On July 7, French president Emmanuel Macron visited the “Umayyad Mosque” in Damascus alongside Ahmed al-Sharaa/Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the new, self-appointed president of Syria, who is the former head of the Syrian Al Qaeda.
The so-called “Umayyad Mosque” is a former Christian Byzantine cathedral that was demolished by Arab Muslim invaders in the 8th century.
Macron’s visit of the “mosque” with a former Al Qaeda leader was one of the many demonstrations of how some Western leaders are enabling the Islamic conquest of the Western world and abandoning the persecuted Christians of the Levant.
The Levant is a historical and geographic region in the Eastern Mediterranean. It roughly corresponds to Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), the Gaza Strip, Jordan, and often Cyprus and Hatay/Antioch (province) of Turkey.
This region was once majority-Christian. Today, the entire Levant, with two notable exceptions (Israel and the free part of the Republic of Cyprus), are in Muslim hands. Approximately 36 percent of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus is under illegal Turkish military occupation. The Republic of Lebanon, which used to be majority-Christian, is now majority-Muslim. In addition, the terror group Hezbollah significantly undermines Lebanon’s sovereignty through military, social, and political roles.
This report discusses how Levantine countries and regions fell to Islam and has become majority-Muslim.
Syria
Before the Arab-Islamic conquests in the 7th century, the native population of ancient Syria consisted predominantly of Arameans, along with Phoenicians along the coast, Assyrians in the northeast, and Amorites. Ancient Syria also had successive ruling and urban influences from Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks.
The Aramaic language was the everyday tongue and lingua franca of Syria during that time. Aramaic as an imperial language continued under the Achaemenids (Persians) as well. They used Aramaic in addition to Persian in their state administration.
The name “Syria” derives from a linguistic shortening of Assyria (Aššūr).
After Alexander the Great’s conquest, the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire (founded in 312 BC by Seleucus I Nicator) organized the region as an administrative satrapy. Later, the Roman Empire turned Syria into a major province (Provincia Syria) in 64 BC under Pompey, cementing its borders and geographic identity.
The Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire, the eastern half of the Roman Empire, survived for over a thousand years after the western half had crumbled into various feudal kingdoms.
The Byzantine Empire was a vast and powerful civilization with origins traced to AD 330 when the Roman emperor Constantine I dedicated a “New Rome” on the site of the ancient Greek city of Byzantium (today’s Istanbul). The city was endowed by him with the name “Constantinople”—the city of Constantine.
The Byzantine Empire developed a unique culture that blended Roman, Greek, and Christian influences. It further served as a military buffer between Europe and Islamic invaders.
In 1453, Constantinople fell to Central Asian invaders, the Ottoman Muslim Turks, bringing an end to the Byzantine Empire.
Before the Arab conquests of the 7th century, Syria was Christian, and part of the Byzantine Empire. Its peoples spoke Aramaic/Syriac, Greek, and other native languages.
1,390 years ago, Byzantine (Eastern-Roman) Syria fell to the Arab invaders of the Islamic Caliphate. On August 20, 636, Khalid ibn al-Walid defeated the Byzantine army under the command of Theodore Trithyrius and Vahan.
The Battle of Yarmouk in 636 marked a crucial point in the Muslim conquest of Syria. The invasion ended Byzantine rule over Syria, heralding Islam’s rapid advance into what was then the majority-Christian Levant.
However, Syria is a foundational cradle of Christianity, with roots stretching back to the first century. Its history notably features the conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus and the naming of followers of Jesus as “Christians” in the city of Antioch. Syria was a major center for early Christian theology. Syrian Christianity preserved the use of Aramaic, the language of Jesus, with many ancient liturgies still in use today.
The Arab invasion of Eastern Roman Syria in the 7th century was a pivotal campaign by the Caliphate that shattered Christian control in the Levant.
The Arab jihadist forces invaded and captured major cities including Damascus and Jerusalem from Byzantine forces. They massacred many natives, raped women, and converted churches into mosques. As a result, the Levant, which was then majority-Christian, became part of the rapidly expanding Islamic caliphate, fundamentally changing the demographic and religious landscape of the region.
From 1516 to 1918, Syria was under Ottoman occupation. During both the Arab and Ottoman-Turkish rule, Christians and Jews became dhimmis, second-class subjects of an Islamic state who had to pay a very high tax known as “jizya” to remain non-Muslim.
Since gaining independence from the French mandate in 1946, Syria has faced political instability, military coups, and conflict. The Assad family ruled the country for over 50 years, from 1970 until December 2024. The Assad regime fell when jihadists led by the former leader of Syrian al-Qaeda, Abu Mohammad al-Julani/Ahmed al-Sharaa, captured Damascus.
Since Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorists overthrew the Assad regime in late 2024, they have increasingly subjected Alawite, Druze and Christian civilians to targeted killings, arbitrary arrests, abductions, sexual violence, destruction and seizure of property, forced displacement, and other atrocities.
One of the religious minorities in Syria that are violently targeted by the regime are the Druze. The Druze religion is a close-knit, monotheistic faith that emerged in the 11th century, combining elements from Abrahamic religions, Greek philosophy, Eastern mysticism, and other ancient doctrines.
In July 2025, a jihadist massacre of Druze in Sweida, a Druze enclave in South Syria, took almost 2,000 lives and would have taken tens of thousands more if the Israeli army had not protected the surviving population. Jihadists burned over 33 villages there. There are Druze women and girls still in captivity. No posters of their faces appear in Western cities.
The Alawites and Christians of Syria suffer a similar fate as the Druze.
According to a February 2026 report by Ethnikos Association of Latakia-Antaradus, many women and children were abducted from Christian, Alawite and Druze communities:
“The girls affected are members of minority communities and therefore face guaranteed risk once removed from their family and community protection, including exposure to sexual violence, forced disappearance, human-trafficking and killing.”
Lebanon
Lebanon used to be the Paris of the Middle East, a Christian country, until Palestinian terrorists, Syrians and Iran-backed Hezbollah invaded Lebanon.
Christians in Lebanon have since declined from a demographic majority to a minority.
Christians today make up roughly 32% to 34% of Lebanon’s resident population, representing Maronites, Greek Orthodox, and Melkite Catholics. Because Lebanon has not held an official nationwide census since 1932 to preserve its delicate political balance, exact current figures remain based on estimates and voter registration rolls.
