the only one which matters?

You write

while this is exactly what you do as you are trying to downplay their crimes and make them more acceptable to the West by using a different description of the victims.

You seem to have no problem with the crime as such but only with the description of the victims in the report as it makes the Israelis look bad and therefore is "intentional anti-Jewish propaganda".

Instead of condemning the perpetrators you condemn the way their victims are described.

You are making the mistake to think that the rest of the world or at least the western world has dehumanized Arabs same as Israel and you did and therefore is much more comfortable with Israel killing Arabs, which might even be the truth with those Evangelicals who see themselves as the true Christians while not realizing that their support of the mass murder of the Palestinians is exactly the opposite of Christian beliefs.

But the majority of the world sees Palestinians, Palestinian women and children exactly as what they are: sentient human beings like you and me who love their kids and families and are now mass murdered by the Tens of Thousands by the hands of Israel and is deeply shocked and disgusted.

Thanks for this. In particular, the genetic angle is very interesting. Allergic to olives! Who would thunk!

14 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

No reasonable person is “supporting the slaughter of civilians” in Gaza. That framing is part of the problem - it turns a brutal, complex war into a cartoon where one side is purely evil and the other is purely innocent.

People can absolutely condemn the murder of civilians in Gaza and recognise that Israel has a duty to defend itself after the October 7 attacks, where around 1,200 people were killed and others taken hostage. That wasn’t a border skirmish - it was a mass-casualty terrorist attack deliberately targeting civilians. Any country on earth would respond.

The uncomfortable question is the one people tend to avoid: how exactly is Israel supposed to deal with Hamas? This isn’t a conventional army you can deter with diplomacy. Hamas openly calls for Israel’s destruction, embeds itself within civilian areas, operates from tunnels under homes, schools, and hospitals, and launches rockets indiscriminately.

That creates a horrific reality where military targets and civilian spaces are deliberately intertwined. It doesn’t make civilian deaths acceptable - but it does make them tragically difficult to avoid in a war Hamas itself chose to initiate and continue.

If Israel does nothing, it leaves its population exposed to repeated attacks. If it responds, it’s accused of disproportionate force. If it targets Hamas infrastructure, it’s criticised because that infrastructure is embedded in civilian areas. So what is the actual alternative being proposed? A ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact and able to repeat October 7? That’s not a solution - it’s a pause before the next round of violence.

None of this means Israel should be beyond criticism - of course its actions, strategy, and proportionality should be scrutinised. But pretending there’s a clean, consequence-free way to eliminate a group like Hamas, which is both a military force and embedded within a civilian population, is not serious.

You can oppose civilian suffering in Gaza and still recognise that Israel is dealing with an adversary whose stated goal is its destruction. Ignoring that reality doesn’t make the situation more moral - it just makes the analysis less honest.

You brought up the issue of Hamas using human shields in Gaza. We know there were tunnels where the hostages were held.

But I have yet to see a database for the destruction of hospitals, schools and home which were postively identified as sheltering Hamas militants.

It seems a rather facile excuse to blow everything up and call it peace.

10 hours ago, save the frogs said:

Playing ping pong who did what and who killed who first is not solving anything. It's an endless perpetual cycle of violence.

If they really wanted to solve the problem for once and for all, they would enlist international aid and make an agreement.

There is a solution somewhere, there just is too much resistance to negotiate.

And NOT Trump's "Board of Peace"! What composition might you suggest? All Middle Eastern countries invited seems fair.

7 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

I don't think recognition of Israel precludes a two-state solution. If Israelis were convinced a Palestinian state wouldn't become a base for attacks on Israel, the Israeli government would probably be willing to trade land for peace.

However, because both sides are so intransigent, I doubt that will happen. Palestinians are basically generic Arabs and could live in any Arab or Muslim majority country. The Middle East- and the world- would be a very different place today if the Arabs had accepted the UN partition plan in 1947 or had recognized Israel's right to exist at any point after that.

