This
Quoting from
Christianity in the Middle East - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Palestinian Authority[edit]
About 173,000 Arab Palestinian Christians lived in the Palestinian Authority (including the West Bank and Gaza Strip) in the 1990s.[29] Both the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Habash, and the founder if its offshoot the DFLP, Nayif Hawatmeh, were Christians, as is prominent Palestinian activist and former Palestinian Authority minister Hanan Ashrawi.
Over the last years, unlike the increase trend in the Christian population of Israel, the number of Christians in the Palestinian Authority has declined severely. The decline of Christianity in the Palestinian Authority is largely attributed to poor birth rates, compared with the dominant Muslim population; and anti-Christian attitudes by radical Muslim organizations and the general Muslim public. The updated number of Arab Christians in the Palestinian Authority is under 50,000.
Gaza Strip
Since the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, anti-Christian attitudes have been on the increase. Unlike in the Palestinian National Authority, the Hamas administration does not include Christians. From about 2,000[42]–3,000 Christians before Hamas takeover, as few as several hundred remain in the Gaza Strip under Hamas Administration. Most of the Christians of Gaza relocated to the West Bank or abroad.
Christianity in Israel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This
Recently, there has been a steady undercurrent of Christian Arabs who seek deeper integration into Israeli society. Under the leadership of Priest Gabriel Nadaf, the "Sons of the New Testament" is a political party that advocates Christian enlistment in the IDF and a more distinct societal separation of Christians from Muslims.[12] This separation is partly based on the purported fact that Christians in Israel are not technically Arabs, seeing as they were present in the holy land long before the Arab conquest, hallmarked by the Siege of Jerusalem. This distinction is in the process of being formalized into law, as the Likud government is currently drafting legislation to grant this request.[13]
This new attitude is founded largely by the perception by some that only in Israel is the Christian population growing due to natural increase and no state persecution, seeing the entire Middle East as where Christianity is and has been rapidly on the decline. In addition, increasing numbers of Christian leaders and community members are pointing to Muslim violence as a threat to their way of life in Arab majority cities and towns.[14] Sons of the New Testament as a party and a national movement has been met with wide admiration from the Jews of Israel, harshly negative scorn from the Muslim Arabs, and mixed reactions from the Christians themselves. Because of Israel's parliamentary system where each party must attain at least 2% of the popular vote, Sons of the New Testament must be supported by non-Christians to enter the Knesset.
Demographics[edit]
Education[edit]
Christian Arabs are one of the most educated groups in Israel. Maariv have describe the Christian Arabs sectors as "the most successful in education system",[1] since Christian Arabs fared the best in terms of education in comparison to any other group receiving an education in Israel.[2] Christian Arabs have one of the highest rates of success in the matriculation examinations, (64%)[2] both in comparison to the Muslims and the Druze and in comparison to all students in the Jewish education system as a group.[2] although lower than the secular Jewish education (64.5%) and the national religious Jewish education (65.9%).[15] Arab Christians were also the vanguard in terms of eligibility for higher education.[2] and they have attained a bachelor's degree and academic degree more than the median Israeli population.[2]
The rate of students studying in the field of medicine was also higher among the Christian Arab students, compared with all the students from other sectors. the percentage of Arab Christian women who are higher education students is higher than other sectors.[1]