A new plan of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deals with annexing parts of the West Bank to be part of Israel. To the surprise of many Americans, a large number of Palestinians in this area are Christians. They are forgotten in the assumption that all Palestinians are Muslim.

Two Christian ministers in Palestine write: “The plan mentions Jews and Christians on one side and Muslims on the other, as if to communicate that this is a religious conflict between the Judeo-Christian tradition and Islam. While this may serve the partisan domestic purposes of Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu, this is not our lived reality as Palestinian Christians.” (Munther Isaac and Jamal Khader, “A Different Kind of Ethnic Cleansing,” Sojourners, July 2020)

Isaac is pastor of a Christian church in Bethlehem. Khader is a Roman Catholic priest in Ramallah.

Netanyahu’s plan, according to Isaac and Khader, recognizes the “civil rights” of Palestinians in the area, but not necessary their political rights, “opening the door to strip them of citizenship through Netanyahu’s alleged request for forced ‘population swaps.’”

Jewish people have been victims of horrible human rights atrocities. Surely, they among all people, should know the dangers of drifting into “ethnic cleansing.”