They didn't accept defeat and recognize Israel and now it may be too late for anything short of expulsion of Palestinians who refuse to recognize Israel.

I accept what you're saying. But you can't change the past and present-day Palestinians don't deserve to be punished by being exiled. That's what Zionists have wanted since 1897.

Both sides deserve a secure peace, to know the folks next door won't do a drive-by.

In mt rirles, I should have added pride as well as greed. Both sides are too proud to talk to each other. Each side thinks they're right.

Just listed to Dylan's "With God on Our Side". Says it all.

40 minutes ago, unblocktheplanet said:

In mt rirles, I should have added pride as well as greed. Both sides are too proud to talk to each other. Each side thinks they're right.

Just listed to Dylan's "With God on Our Side". Says it all.

Yeah, let's get Bob Dylan in on this.

Actually, the more I delve into this situation the more it seems like insanity. And since the Zionists are very powerful in the media, the real facts are muddled.

This crackpot claims that one of the main founding Zionists of this entire operation to set up Israel was .... drum roll ... an ANTI-SEMITE !!!

I need to start smoking some crack cocaine maybe to start making sense of all of this.

The above quote is from none other than Balfour of the Balfour Declaration:

On 4/5/2026 at 6:32 PM, unblocktheplanet said:

A strategy ‘to make life intolerable’: Israeli settlers are driving Christians out of West Bank

The Taybeh community has survived crusaders and the Ottoman and British empires, but the latest attacks leave its future in question

Julian Borger

The Guardian:  5 Apr 2026

Taybeh, a small hilltop town in the heart of the West Bank is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. After increasing attacks from Israeli settlers it now feels itself under siege and is fighting for its very existence.

The town’s ancient Greek name was Ephraim where, according to the gospels, Jesus hid with his disciples from the Jewish religious hierarchy, the Sanhedrin, before making his final fateful trip to Jerusalem.

A church was built here in the fifth century, and the entirely Christian community survived the crusaders, conquest by Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub or Saladin, the Ottoman e=mpire, the British empire, and three Arab-Israeli wars, but its inhabitants say its long-term future is in question.

There are four substantial Israeli settlements around Taybeh have been set up by messianic Jews who send their young people, the “hilltop youth”, to harass and intimidate local Palestinians in the surrounding countryside.

The relentless land grabs and intimidation is a pattern repeated up and down the West Bank in a campaign the UN has called ethnic cleansing, which has been driven by hardline members of the ruling coalition, the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“First they kicked the Bedouin out in the last three years and put up their caravans and bring their cows and sheep. They are using the land without any permission from the owners and from ourselves,” said Father Bashar Fawadleh, the parish priest of Christ the Redeemer church.

After driving out Bedouin nomads and their flocks, Fawadleh said the settlers began to drive their cows and sheep into the olive groves and fields which have been Taybeh’s lifeblood for millennia.

“For three years now, we have been forbidden to visit our land. We are forbidden from tending the olive trees,” he said. Over the past year, the pressure has been turned up further. In July last year, settlers set fire to the grounds of the fifth–century Byzantine church, St Peter’s. Since then, bands of hilltop youth have raided the town four times, setting fire to cars, slashing tires and smashing windows.

After the attack on St Peter’s church in July, the US ambassador, Mike Huckabee, visited the town to condemn what he called “an act of terror” and to appeal for prosecutions. No prosecutions have been reported.

In the West Bank, the Christian population has shrunk from 5% of the total population in 1967 to roughly 1% today, about 45,000 people.

The fierce religious nationalism that the Israeli government has cultivated in recent years has largely been directed at Palestinian Muslims but there has been a rising tide of anti-Christian incidents. The Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC), an Israeli-run organisation that documents such incidents in Jerusalem, recorded a 65% rise in cases of harassment, many of them involving spitting on Christians.

Jad Isaac, the director general of the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem, which tracks the Israeli takeover of land and resources on the West Bank, said: “When Netanyahu says we are the only country which is taking care of the Christians, he’s a liar. He said that in Palestinian Christian communities in the West Bank “the strategy is to make life intolerable”.

