On January 22, 2026, British commentator and former Anglican priest Calvin Robinson claimed that Israel’s Christian population declined from 145,000 before Israel’s founding to about 45,000 today, which he said proves that “Zionism is not very good for Christians.” The claim is false and relies on a deceptive comparison that attributes Christian decline under Muslim rule to Israel. The facts demonstrate the opposite: Christians have thrived in Israel while suffering catastrophic population losses under Islamist control.
Robinson falsely compares figures from the 1940s covering all of British Mandatory Palestine with modern figures from only Palestinian-controlled territories, misleadingly attributing Christian decline under Muslim rule to Israel. The Christian population in Israel proper increased from roughly 34,000 in 1949 to about 181,000 today, representing over 400 percent growth.
Christian populations in Islamist-controlled areas declined sharply. In 1949, when Judea and Samaria were under Jordanian rule and renamed the “West Bank,” the Christian population stood at 51,053. By 1961, a Jordanian census recorded a drop to 45,855, and by 1967, before Israel regained control, the number had fallen further to 42,719, just 6 percent of the population.
After the Palestinian Authority assumed control over parts of Judea and Samaria in 1994, the Christian population declined even further, falling to 1.5 percent by 1997, 1.2 percent in 2007, and just 1 percent by 2017, according to Palestinian data. In Hamas-controlled Gaza, the Christian population collapsed from an estimated 3,000 before Hamas seized power in 2007 to about 1,000 by October 2023, with only about 600 Christians remaining today.
Bethlehem shifted from 86 percent Christian in 1950 to roughly 10 percent today, with the most severe decline occurring after Palestinian Authority control began in 1994. Christian leaders have cited the rise of radical Islam in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza as a growing pressure on Christian communities.
Christians living under Palestinian Authority and Hamas control face persistent persecution, just as Christians do in other Islamic-ruled regions. The abuses include intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombed churches and institutions, job denial, economic boycotts, torture, kidnapping, forced marriages, sexual harassment, and extortion.
Israel legally protects Christian religious freedom, recognizes multiple denominations, funds religious courts, and allows open worship, public processions, churches, schools, and Christian institutions without restriction. Surveys show 84 percent of Christians in Israel report satisfaction with life, and Israel remains one of the only countries in the Middle East where the indigenous Christian population is growing.
Charlie Kirk stated, “The Israeli community has been very welcoming of us as Christians and our faith in the homeland. I have not felt that kind of reciprocity from the Islamic world. And I’ll finally say this: There is a disturbing trend with Islam across the West where they are antagonistic towards Christianity, that they are taking over a lot of areas that used to be dominantly Christian. I feel a lot safer with Israelis than I do with most Arab Muslims.”
Shadi Khalloul, a Christian in Israel, responded to attacks on Israel: “I’m a Christian in Israel. Tucker Carlson attacks my home, claiming Christians are better off in Qatar. Really? Israel’s Christians are full citizens. We vote, serve in the army, and hold Knesset seats. In Qatar, 400,000 Christians are mostly migrant workers, confined to six government-controlled churches. I’m done letting him smear Israel.”
Claims that Israel drove Christianity’s decline in the Holy Land are demonstrably false. Christians have grown over 400 percent inside Israel while plummeting under Muslim rule in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and across the Middle East. Israel is the region’s sole outlier for Christian survival and growth, thoroughly refuting commentators like Calvin Robinson, fired from GB News in 2023 and recently defrocked by the Anglican Catholic Church, whose charges are ahistorical nonsense. The evidence reveals that the threat to Christianity in the Holy Land comes not from Israel but from the Islamist forces that have systematically driven Christians from territories under their control.