Palestinian terrorist groups invaded Lebanon after the 1948 war in Israel and again in the 1970s, turning their camps into terror zones. Syria invaded in 1976 under the pretext of peacekeeping and remained for 30 years. Both waves have largely destroyed Lebanon’s stability and its Christian identity.
Hezbollah grew in the 1980s with Iranian funding and Syrian protection. When Christian forces disarmed after the war, Hezbollah kept its weapons under the excuse of “resistance.” Over time, it captured the state, the army, and all key institutions, effectively turning Lebanon into an extension of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Yet, Israel’s war against Hezbollah has weakened the terror group and given the Lebanese people a chance to take back their country.
In addition, in the region of Mount Lebanon, Christians still constitute a demographic majority and many demand independence. There is a movement that aims to create “Christian Lebanon.” This grassroots movement aims to rebuild the Lebanese Christian nation by uniting Lebanese Christians worldwide in support of sovereignty. The movement for Christian Lebanon has launched
https://syriac.now/
to revive their Syriac language and heritage.
Lebanon was majority-Christian starting from the first century (when Christianity was introduced by figures such as St. Peter and St. Paul) until the mid-20th century. Mount Lebanon, which remains the Christian heartland of the country, is frequently mentioned in the Bible.
Lebanon was conquered by the Arab Islamic Caliphate in AD 636 following the defeat of the Christian Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire at the Battle of Yarmouk. Later, the Ottoman Empire ruled over Lebanon for 402 years, reigning over the Levant from their conquest in 1516 to the empire’s collapse in 1918.
Ottoman authorities conducted a campaign of starvation on Mount Lebanon, the historic heartland of the Maronites and other Lebanese Christians, between 1915 and 1918. They imposed and enforced policies that perished around 200,000 to 300,000 people. Maronites call this genocidal campaign “kafno” (or “famine” in the Syriac language).
Lebanon gained independence from French rule in 1943.
Maronites are the largest Christian denomination in Lebanon, historically centered in Mount Lebanon. They are known for their unique Eastern Catholic Church (which remains in communion with Rome) and their usage of the Syriac language in liturgy, although they primarily speak Lebanese Arabic today. Maronites played a key role in founding modern Lebanon. Today, they maintain distinct cultural and religious traditions, tracing their roots to St. Maron in the fourth century.
The Greek Orthodox community is the second largest Christian group. Other historical Christian communities include Catholic (Chaldean, Greek, Latin, Armenian, and Syriac), Oriental Orthodox (Armenian Apostolic, Syriac, and Coptic), and the Assyrian Church of the East.
Henry Zakaria, a Lebanese activist who advocates for a Christian nation in Mount Lebanon, said:
“The main reasons for the declining Christian population in Lebanon are the [1975–1990] civil war, emigration, and the loss of sovereignty. Christians left after decades of instability, economic collapse, and occupation by Islamic forces. The current political system favors demographic imbalance and makes Christian life unsustainable. It can only be reversed by restoring autonomy and self-rule in Mount Lebanon.
“The demographic shift toward a Muslim majority accelerated after the Arab war against us. Christian emigration rose sharply, while Shia and Sunni families expanded demographically and moved into areas that were once Christian. The change wasn’t natural growth; it was a replacement through invasion, occupation, ethnic cleansing, and political manipulation.”
Zakaria also pointed out the effects of the Syrian and Palestinian invasions against Lebanon:
“Palestinian terrorist groups invaded Lebanon after the 1948 war in Israel and again in the 1970s, turning their camps into terror zones. Syria invaded in 1976 under the pretext of peacekeeping and remained for 30 years. Both waves have destroyed Lebanon’s stability and its Christian identity.”
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah, founded in 1982, maintains a strong hold on Lebanon through its Shia supporters and the government, including parliament. As journalist and writer Daniel Greenfield notes:
“Christian politicians may officially hold high and, in some cases, reserved positions in the Lebanese government, but they are often little more than fronts and puppets for Islamic terror groups.
“The Shiite [Shia] Islamic takeover of Iran, the growth of Islamic terrorist groups in the region, and the spread of regional Shiite Jihadism out of Tehran has effectively turned Lebanon from a Christian country into an Islamic puppet regime.”
Over the years, Christians in Lebanon have faced multiple attacks as the country has become increasingly controlled by Hezbollah, which exercises its power through violence and intimidation.
According to the human rights organization Open Doors, the main fears of Christians in Lebanon reflect the demographic shrinking of Christian communities with an accompanying fear that it may become increasingly difficult to maintain long-standing levels of demographic presence and political influence. This fear is especially relevant in light of the growing strength of Shia communities and, in particular, Hezbollah’s influence.
Christians in Lebanon face the most faith-related opposition in predominantly Islamic areas, such as Tripoli, the Bekaa Valley (particularly where Syrian refugee camps are located), South Beirut (such as the Shia suburb of El Dahye), Palestinian refugee camps (close to Tripoli and Beirut), and Hezbollah-controlled areas south and east of the Bekaa Valley.
According to Open Doors, churches in Muslim areas often choose not to display religious symbols and iconography to avoid provoking hostility from the Muslim communities in which they are located. In 2021, clashes between Shia and Christian villages in southern Lebanon’s Hezbollah-controlled territory left six people injured. Christian religious symbols were attacked by Shia armed elements during the clashes.
In recent years, various other Christian symbols or shrines in public spaces were damaged or destroyed by Muslims. In December 2019 and 2020, Christmas trees were burned in Dinniyeh, a Muslim town in northern Lebanon. Also in Tripoli, Christmas trees were burned in December 2019 and 2023. In November 2024, a nativity scene in Faraya was vandalized when the figure of the baby Jesus was removed and a handgun was placed nearby.
It can be risky for churches and Christian organizations in Lebanon to speak out against discrimination and oppression, notes Open Doors. Criticism of certain groups, such as Hezbollah, can lead to threats, libel campaigns, or other serious consequences.
Zakaria said:
“Lebanon is effectively divided. Christians mainly live in Mount Lebanon and the north, while Muslims dominate the south and the Bekaa Valley. Day-to-day relations are mostly civil, but trust is weak, and coexistence is more geographic than social.
“Most Christians view Hezbollah as an occupying force that has destroyed Lebanon’s sovereignty. A few political figures cooperate with it out of fear or personal interest, but among ordinary people there is deep resentment.”
