Winnipeg writer Josiah Neufeld recently reported on a Canadian conference in Manitoba held in support of Palestinian Christians in Gaza. His May 28 article was published in Broadview, the official (taxpayer-funded) magazine of the United Church of Canada, entitled “Palestinian Christians seek solidarity amid war and displacement,” and in the Winnipeg Free Press on May 30 under the headline “Palestinian Christians’ faith under fire.”

He opened by writing that “Christians in Palestine are crying out to their spiritual siblings worldwide for solidarity and support as they face death, displacement, and genocide.”

He provided no evidence for his allegations, unsurprising because there is no genocide in Gaza. Allegations of genocide have been debunked, and actually, the inverse is true; the terrorist group Hamas is transparently genocidal towards Israel. Their bestial massacre and abusive hostage taking on October 7, 2023, demonstrated this clearly. Additionally, they hide behind their own civilians, including in churches, using their own as human shields.

Israel, on the other hand, while trying to fend off its brutal, terrorist neighbour, has also been assisting the enemy’s population. Over the two years since October 7, 2023, Israel facilitated the entry of over two million tonnes of aid into Gaza, coordinated a massive Polio vaccination program for children, bought 40,000 tents on its own dime to house displaced Gazans, and organized medical evacuations for those who needed them.

Neufeld quoted John Munayer, a Palestinian Christian who presented at the conference, “we’ve witnessed our church members being bombed in Gaza, we have witnessed our brothers and sisters being arrested. My family has received death threats.” Curiously, he didn’t mention that Hamas fighters been found located either within or adjacent to churches. Israel targets terrorists, though civilians can be hurt when Palestinian terrorists use them as human shields.

Neufeld claimed that “before the Israeli military’s expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland during the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, 12 per cent of the population was Christian.”

This is a revisionist view of history that ignores many things, including the fact that 850,000 Jews were exiled and ethnically cleansed from Arab and Muslim lands in the years following 1948. As for the Arabs, after they had rejected the League of Nations’ 1947 offer of a two-state solution, they, along with multiple Arab countries, declared war on the nascent Israeli state. Arab leaders called on Arab residents of the newly-founded Israel to leave, promising them a quick victory and return to claim the Israeli spoils. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs heeded the call, only to be deeply disappointed by Israel’s victory.

Perhaps most scandalously: Israel is the only country in the Middle East with a growing Christian population, testament to its openness and tolerance.

Yet Neufeld’s piece de resistance was yet to come. He referred to a “manifesto and theological declaration issued by Palestinian Christian leaders titled Kairos Palestine II: A moment of truth. Faith in a Time of Genocide.” Neufeld wrote that, “The 14-page statement urges Christians worldwide to reject Christian Zionism and theologies that support racism, supremacy or genocide, and to advocate for Israel to be held accountable for its actions according to international law.”

Equating Zionism with supporting racism, supremacy, or genocide is an incendiary and unfounded allegation. Israel is not racist; one in five Israelis is an Arab with full and equal rights, visible at all levels of Israeli society, including in the Knesset and the High Court, and operates according to international law.

What Neufeld didn’t mention is that the Kairos statement also wrote, in 1.6, “Israel commits these crimes by invoking the events of October 7, 2023, claiming that its actions are an act of self-defense – forgetting that the Hamas attack of that day was itself born out of decades of injustice, oppression and displacement since the Nakba of 1948, and more than sixteen years of an immoral, suffocating blockade on Gaza.”

The ability to rationalize Hamas’ actions on October 7, which included sexual horrors, is shocking and should be called out. But Neufeld’s reading of the statement is clearly selective, casting further aspersions on his ability to write in sync with journalistic ethics.

Neufeld made unfounded claims that there is “enforced starvation of people in Gaza. The Israeli military is still blocking aid from reaching the area.”

Gaza is not starving. Allegations of starvation have been debunked, and Gazan social media shows stores full of goods, cafes and restaurants open with attractive menus, and in addition to an average of 600 aid trucks entering a day, Israel says there is no limit to the amount of aid it can facilitate entry for.

It isn’t the first time Neufeld has pushed the genocide libel. But repeating it doesn’t make it true.

Photo credit: Josiah Neufeld