Church leaders denounced Israel’s “heavy-handed restrictions” limiting access to Jerusalem for Orthodox Easter. “All who wish to worship with us are invited to attend,” they said. “With that made clear, we leave the authorities to act as they will.”

Temple Movement activists are trying to enter the Aqsa compound to slaughter goats and challenge the Muslim presence in the holy site. Palestinian worshippers remaining in the mosque during Ramadan are resisting.

“Once you see behind the veil of security, of law, of order,” co-producer Joshua Vis says in the film, “you cannot unsee what lies there. You cannot unsee the ugliness of oppression on the Palestinian people.”

The Israel Antiquities Authority, led now by a member of Ben Gvir’s far-right Jewish Power Party, is expected to advance settlement expansion and de facto annexation.

It has become clear that the Christian presence in the Holy Land is in grave danger from Jewish fundamentalists empowered by the new Israeli government.

If one wonders how the nickels, dimes, and dollars collected in churches across the U.S. shape politics in Congress and Israel, director Maya Zinshtein’s film, ‘Til Kingdom Come, is required viewing. 

Although unable to find evidence of antisemitism, a Church of England tribunal banned Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer, a noted critic of Christian Zionism, from clergy activities for 12 years.

During Christmas week, settlers backed by Israeli police took over land owned by the Greek Orthodox Church in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, displacing the Palestinian family renting it.

Last week, His Beatitude Theophilos III, Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem, led the annual interfaith lighting of a Christmas tree inside Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate. The lighting this year took place at the Imperial Hotel, a Greek Orthodox property that Israeli settlers sought to occupy earlier this year.

“This simple ceremony of the lighting of a tree shows us the way and shines as a sign of hope in the darkness,” he said. For Palestinians, the celebration of Christmas—on town squares, in churches, and in homes—is itself a creative act of nonviolent resistance.

Kairos Palestine, the most extensive Palestinian Christian ecumenical movement, hosted 180 participants in the West Bank town of Beit Sahour for its 13th annual international conference.