In this episode of the Bridging the Gap Podcast, Rachel Nelson sits down with Shadin Nassar and Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to discuss the impacts of Israel’s occupation and settlement enterprise on Palestinian Christians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and how that has contributed to the exodus of the community from the region.
Rachel Nelson: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Bridging the Gap, conversations on Israel and Palestine, hosted by the Middle East Center at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. On today’s episode, I am sitting down with Shadin Nassar and Sasha Ghosh-Simonoff, both from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or ELCA, to discuss the Palestinian Christian community and their struggles under Israeli occupation, the dwindling Christian presence in the Holy Land, and ELCA’s engagement with and strategy to highlight the plight of Palestinian Christians to policymakers.
Shadin Nassar is a Palestinian Christian international law and diplomacy practitioner and researcher, dedicated to leveraging legal frameworks to advocate for marginalized communities and promote sustainable development through cross-cultural and intersectional approaches. Holding a BA in international law and human rights, along with an MA in international law and diplomacy, Shadin has contributed to various NGOs, church ministries, and academic institutions in Palestine and beyond. Her work has been instrumental in driving intersectional advocacy campaigns and prioritizes the empowerment of women and youth across multiple spheres. Shadin currently serves as the Middle East-North Africa Regional Associate at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, working with a focus on employing the ELCA strategy of accompaniment, advocacy, and awareness-raising in the MENA region.
Sasha Ghosh-Simonoff currently serves as the Program Director for MENA Policy at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and is a Senior Advisor and Co-Founder of People Demand Change, Inc., a socially responsible aid and development startup that focuses on monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian aid and development programming, supporting the capacity of nascent civil society organizations, and providing long-term aid and development solutions in the MENA region. Formerly, he served as the Executive Director at the Syrian Emergency Task Force and a journalist with Congressional Quarterly. He is also a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy.
Welcome, Shadin and Sasha. Thank you both so much for joining me today for this discussion on this really important and urgent topic. You both work at ELCA. What work does the organization do, specifically the Middle East and North Africa desk that you’re both on, and what is it doing to engage with local Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land, and what impact has your work had in Palestine?
Shadin Nassar: Thank you so much for having us. It is an honor to be here. The ELCA Middle East North Africa Desk operates under ELCA’s global mission. The idea is to oversee ELCA-supported programs in the Middle East North Africa region with a directed focus on Christians and amplifying the Christian voice to be able to make sure that they have a voice on the table. Now the ELCA Middle East North Africa Desk has a close partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, ELCJHL, with particular focus on safeguarding, protecting Palestinian Christian presence and continuity in the Holy Land. Through ELCA-supported programs, the ELCJHL is able to carry out its ministry when it comes to education, gender justice, environmental education, and diaconal services that are afforded to the Palestinian society as a whole, with a focus, again, on Palestinian Christians.
Sasha Ghosh-Simonoff: In parallel, the ELCA has an advocacy office here in Washington, D.C., that focuses on advocating on very specific issues that are very important to the Church and are guided by the Church’s social teachings and theology, and that includes engagement, which is what I do, about specific points of importance and interest to the Church vis-a-vis the Middle East. Definitely thinking about and looking at how U.S. government policy is positioned and engages in the region, and specifically where there’s points of engagement vis-a-vis the Christian community in Palestine.
Rachel: Discussing Christians in the Holy Land, Palestinian Christians, arguably the indigenous Christian community for Christians across the globe, but yet often forgotten when discussing Palestinians themselves. I’m wondering, can you speak a little bit about the Christian community in Palestine? How big is the community? Where are they living? Where are their major population centers? Can you also speak to the unique diversity within the community and the issues that the community itself is facing right now under Israeli occupation? Sasha, feel free to jump in here as well.
Shadin: When we talk about the Holy Land, we often think of Bethlehem, of Jerusalem, of Nazareth, but how often do we think of Christians who are living there? Christians who basically represent the living stones of Christianity in the land that Jesus Christ was born and in the land where Christianity was first born? We’re not talking about pilgrims here. We’re talking about Christians who are indigenous to this land, different churches that were there since the early times going on and on until today. They have witnessed the colonial eras of the Ottoman Empire, of the British Mandate. Interestingly enough, Palestinian Christians used to constitute 10% of the population back in the 1950s, but today with the unfolding situation on the ground, protracted military occupation, geographic fragmentation, systematic dehumanization, Palestinian Christians constitute less than 1%, which is an urgent and alarming call to the global churches to stand with Palestinian Christians, amplify their voices, center their struggles because they represent an integral fabric of the Palestinian society.