As a solution, Zakaria advocates for a Maronite state in Mount Lebanon:
“Our vision is to restore Mount Lebanon as the homeland of the Maronites, the rest of the Christians, and the Druze, a sovereign state built on peace, cultural revival, and Western-Mediterranean alliances. What Lebanese Christians need is unity, a strong diaspora network, and the courage to rebuild a new model of governance.”
The writer Daniel Greenfield also notes:
“The rising power of Islam means that the fates of the Christian and Jewish populations are intertwined in the Western world and in the Middle East. The story of Lebanon in the 19th century is a forcible reminder that Christian and Jewish rights anywhere in the Muslim world depend on the political and military fortitude of Western nations. Ideally, those nations might have the courage of their 19th-century counterparts to step in and make Lebanon, Christian.
“But in the absence of such a willingness to directly intervene and remove a colonial Muslim settler population back to its original territories, a two-state solution could preserve a Christian Lebanon which is otherwise likely to disappear within a generation. Silence will make it so.”
Israel
The state of Israel was re-established in 1948, making it the only non-Muslim nation in the Middle East successfully liberated from Muslim colonizers and occupiers.
Jewish ties to Israel are rooted in thousands of years of history, ancestral indigeneity, and deep spiritual significance. Jewish identity and culture formed in the Land of Israel over 3,000 years ago, originating from the kingdoms of Israel and Judah (or Judea or Judaea).
Despite Roman expulsions in AD 70 and subsequent exiles, a continuous Jewish presence remained in the country throughout the centuries, concentrated in historical sites like Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias.
Facing centuries of diaspora and persecution across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, Jews worldwide preserved their connection to the land. Ancient artifacts, ancient Hebrew inscriptions, and historical burial sites provide physical proof of this long-standing connection.
The ancient history of the land of Israel includes many centuries during which it was governed by the Jewish people. Beginning in approximately 1,000 BC, at the start of the Iron Age, under King Saul, David, and Solomon, the entire land of Israel was a unified Jewish kingdom.
That unified kingdom was divided in approximately 931 BC into the Kingdom of Israel (in the north) with its capital in Samaria, and the Kingdom of Judah (in the south) with its capital in Jerusalem. Both remained under Jewish rule. The northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC and most of its inhabitants were exiled, but the southern kingdom remained under Jewish rule until 586 BC, when the Babylonian Empire conquered it, exiling many Jews.
The Jews returned from exile under the Persian Empire and regained control over the land with the Hasmonean dynasty in the 2nd century BC. Judea, as it was then called, became a client state of Rome in 63 BC, and the Herodian dynasty, a Jewish dynasty under the control of Rome, took over. In AD 70, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and exiled many of the Jewish inhabitants of Judea.
These kingdoms played crucial roles in shaping Jewish history, religious traditions, and cultural identity, with the city of Jerusalem and the two great Temples that once stood there holding special significance in biblical narratives and Jewish history.
The Arab siege and conquest of Jerusalem took place between November 636 and April 638, when the Rashidun Caliphate captured the city from the Byzantine Empire.
In the 7th century, Jerusalem was one of the five primary sees (major centers) of the Christian world, alongside Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. The 7th-century Islamic conquest of Jerusalem and the wider Middle East was thus a foundational loss of Christendom that eventually triggered the Crusades.
During the rapid 7th-century conquests, early Muslim armies took major Christian territories across the Middle East, such as Syria, Israel (then called Palaestina, which was divided into three distinct administrative provinces), and Egypt.
The Conditions of Omar, also known as the Pact of Umar, are a set of rules and restrictions that Muslims imposed on their non-Muslim subjects, dhimmis. Through this pact, conquered populations were granted dhimmi status, subject to specific taxes like the jizya in exchange for their lives and ability to remain non-Muslim.
The expanded legal text of the Pact included social and physical rules to distinguish non-Muslims from Muslims. These included bans on building new places of worship, public displays of crosses, carrying weapons, and requirements to wear specific identifying clothing. The Conditions of Omar (attributed to 7th-century Caliph Omar) thus represents the subjugation and second-class status imposed on conquered Christian and Jewish populations.
During this time, Muslim colonizers built the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, or Har Ha-Bayit in Hebrew, in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism and is central to Jewish identity and liturgy. The mosque was built in the eighth century by order of the Caliph Omar ibn Al-Khattab.
It was purposely built on top of Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, where the First and Second Jewish Temples once stood. The first temple was built by King Solomon and finished in 957 BC, and the second was built by Ezra and Nehemiah in 516 BC and enhanced some five centuries later by King Herod.
The reason why the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built on the Temple Mount was to usurp the site’s holiness from the Jews in the name of a triumphalist Islam. Therefore, the Al-Aqsa Mosque that Islamic supremacists brag about is a symbol of Islamic colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and historic appropriation.
Foreign rule over Jerusalem continued for centuries. The Ottoman Empire conquered Jerusalem in 1516–1517 and ruled it for four-hundred years until 1917. Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims were dhimmis under the Ottoman rule as well. British forces under General Allenby captured the city in December 1917 during World War I, ending Ottoman control.
The modern State of Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948. Just one day after Israel became an independent nation, the regular military forces of Egypt, Jordan (then called Transjordan), Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq attacked Israel to obliterate it at its birth. The newly formed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fought against those invading armies from neighboring Arab nations, defeated them, and secured Israel’s independence.
The war ended with armistice agreements signed in 1949 between Israel and individual Arab states. Jordan took control of what became its West Bank and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of thousands of Jews had to flee or were expelled from Arab countries and found refuge in Israel during this period.
Judea and Samaria (The West Bank)
Judea and Samaria are the ancient, historic biblical names for what is commonly known today as the West Bank. It is a 2,183-square-mile hilly territory bordered by Jordan, the Dead Sea, and Israel. Its topography makes it critically strategic for Israeli security, since its elevation could allow terrorists to launch missiles at will on the Mediterranean coastal plain below where the majority of Israelis reside, and down aircraft landing and taking off from Israel’s main international airport east of Tel Aviv.
Authority over the territory is divided between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), established in 1994 under the Oslo Accords to provide interim self-governance.
