Israeli occupation policies and settler-colonial infrastructure suppress Palestinian Christian worship during Holy Week, deepening systemic erasure of indigenous faiths
Original framing: “Under Israeli restrictions, Palestinian Christians mark quiet Holy Week” — Al Jazeera
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 quiet Holy Week in Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter is not an isolated incident but the latest manifestation of a 75-year settler-colonial project to erase Palestinian Christians from the city they have inhabited for millennia.
Israel’s policies—ranging from residency revocations to the Judaization of holy sites—are part of a broader strategy to assert exclusive Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, a city that has always been a shared space for Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The erasure of Palestinian Christians is enabled by global Christian Zionism, which funds Israeli settlements while ignoring the indigenous Palestinian Christian presence, and by a media landscape that frames the issue as a temporary disruption rather than a structural injustice. Historical parallels, from the Copts in Egypt to the Dalit Christians in India, reveal a global pattern of state-enforced religious marginalization, while indigenous Palestinian Christian identity—rooted in the land and its history—is systematically severed by Israeli policies. The future of Palestinian Christianity in Jerusalem hinges on international legal action, economic sovereignty, and the dismantling of Christian Zionist influence, ensuring that the city remains a shared space rather than a monolithic Jewish capital.