Israel is the only country in the region where Jews, Muslims, and Christians can practice freely.

Israel is the only country in the region that has repeatedly bombed and raided mosques and churches, attacked worshippers, and restricted access to holy sites through checkpoints and permit regimes, denying millions of Palestinians the right to worship. Claims that Israel protects religious freedom form part of a broader propaganda narrative that obscures its settler-colonial regime while reinforcing the orientalist trope of a civilized, tolerant Israel versus backward and intolerant Palestinians and Arabs.

For Israel's settler-colonial project, the target is Palestinians regardless of their religion. For eight decades, Palestinian Muslims, Christians, and secular Palestinians have all been subjected to the same settler-colonial regime of siege, ethnic cleansing, bombardment, and systematic attacks on their religious freedom. No meaningful discussion of religious freedom can begin without dismantling the colonial structure first.

Far from protecting religious freedom, Israel has repeatedly committed atrocities against Palestinian religious sites. One of the most devastating examples was the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre, when an Israeli settler massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers inside the mosque during Ramadan in 1994. Instead of holding the perpetrator to account, Israel collectively punished Palestinians: it permanently partitioned the mosque, allocated much of it for Jewish worship, installed surveillance and military checkpoints, imposed repeated closures on Muslim worshippers, and entrenched the broader system of military control over Hebron. Palestinians continue to face collective punishment for a massacre they did not commit.

Israel has repeatedly stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites. During Ramadan in 2021, Israeli forces repeatedly raided the mosque compound, firing stun grenades, tear gas, sponge-tipped bullets, and rubber-coated metal bullets at worshippers inside the prayer halls. Hundreds were injured in one of the most notorious assaults on Al-Aqsa in recent history.

Israel's genocide has devastated Gaza's religious life. More than 255 clerics and imams were killed, over 960 mosques destroyed or damaged, all three of Gaza's churches attacked, and more than 32 cemeteries targeted, with graves desecrated and bodies exhumed. The UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israeli attacks on religious sites during the genocide amount to war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination.

Renowned Palestinian Christian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli sniper while reporting on an Israeli military raid in Jenin in 2022. During her funeral procession to the Greek Melkite Cathedral in Jerusalem, Israeli police violently assaulted mourners carrying her coffin, striking pallbearers with batons until her coffin nearly fell to the ground. The images remain etched in the collective Palestinian memory, not simply as an attack on a Christian funeral, but as an attack on the dignity and humanity of every Palestinian.

One objective of this myth is to sever Palestinian Christians from their Palestinian identity. In reality, Palestinian Christians have resisted the same settler-colonial regime and endured the same occupation, siege, ethnic cleansing, movement restrictions, and attacks on their religious freedom. As Palestinian Rev. Munther Isaac has said, "Christianity in Palestine is not separate from Palestinian identity."

Another objective of this myth is to cultivate political and financial support among evangelical and Christian Zionist audiences abroad. By portraying Israel as the protector of Christianity and religious freedom, this narrative seeks to deflect international criticism, legitimize its settler-colonial project, and marginalize the voices of Palestinian Christians themselves.