Judea and Samaria is the birthplace of the Jewish people and part of Israel’s inheritance. In this biblical heartland, you not only find the Jordan Valley, known from the stories of Elijah and Elisha, but also the graves of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron. The biblical city of Shechem (renamed Neapolis by the Romans and pronounced today as Nablus in Arabic, which lacks the equivalent of the letter “p”) is situated between the mountains of Gerizim and Ebal. This is the place where Abraham entered the land and where Isaac and Jacob tended their flock.
King David established his first capital in Hebron before moving it to Jerusalem. After King Solomon, the land split: the northern kingdom was Samaria (centered in Shechem/Samaria), and the southern kingdom was Judea (centered in Jerusalem).
The northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC, and the southern kingdom fell to the Babylonians in 586 BC. Judeans returned from Babylonian exile to rebuild the temple, later forming an independent Hasmonean (Maccabean) kingdom.
Rome took control of the region in 63 BC. After crushing the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt in AD 135, the Roman Empire changed the region’s name from Judea to “Syria Palaestina” to weaken the Jewish connection to the land. Throughout the rule of continuous foreign empires—including Arab, Mamluk, and Ottoman rule—Jewish and other non-Muslim local communities persisted in places like Hebron.
Arab Muslim forces conquered the region, including the area that is now the West Bank, between AD 634 and 638, with the defeat of Byzantine forces at the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 and the surrender of Jerusalem in 637/638.
The Ottoman Empire conquered the region encompassing the West Bank during the Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–17). During the Battle of Marj Dabiq in August 1516, Ottoman Sultan Selim I led his army and defeated the Mamluk forces near Aleppo.
When the Ottoman Empire conquered the region in 1516–1517, the territory that is historically known as Judea and Samaria was not a single unified political entity, but was split into administrative districts (sanjaks) belonging to the broader province (eyalet) of Damascus.
Ottoman forces moved swiftly south through Syria and into Judea and Samaria, taking major towns and sub-districts. Following the final defeat of the Mamluks in Egypt in early 1517, the entire region—including Jerusalem and the hill country of Judea and Samaria—was formally integrated into the Ottoman Empire.
The area remained under Ottoman occupation for four centuries until British forces captured it during World War I in 1917.
Following Israel’s victory in the 1948 War of Independence, Jordan took control of East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. During the Jordanian occupation, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem was destroyed, every one of its synagogues was desecrated and destroyed, and the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was ransacked, with graves desecrated and tombstones used as building materials for latrines. Jews were prohibited from visiting the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites, and were expelled from their homes.
During the 1948-1949 Arab war to destroy the newly reborn Israel, Judea and Samaria were captured and annexed by Jordan, which designated it as its “West Bank” (referring to the western bank of the Jordan River).
Egypt, Syria, and Jordan once again declared their intention to go to war to destroy Israel in 1967. In response, Israel, in a clear act of self-defense, expelled the Jordanian army from Judea and Samaria, restored their historic names, and assumed responsibility for security. Since then, Israel has maintained military administration in the territory, while allowing Palestinian Arab self-rule under the Palestinian Authority (PA), established in 1994 as part of the Oslo Accords.
The West Bank today is divided into Areas A, B, and C. The PA governs Areas A and B, where the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs live, while Israel retains control over Area C, which includes major security responsibilities, and encompasses roughly 520,000 Israeli residents.
Muslim-Arabs, however, do not even allow Jews to live in PA-ruled lands. In addition, Christians have nearly disappeared from the territory ruled by the PA for many of the same reasons they are disappearing in the broader Muslim-majority region: harassment, mistreatment, violence, discrimination, oppression, and a lack of economic opportunities.
Around 1910, Christians made up approximately 11.6% of the total population in the West Bank, compared to about 2% today.
The presence of Jews or Israelis there comes with deadly risks. Two Israeli reservists in a civilian vehicle took a wrong turn and accidentally found themselves in Ramallah, the PA’s seat of government, on October 12, 2000. Palestinian-Arab rioters stormed the building where the two Israelis were detained by police and disemboweled both of them. At one point, a Palestinian-Arab (later identified as Aziz Salha) appeared at the window, displaying his blood-soaked hands to the crowd outside, which broke into rapture. The bodies of the Israelis were then thrown out the window, mutilated, and then set on fire. They strung the intestines of the burned victims around their necks for everyone to see. The bodies were then dragged to Al-Manara Square in the city center of Ramallah.
Under Palestinian Authority (PA) law, selling land to Israelis is a crime that carries the death penalty or life imprisonment. In 2018, a Ramallah court sentenced a Palestinian man to life in prison with hard labor after he was found guilty of selling land in the Old City of Jerusalem to Israeli Jews.
Gaza
Gaza was also Byzantine Greek land when it was invaded and conquered by Muslim Arabs in the seventh century. As academic researcher Robert C. Thornett writes:
“In Late Antiquity, Gaza was a Greek-speaking Byzantine center of philosophy and rhetoric, known for its openness to diverse ideas and cultures overlapping from three continents. The fifth-century Byzantine Christian philosopher Aeneas of Gaza called the city ‘the Athens of Asia.’”
And what changed that? The seventh-century Arab-Muslim conquests. Thornett notes,
“As the Byzantine Empire lost its grip on the Eastern Mediterranean to Arab caliphates over the course of the 7th century, Gaza’s language changed from Greek to Arabic and its churches were replaced with mosques. But Jewish and Christian communities remained in Gaza—and continued their viniculture, which was banned by Islamic law.”
Today, the Christian population in the Gaza Strip is estimated at around 600 people. And no Jews are allowed to live there although they have deep historic and spiritual ties to the land.
Since the unilateral Israeli Disengagement Plan was completed by September 12, 2005, the Gaza Strip has become judenrein—a Jew-free land.
The historic Jewish presence in Gaza, however, predates the Arab conquest of the Middle East by centuries.
Laurence Beziz, the Projects Coordinator of the Gush Katif and Northern Samaria Commemoration Center in Israel, said:
“The Hebrew name for Gaza is ‘Aza’. The first reference in the Bible to that area, called ‘Gerar’, begins with the settling of Abraham and Isaac in the region and digging wells. In the Bible (Genesis Chapter: 20, Verses 1-18), it is mentioned that prophet Abraham settled in the land of Gerar.”
According to the Jewish Virtual Library,
“In the fourth century Gaza was the primary Jewish port of Israel for international trade and commerce… Great medieval rabbis such as Rabbi Yisrael Najara, author of ‘Kah Ribon Olam,’ the popular Shabbat song, and renowned Mekubal Rabbi Avraham Azoulai, were rabbanim in Gaza Jewish communities.”
