In recent months, there has been a concerted campaign on social media to portray Israel as the leading country in the Middle East where Christians are persecuted. The supposed evidence consists of several regrettable incidents that have taken place this year in the Jewish state. These include acts of hostility toward Christians by ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem’s Old City — including an assault on a nun — as well as the desecration of Christian symbols by Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. These incidents are reprehensible, but they neither represent Israeli society nor reflect a policy of the State of Israel. In several cases, those responsible have been identified and punished.

The situation is more complicated in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, particularly in Taybeh, where there has unfortunately been an increase in attacks by settlers against Palestinians, including Christians. Even in these cases, however, reprehensible as these attacks may be, their motivation appears to be primarily related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than specifically to the Christian identity of the victims. The targets are Arabs, both Christian and Muslim, although religious elements may also be involved.

Still, as serious as these incidents are — and as necessary as it is to punish those responsible and prevent them from happening again — they do not make Israel the Middle East’s foremost persecutor of Christians, nor do they demonstrate that the country has an anti-Christian agenda.

The data paint a very different picture. Israel does not appear on Open Doors’ annual World Watch List of the 50 countries where Christians face the........

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