Father Gabriel Naddaf, a Greek Orthodox priest in Yafia, near Nazareth, made news in 2012 when he publicly urged Israeli Christians of Arab descent to join the Israel Defense Forces. Since then, he’s become a lightning rod for encouraging Christians to integrate themselves into Israeli society rather than maintain an Arab identity that typically entails hostility to their country. In the United States in recent days, Naddaf spoke to pro-Israel groups, urging Christians to support the Jewish state against anti-Christian, anti-Jewish Islamists throughout the Middle East.
Of Israel’s 1.3 million Arabs, 160,000 are Christians, Naddaf told one Washington audience. Shifting seamlessly from Aramaic to Arabic to Greek while an interpreter provided English translations, he recounted how the Arab conquest 1,400 years ago “erased” the identity of what was then a mostly Christian population. Tall, bearded, and imposing in his black clerical garb, with a large gold cross around his neck, Naddaf urged Christians in Israel to embrace the Aramean ethnicity, which the Israeli government recently recognized.
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