Israel prevented all Christians in Gaza from entering Jerusalem and Bethlehem this Easter, before pro-Israel propagandist began an online fake news campaign that fabricated a story about Palestinian Muslims attacking a Church.
Palestinian Christians are currently outraged about the ongoing crackdown on their religious practices, due to the barring of worshippers from access to their churches in their two Holy cities over orthodox Easter. Israel recently took the step to cancel all permits to travel to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, for Palestinian Christians from the illegally besieged Gaza Strip, a move heavily condemned by the Hamas government there. “This move is part of the Israeli occupation’s policy of racial discrimination and restrictions on the freedom of Palestinian Christians to access their holy sites,” Hamas said in a statement on the issue.
Despite Hamas in Gaza (the most conservative Islamist group amongst the Palestinian parties) often being pegged by pro-Israel propagandists as being anti-Christian, the small Christian population that still survives in Gaza are allowed to worship freely. In the recent speech of the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, he explicitly threatened that an armed response from the movement and its regional alliance will come in protection of Christian sites if Israel attacks them in the Old City of Jerusalem.
The Israeli occupation police forces have also issued a decision to prevent Christian worshippers from accessing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, for the Saturday Holy Fire ceremony, which takes place the day before the orthodox Easter holiday on April 16th. The decision was condemned in a statement by Greek Orthodox Patriarch, Atallah Hanna, who stated: “We shall continue to uphold the Status Quo customs, and the ceremony will be held as customary for two millennia and all who wish to worship with us are invited to attend,” which was endorsed by a number of churches and Christian organisations. In 2021, during the ceremony, Israeli occupation forces assaulted Palestinian Christian worshippers outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, even attacking an Al-Jazeera journalist on live TV.
This year, instead of the usual crowds which number well over 10,000, Israeli forces will limit the service inside the church to only 1,800, with another 1,200 allowed outside. Additional checkpoints will be set up throughout the Old City of Jerusalem, where armed gunmen will be on watch to prevent worshippers from entering their church. Despite the clear cut attack on freedom of worship, under the guise of “security”, the Christians around the world remain silent. Palestinian Christians are actively being ethnically cleansed from East Jerusalem and their numbers are lower than ever before, yet the West refuses to act or even acknowledge what is happening. The only ones standing up to Israel’s persecution of Palestinian Christians and threatening a retaliation if worshippers are assaulted again at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, are a combined force of Muslim armed groups throughout the region, backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Many Western Christians believe that the biggest threat to Christians in the Middle East are Muslim fundamentalists, however, time has proven that the groups commonly portrayed as anti-Christian in the West have in fact repeatedly fought to protect them. Hezbollah, as an example, fought to protect churches that had come under attack in Syria, and this Friday the groups leader, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, clearly stated that all the Muslim and Christian Holy Sites are a red line, and will lead to regional war if violated.
Israeli Propagandists Make Up Another Story, Refuse To Apologize
Considering that videos had gone viral that same day, of Israeli settlers in occupied East Jerusalem spitting on nuns, it may well have seemed opportune for pro-Israel activists to get their hands on videos of Muslims attacking Christians also. The only problem they had, was that no such videos existed and these pro-Israel advocates chose to make up a story instead.
It all began after an editor at the Jewish Chronicle, Jake Wallis Simons, posted a video on Twitter with the description reading “Palestinian Muslims launch Ramadan attack on Church of the Annunciation in Beit Jala near Bethlehem [sic]”. The video showed a number of men jogging into a the Church of Reformation, in Beit Jala. What had actually happened is that a group of Palestinians had a feud with a local restaurant owner in the area, who ran away from them and into the Church, where they followed him. The men involved were shortly thereafter arrested by the Palestinian Authority Security Forces and the Palestinian Bethlehem Governorate solved the issue.
There was never any reports of an attack on a church, which was the story that was told. This story was completely made-up by Israeli propagandists. Father Ashraf K. E. Tannous, from the church, released a statement clarifying the issue later, explaining what actually happened and praising the Palestinians in the area who stood up quickly when the church grounds were entered, including the Palestinian police who arrested those that had entered its grounds.
After being called out online for his fake news story, designed to direct outrage at Palestinian Muslims, Jake Wallis Simons deleted his post out of embarrassment, yet did not release an apology for the false story, even after being called upon to do so online.
Following this, Israel’s favorite online anti-Palestinian personality, Hananya Naftali, re-uploaded the same video and wrote “A Palestinian mob attacks the Church of Annunciation in Beit Jala in the Bethlehem region. I condemn this violence against the remaining Christian community in Bethlehem. [sic]” After leaving the video online for hours, to attract tens of thousands more views to the completely made up story — one that the inventor had already taken down — he also removed it.
Hananya Naftali presents himself as a simple “pro-peace” activist “protecting Israel”, even setting up a Patreon account so that people will donate money to support him and pinning his promotional video to his Twitter page. However, Naftali admits to being a part of the Israeli occupation army in the West Bank. In addition to this, he grew up in an illegal West Bank settlement and describes the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria”, or “the heartland of Israel”, when it is an internationally recognized occupied Palestinian territory. Furthermore, Hananya Naftali is a state-paid propagandist, who took a job working for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s team. When asked about this in an interview, he said that “when you’re 22 and the prime minister offers you a job, you don’t say no. I guess they liked me. So, that’s how I got into this political world”, also explaining that he contacted Netanyahu’s advisor on Facebook to get into contact with him.
None of those prominent pro-Israeli propagandists involved made an apology, nor has Jake Wallis Simons be forced to apologize or at least correct the record by the Jewish Chronicle. What this issue represents is an active case of disinformation, that is still spreading online, despite being taken down by its original authors.
