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Source: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ambassador-george-deek-christian-israel-you-not-being-shown
The Christian Israel You Are Not Being Shown
(Fox News) Amb. George Deek - I grew up Christian, Arab and Israeli, going to church every Sunday with my father, the cantor of our Greek Orthodox church in Jaffa. I joined the Christian Scouts as a boy, later became a leader and even ran our marching band, a serious source of community pride. We marched at Christmas and Easter. Our neighbors were Muslims and Jews. We studied together, worked together, argued together and lived together. I felt rooted, safe and happy. Which is why I sometimes wonder whether the Israel I keep reading about is a different country. Apparently, Christians here live under siege and Jewish hostility is making Christian life increasingly impossible. It is a very strange description of the country in which I actually live. There have been ugly incidents of religious radicals verbally abusing Christians and vandalizing property. Such behavior is disgraceful. But do those extremists define Israel? In 2025, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 6,274 antisemitic incidents in the U.S., an average of 17 every day. Does that make America an antisemitic society? Of course not. Extremism exists in every democratic society. But serious people understand the difference between extremists within a society and the character of the society itself. Except, increasingly, when that society is Israel. If you genuinely want to know whether Christians are flourishing in a country, ask: Are Christians disappearing? In Israel, they are not. In 1950, Israel was home to 34,000 Christians. Today there are 184,000, and the community continues to grow. Christians are physicians and hospital directors, academics and businesspeople, mayors, police officers, soldiers and diplomats. I happen to be one of them, the first Christian appointed to represent Israel as an ambassador. Today, I serve as Israel's special envoy to the Christian World, a position created specifically to deepen Israel's relationship with Christian communities. Quite an elaborate way for a country supposedly hostile to Christianity to behave. The writer is a veteran diplomat with 18 years of experience who most recently served as Israel's ambassador to Azerbaijan.