Israeli occupation policies and settler-colonial infrastructure suppress Palestinian Christian worship during Holy Week, deepening systemic erasure of indigenous faiths

Palestinian Christians are an indigenous community whose presence in Jerusalem predates both Zionism and the establishment of Israel, with roots tracing back to the earliest Christian communities. Their erasure is part of a broader settler-colonial project that seeks to eliminate non-Jewish claims to the land, including through the destruction of churches, restrictions on worship, and the denial of residency rights. The indigenous Palestinian Christian identity is not merely religious but also national, tied to the land and its history, which Israel’s policies systematically sever. This erasure is compounded by the fact that Palestinian Christians are often treated as a 'minority within a minority,' their struggles subsumed under the broader Palestinian narrative.

The suppression of Palestinian Christian worship during Holy Week is a continuation of policies dating back to the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 occupation, when Israel began systematically Judaizing Jerusalem. The 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem was followed by laws restricting Palestinian access to holy sites, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the imposition of residency revocations that have displaced thousands of Palestinian Christians. The 1980 Basic Law declaring Jerusalem the 'eternal and undivided capital of Israel' formalized this exclusionary project, while subsequent policies like the 'National Priority Areas' law incentivized Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. These historical precedents reveal a consistent pattern of demographic engineering aimed at reducing Palestinian Christian presence.

The restriction of Palestinian Christian worship mirrors patterns seen in other indigenous Christian communities, such as the Copts in Egypt, who face state-imposed limits on church construction and public processions. In India, Dalit Christians and other marginalized groups have historically been denied access to sacred spaces, reflecting a global pattern of religious marginalization under state power. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church’s struggles under the Ethiopian government’s restrictions on public worship provide another parallel, illustrating how state control over religious practice is a tool of political domination. These cross-cultural examples highlight the systemic nature of religious suppression as a tool of governance.

Israeli restrictions on Palestinian Christian worship are well-documented in academic literature on settler-colonialism, including works by Ilan Pappe and Nurit Peled-Elhanan, which analyze the Judaization of Jerusalem as a state-led project. Demographic studies by the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research show a steady decline in the Christian population of Jerusalem, from 25% in 1946 to less than 2% today, directly correlating with Israeli policies. The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has documented how residency revocations and home demolitions disproportionately target Palestinian Christians, particularly in the Old City. These findings are corroborated by UN reports and EU-funded research on the economic strangulation of East Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter.

For Palestinian Christians, Holy Week is not just a religious observance but an act of spiritual resistance against erasure, as seen in the annual processions that reassert their presence in Jerusalem’s streets. Artists like Emily Jacir and Steve Sabella have documented the spiritual and cultural loss of Palestinian Christians through their work, framing the suppression of worship as a violation of sacred space and time. The hymns and liturgy of Holy Week, passed down through generations, become acts of defiance against the silence imposed by Israeli restrictions. This spiritual dimension is often overlooked in secular analyses, which reduce the issue to political or economic factors.

If current trends continue, Palestinian Christians in Jerusalem could become a negligible minority within a decade, erasing a 2,000-year-old presence and severing a critical link between Palestinian and global Christianity. The Judaization of Jerusalem will likely accelerate, with the Old City becoming an exclusively Jewish space, while Palestinian Christians are confined to the West Bank or diaspora. This could lead to a cultural and religious void in Jerusalem, with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other sites becoming tourist attractions rather than living places of worship. Alternative futures include international pressure forcing Israel to reverse its policies, or the emergence of a Palestinian Christian-led movement for self-determination within a shared Jerusalem.

Palestinian Christian voices are often sidelined in both Israeli and Palestinian narratives, treated as a 'minority within a minority' whose struggles are secondary to the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The internal divisions within the Palestinian Christian community—between those who support the PLO, Hamas, or Christian Zionist groups—further marginalize their collective political agency. Women and youth within the community are particularly underrepresented in decision-making, despite their central role in preserving cultural and religious traditions. Global Christian Zionist groups, which fund Israeli settlements, also drown out Palestinian Christian perspectives, framing their oppression as divinely ordained.