The percentage of Christians living in the Palestinian
territories has halved between the year 2000 and today, dropping from 2%
to 1% in the space of 13 years.
There were 27 thousand Christians
living in Jerusalem in 1948, today there are only 5 thousand baptised
Christians in the city.
These are some of the results contained in Palestinian
Christian professor Hanna Issa's study.
Issa is a professor of
international law and secretary general of the Islamic-Christian
Committee for the protection of Jerusalem and the Holy Places.
In his
research, the professor has often described the dwindling of the Middle
East's Christian populations as a “social disaster”.
In a summary sent to Fides news agency, Issa
states that there are currently 47 thousand Christians spread across the
Palestinian territories that were occupied by Israel in 1967.
Meanwhile,
there are 110 thousand living in areas where the new Jewish State was
formed in 1948.
"The drastic decrease of the percentage of the Christian
presence in the Palestinian Territories is due to the phenomena of
emigration, especially to the population growth rates much lower than
those recorded in the Muslim majority component of the Palestinian
population," Fides reports.
"In any case – notes Father Manuel Musallam, a longtime
parish priest in Gaza and now in charge of relations with the Christian
communities of the Foreign Relations Department of Fatah - a serious
manner to deal with the political, economic and social factors that
favor the flight of Christians is needed.
One emigrates to seek new
prospects for work, study and to raise a family, "From Gaza and other
areas people go away for lack of minimum requirements to guarantee a
dignified existence. In Jerusalem, many convinced themselves to sell
their homes due to the huge figures they had as an offer ", able to
ensure the transfer of the whole family in some Western Country, and
access to higher levels of well-being."
"The Palestinian Authority – notes Father Musallam - is
called to put in place measures and support of Christian permanence:
the protection of the right to education for students and not penalized
access to the labor market and the possibility of having a home for
new families."