A Feb. 13 report by Reuters states that for several weeks a small Christian community in Jerusalem's Old City has felt "under pressure" because of "growing harassment and intimidation from violent Jewish ultranationalists." The pressure started to kick in reportedly after the new Benjamin Netanyahu government was sworn in. 

"In the past two months, I would say, since the beginning of the new government, attacks like this are becoming very, very usual," Miran Krikorian, a restaurant owner in the Old City, told Reuters. "And the problem is that we are feeling that there's nothing we can do about it."

In early February, an American man "identified by church authroities as a Jewish radical" was detained after he vandalized a statue of Jesus in the Church of the Flagellation, a Roman Catholic church and pilgrimage site.  

According to tradition, the church rests on a spot where Christ was flogged by Roman soldiers while he was carrying the Cross to Calvary.

The Church of the Flagellation is part of the Custody of the Holy Land and represents the Vatican, reported the Times of Israel.  In a statement, the organization said the incident was a "hate crime" and that the man who vandalized the statue is "an American religious Jew." 

"[T]he custodian said it was the fifth incident of violence against the church in recent weeks, coming after a group of religious Jews attacked tourists in the Christian Quarter last week," according to the Times of Israel. 

“We are following with concern this chain of serious events directed at the Christian community in Israel,” the statement said. “It is no coincidence that the violent discourse in the Israeli public is also translated into such serious acts."

"This is the church commemorating the suffering of Jesus, and exactly here, doing that is something very bad, very bad," Father Eugenio Alliata told Reuters.

In another incident, the words "Death to Armenians," "Death to Arabs and Gentiles," and "Death to Christians" were scrawled in Hebrew on the walls of an Armenian Christian convent.  

Also, a Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion was vandalized on Jan. 1. More than 30 graves were desecrated. Two young Jewish men were arrested for the crime.

"In other recent incidents, funeral notices were ripped down by Jewish girls passing outside the Armenian convent because they had crosses on them, according to local residents," reported All Israel News. "Last week, a Jewish man was caught urinating at the entrance to the convent and Saint James Cathedral. And two different sets of Jewish men spat at Armenian priests while passing by the same evening."

Fr. Koryoun Baghdasaryan told All Israel News, "This is the reality – and I am not exaggerating – every time I exit my house, whether to go to the market, or to Mamilla Mall, to the Holy Sepulchre, to the pharmacy, I always worry that they will spit on me."

“If I spit at them I would be called anti-Semitic and thrown in jail,” he added. 

“There is no doubt that this hate crime is the absolute result of the newly sworn in extremist government in Israel, which its members didn't even condemn last week’s attack of the Christian cemetery on Mount Zion by settlers,” Hagop Djernazian, a resident of the Old City, told All Israel News.

“This act of hatred is part of many acts by extremist religious Jews against Christians," he said. 

Israeli police reportedly have increased patrols at Christian sites, said Reuters. They have "stepped-up operations around the Old City, houses of worship and sacred sites with a view to preserving security, public order and freedom of religion for all," according to a police statement.

Father Aghan Gogchian, chancellor of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, told Reuters, "When there is no strict reaction from the government, it is not only encouraging these people to behave in the same way, but it also gives us the feeling that the government wants to behave to the Christian minorities in this way."