Transcript

HEATHER EWART, PRESENTER: 2010 was another frightening year for the Christians of the Middle East. From Egypt to Iraq, they were the victims of violent attacks by Islamic extremists.

Increasingly, Christians are feeling under siege in the territory they've called home for centuries including the holy land - the very cradle of Christianity - and many are leaving the region for good.

ABC Middle East correspondent Ben Knight reports.

BEN KNIGHT, REPORTER: For 1500 years, the monastery of Mar Saba had perched on this cliff in the Judean desert between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.

The handful of monks who still live here are as reclusive as the hermits who built the place. They're a direct link to the earliest years of Christianity. In the cells and caves of this monastery, early theologian s like John of Damascus shaped the still-evolving religion. It's because of places like Mar Saba that this that this is called the holy land but the holy land is watching its Christian population disappear.

FATHER RAFIK KHOURY: An integral part of the identity of the land will be lost. I cannot imagine the holy land without Christians.

SAMIR QUMSIEH, CHRISTIAN BROADCASTER: I really fear that the Church of Nativity and the holy sepulchre will be called into museums, will be called into museums. And this is something that it worries me too much.

BEN KNIGHT: It's Sunday in the West Bank village of Bizet. Father Rafik Khoury is preparing for mass. For years he has been watching his congregations dwindle as they emigrate to Australia, Canada, the US and South America.

FATHER RAFIK KHOURY: They say well we lived in that situation, OK for us, but for our children we would like to prepare a better future for our children. That is why they leave.

BEN KNIGHT: Figures are difficult to find, but no one is disputing the trend. Christians are leaving in numbers. According to one estimate, in the year 2008 alone, more than 450 families left the city of Bethlehem to move overseas. Professor Nabib Ghayit is definitely not planning on leaving hand he doesn't have much time for those who have.

PROFESSOR NABIB GHAYIT: Well they're cowards. They are cowards, you know. You have to sacrifice in order to live, you know.

BEN KNIGHT: But the danger is real. In 2007, Christian pastor Rami Ayyad was murdered in Gaza. No one was ever charged. His family believes there was never any real investigation.

But it's not just violence. Some Christians say their Muslim neighbours are taking the land out from under them.

SAMIR QUMSIEH: They take it by force, by forgery, by many ways and because many Bethlehem people are emigrating, their lands are done.

BEN KNIGHT: Samir Qumsieh runs a television station in the West Bank. For years he too criticised those who decided to leave for a better life overseas. But now even he has had enough.

SAMIR QUMSIEH: It's not easy for me to take such a decision, but sometimes I find that thank I am driven towards that direction. And I tell you I am very angry with the Christian world.

BEN KNIGHT: This is why. It's the feast of Tabernacles, a time when evangelical Christians from around the world gather in Jerusalem.

BRUCE GARBUTT, INTL CHRISTIAN EMBASSY OF JERSUALEM: We come as friends of Israel because Israel is God's chosen people, chosen for a purpose and not because they're different, not because they're better, chosen for a purpose and that's to bring salvation to the world.

BEN KNIGHT: This is a messianic view of Christianity that believes when the jews return to the land of Israel, the temple can be rebuilt and the final day of judgment will arrive. The Palestinian State doesn't fit into that plan.

Glen and Marilyn Shaw are here doing missionary work in the West Bank and have seen the poverty there.

You're here today with Israeli flags.

GLEN SHAW, CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY: Yes.

BEN KNIGHT: Who are obviously the occupying force - is that a conflict for you?

GLEN SHAW: Not really. Not really. Because God commands us to bless the Jews. To bless Israel. Anybody who blesses Israel will get a blessing in return.

BEN KNIGHT: But 35 kilometres away, on the other side of Israel's security barrier, Christians like Father Rafik Khoury despair at their attitude.

FATHER RAFIK KHOURY: They are forgetting their own roots to help others who have roots in the holy land. It is an irony but it is a dramatic and tragic irony for us.

BEN KNIGHT: In October, Pope Benedict called a special synod in Rome that was described as a crisis meeting and the situation of Christians in the Middle East.

The basis of the synod is this discussion paper or in the language of the Vatican a Lineamenta. And it talks about some of the driving issues such as the Israeli occupation or the growing influence of extreme Islam right across the Middle East.

It offers much in the way of support, but as yet, not a lot in the way of solutions. Samir Qumsieh says If the Christian world can't protect its own then the moderate Muslims who live here in the holy land must realise what's at stake.

SAMIR QUMSIEH: When they are categorised as a Muslim state here only, it's not in their favour. I don't think the world will, the world will accept them as they accept them with our presence as the Christians.

EN KNIGHT: In November, Al-Qaeda in Iraq declared open season on all Christians. After a siege at a Baghdad church ended in the deaths of more than 50 people. Afterwards these Iraqi Christians fled to the relative safety of Jordan. But they're not staying here. They're looking for visas to the Canada, the US and Australia.

Yet another Christian community has decided it's time to leave the Middle East for good and they won't be the last.

HEATHER EWART: Ben Knight with that report.

*Editor’s note: (May 18) This story should have included comment from the Muslim community to the allegation that land was being taken from local Christians, or an indication that the claims are contested.