Jews lived in Gaza throughout the centuries. For instance, a synagogue was erected near the Gaza waterfront in AD 508, noted Steven Plaut, a professor at Haifa University whose family has roots in Gaza.
Yet, the Arab presence in the region started only in the seventh century when Arab armies invaded Israel. The Jewish population in Gaza collapsed simply because it was targeted by different invaders throughout history such as the Ottoman Turks.
In 1929, Jews in Gaza were once again forced to leave due to violent anti-Jewish riots by the Arabs. Beziz explainedthat:
“A historic Jewish community existed in Gaza city prior to its evacuation by the British during the 1929 Arab riots—as the threat to Jewish lives became obvious while the Arabs were at the doors of the synagogue where the Jews took refuge.”
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, following these riots, and the death of nearly 135 Jews in British Mandate Palestine,
“the British prohibited Jews from living in Gaza to quell tension and appease the Arabs. Some Jews returned, however, and, in 1946, Kibbutz Kfar Darom was established to prevent the British from separating the Negev from the Jewish state.”
A year later, the 1947 United Nations General Assembly partition plan called for the establishment of two separate states side by side, Jewish and Arab, with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem region as a separate enclave under international administration. The Jewish side accepted the plan. The Arabs, however, violently rejected it and launched a war on the Jewish community living in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1948.
From 1949 to 1956 and from 1957 to 1967, Gaza remained under Egyptian military occupation. Theoretically, the Gaza Strip was officially administered by the All-Palestine Government from 1948 until its dissolution by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1959. The government was recognized by most members of the Arab League. Following its dissolution, Egypt did not annex the Gaza Strip but left it under military rule, paving the way for the continued chaos in Gaza.
During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israeli forces entered Gaza in self-defense and captured it. And in the early 1970s the initial Jewish settlements were established by the Israeli government.
In total, twenty-one Jewish communities were built in Gaza. The most thickly populated area was Gush Katif, with some thirty synagogues and prime agricultural land. The economies of these communities were generally based on agriculture, some local industry and tourist facilities. Beziz said:
“Gush Katif refers to the Jewish communities established in the Gaza Strip in the south of Israel at the Egyptian border. Our center also tells the story of four communities located in the Northern Samaria that were uprooted as part of the disengagement plan. These are two different areas in Israel but bound together by the fact that they were both evacuated in 2005.”
Jews and Muslims in Gaza coexisted for more than a decade, but tensions grew, particularly during the deadly First Intifada (1987–1993) and the Second Intifada (2000–2005), which forced Israel to carry out military operations in Gaza to stop terrorist attacks and infiltrations by Arabs into Israel.
What marked the end of the Jewish presence in Gaza, however, was Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan, proposed in 2003 by then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and approved by the Knesset in 2005. The deadline for the evacuation was August 15, 2005. Author Abra Forman described the period:
“Immediately, there was an enormous outcry from the 8,500 residents of Gush Katif, as well as many Israelis who disagreed with the plan. They wrote petitions, held protests, and begged the government to reconsider.
“However, their attempts were in vain. The government went ahead with the plan, promising compensation packages and resettlement deals to the Gush Katif residents who would be evicted and whose property would be destroyed as per the agreement.
“Many residents stayed until the last possible days, when soldiers forced them out. The resulting trauma had lasting effects.”
The Jewish residents of Gaza who refused to voluntarily vacate their homes before the deadline were driven out by Israeli security forces over a period of several days. The buildings belonging to Jews were razed and all Jewish families including farmers were uprooted from the area. Professor Plaut wrote:
“The Gaza Jewish community was destroyed by rioting Arabs in 1929, with surviving Jews fleeing to other towns in what would become Israel. Jews returned to the area after the Six-Day War, but when Israel adopted the Oslo ‘peace process’ as national policy, Gaza terrorism exploded and the Jews in the renewed Gaza communities faced mortal danger. Their actual eviction, however—the third ethnic cleansing of Gaza Jews in less than a century—was perpetrated by the government of Ariel Sharon, years after the collapse of Oslo.”
And on September 23—less than two weeks after Jews left Gaza—Palestinian Arabs in the region fired their first post-disengagement rockets into Israel. And in January 2006, Hamas won majority of seats in Palestinian legislative elections.
Until 2005, however, Jews had created advanced, productive and peaceful communities—and particularly high-tech cooperative agricultural villages—in Gaza. A land that Jews developed and enriched is now run by terror groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Sadly, Israel’s effort to “unilaterally disengage” from Gaza and to “unfreeze” the peace process with the Palestinian Arabs has largely proven fruitless.
It appears that the Israeli abandonment of Gaza has been detrimental to the Jewish state and the wider region in terms of security, human rights, agriculture and technology. Beziz said:
“Since the disengagement, the security situation has not improved. We have had several military operations in Gaza over the years and still suffer from the massive launching of Kassam rockets to main cities in the country as well as fire kites from Gaza.
“Not all of the Jewish families have been able to rebuild a home with the compensation given by the Israeli government and are still living in temporary conditions with no visible solution in the near future.
“The compensation given by the Israeli government for the greenhouses was not enough for most of the farmers for them to return to farming. So only few of the 400 farmers returned to farming after the disengagement. The greenhouses that were left in Gush Katif to be used by the Palestinian Authority were dismantled and the steel and aluminum were used for military purposes.”
The response to unilateral Jewish withdrawal from a land that Jews resided in for millennia has been more violence and terrorism by Palestinian Arabs. Less than two years after the Israeli withdrawal, Hamas, whose charter calls for the obliteration of Israel and the extermination of Jews, violently seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007.
Sixteen years later, on October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists led a highly coordinated, multi-front attack from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, resulting in the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. They murderedapproximately 1,200 people, the majority of whom were civilians. This included infants, children, the elderly, and citizens from over 30 countries. Widespread documentation and first-responder testimonies revealed severe atrocities, including torture, mutilation, sexual violence, and the burning of victims alive. Hamas terrorists recorded much of the violence on bodycams and victims’ phones. They also abducted 251 hostages into the Gaza Strip, including babies, children and elderly individuals.
The Israeli disengagement from Gaza and its aftermath once again demonstrate that the lack of peace between Israel and Palestinian Arabs is not due to the actions of Jews. It is due to the fact that Jews exist and want to have a state in their ancient land.
