A handful of ultra-Orthodox Israeli teenagers, have been spitting on, or more often on the ground near, Christians in the Jewish state. Presumably they are expressing their anger at traditional Christian antisemitism, or perhaps are angry that Christian bodies such as the Vatican and the World Council of Churches have adopted anti-Israel attitudes. Or perhaps they are offended at Christians attempting, so they think, to convert Jews in Israel to Christianity. In any case, their numbers are pitifully small. But the reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Margherita Stancati, who reported on this spitting phenomenon, has given it a significance it does not deserve, and at the same time, has been entirely silent on the actual position of Christians in Israeli society. In an even greater lapse, she has not reported how Christians are treated in the Muslim lands of the Middle East.
More on the WSJ report on “spitting at Christians” can be found here: “Selective Outrage: The WSJ Distorts the Reality of Christians in Israel,” by Sharon Levy, Algemeiner, August 14, 2026:
Throughout the past decade, the Christian community across the Middle East has been targeted by hatred, terrorism, and overall persecution. This has resulted in a massive decrease in the Christian population throughout the Middle East, which today constitutes 3% of the region’s population, compared to constituting around 14% in 1900.
In Israel, the opposite trend is seen. In 2025, Christians in Israel accounted for 1.9% of the country’s population, and the population had increased by 0.7% from 2023 to 2024.
Yet when it comes to the international media, stories of Christian hatred in Israel are more frequently the aspects of the Christian experience that makes it to the front page.
The Wall Street Journal‘s “Spitting Attacks Show Rise of Anti-Christian Hate in Israel” exemplifies exactly this obsessive attempt to portray Israel as purposefully targeting the Christian population.
Margherita Stancati’s piece portrays a dark version of Israel, where incidents of anti-Christian hate “are becoming routine in Jerusalem.”
Specifically, these acts are perpetrated by young Jewish Israelis spitting on Christians. When these incidents occur, as they unfortunately do, they are outright condemned by the vast majority of Israelis as well as the government. When caught, the perpetrators are arrested, and the offenses are prosecuted.
Portraying small extreme fringes of any society as being representative of the society at large is misleading and not an accidental oversight when writing an article on the Christian experience in Israel.
More than 200,000 Christians from all walks of life live in Israel with full rights and access to the same services, institutions, and protections as any other group in Israel. It is for this very reason that the Christian population trend in Israel is the exact opposite of the trend seen in the rest of the Middle East.
In only one place in the entire Middle East is the percentage of Christians in the population going up — in Israel. Everywhere else in the region, the Christian percentage of the population steadily declines. In some places, such as Saudi Arabia, Christianity is strictly forbidden for the indigenes. In Egypt, Muslims have their Coptic co-nationals under assault. They cannot build new, or in most cases, repair old, churches. Under the new regime in Syria, here have been attacks on Christians in Aleppo and Damascus, as well as in Baghdad, in Iraq, with no attempt to find and punish the perpetrators. In Bethlehem, once the most Christian city in all of Palestine, the Christian percentage of that city’s population has sunk from 86% in 1950 to 10% today.
Among the Christians living in Israel is US Ambassador Mike Huckabee. If The Wall Street Journal was looking for a story that would resonate with American Christians, why selectively exclude one of the country’s most vocal and influential Christian supporters of Israel, if not to reinforce a predetermined and false conclusion about Christian life in Israel?
It is abundantly apparent that Israel continues to invest in protecting minorities, both within the country and, more broadly, throughout the Middle East. With the intention to further strengthen ties between Israel and the global Christian community, the Israeli government appointed its first-ever special envoy to the Christian world in April 2026.
It was the IDF that helped the Christian-dominated South Lebanon Army with both weapons and training, beginning in the late 1970s, so that it could withstand assaults from Muslims in Lebanon and protect besieged Christians in that country.
The Christians in Israel enjoy the same social, political, and economic rights that all Israelis — Jews, Muslims, Bahais, Samaritans, and others — possess. A handful of ultra-Orthodox teenagers spitting in the direction of Christians a dozen times a week cannot be allowed to obscure that overarching reality. When the Israeli police catch them, these imbecilic “spitters” are punished.
Will the WSJ reporter Margherita Stancati do another report on how Christians are flourishing in Israel? Or how they are not flourishing in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan? Here’s hoping.
Rick Gordon says
Aaaaahhh .. the NYT which used to be ‘all the news fit to print’ is joined in this instance by a WSJ ‘journalist’. Has anyone contacted her – or attempted to publish a factual rebuttal?
mgoldberg says
The idea that the news is objective and comprehensive is of course laughable. And Hugh F raises the reality quite nicely here with the facts of the legal status and the thriving of Christians and Christianity in Israel. And yes, there are a very few young men who will so act and be arrested if caught. And yet… it is lamentable that given the never ending attempts to ‘convert’ Jews out of Torah Judaism, the ongoing attempts to pretend that Jews for Jesus is the real Judaism not the Torah Judaism of the lasst 3300 yrs, the ongoing demands that all these people be allowed to do their actin in Israel, is what disturbs and angers those young hilltop Jewish men who struggle to live and are certainly oppressed in their own right. Just look at what happened in Quesa last week and how distorted all that reporting was against them and it was distorted, and some of those people are fed up with being abused and lied about.
somehistory says
Christianity, as opposed to the fake and pretend, does **not** have a “traditional antisemitism.”
Jesus taught His disciples to “love” their enemies, and the Jews who did not accept Him as Messiah, made themselves the enemies of the men and women who did accept Him as Messiah and preached to make disciples of other Jews and then Gentiles. There is historical fact of the Christians being persecuted by some Jews for believing Jesus to be the Christ.
Many Jews did become Christians, and they taught what Jesus said to “teach.” There was no hatred taught. There was taught, “Love your enemies and pray for those persecuting you.”
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I don’t condone anyone spitting – that’s rude
That said, those Orthodox Jews are not alone in taking exception to Christian attempts to convert non-Christians, if that’s what their reasons for spitting were. Few take kindly to being told anything from “you worship false gods” to “your only salvation is someone you don’t already worship”
James Lincoln says
Many opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal now lean left.
Not all, but many.
Timmy says
In America, let someone put some bacon on the steps of a mosque and watch the entire liberal world freak out and hunt down the perp and prosecute them to the end of the earth.