Much of the recent coverage of Christians in Israel suffers from a basic analytical flaw: it focuses almost exclusively on the places where the fewest Christians actually live.
Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza dominate the conversation. These communities matter, but they are not representative. More than 70 percent of Israel’s 188,000 Christians live elsewhere—primarily in the north, especially in Galilee—and their absence from the discussion has distorted the picture beyond recognition.
The Christians of northern Israel are not marginal figures. They play an outsized role in education, medicine, and business. They are overwhelmingly laypeople, yet media coverage fixates almost entirely on religious officials. One might be forgiven for concluding that Christianity in Israel is a clerical caste rather than a living community of families, professionals, and citizens.
If these northern Christians are mentioned at all—and usually they are not—they are treated as an afterthought, stripped of agency and relevance. The result is an account of Christian life in Israel that is incomplete and misleading.
Unmentioned in such accounts are Israeli Christians like Jacob Hanna, a leading stem-cell researcher; Hossam Haick, a pioneer in nano-sensor technology; and Johnny Srouji, who helped lead Apple’s research and development expansion in Israel. Ignored, too, are the statistics showing Christians as Israel’s most highly educated and most fully employed population per capita. Forgotten as well are the extensive efforts undertaken to protect and preserve Christian holy sites—efforts neglected under previous regimes—and the fact that the number of churches and chapels in the Holy Land has more than doubled since 1948.
Consider the case of George, a young Christian from Haifa who volunteered for the Israel Defense Forces several months before October 7th. That choice alone is telling. Christians are exempt from military service by law, and for decades only a small number chose to enlist. But Christian enlistment has been rising steadily for years, a trend that accelerated sharply after October 7th.
George is no symbolic soldier. Over the last two years, he fought alongside Jews and Muslims on the front lines of Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon. Although younger than most American college graduates, George has already lived a kind of pluralism that Western commentators can describe only in theory.
He wore the uniform of a Jewish state and a cross around his neck. He shared foxholes with men of other faiths. He saw friends die. His family endured immense strain as the war dragged on. Yet George and his family are more patriotic, more rooted, and more invested in Israel’s future than ever.
This reality is hard to reconcile with the dominant narrative. So it is ignored.
The same dynamic appears in discussions of Christian decline in places like Nazareth, where the city’s shrinking Christian population is often blamed on the state. That explanation collapses under scrutiny. More significant factors include longstanding Christian-Muslim tensions and rising crime—not government policy. To ignore those factors is to choose a preferred storyline over the truth.
Something similar is happening with recent incidents involving harassment of Christians in Jerusalem, including spitting by a small group of Jewish extremists. These acts are real and reprehensible—I have seen a few with my own eyes. But assessing the well-being of Christians in Israel based on the behavior of a few provocateurs is analytically unserious. It is akin to judging the condition of Muslims in the United States by the actions of a few white supremacists.
The broader picture—the one most media outlets overlook—includes tens of thousands of Christians who live free, safe, and prosperous lives. Unlike their co-religionists elsewhere, these Christians can speak honestly about their society. Yet their voices are virtually absent from the public debate.
This omission is especially glaring in the work of pundits like Tucker Carlson, whose recent coverage conveys the appearance of careful journalism while excluding those Christians most integrated into Israeli civic life. Such journalism—if it can be called that—is out of touch with lived reality.
Any serious assessment of Christian life in Israel must begin with that reality, not the comments of a few clerics and politicians.
The Christians of northern Israel are not abstractions. They are doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, and soldiers. They are people like George. They do not need to be spoken for. They need to be heard.