Palestinian Christians are now enduring increased rates of settler violence and attacks, land confiscation strategies to push them to leave and transform the ownership of the land to the sole use of settlers. There’s also an accelerated pace of checkpoints and iron gates installed by the Israeli government in the West Bank, fragmenting Palestinian movement. The statistics are now showing 900 checkpoints that were newly installed, and this in turn is preventing Palestinian Christians from crossing to churches, from worshipping. If we think about it in the early times, Jesus used to walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Now this is impossible with the presence of all of the checkpoints and the permit system. This is the message that Palestinian Christians want to convey to the world of how difficult it is becoming for them to exist on the land that we call holy, and they represent an indigenous connection to the land that is being under the threat of extinction basically by the strategies that are in place.
Rachel: Sasha, maybe you can speak a little bit about the diversity of the Palestinian Christian community in Palestine.
Sasha: Absolutely. There are a number of denominations that exist within the community, and each of these denominations have a specific way in which they engage through the church, and they are collectively represented through the heads of churches who are based in Jerusalem. I think it’s really important to consider that although this is a small community, this diversity is important because the way in which they make decisions and which they engage in the overall discourse about Palestine and the ongoing situation varies depending on which denomination and community they’re in.
Rachel: Back to settler attacks and settler violence, which we talked about a little bit earlier. We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number and the severity of settler attacks since October 7th of 2023, with UN OCHA documenting over 1,400 in 2024 alone, which is a massive spike. We’ve also seen news reports recently of horrible violence inflicted on the Palestinian Christian village of Taibe, where a historic church was targeted. How has ELCA tried to highlight what’s happening, and also, what has been the impact on the Palestinian Christian community specifically?
Shadin: In the shadow of what is happening in Gaza, again, the Israeli government is taking advantage of that to accelerate its settlement expansion project and installment of checkpoints all across the West Bank, which is a direct threat to Palestinian presence and continuity, with a direct impact to the Palestinian Christian community, which represents now a minority because of the dwindling numbers of Christians. ELCA, the Middle East South Africa Desk, employs the ELCA strategy of accompaniment, which means that we are walking side by side with our companion church, the ELCJHL. We are centering their voices. We are making sure that their stories and narratives continue to be heard and echoed in every conversation, in every meeting, just to be able to raise awareness. Because as the situation changes on a rapid pace, it becomes very important to document and make sure that the international community is aware of the systematic threat to Palestinian Christians and their continuity in the Holy Land.
With the acceleration of the settlement project, of geographic fragmentation, Palestinian Christians feel abandoned by the global churches. This is a global Christian responsibility because Palestinian Christians are also the body of Christ. Silencing their voices hurts the witness of the church, to which we really need to make sure that their voices continue to be heard.
Rachel: Shadin, this brings me to your own experience living in Palestine. Your family operates and owns a farm called Tent of Nations in an area of the West Bank, close to Bethlehem. I’m wondering if you can tell us a little bit about the farm, the significance of its name and its history and struggle under Israeli occupation in the West Bank.
Shadin: The Tent of Nations Nassar family farm has been in the family for more than 100 years. Four generations of the Nassar family were born and grew up on the farm, with most of their efforts working to cultivate, to plant trees, and make sure that the farm becomes this place of making people come together. But in the past, let’s say years, it has been increasingly difficult to continue existing on the farm because of the relentless policies that the Israeli government has put in place when it comes to state land declaration policies, creeping annexation, suffocating Palestinians who are crossing to these areas with all of these checkpoints and the wall. But my family has stood still and we remain connected to the land. In doing this, we embody the Christian values of fighting hatred with love because we believe that violence creates more violence, and it is an ongoing cycle that has no end. We try to do it the other way by investing our negative energy constructively.
Now, the farm is located in Area C, which is under full Israeli military control. We are the last Christian family in that area. What is unique about this case is our farm is on a hilltop. For Israeli settlements, a hilltop would be a strategic location because it is easy to start at the top and then make your way to the bottom. We are surrounded by five growing Israeli settlements. When we talk about settlements, we don’t mean containers that are of a temporary nature. These settlements are transforming into cities, housing the settler population, and not just any settler groups. We’re talking about radical settlers who often show up with a gun in the one hand and a Bible in the other hand. This also shows how the Bible is being weaponized to serve the protracted nature of occupation.