So far this year, according to UN figures, there were 1,828 settler attacks on 270 Palestinian communities in 2025 – an average of five per day.

Israel now controls 87% of historic Bethlehem.

How many Christians are living in "Palestine"?

The irony is that most of the fanatical jewish settlers are from the Ultra orhodox Haredi sect who hate zionists and israel as a secular abomination, they will not fight for israel they make up 25% of the population pay no taxes either as they just pray and study the Torah , , they are also out breeding regular israelis so in 40-50 years the israel we know today will cease to exist ....They are more like the Stone age thinking Islamists than normal secular israelis

1 hour ago, liddelljohn said:

The irony is that most of the fanatical jewish settlers are from the Ultra orhodox Haredi sect who hate zionists and israel as a secular abomination, they will not fight for israel they make up 25% of the population pay no taxes either as they just pray and study the Torah , , they are also out breeding regular israelis so in 40-50 years the israel we know today will cease to exist ....They are more like the Stone age thinking Islamists than normal secular israelis

Garbage lie above.

Haredi Population Among Israeli Settlers in the West Bank

As of 2023, approximately 10% of Israeli settlers in the West Bank identify as Haredi.

2 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

I accept what you're saying. But you can't change the past and present-day Palestinians don't deserve to be punished by being exiled. That's what Zionists have wanted since 1897.

Both sides deserve a secure peace, to know the folks next door won't do a drive-by.

In mt rirles, I should have added pride as well as greed. Both sides are too proud to talk to each other. Each side thinks they're right.

Just listed to Dylan's "With God on Our Side". Says it all.

Both sides actually DO have credible narratives.

Which is why a two state plan is the only possible answer, though I understand it's looking more and more impossible.

9 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Palestinians could live in any other Arab or Muslim country if said countries would accept them. They don't, due to any number of factors.

Agreed but the Arab world for the most part has been invaluable in keeping Palestinian Arabs eternal refugees. Another example of the total idiocy of people trying to make this a pure black and white, good vs. evil problem. It is extremely complex with blame to go all around.

The Israeli settlers seem to be a Godless bunch, that are fighting in the name of who knows what. They appear to be extreme, supported by a morally bankrupt state, violent and incredibly greedy. Israel has a lot to answer for, and both the nation and its people around the world seem to be getting less and less in the way of affection and respect on a daily basis.

A friend of mine who lives on Koh Phangan, tells me that the island has more or less been taken over by young Israelis, who hang out in small cliques, and monopolize many restaurants and coffee shops. He tried to enter a temple that they had set up, as he is half Jewish, and he was denied entry after realizing the place was being guarded by seven local policemen, who are obviously being paid off by the local rabbi. The police questioned him as he was trying to enter, asked him where he was from, who he was, and then denied him entry and asked him to leave.

The locals seem to support them as they are signing two and three year leases, and paying cash in advance for the rentals, as a lot of other people are fleeing the island.

3 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

The Israeli settlers seem to be a Godless bunch, that are fighting in the name of who knows what. They appear to be extreme, supported by a morally bankrupt state, violent and incredibly greedy. Israel has a lot to answer for, and both the nation and its people around the world seem to be getting less and less in the way of affection and respect on a daily basis.

A friend of mine who lives on Koh Phangan, tells me that the island has more or less been taken over by young Israelis, who hang out in small cliques, and monopolize many restaurants and coffee shops. He tried to enter a temple that they had set up, as he is half Jewish, and he was denied entry after realizing the place was being guarded by seven local policemen, who are obviously being paid off by the local rabbi. The police questioned him as he was trying to enter, asked him where he was from, who he was, and then denied him entry and asked him to leave.

The locals seem to support them as they are signing two and three year leases, and paying cash in advance for the rentals, as a lot of other people are fleeing the island.

All the sudden, the left embraces God, how convenient.

Also, leftists (again, conveniently) always seem to have tons of friends, family and experiences that support their inane positions.