While the Land of Israel has historically been home to a relatively large Arab Christian population, in recent decades the number of Christians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has declined drastically. They now make up just 1 percent of the Palestinian population of those two territories. Commenting on a recent survey of Palestinian Christians, Khalil Sayegh, himself a Gazan Christian, discussed the bigotry he and his coreligionists face. George Goss records his observations:
“The history that we learn [in school] starts with the Islamic conquest of the land,” Sayegh said. “Anything before will focus on the pre-Israelite era. I understand that [this is an attempt] to deny the narrative of the Torah and biblical history because this, to a certain extent, is used to justify the existence of Israel. However, this leads to Palestinian Christians looking like foreigners.”
Crusader, infidel, and foreigner are all epithets directed at Sayegh in grade school. And the survey revealed [that] 27 percent [of respondents] said that they have been exposed to racist curses or epithets, and 43 percent said that they feel most Muslims do not want them in the land.
Taught by his secular-minded father that Christians have little that distinguishes them from Muslims, Sayegh learned in school that they do. One teacher warned him of hellfire if he did not convert to Islam. While only 23 percent of those surveyed admitted to being asked to convert to Islam, 70 percent said they had at one time heard a Muslim state that Christians will [be condemned] to hellfire.
The schools are not the only Palestinian Authority (PA) institutions that receive failing marks from the Palestinian Christians surveyed. Two-thirds say that they have little trust in the PA government; trust in the judiciary peaks at 16 percent, and confidence in the police stands at 22 percent.
Read more on Providence: https://providencemag.com/2020/07/textbook-case-discrimination-palestinian-authority-schools-edit-christians-jews/