By embodying a way of peaceful, nonviolent resistance, we created this creative and unique way to open the farm for people from all over the world to come and see, go and tell, inspired by the biblical story. Interestingly, the international presence and pressure is what really protects the farm from the danger of confiscation. Because with international presence, this means that there is exposure and documentation. It really helped our case having people there engaging in farm work, engaging in prayer and worship, and also putting their hands together in the soil and understanding the connection with the land, learning about the significance of the olive tree that grows in harsh conditions, but its roots still dig deep.
Rachel: You mentioned that your family is the last Palestinian Christian family in this area, which is shocking, given its close proximity to Bethlehem. How has immigration of Palestinian Christians affected this spiritual and community life in Palestine? How has the occupation also affected religious freedoms, such as access to holy sites? You mentioned the erection of hundreds of checkpoints surrounding Bethlehem. I also have experienced the difficult nature of getting around in this area. I’m wondering how has this affected religious freedoms, or even we’re talking about permits and land confiscation – how has … has the church land been confiscated? Have there been denial of permits for building and maintenance of religious sites and churches? How exactly has the occupation hindered Christian life in Palestine?
Shadin: This is a multilayered form of oppression, of dehumanization, to which every Palestinian, every green ID holder, is experiencing on a daily basis. Whether Muslim or Christian, Palestinians are having to go through checkpoints, they are having to wait hours and hours, they are being denied a permit to visit holy sites in Jerusalem, and this is basically standing in the way of exercising their freedom to worship. The churches are being emptied, and with no worshipers, because they cannot cross to these churches. Also, the West Bank cities and villages have now checkpoints and iron gates surrounding them, blocking every access, entry or exit point to these cities and villages. This has really introduced multilayered challenges for Palestinian Christians, and since Oct. 7, new facts are being created on the ground. There are more than 200 Israeli settlements that are being built, 150 outposts that are being established, and of course watchtowers making life incredibly difficult for Palestinian Christians.
This, echoing the words of Bishop Azar of the ELCJHL, nearly 200 Palestinian Christian families have already fled since the start of the war. This really shows that the numbers will continue to dwindle, and part of the reason is also economic blockade, particularly in Bethlehem, since so many Palestinian Christians are running tourism-related businesses. With the decline of tourism, and churches, and the streets and the shops being empty of tourists, this is another impediment to Christian presence and continuity in Bethlehem. To put things into perspective, in Bethlehem itself, there are 90 iron gates and checkpoints. When we think about this, it’s also suffocating for Christians who are living in that area. Most of them, let’s say the most educated, are choosing to look for a better future elsewhere. Not because they want to, because they are forced to, and they are being threatened on a daily basis.
Children lost their sense of safety and security, whether at home, because they are experiencing night raids and arrests; at school, where they are being stopped at the checkpoint, their backpacks being checked, their notebooks, their pencil cases, they have to be looked at on a daily basis, crossing to school. I could go on and on, but again, as we speak, more facts are being created on the ground.
Rachel: Sasha, you recently joined a delegation trip led by ELCA church leaders to witness what is happening on the ground to the Palestinian Christian community and provide companionship. I’m wondering, what did yous ee on the ground and does it echo what Shadin has just mentioned here?
Sasha: Yes, absolutely. I was fortunate enough to be able to go on this trip and experience firsthand a lot of what Shadin has explained. I also have the privilege of having Shadin personally take me around and show me the community and allow me to engage with the community on a firsthand basis. It’s been some time since I’ve been in Palestine, but during that space of time, what is clear to me is the pace and growth of the occupation in the West Bank is unimaginable. When I was last in Palestine was around 2010, and there was only 415,000 settlers. Now there’s 950,000, so double. Before, when I would travel around the West Bank, it was still difficult to move, but you could move through different areas without necessarily seeing a settlement. I felt like this time every time I crossed between one Palestinian community to another in between there was a settlement or a checkpoint or a military installation of some kind.
The sort of creating this Swiss cheese effect, as I call it, of the West Bank through the occupation of settlements has accelerated at an unprecedented pace and scale, which really puts the question forward of how a future Palestinian state would come to fruition under these current conditions. That also has led to immense societal fragmentation both physically but also just in terms of psychology.
In speaking with all these students that we had the opportunity to engage with, they repeatedly said that to dream is dangerous because if they dream about doing big things with their lives they may be forced to choose between staying in their homeland or leaving and maybe potentially never coming back because some of the things that they want to do they just simply can’t do as a profession in Palestine, which is really just extremely distressing to hear.
