From www.bbc.co.uk :

|------- 30 March 2026: Israel's prime minister has said the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem will now have "full and immediate access" to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, after police earlier prevented him from celebrating Palm Sunday Mass there.

Benjamin Netanyahu said Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, had been asked not to enter out of concern for his safety as Iran had repeatedly targeted Jerusalem's holy sites with missiles. ...

Israel's police later said it had agreed a "mutual framework" with the Latin Patriarch for Easter celebrations. ... in a later statement, released on Monday, Cardinal Pizzaballa's office said the matter had been "addressed and resolved" and expressed "sincere gratitude" to Israel's President Isaac Herzog ...
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**** Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu Rejects the Gospel of Christ for the Doctrine of Genghis Khan ****

Better take on the story : revdocgeek.com - Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church:

|------- April 1, 2026 by Avril Hannah-Jones

... I am grateful to the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. I do not know if you caught it, but Mr Netanyahu recently caused quite a stir by talking about Jesus. He was paraphrasing a secular historian, William Durant, and he said, 'History proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan. Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good. Aggression will overcome moderation.' ...

He was making a political point, not a theological one. ... On the other hand, maybe as he understands the world, Mr Netanyahu is right. Genghis Khan lived for some sixty-five years; Jesus for about half that. Genghis Khan died the ruler of large parts of China and Central Asia; Jesus was executed as a common criminal, put to death in a way so shameful that Cicero considered it bad taste to mention it in polite company. Genghis Khan killed millions; the Roman forces of law and order, the religious leaders of Temple Judaism, and a howling mob, all combined to kill Jesus. ...
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Meanwhile, Christians celebrate in Jerusalem, Gaza and Tehran - apnews.com - April 5, 2026

And Ukraine (85% of population are Christian, more than 68% in Russia) is cooperating technologically with Israel (which donated 3 Patriots to UA in 2024) and signing agreements to provide tech and training assistance to Arab states in the Middle East to defend against Iranian / Russian drones.

www.fdd.org - Ukraine Agrees to Mutually Beneficial Defense Deals With Gulf Arab States
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According to Rossing Center en.wikipedia.org - Violence against Christians in Israel, violence (including spitting, verbal abuse and property vandalism, but no fatalities) has been increasing since October 7, 2023 and in 2025 consisted of 111 incidents, i.e., a rate of ~0.06 per 100 of Christian population, about the same rate as a year before and two years before. No hard data provided by the report on increase in violence against Jews and Muslims in the area, except noted increase in rate of violence (including fatal) against both groups in the same period from the same event.

So, another sensationalist headline based on univariable, unilateral, unremarkable report.

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#12 | Posted by Corky at 2026-04-03 08:22 PM
... the fasted growing Christian Churches in the world are... Iran.

And not far behind Iran is, unsurprisingly... another Islamic country, Afghanistan - both with less than 1% of population.

"Fastest growing" is one of the most overrated and abused univariable metrics, as it is subject to quirks of The Law of Accumulation and "The Law of Small Numbers (Kahneman, "Thinking Fast and Slow") - it's obvious that any minority religion in a country could be "growing faster" from a very small number "over decades," even despite repression.

In Sudan, however, the number of Christians is dwindling fast due to genuine genocide based on religious faith, which even UN, otherwise busy with near-daily Israel-bashing and 3 retracted false accusations of "starvation policy in Gaza," couldn't ignore:

persecution.org- Genocidal Militia Continues to Persecute Christians Across Sudan - 2025-02-11

What wasn't much in the Western media :

Massacres of Allawites (former ruler Bashar al-Assad's sect) in Syria, when new Syrian government forces and Turkish-backed militia of other tribes exacted retribution and at least 1700 were killed in just a few days.
"www.uscirf.gov AAUS Report on Violence in Syria By Community.pdf" - Report on Sectarian Violence in Syria

IDF protecting Syrian Druze population when they were targeted by Sunnis of Syrian government - www.fdd.org - "Israel is committed to preventing harm being inflicted on the Druze in Syria..." - July 2025

That's one of the reasons why Israel refused to establish diplomatic relations with new Syria government.

Lebanon was largely peaceful and "Westernized" and still has largest Christian population of any country in the ME (37%), even after a large number of Christians left the country after the PLO in Lebanon was attacking Christians and instigated Civil War (1975-1990)... and then Iran-backed Hezbollah took over and still runs the show because Lebanese army is reluctant / not capable to disarm them.
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