(RNS) — On Palm Sunday morning (April 13), an emergency room doctor at Gaza’s last functioning hospital, the Anglican-run Al-Ahli Hospital, received a startling message: Evacuate within 20 minutes or die.

This threat could stand for the story of Palestinian Christians. For decades they have warned of their eventual extinction, but this Easter it feels imminent — not just at the hands of Israeli bombs, but another formidable foe: Christian Zionists in the United States. Even as local Christians swiftly condemned the Palm Sunday attack, most American evangelical Christians, long blinded by their zealous support for Israel to the suffering of the world’s oldest Christian community, stayed silent.

Yet silence may be preferable to championing policies that have not only gutted the Holy Land of Christians, but also brought untold horrors to millions of Palestinians and Israelis. On Ash Wednesday, President Donald Trump issued an ominous threat “to the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold hostages. If you do, you are DEAD!”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a black cross smeared across his forehead, quickly echoed him: “If he says he’s going to do something, he’ll do it.” Palestinian Christians watched, horrified. “Not our cross. Not our Christ. The cross should represent Christ’s love to everyone,” replied Bethlehem pastor Munther Isaac, who rose to prominence when his church displayed the baby Jesus wrapped in a Palestinian kaffiyeh in lieu of a traditional Nativity scene in 2023. “Does he not know he’s putting our very presence at risk?” he rhetorically asked.

Palestinian Christians trace their roots directly to Jesus and his disciples. They take pride in passing their faith down from parent to child, under empire after empire, in the land of Jesus’ birth and mission. 

But since the rise of Zionism a century ago, Palestinian Christians have dwindled from 11% to less than 1% of the population in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Aside from the “Nakba,” when three-quarters of Palestine’s indigenous Muslim and Christian Palestinians were expelled surrounding Israel’s founding in 1948, the primary drivers are well documented: a massive influx of Jewish immigrants; lower birth rates than their Muslim and Jewish counterparts; and more opportunities to emigrate for those seeking to flee what even Israeli human rights groups call “apartheid.” And that was before the war in Gaza. Over the last 18 months, Israel has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, including an estimated 3% of Gaza’s remaining Christians, in what courts and experts around the world have deemed an active genocide.

Yet Trump and Rubio seem to care more about power than people. “I did it for the evangelicals,” Trump famously declared in 2017, after moving the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It seems to be paying off. More than 80% of white evangelical Christians — about 20% of the U.S. electorate — have consistently voted for Trump, partly because of his hawkish support for Israel.

One prominent Christian Zionist, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, has long supported extremist “pro-Israel” views, declaring at one point, “There’s no such thing as a Palestinian.” He has championed Israel’s illegal settlements and opposed a two-state solution. His rationale? “God gave the land to the Jewish people 3,500 years ago,” erasing centuries of Palestinian Christian and Muslim witness, along with their humanity. 

Many Christian Zionists go further, seeing Jews’ presence in Israel as a necessary condition for Jesus’ second coming. Once universally seen as antisemitic (consider the logic here: The Holocaust worked as God’s divine plan to return Jews to Israel), this view is the basis for Christian Zionists’ strong ties with the Israeli right, who have called American evangelicals more important to Israel than American Jews. Indeed, American evangelicals spend more of their lobbying dollars on Israel than on poverty, immigration and abortion. 

Some Christians are pushing back. “We participate in the end of the world every time we accept the murder of our Palestinian neighbors,” said Andrew DeCort, a Chicago-based theologian and author. He called Christian Zionism “morally bankrupt” and “anti-Jesus,” ironically noting that when it comes to Palestinian Christians, “Christian Zionists are killing Christianity.” 

Independently, support for Israel among younger evangelicals has plummeted from 64% to 33% from 2018 to 2021, with a plurality supporting Israelis and Palestinians equally. New polling shows that the majority of Americans now hold negative views of Israel, including both Republicans and Democrats under 50. 

Some pastors believe these numbers point to something deeper. Keri Ladouceur, a former evangelical pastor and executive director of the Post Evangelical Collective, which organizes hundreds of disaffected American pastors who seek to reform their faith, said that young evangelicals embrace a “Kingdom worldview [that] doesn’t preference Christian over Muslim, Jew or Republican or Democrat.” 

Daniel Bannoura, a Palestinian Christian who hosts a popular podcast connecting American and Palestinian Christians, worries “it’s too little, too late.” He said he finds it “tragic that Palestinians have to be massacred … for people to start paying attention.” He laments: “Why is it so hard for Christians to be Christ-like when it actually matters? Why do our lives, our dignity and freedom, matter so little to them?” 

Steps away from the Anglican-run hospital in Gaza stands the third-oldest living church in the world, St. Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church. Hours after Sunday morning’s bombing, children folded palm leaves somberly into crosses. A ritual of defiant hope amid absolute dread. This Easter, they’re commemorating one miracle — the resurrection of Jesus — but remain in need of another. 

(Gregory Khalil is president and co-founder of Telos, a nonprofit that promotes peacemaking. He is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he co-teaches the Covering Religion course. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)