I have two children, so I can’t imagine my kids having to make that choice. Having to hear these students thinking about those types of existential life questions so early on in their life is really telling about the stress and strain that they live under in their daily lives. In addition, we met a social worker for one of the schools, and she explained what her day-to-day looks like. It consists of dealing with different sets of students who are experiencing different levels of trauma in certain ways, depending on which area of the region they’re coming from.
The students that have to cross checkpoints to enter the area to arrive to the school, sometimes they’re delayed one hour or two hours. They’re harassed by the IDF soldiers, and they experience this trauma every day. Then they have to arrive to school tired and frustrated, and they then have to be able to refocus and then sit and actually learn. It puts children at an immense deficit in terms of their ability to learn and have an education.
Then, on top of that, she explained how the ongoing economic blockade due to the war has created a lot of economic hardship at home. Many households struggle now financially. This creates an extra burden on both the parents and the family writ large, and that, unlike previous bouts of violence or conflict, the problem with this one is it’s so sustained that families are burning through their savings. They don’t necessarily even have money for food or to pay the tuition for the school. Then the school’s doing their best to keep all these students in the school despite all these challenges.
It’s just layer upon layer of challenges and obstacles that this community is facing and has faced for many years. My impression, based on what people told me, is that since 10-7, things have worsened quite rapidly.
Rachel: Something that I had heard from Palestinian Christians during my time in Palestine was that they often felt erased from the global Christian community or by the global Christian community. Christian Zionism here in the United States is extremely apparent. We hear US lawmakers often spouting their support for Israel, and oftentimes something we’ve seen lately is legislation to stop calling the West Bank the West Bank and rename it Judea and Samaria in all official institutional documents, hearings, et cetera.
Shadin, how have the Christian community in Palestine responded to this erasure by the global Christian community? Then, Sasha, why do you think that churches have largely been silent about the suffering and disenfranchisement of Palestinian Christians, and how responses differed from different Christian denominations? Sometimes we’ve seen some Christian denominations be more open to Palestinian Christians than others.
Shadin: The same system that is basically obliterating Palestinian presence in Gaza is doing so in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem on a slower pace, but it’s all part of the same system, which is basically to ethnically cleanse the land, to de-Palestinianize the land, depopulate it and transform it to the geography of Israel. This has been very challenging for Palestinian Christians because it is hard to convince people that you deserve to live in dignity, in rights, in equality. The world chooses to turn a blind eye to the Palestinian suffering, oftentimes labeling it as too complicated or I am supporting two sides, but this is not about being pro one side or pro the other. It is about human dignity and restoring the rights of people to basically exist in the land that they are indigenous to.
Palestinian Christian … the community comes together whenever there are these form of incidents that represent a direct threat to its presence. Heads of churches come together, they put out statements, they really hope that the international community would start acting instead of choosing to stay silent because again the silence is really hurting the witness of the church, of the global church. Also Palestinian Christians should be … let’s say their voices need to be amplified but it is not on them to educate the whole world because we departed from this phase a long time ago.
The main important aspect is for people to come and look at the situation of Palestinians, let alone Palestinian Christians in the West Bank, is to pray and act in solidarity with the Christian community and do it their way. For example, at the ELCA, our strategy is to advocate with Palestinians, not for them. This is also very important to centralize.
Sasha: I think in terms of wider engagement from the United States, frankly whether that is Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, I think number one, there has been a historic mythologization of the Holy Land and the people in it that is disconnected from the realities of the communities and populations that actually live there day to day. Within the ELCA, the ELCA has spent time creating a strategy and a set of engagement that they have collectively as a church agreed upon. First and foremost, it supports Palestinian rights and Palestinian self-determination and broadly a two-state solution at this juncture. That provides a framework for advocacy and engagement, as my colleague Shadin has said, that allows us to advocate with our Palestinian colleagues. Additionally, I think there’s theological differences within the Christian community that leads to a range of interpretations of what the Holy Land should or should not be.
