When President Donald Trump announced in December he would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and call for the U.S. embassy to be moved there, some of his loudest cheerleaders were American evangelicals.
Members of Trump’s unofficial evangelical advisory board were consulted on the decision, evangelical-led groups such as Christians United for Israel advocated for the change, and conservative Christian leaders such as Jack Graham were quick to applaud the move on Twitter.
But the faith-fueled praise overshadowed a possible consequence: Namely, an escalation of simmering tensions between Middle Eastern Christians — especially those living in the occupied Palestinian territories — and American evangelicals seeking to balance hard-line support for Israel with concern for their fellow faithful.
More specifically, the move appears to make an already delicate existence even more complicated for Palestinian Christians, who make up around 2 percent of the population of the West Bank and less than one percent of the Gaza Strip, according to the CIA’s World Factbook.
Palestinians claim Jerusalem as the capital of the state for which they seek U.N. recognition, and resent Trump’s decision to change American policy, which had held that the city’s status should be determined during peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis.
Although the…
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