Cyprus
The Republic of Cyprus is uniquely the only EU member state with territory militarily occupied by a foreign entity, Turkey.
In the summer of 1974, the Turkish military invaded the Republic of Cyprus twice: On July 20 and August 14.
The second Turkish invasion transformed the scale of Turkey’s initial illegal occupation. Within weeks, Turkey had expanded the territory under its control from approximately 3 percent to 36 percent of the Republic of Cyprus, while seizing 57 percent of the country’s coastline.
The consequences for the Republic of Cyprus, a small and largely defenseless independent sovereign state that had already endured the first invasion only weeks earlier, were catastrophic. Thousands more people were killed, injured or displaced as Turkish forces advanced across the Republic of Cyprus, a Member of the UN, the Commonwealth and the Council of Europe.
As a result, Turkey became an occupying power while effectively recovering possession of vast portions of territory which had previously formed part of the Ottoman Empire from 1571 until 1878.
In 1570, Muslim Ottoman Turks invaded the island of Cyprus, and launched a wholesale slaughter. During this period, many churches were violently converted into mosques.
One of them is the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Nicosia. The church was converted into a mosque after a Turkish invading force landed in Cyprus in 1570 and seized the city. It is now called “Selimiye Mosque” after Ottoman Sultan Selim II, who headed the Ottoman empire during that invasion. Thousands of Muslims were settled on the island immediately following the Ottoman takeover.
In 1878, Britain gained control of the island. In 1960, Cyprus became an independent republic and was admitted as a member of the UN.
In violation of the Treaty of Guarantee Turkey signed in 1960 with Britain, Greece, and Cyprus to enable Cypriot independence and sovereignty, Turkey once again invaded the island in 1974. Between 180,000 and 200,000 Greek Cypriots fled from their homes in the north, and were pushed into the free, southern part of the republic as refugees.
Like the rest of the island, the northern part of Cyprus’s population was Greek majority until the Turkish invasion, which forcibly changed the demographic character of Cyprus. As a result of the invasion, one third of the Greek Cypriots became refugees in their own country.
The military campaign was characterized by murders, bombing of civilian targets including hospitals, unlawful detention of both soldiers and civilians in what amounted to concentration camps, systematic, summary execution of civilians, as well as torture and mistreatment including rapes of Greek Cypriots.
Through these atrocities, the Turkish occupation forces terrorized Greek Cypriots, causing approximately 180,000 to flee south. Their lands, homes, businesses and other properties were seized, looted and distributed to members of the Turkish occupation army and illegal settlers from Turkey. To this day, at least 1,000 Cypriots remain missing.
The northern part (36 percent) of the island has been illegally occupied by the Turkish military ever since, despite UN Security Council resolutions demanding a withdrawal.
The destruction of Christian and other non-Muslim civilizations in the occupied part has been extensively documented.
Many churches and monasteries have been looted or destroyed while others have been turned into mosques, museums, places of entertainment, hotels, and barracks for the Turkish army, among other things. Historic paintings and mosaics have been removed from church walls by Turkish smugglers and sold illegally abroad.
According to Cyprus’ Ministry of Culture,
“The 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the subsequent occupation of the island has heavily affected Cyprus’ cultural heritage and despite existing internationally binding treaties regarding the protection of cultural heritage, Turkey chooses to ignore the treaties and continues its destructive agenda. The damages are grave and in many cases, irreversible. The occupied museums have been looted and so have many private collections of antiquities. Churches have been vandalized; ecclesiastical icons and vessels stolen, church frescoes and mosaics have been removed and in many cases have been traced in Europe’s illegal antiquities trade markets and in auctions around the world. The most serious and large-scale damage has been noted on the islands’ occupied churches. Some of the churches have even been demolished, others have been vandalized and some are currently being used as stables, mosques or as part of military camps.”
Around 40,000 Turkish troops are still illegally deployed in the northern part of Cyprus.
Antioch
Antioch (today’s Hatay) is currently within Turkey’s borders. It is a historically Greek city, has a magnificent Christian, Jewish and Alevi history and cultural heritage.
Seleucus I Nicator, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, founded the city in 300 BC and named it after his father, Antiochus. Antioch soon became the capital of the Seleucid kingdom and then the capital of the Roman province of Syria. During the Roman period, Antioch was the third largest city in the Roman world after Rome and Alexandria.
It is not only Antioch. Most cities and towns in Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor) in modern-day Turkey were built by Greeks. Even the name Anatolia comes from the Greek “anatole,” meaning “the east, sunrise, place from where the sun rises.” The Roman Republic (and later Empire) gradually annexed Anatolia starting with the Kingdom of Pergamon in 133 BC, eventually organizing the region into multiple Roman provinces. Most natives in Anatolia spoke Greek at the time.
After the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th Century, the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire continued its sovereignty over the region. After the rise of Islam, the Byzantine Christians fought Islamic invaders and caliphates for centuries. Turks, originally from Central Asia, started invading and capturing the towns in Anatolia in the eleventh century. In 1299, the Ottoman Empire was established in Anatolia on lands Greeks had built and ruled. The Ottomans constituted the Islamic caliphate from 1517 to 1924.
The Christian natives of Anatolia were Islamized as a result of a centuries-long process at the hands of Muslims that included systematic discrimination and persecution.
It was in Antioch that the followers of Jesus were called “Christians” for the first time in history. In Acts 11:26, we read: “… the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”
Antioch is where one out of the five centers (Patriarchates) of the ancient Pentarchy is located. Another is Constantinople. St. Peter, St. Paul, and Barnabas all preached in Antioch. St. Peter began his ministry in Antioch and established a church there as a place for the early Christian community of the city to meet. It came to be known as The Cave Church of St. Peter in Antioch.
Not only Antioch, but also many other sites in Anatolia are significant for the origins of Christianity. That is why, Anatolia is often referred to as “the second Holy Land” after Israel. Anatolia is the birthplace of many apostles and saints, such as Paul of Tarsus, Timothy, Nicholas of Myra, and Polycarp of Smyrna.
St. Paul traveled extensively in Anatolia, including in Antioch, preaching Jesus’s teachings. Of the 27 books in the New Testament, 13 are traditionally attributed to Paul. Six of those were written to churches or saints located in Anatolia. These are the Epistle to the Galatians, Epistle to the Colossians, Epistle to St. Philemon, Epistle to the Ephesians and the First and Second Epistles to St. Timothy.