What I have noticed, and I think Shadin would agree, is that when people come to visit, whatever their original ideas are about the Holy Land, they often change once they actually see the realities on the ground, especially if they are able to come to the West Bank and see directly the situation. If people do not come and see what the occupation looks like, or they do not see the Kafkaesque juxtaposition of a massive Israeli settlement filled with massive houses and pools, while the Palestinian village next to it has no access to water. It’s hard to imagine what the occupation is and what it looks like. If I just say the word “occupation,” it’s an extremely general amorphous term that doesn’t have meaning. When someone goes and they see it, and they experience it directly, having to go through a checkpoint, having to deal with IDF soldiers who are armed with heavy weapons, while they’re in the middle of a civilian population no less, it becomes more clear what we’re talking about. That is why we always encourage people of any faith to go and see directly for themselves what the situation is on the ground and reflect on what their beliefs were before they went and how their beliefs might have changed or might be augmented to take into consideration the realities that they’re seeing before them. It’s not an easy conversation, but it’s an important one that of .. It’s an important point to have that reflection and introspection about one’s beliefs once they’re being challenged.
Rachel: You mentioned ELCA has stressed the need for the creation of a Palestinian state and it’s condemned settlement expansion and it supports a two-state solution, what that looks like right now, which is another complicated conversation. From a policy standpoint, what is ELCA’s strategy to highlight Palestinian Christians and the issues that they’re facing? Then how does that translate to policymakers when I know that has to have become more difficult since Oct. 7 to engage with policymakers on any issue related to Palestine and Israel?
Sasha: Yes, I think the first thing that we’ve come to realize is that it’s really important to bring Palestinian voices here to Washington, D.C., to engage directly. As much as I can go and maybe explain what I’m seeing and what I’m hearing, it’s much better and more impactful for someone like Shadin to come here and directly explain her experiences that she lives day to day in her own voice. We’ve had a number of delegations of pastors and members of the Lutheran community in Palestine come here and engage directly with Congress. We feel that this is impactful, that this provides an opportunity for congressional staff to hear a different story, a different narrative and potentially consider their office’s position on Israel-Palestine overall. Often, as Shadin can attest to, having just spent time in Congress, there’s always that first entry point about reminding members of Congress that Palestinian Christians exist. Having that opportunity to educate and provide awareness about the broader community is also an important step for engagement on advocacy and policy issues.
Likewise, we have some very important things that we feel that the U.S. government needs to prioritize. One is consistent engagement on the issue of minority rights and religious freedom, especially as that relates to the Palestinian Christian community. In the past, there are specific pieces of the State Department that we engage with to have those conversations. We are hopeful that those pieces of the State Department, such as the Office of International Religious Freedom, continue to operate and continue to engage on this issue because it’s one of our ways of being able to report to the U.S. government what we’re seeing on the ground, in the hopes of advocating vis-a-vis better policies down the line.
Rachel: Shadin, I want to close with you by asking, from your perspective, as a Palestinian Christian living in Palestine, what would you like to see individuals or churches and international committees, international communities even, do to help advocate for peace and justice in Palestine and bring light and more attention to what Palestinian Christians and Palestinians more broadly are experiencing right now in the West Bank?
Shadin: I would say learn and center the way of Palestinian steadfastness, which is the equivalent for Samud in Arabic. Palestinian Samud really materializes in different ways as Palestinian Christians and Palestinians as a whole continue to endure significant challenges and hurdles that are basically standing in their way of living in dignity and living in rights. By the way, the ELCA Middle East North Africa Desk, as an umbrella has also the Samud initiative for justice in Palestine, Israel. Through, again, amplifying the voices of Palestinian Christians, we are informing theology and we are informing also advocacy strategies that are being used to mobilize or garner support for Palestinians, for Palestinian Christians. both in the U.S. and internationally. It is very important to center the Palestinian Christian narrative as settlements continue to encroach on Palestinian areas. It’s also important for us to invite people to come and see, go and tell, to be there with Palestinians to show their support and solidarity by physically being there. It does a lot, and as my colleague Sasha mentioned, it is different when people actually get to experience what it is like for Palestinians to be stopped at checkpoints, to be humiliated at checkpoints, and losing all access to education, to healthcare, and basically every other life activity. It’s important to ground their story. It’s important to speak with them, not on behalf of them. It’s also important to bring up the issue and the struggles of Palestinians wherever, however we see fit, but also to make sure that we are raising more awareness in a way.
Rachel: Shadin and Sasha, thank you so much for coming and speaking with me today.
Shadin: Thank you for having us.
Rachel: Thank you all for listening today. If you liked this episode, remember to subscribe to New Lines on SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Visit www.newlinesinstitute.org if you’d like to hear more from our experts on all sorts of topics in global affairs. We’ll see you in the next episode.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not an official policy or position of New Lines Institute.
