An Israeli-Palestinian Primer: A Guide for Mainline Christians
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As Christians, we believe that we should love God and that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. As Christians, we pray for peace, but our idea of peace is often too general—devoid of what we need to know for us to achieve it. How can we impose a Christian solution of what we think is “peace” on a conflict where the involved parties hold disparate ideological positions that seem to prevent any peaceful resolution?
Islamic Jihadist terrorist groups currently warring against Israel are not countries—they are Iranian proxies. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Syria, and Hamas—found in Gaza and throughout the region—call for the destruction of Israel and reject a two-state solution.
By comparison, the ideology of Israel includes a democratic structure and process involving a mostly Jewish population—20% of which are legal Israeli citizens, who are Arab-Palestinian and members of other minorities. Israel is culturally European, Western in dress and style, and intent on maintaining the right to exist in the Holy Land—their historic homeland.
Trying to understand the current conflict against this amazingly varied cultural backdrop, Christians face a dizzying set of contradictions that further polarize and confuse us about Gaza. Popular protests grow out of secular Liberal and humanist objections to Israel’s use of force in Gaza or spring up out of a Christian self-mandated support of Palestinian Christians, who are under the control of Hamas terrorists in Gaza or living in the West Bank.
Although the issues are many and widely varied, the purpose of this blog is to address Christian perspectives about Israel and its relationship with its Palestinian neighbors. One way to examine the concerns of the Palestinian territories includes an awareness of Christian theology—a theology that has been challenged and changed by Jewish history.
Among the many crucial conflicts and events, there are two turning points in Jewish history—two watershed moments—that are only three years apart: the Holocaust, 1941-1945, and the birth of the State of Israel in 1948. The Holocaust and its impact on Christian theology has been studied and acknowledged for decades. For the first time in nearly two thousand years (and after the Holocaust), the establishment of Israel gave Jews—an independent, sovereign state, and a supposedly safe haven from any further attempts of annihilation, persecution, expulsions, and pogroms through the whims of others.
The birth of the state of Israel was also a turning point in Christian theology because Christians traditionally believed that Jews were accursed and damned to wander the earth. Originating in Medieval Europe, these were called the “Wandering Jews.” They were serving a punishment for their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and their responsibility for Christ’s crucifixion.
Christians also believed—because of God’s supposed rejection of the Jewish people—that God revoked His original covenant and promises, taking them away from the Jews and giving them, instead, to the Christians.
Thus, the “old Israel” (Judaism) was proclaimed dead, replaced by the “new Israel” or the Christian Church, a concept known as replacement theology. This belief system allowed Christians—in sermons, liturgy, art, and doctrine—to became promoters, perpetrators, enablers, accomplices, and bystanders of Jewish suffering, which ultimately led to the Nazi’s “final solution” of the “Jewish problem.”
The Nazi agenda dovetailed with replacement theology for a perfect fit that contributed to the Holocaust. Because of the Christian role during that terrible time, Christians were forced to claim that horror as part of their history, too.
With the 1948 establishment of the State of Israel, Christians were faced with a huge task that continues today. Christians had to reevaluate their presumed lack of culpability regarding the centuries of Jewish suffering—a supposedly God sanctioned attitude that ultimately contributed to a near genocidal catastrophe in the Holocaust. Thus, the long and shameful anti-Jewish “theology of contempt”—a phrase coined by French historian, Jules Isaac—demanded a correction of Christian theology.
Now, a third turning point has emerged for the Jewish people: the October 7th, 2023, massacre of 1400 Israelis inside the sovereign state of Israel and the capture of 250 Israeli hostages by Hamas. The trauma of the purposeful and bloody invasion—within Israel’s borders—has shattered Israel’s basic assumptions about its safety and its relationship with the Palestinian people.
There is no return to the way things were before October 7th.
My hope is that mainline Christians, still in the throes of changing their relationship with Jews and Judaism after 1948, will not succumb to pre-1948 convictions that blame Jews because of our intimate relationship with Christian Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the disputed territories.
What follows is an examination of the many issues that challenge us when it comes to the existence of the state of Israel and its conflict with the Palestinian people.
Join me, as I offer insights throughout this blog based on my experiences in Israel and my theological and historical studies. I will focus on and examine the important questions for Christians regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Rev. Dr. Kathleen J. Rusnak
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a complex and multifaceted issue that involves politics, history, and theology. My goal is to provide a clear and concise guide to help you better understand this conflict.