Anatolia is also home to the Seven Churches of Asia, which are listed in the book of Revelation. All of the first seven Ecumenical Councils were held in Anatolia. Of these, the Nicene Creed was declared during the First Council of Nicaea (present-day Iznik) in 325.
Throughout the centuries, Antioch was attacked and invaded by several foreign peoples including Arabs, Mamluks and Turks, which largely affected the religious and ethnic composition of the city. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Antioch, for instance, moved to Damascus in Syria in the fourteenth century while maintaining its title as “Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East.”
The Ottomans took control of Antioch in 1516. Christians and Jews became dhimmis under the Muslim Ottoman rule. Dhimmis are non-Muslims who acknowledge their subservience to Muslim rule and lack of political power in Islamic society. The lives of dhimmis are thus usually spared only for as long as they pay special taxes (called jizya) to Muslim authorities and accept the inferior status and social restrictions imposed on them. The Ottoman Empire occupied most of the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans between 1516 and 1914, turning native Christians and Jews there into dhimmis, second-class subjects of their empire.
Scholar Ioannis Ν. Grigoriadis writes:
“From a minority in the early imperial Roman era to a dominant majority in the late Roman years and again a minority in the Ottoman years, the Christians of Antioch were characterized by linguistic diversity. In the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine years, Syriac, Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew were among the main spoken languages in the region. The Umayyad [Arab] conquest of the Levant in the seventh century added Arabic culture and language to the Antiochene mosaic. Over the centuries, Arabic eventually rose to a dominant position in the province, while Greek, Syriac and Aramaic survived only as liturgical languages. Despite the dominance of Arabic, the Greek Orthodox of the Levant continued defining themselves not on the basis of language but of religion, as a part of the Rum [Roman\Greek] ta’ife [community] or millet [nation].”
The Christian population collapse, however, resulted from the Hamidian massacres in the mid-1890s, 1913-23 Christian genocide committed by Ottoman Turkey and the 1923 forced population exchange between Turkey and Greece. The website “Virtual Genocide Memorial” reports that:
“Armenians, who maintained a cultural and economic presence in Iskenderun for centuries, most notably due to trade, were wiped out in the Hamidian Massacres, Adana Massacres, and the Armenian genocide, after centuries of discrimination.”
Musa Dagh (“Moses Mountain”), where a heroic Armenian resistance to the genocide took place in 1915, is also located in Hatay.
During the Ottoman era, these towns were still referred to as Antioch and Alexandretta. The city was named “Hatay” in 1936—after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Today the city is still called Hatay. Antioch’s official name is Antakya and Alexandretta is called Iskenderun. Today, both Antakya and Iskenderun are towns in the wider province of Hatay, and Antioch is officially its central district.
The annexation of the city by Turkey goes back to the period of the Sanjak of Alexandretta (1920–1936), a sanjak(district) of the French Mandate of Syria.
After the First World War, the Sanjak of Alexandretta (present-day Hatay) became part of the French Mandate of Syria under a special statute. On September 9, 1936, the Franco-Syrian Treaty of Alliance was signed, guaranteeing the independence and sovereignty of Syria within three years.
Professor Avedis K. Sanjian writes:
“The sanjak was, until then, had been governed by an autonomous regime within the French mandated State of Syria, and guaranteed by both France and Turkey through the ‘Franklin-Bouillon Agreement’ signed at Ankara on October 20, 1921.”
The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which defined the frontiers of Turkey, also confirmed the Turco-Syrian frontier delineated in the Franklin-Bouillon Agreement. Sanjian adds:
“Moreover, in Articles 16 and 27, the Treaty divested Turkey of all sovereign and political rights and claims to territories detached from her. This renunciation was juridically in favor, not of France, but of Syria, since France was acting in the Levant territories in the name of the League of Nations and on behalf of Syria.
“Throughout the mandatory period the French authorities, besides scrupulously preserving the Sanjak’s autonomy within the Syrian political framework, had made it amply clear that the district was an integral part of Syria; that it was neither a state nor a government, but a Syrian province enjoying certain privileges.”
The separation of the Sanjak of Alexandretta from Syria and its transfer to Turkey took place gradually. In the late 1930s, Turkey drastically changed its policy towards Antioch by violating the treaties signed regarding the legal status of the city. In July of 1939, Turkey’s parliament approved a law establishing the Hatay Province. Then, a questionable referendum was held. To influence the results, the Turkish government transferred its supporters into the city and deported many non-Turkish residents.
Scholar Jack Kalpakian writes that the “Turkish army … expelled most of the province’s Alawite Arabs and Armenian majority. A rigged referendum followed.” The controversial referendum led to the annexation of Hatay to Turkey.
Historian Robert B. Satloff explains why France ceded Alexandretta to Turkey, much to the resentment of its locals:
“In the late 1930s, Kemalist Turkey exploited anxiety over the growth of fascism in Europe to coerce France into ceding the Sanjak (district) of Alexandretta… Various historians have dutifully chronicled the story of Ankara’s irredentism and Paris’ appeasement, detailing the sundry diplomatic ploys, subterfuges and deceptions each employed in an attempt to legitimize an illegitimate act. Virtually all commentators have vilified (correctly, I may add) the cession of the Sanjak as an unconscionable and illegal deal struck between two governments who showed little concern for the integrity of international law or the wishes of the local residents.”
The sanjak under the French mandate was a multicultural area consisting of Turks, Arabs, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, and others. In the sanjak, Satloff notes, there were “more than 200,000 people, representing at least 21 linguistic and religious communities.”
The Turkish annexation has resulted in yet another demographic alteration. Many Arabs, Armenians and Greeks had to move to Syria. Following the annexation, almost the entire Armenian population of Antioch, the survivors of the 1915 genocide by Ottoman Turkey, settled in Aleppo in Syria. Scholar Ioannis Ν. Grigoriadis writes:
“While the 1939 annexation of the Sanjak of Alexandretta by Turkey led thousands of Orthodox to the decision to emigrate to Syria or overseas, a substantial part of the population decided to remain and become citizens of Turkey, mainly in the cities of Antakya and Iskenderun, the towns of Arsuz, Altınözü (Qusayr) and Samandağ (Süveydiye), and their adjacent villages. Those who remained maintained their Greek Orthodox (Rum) identity.”
