Perhaps bad journalism informed the Oregon senator Jeff Merkley, who decided on Sunday to declare, “On this Easter, let’s ponder Netanyahu’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, which has killed more than 20,000 women and children, and his restriction of humanitarian aid, which has pushed Palestinians to the brink of famine.” Merkley, knowingly or not, here followed in the centuries-old tradition of using this major Christian holiday to accuse Jews, falsely, of murdering children. Happily, such messages have become rare in Western Christian preaching, and many churches actively reject them.

Yet religiously sanctioned anti-Semitism is alive and well, across denominations, in Arab churches in Israel. Giles Fraser, an Anglican vicar who has lived in Israel for several years, explains why he chooses to pray at a Pentecostal church in south Tel Aviv rather than one that matches his liturgical preferences more closely:

The rector of St. Andrew’s Ramallah and St. Peter’s Birzeit, Father Fadi Diab, preached in Southwark Cathedral, my cathedral [in England], earlier this month. He spoke very movingly of the great suffering of the people of Gaza, linking it to the sufferings of Jesus on the cross. I totally understand that. But nevertheless, he didn’t take the opportunity to condemn Hamas.

There are bad eggs in every Church. But there is no doubt that there is a radical anti-Israeli side to Palestinian Christianity, to such an extent that parts of the Church have developed something of a distaste for the Jewish underpinnings of Christianity, including even the very presence of the Hebrew scriptures within the Christian Bible. The Palestinian Anglican priest Father Naim Ateek has written: “Since the creation of the state [of Israel], some Jewish and Christian interpreters have read the Old Testament largely as a Zionist text to such an extent that it has become almost repugnant to Palestinian Christians.”

In the 2nd century, the Christian teacher Marcion argued that the Old Testament taught of a violent malevolent God, as opposed to the good God of the New Testament. He was rightly condemned by the early Church as a heretic. Elements of Marcionism continue in the Palestinian Church today.

Fraser goes on to recount meeting a Jewish Israeli who had been baptized into the Church of England and ordained as a priest. Of course, the convert said, the Jerusalem Dioceses wouldn’t ordain him, since in their eyes he remained a Jew.

Even if the agreement with Hamas to secure the release of some, and possibly all, of the remaining hostages—and the bodies of those no longer alive—is a prudent decision for Israel, it comes at a very high price: potentially leaving Hamas in control of Gaza and the release of vast numbers of Palestinian prisoners, many with blood on their hands. Nadav Shragai reminds us of the history of such agreements:

We cannot forget that the terrorists released in the Jibril deal during the summer of 1985 became the backbone of the first intifada, resulting in the murder of 165 Israelis. Approximately half of the terrorists released following the Oslo Accords joined Palestinian terror groups, with many participating in the second intifada that claimed 1,178 Israeli lives. Those freed in [exchange for Gilad Shalit in 2011] constructed Gaza, the world’s largest terror city, and brought about the October 7 massacre. We must ask ourselves: where will those released in the 2025 hostage deal lead us?

Taking these painful concessions into account Michael Oren argues that they might nonetheless be necessary:

From day one—October 7, 2023—Israel’s twin goals in Gaza were fundamentally irreconcilable. Israel could not, as its leaders pledged, simultaneously destroy Hamas and secure all of the hostages’ release. The terrorists who regarded the hostages as the key to their survival would hardly give them up for less than an Israeli commitment to end—and therefore lose—the war. Israelis, for their part, were torn between those who felt that they could not send their children to the army so long as hostages remained in captivity and those who held that, if Hamas wins, Israel will not have an army at all.

While 33 hostages will be released in the first stage, dozens—alive and dead—will remain in Gaza, prolonging their families’ suffering. The relatives of those killed by the Palestinian terrorists now going free will also be shattered. So, too, will the Israelis who still see soldiers dying in Gaza almost daily while Hamas rocket fire continues. What were all of Israel’s sacrifices for, they will ask. . . .

Perhaps this outcome was unavoidable from the beginning. Perhaps the deal is the only way of reconciling Israel’s mutually exclusive goals of annihilating Hamas and repatriating the hostages. Perhaps, despite Israel’s subsequent military triumph, this is the price for the failures of October 7.