Nadene Goldfoot
The 2009 CIA Population Report tells us that there are 123,000 Christian Arabs that are citizens of Israel. This is 9.1% of the population. 2.5% of the Christian Arabs are Syriac Christians. Maronite Christians numbering several thousand are living in the Galilee who are former pro-Israeli Lebanese militia members with their families who fled from Lebanon after 2000. That's when the IDF pulled out. Christians from the USA and other places that are not Arabs also are living in Israel to the total of 29,000 or 0.4% of the population.
The 2010 Israel Central Bureau of Statistics found 1,573,000 Arab citizens of Israel or 20.4% of the population. Of this, Muslims, including the Bedouins make up 82% of this population with 9% being Druze. 9% are Christians, so this agrees with the 2009 findings. However, it's a little less than in 2009 with 117,000 Christian Arabs living in Israel. Nazareth has the largest Christian population. Christian Arabs are active in politics and are serving in the Knesset.
Right across the street on the East Side in Judea and Samaria are Arab Christians in the amount of 167,000 or 8% of the population there. Gaza, an extremely strong Hamas terrorist stronghold, and right across another street on the West Side only has 10,000 Christians or 0.3% of that population.
Lebanon on the North Side used to be a minority Christian state but had enough power to be led by a Christian once. Their population is still thought to have 39% Christians. Major Hadad was from this group and was a great friend of Israel, as he helped to patrol the border. Syria's population is from 10-15% Christian and Jordan has 6% Christians.
Getting into these places to take the census is a struggle. In 1967 the Muslim population in the territories of Judea, Samaria, Gaza and East Jerusalem was 1.5 million. Today they number almost 4 million. This rapid growth could be connected to having 10 or more children in a family and even in the Muslim religion of allowing men to have 4 wives. This is 3 times the world average. The Christians have had a low birth rate for the past 100 years. In 2006 the population of Jerusalem was 724,000 or 10% of the population of Israel. 65% were Jewish. 40% of East Jerusalem were Jewish. 32% were Muslims and 2% were Christians. The word has just been released that Israel plans to build more housing in East Jerusalem due to a housing shortage.
Many Christians are living abroad but this emmigration has been stemmed. The Palestinian Authority President Salem Fayyad said that the Christian population grew last year.
One can also figure that the Christians, who were 7.8% of the population in 1948 are now about 2% of the population today. This might figure that if there are 4,000,000 Arabs living in the territories, 80,000 are Christians.
Right next door is Egypt which in 640 CE was predominately Christian. Today 5-10% of the population are Christians, with 95% being Copts or belonging to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. There are other Christian groups represented in Egypt as well in the remaining 5%.. This means that there are 10 to 15 million Christians in Egypt as well as 3-4 million living abroad. A few have been suffering from attacks by their Muslim neighbors lately. I shall call this Anti-Nasranism acts, for they were killed just for being Christians.
Jewish Council for Public Affairs Background Paper on Palestinian Christians
