The Israeli Foreign Ministry and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee slammed The Wall Street Journal for its Aug. 2 article, “Spitting Attacks Show Rise of Anti-Christian Hate in Israel.”

The article detailed the increase in anti-Christian attacks, particularly spitting on Christians. The article alleged that the attacks were carried mostly by right-wing religious youth. For example, on Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, on May 14 the attacks particularly increased during the march through the Old City, when 12 spitting incidents were confirmed, with some teens referring to this behavior as a religious duty and “mitzvah.”

“When I came to Jerusalem in 2000, spitting was rare, but now there is hardly a day when I am not spat on,” Nikodemus Schnabel, abbot of the Dormition Abbey of the Virgin Mary on Mount Zion, told The Wall Street Journal.

The paper also interviewed Israeli scholar Yisca Harani, who claimed that anti-Christian incidents in the first half of this year increased by almost double the number of incidents in the same period in 2024. She also claimed that the authorities were not cracking down on this behavior, despite reporting that all six people involved in a recent spitting incident were arrested.

The article does not touch upon the plight of persecuted Christians anywhere else in the Middle East.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry was having none of it, pointing out that the paper did not interview a single Christian who might have challenged its narrative. The ministry also noted that Israel is the only country in the Middle East to boast a growing population of Christians.

“Over the past month, Christian Israelis have appeared on the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ social media channels. They spoke in their own words about their lives, their freedom, their success, their integration and their pride in being Israeli,” the Foreign Ministry posted on X.

“Not one of those Christians was included,” it pointed out.

“Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population is consistently growing. … Christians participate at the highest levels of Israeli society,” the ministry added.

“What the WSJ published is a distortion of reality disguised as reporting. It is disingenuous, misleading and shameful,” the ministry railed.

Mike Huckabee also expressed his disdain for The Wall Street Journal’s reporting.

“The WSJ should have contacted me about Christians in Israel. I am one,” he declared.

“Israel is [the] ONLY country in [the] region where Christian population has grown from 34K to almost 200K,” he noted. “Israel MFA just appointed a full Ambassador to the Christian world, George Deek. No other nation has done that.”

“There are occasional but rare instances of thugs spitting at Christians in the Old City. It’s repulsive & condemned by the Israeli prime minister, Israeli president, and [Israel’s ambassador to the United States],” he added, noting that the police arrested all six perpetrators implicated in the latest spitting attack, not allowing them to get away with it.

Christians work, worship, & pray freely here. They serve in the IDF as high-ranking officers. I go to church here every week w/o a problem,” he added.

“I hope WSJ will do a bit more research in the future if they do a story about religious freedom in the Holy Land,” he concluded.