By Maria Shmidt
Following a series of mishaps in Israel involving Christians, the Jewish state created a new position and appointed a first special envoy to the Christian world.
George Deek, who previously served as Israel’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, was selected for the position. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar believes such an appointment will help Israel navigate its complex relations with the Christian community.
“The State of Israel attaches great importance to its relations with the Christian world and with its Christian friends around the world. I am confident that George, a respected and experienced diplomat, will greatly contribute to the friendship and strengthening of the ties between the State of Israel and the Christian world,” said Sa’ar.
Relations between the State of Israel and various Christian communities — both local and international — have always been sensitive. The issues arise not just from religious differences, but are also rooted in a geopolitical and historical context. Various, sometimes completely opposing opinions differ on how the relationship between the two sides should look.
Recent events only highlighted the delicacy of the matter.
On the morning of March 29, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, was on the way to celebrate the Palm Sunday Mass when he was stopped and barred by Israeli police from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Authorities refused entry due to heightened security regulations in Israel, as the incident occurred during the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.
Shutdowns in the Old City of Jerusalem were particularly strict. Nevertheless, the incident ignited a wave of negative reactions from the public worldwide. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem issued a statement where it called the prevention of entry a “manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure.”
Another incident that shook the unstable relations once again happened on April 19 in southern Lebanon when an Israeli soldier smashed a statue of Jesus with a sledgehammer. A video of the act quickly went viral and drew widespread condemnation.
“Israel is the only country in the region where the Christian population and standard of living are growing. Israel is the only place in the Middle East that adheres to freedom of worship for all. We express regret for the incident and for any hurt this has caused to believers in Lebanon and around the world,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted with the following statement: wrote in a post on X.
The IDF investigated the incident and sentenced the soldier in the video and the person who filmed it to 30 days in prison.
Because of these and other events, tensions between Israel and the Christian world escalated. Following the controversy, Deek was appointed, a decision that Sa’ar said is “intended to deepen Israel’s ties with Christian communities around the world.”
A member of the Arab-Christian community in Jaffa, Deek is a veteran diplomat with 18 years of experience. He was awarded the Foreign Ministry’s Distinguished Administrator’s Award. He is also the first Christian ambassador in Israel’s history. In 2018, at the age of 34, he was appointed as an Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan.
Although this recent appointment of a Christian envoy is meant to improve the overall situation, it sparked another heated debate among certain Christian denominations. Deek served as ambassador to Azerbaijan from 2019 to 2025, while conflicts between Azerbaijan and Armenia escalated including border conflicts, wars and the blockade of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. The 11-months blockade ended with an Azerbaijani victory in 2023 and the dissolution of the Republic of Artsakh as 120,000 Armenians fled under a military threat.
Throughout these events, Deek the ambassador to Baku and praised Azeri–Israeli relations while ignoring the expulsion of Christian Armenians and the subsequent destruction of Armenian churches.
His appointment has been criticized by some as controversial and enabling at best, while others pointed out the fact that Deek himself has Armenian ancestors. The lobbying group Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), a critic of Israel, was scathing in its condemnation of the appointment as ambassador to Azerbaijan.
“Israel’s first-ever envoy to the Christian world, George Deek — a genocidal co-conspirator freshly complicit in Azerbaijan’s 2020-23 ethnic-cleansing of Artsakh’s Christian Armenians — represents a brazen insult to Christians and all people of faith worldwide, said ANCA Executive Director Aram Suren Hamparian on social media.
The relationship between the State of Israel and the Christian community is a multilayered and complex matter, shaped by religion, politics, long-standing prejudices and years of intricate history. While Deek’s appointment may be intended to improve these relations, it will be challenged by some.
At this sensitive time, the new Christian envoy will have significant challenges to address and multiple controversies to navigate.