Each year, the approach of Christmas provides all the expected trappings: busy shopping malls, wintery weather, and perhaps most reliable of all: Canadian news outlets using the holiday to portray Israel as the Grinch that stole Christmas.

As if on cue, a December 24 article in The Globe & Mail, “Christmas will be subdued for Gaza’s tiny population of Christian Palestinians,” by Hasan Jaber, profiled the tiny population of Christians inside Gaza, numbering a few hundred people, or about 0.025 percent of the territory.

Jaber – a Gaza-based freelancer who has previously spread vicious anti-Israel falsehoods, including accusing the Jewish State of trying to “kill everyone” in Gaza, continues to serve as a reporter for the newspaper, providing Canadians with a deeply twisted narrative.

He writes that even though a ceasefire has taken effect between Hamas and Israel, “life has not returned to normal.” Jaber mentions the “harsh living conditions” of the miniscule Christian minority in Gaza, citing “widespread destruction” and “severe economic hardship.”

The clear message conveyed is that Israel is the culprit behind the suffering of Gaza’s tiny Christian population, when in fact the precise opposite is the case.

He neglects to remind readers that the last two years of war were prompted, not by Israel, but by the bloodthirsty invasion of Israel by thousands of Palestinian terrorists on the morning of October 7, 2023.

What Jaber also conveniently avoids mentioning is anything related to the widespread oppression of Christians inside Gaza, part of the widespread persecution faced by Christians across the Arab and wider Islamic world.

Over the last century, Christians declined from one-ninth of the population in Gaza and Judea & Samaria (West Bank), to less than one percent today. In Gaza specifically, the Christian population declined by some 90 percent in less than two decades following Hamas’ violent takeover of the territory.

This dramatic decline did not happen by accident. It is a direct result of the brutal oppression by Hamas, a genocidal Islamist terrorist group, where anyone who dares speak out against its iron fist puts themselves in danger, including Rami Ayyad, a Christian bookstore owner accused by Hamas of trying to convert Muslims to Christians. He was brutally murdered.

In Bethlehem, under the Palestinian Authority (PA), a recent study noted that “Christians feel unprotected due to the failure of the PA police to intervene on their behalf in confrontations with Muslims.”

This persecution of Christians is hardly unique to Palestinian areas. From the Islamic Republic of Iran to across the Middle East, Christians face murder, kidnapping or imprisonment.

In fact, the only country in the entire Middle East with a growing population of Christians is Israel, as a result of the freedom of religion the country offers its minorities. Christians in Israel are also highly educated and boast near-universal numbers of high school graduation rates.

Rather than inform Canadians about the widespread persecution faced by Christians across the Arab & Islamic world, including inside Gaza – in sharp contrast to their growing numbers in Israel – The Globe & Mail’s Hasan Jaber instead paints Israel as the villain, when it is the biggest protector of Christians in the Middle East.