Jordan
Before its conquest by Muslim armies in the seventh century, the land that is today called Jordan had a Christian majority.
In the seventh century under Byzantine (Eastern Roman) rule, the territory of modern Jordan was not a single unified political entity, but was instead divided into several distinct administrative districts.
Jordan holds profound importance for Christianity as a sacred land tied to key biblical events, major pilgrimage sites, and one of the world’s oldest continuous Christian communities. Christianity in Jordan dates back to the first century AD and the ministry of Jesus and the Apostles.
The Jordan River is recognized as the traditional site where Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist, marking the beginning of His public ministry. Mount Nebo is the revered location where Moses viewed the Promised Land before his death. The city of Madaba is most famous for the sixth-century Madaba Map, the oldest surviving cartographic floor mosaic of the Holy Land.
Our Lady of the Mountain is a designated Vatican pilgrimage site where Jesus and Mary are believed to have stopped during their travels.
Muslim Arab forces conquered this immensely Christian region from the Byzantines in the seventh century. The turning point was the Battle of Yarmouk in August 636 AD, fought near the Yarmouk River, along the present-day border between Jordan and Syria. The Rashidun Caliphate defeated the army of Emperor Heraclius, ending Byzantine rule over the region.
The Ottoman Turks were amongst the foreign occupiers of Jordan, and they ruled the land for four centuries, from 1516 until 1918.
Today, Jordan has a large Muslim majority and Christians are an oppressed minority.
The current constitution of Jordan designates Islam as the state religion and Sharia as the main legislative source, making apostasy and non-Islamic evangelism illegal, in violation of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In addition, the September 2024 parliamentary elections, with a turnout of only 36 percent, brought a historic win for the Islamic Action Front (IAF), reflecting rising Islamic conservatism.
Despite Jordan’s reputation for supposed religious tolerance, Christians in Jordan face discrimination in employment, government monitoring, and restrictions on public preaching. Christians from a Muslim background risk violence, arrest, or even death if they openly express their newfound faith.
Below are some of the findings of the Open Doors’ 2026 research on Jordan:
There are two major political forces at play in Jordan: King Abdullah II and the royal family on the one hand, and the armed forces and secret police on the other. The King has a considerable amount of influence since he appoints governments, approves legislation, and has the power to dissolve parliament.
While the royal family seems keen on promoting Jordan as a modern, multi-religious country, the secret police remain focused on repressing minority Muslim factions, as well as keeping Christians in line. State-recognized Christian communities can live relatively freely if they abstain from proselytization.
Publicly sharing Christian faith with Muslims can be seen as evangelizing, which is forbidden, and as a threat to national security. Freedom of speech is restricted by cyber-crime laws and government arrests, causing many Christians to refrain from criticizing Islam, the monarchy, or engaging in evangelism.
Under applicable Islamic law, Muslims are effectively prohibited from changing their religion and women registered as Muslim are not permitted to marry non-Muslims.
There is no legal mechanism to change official religious affiliation from Islam. Insulting Islam is also considered a criminal offense.
All Christians can be subject to government monitoring. The government imposes Islamic values and laws on society. Jordanian Christians increasingly practice self-censorship on social media, to prevent offending the Muslim majority.
Converts from Islam to Christianity face the highest levels of pressure and even violence from family and community, including religious and ethnic leaders.
Christian converts risk referral to sharia courts, losing legal status and the voiding of contracts, including marriage. They face monitoring, harassment, exclusion from public sector employment, and social ostracism.
Children registered as Muslims must outwardly practice Islam, including attending Islamic classes, and are especially vulnerable.
Female converts from Islam are the most susceptible to persecution, with the family typically being the greatest source of pressure. Women risk house arrest, isolation, beatings, sexual harassment, forced marriage and, in extreme cases, may be killed in the name of “family honor.”
Female converts cannot officially marry registered Christian men. Their movements can be restricted by the state and by families, who can even prevent them from leaving the country. Personal status laws facilitate house arrest and forced marriages, while apostasy laws enable marriages, as well as child custody, to be annulled.
In Jordan’s predominantly Islamic society, Christian men and boys encounter significant challenges. While some Christians hold senior positions in the workplace, government and military, discrimination persists, particularly against those from a Muslim background. They face limited job progression and financial extortion, causing financial strain for the whole family.
Promotion in the government and the armed forces often favors Muslims, even though nine parliament seats are reserved for Christians and Christians are sometimes appointed as ministers.
Marriage is prohibited between a native Christian man and a Christian woman with a Muslim background.
There are additional difficulties for Christian converts in an honor-shame culture, in which families can attack, reject, and expel men from their homes due to their choice of religion. The state pressures men through intelligence services interviews, especially suspected converts and church leaders active in evangelism.
Most Jordanian women wear the hijab. Women who do not dress as a Muslim, (i.e., who do not wear a hijab) risk harassment. As a result, many Christian women choose not to use public transport or taxis, especially at night.
Several converts and Christians who are active in aiding and discipling converts have been physically or mentally abused, usually by the families of the converts.
Children of converts from Islam, or of a Christian mother and Muslim father, are automatically registered as Muslim, with no possibility of change. They must attend Islamic classes in school. In cases of divorce, those who have left Islam lose custody of any children, according to Islamic law.
Monitoring (including phone calls and social media usage) is especially intense for known converts from Islam or individuals engaged in evangelism. There are cases in which ex-Muslims who have converted to Christianity have lost jobs or been denied work because they converted.
Church activities are subject to routine monitoring, officially justified as a means to protect the churches. However, this monitoring could be used against churches if messages or activities deemed “provocative” were detected, or if Muslims were observed to be attending the service.
The sale of Bibles and the distribution of Christian materials is only permitted in designated places, such as within recognized churches and adjacent church bookstores, but not in ordinary markets or bookshops.
Amazingly, despite its record, Jordan is regularly characterized by diplomats, academics, and journalists alike as a “moderate” Arab country.
In the midst of this Islamic tyranny, Israel represents the only case in which an indigenous people, persecuted for millennia, has achieved self-rule on its ancestral homeland in the Levant. The 1948 re-establishment of Israel was a historic redemption of land conquered and colonized by Muslim invaders.
May all the indigenous, persecuted communities in the Levant also live to see the day when they too realize their right to self-determination and freedom from Islamic oppressors.