In his recent Christmas greeting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke warmly of Christians in the Holy Land, portraying Israel as a unique refuge where Christians thrive, while implying that elsewhere in the region, they live in constant danger. Such statements resonate powerfully with many Western Christians, particularly those already inclined to see the Middle East through a simple moral binary: safety under Israel, persecution everywhere else.

Yet these claims, while containing fragments of truth, tell only part of the story. And Scripture reminds us that half-truths are still untruths; they are almost a lie.

As Palestinian Christians, our response must not be defensive or reactionary. It must be prophetic—rooted in truth, moral consistency, and lived reality. The deeper concern is not one inaccurate claim, but a broader and troubling pattern: Christians are highlighted when they serve a political narrative, and ignored when they speak for themselves.

The prophet Amos warned ancient Israel: “You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain… therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them” (Amos 5:11). God’s judgment was not about religious language, but about moral coherence—the gap between what is proclaimed and what is practiced.

When Christian suffering is selectively acknowledged in one context and dismissed in another—when repeated attacks on churches, the s