Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that a global initiative to protect Christians in Nigeria, other African countries and the Middle East.
Netanyahu in a public speech delivered on Wednesday and uploaded on the Israeli Prime Minister’s official YouTube channel, said the initiative to protect Christains in Nigeria among other countries would be done through a newly established “eighth front” of strategic engagement.
He explained that the initiative aims to create a “United Nations of support” for beleaguered religious minorities facing systematic violence from radical militant groups.
The Prime Minister’s announcement comes on the heels of increasing reports of religious persecution across Africa’s most populous nation and several Middle Eastern territories.
Netanyahu emphasized that while Israel has recently navigated military challenges on seven distinct fronts, the defense of “Judeo-Christian civilization” now necessitates a proactive international coalition.
Addressing an audience he identified as Christian Zionists, Netanyahu said their support was central to the emergence and survival of Israel, noting that “Christian Zionism facilitated the rise and success of Jewish Zionism.”
“You are representatives of the Christian Zionists who made Jewish Zionism possible,” he said, adding that the partnership between Christian Zionists and Israel had been “an enormous partnership” that had endured “through thick and thin.”
The Israeli leader stated that Israel had recently fought what he described as a “seven-front war” and emerged “in many ways victorious,” but insisted that a new challenge had now emerged.
“But there’s an eighth front,” Netanyahu said. “And that’s the front for the hearts and minds of people, especially young people.”
According to him, the battle was not Israel’s alone but one that affected the United States, their alliance, and what he described as “the future of Western civilization.”
“I think it’s our common Judeo-Christian civilization’s battle,” he said, stressing that the front must be engaged “as forcefully, with as much resolution as we engage the other seven fronts.”
Netanyahu also rejected calls for religious restraint in the face of violence, declaring that “faith should speak its voice and terrorism should be confronted, not understood, confronted and defeated.”
He disclosed that he had spoken with U.S. President Donald Trump, stating that he saw the struggle against Israel and what he described as the Judeo-Christian tradition as a global battle.
“I see the battle against us and the battle against our Judeo-Christian tradition basically being waged around the globe,” he said.
Netanyahu identified what he called “radical Shiite Islam and radical Sunni Islam” as the main forces waging that battle, pointing to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood as leading what he described as opposing axes.
“They go to Europe, they go to the United States, they go to Africa, Nigeria,” he said.
Referring specifically to the persecution of Christians, Netanyahu said Israel was “conscious of the fact that Christians are being persecuted across the Middle East, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Nigeria, in Turkey and beyond.”
He claimed that Israel is the only country that “protects the Christian community, enables it to grow, defends it, and makes sure that it thrives.
“And that country is Israel. There is no other, none,” he said.
The Israeli Prime Minister announced that Israel was joining efforts to form what he described as “a United Nations of countries that support Christian communities around the world,” particularly “beleaguered communities who deserve our help.”
He added that Israel was capable of supporting such efforts “in Africa, with intel, in the Middle East, with a lot of means,” stressing that protecting Christian communities was “a main part of our agenda” and would continue “with greater force and greater might in this coming year.”
Pan-Atlantic Kompass reports that Netanyahu’s announcement of an initiative to protect Christians in Nigeria and other countries comes amid ongoing Christian genocide allegations.
Nigeria has been facing increasing international scrutiny over alleged failure to protect Christians.
This has led to the redesignation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern by Trump.
Recall also that Trump, on Christmas Day, December 25, 2025, announced that the U.S troops struck ISIS terrorists enclaves in Northwest Nigeria.
The Nigerian government had since said that the military action was done with its consent.
