A Biblical Right?

This week, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) asked Trump’s UN Ambassador nominee Rep. Elise Stefanik (R- NY) if she believed that Israel had a “biblical right” to the entire West Bank. Without hesitation or qualification, Stefanik said, “Yes.” Stefanik subscribes to the viewpoint that God gave the Jews the Holy Land, and it is theirs and theirs alone. According to this view, this divine promise comes without any conditions and is binding for all time. To those who adhere to this ideology, it transcends all other claims and interpretations. They assert that the authority for this claim is the Bible, hence a “biblical right.” Stefanik was telling us, if confirmed, that this ideology will be her north star on US policy, guiding her thinking, her statements, and her votes as US ambassador to the United Nations. She does this with the full blessing and encouragement of the Trump administration. Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, is lockstep with this same ideology, and famously said there is no West Bank, only “Judea and Samaria”, and “there is no such thing as a Palestinian.” Needless to say, this is an ominous development for the 3.2 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Jewish Zionists assert Israel’s “biblical right” to the land of Palestine. In its more extreme versions of “Greater Israel,” the divine promise underwrites their imperial ambitions extending to modern-day Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Christian Zionists, the largest Zionist lobby in the United States, also subscribe to this ideology. The nominations of Stefanik and Huckabee fill them with glee. Major Trump donor and frequent guest at Mar-a-Lago, Miriam Adelson, wife of former casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and heir to his fortune, is an ardent Zionist and, according Trump, is his most trusted adviser on Israel and Palestine. Miriam Adelson demands the full annexation of the West Bank, and expects it to be completed in Trump’s second term.

I am a lifelong student of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, including years of academic study of the scriptures in the original languages, and applying them in preaching and teaching for over 40 years, and I can tell you that political Zionism is a supremacist ideology that is antithetical to the core values of Judaism. It is a radical departure, a “rupture,” from Judaic roots. It is a 19th century European nationalist movement, founded and led by power-seeking atheists who disdained observant Jews as weaklings and held them in contempt. Political Zionism was historically rejected by faithful Jews who saw their identity as members of a cherished spiritual community, not a worldly nation awash in power and violence. In our time, an increasing number of Jews are very intentionally separating their faith from the modern state of Israel, and identifying themselves alternatively as non-Zionist and anti-Zionist.

I can also tell you that the ideology of Christian Zionism is a dangerous heresy that distorts the meaning of the scriptures in pursuit of political power, messianic zeal, and fringe end-of-the-world fantasies. Despite what you may have heard, the divine promise of the land in the Bible was NEVER unconditional. It was always conditioned by the requirement that the covenant community enact justice and righteousness in the land. The commitment to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God must be marked by such things as care for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. Rampant injustice, cruelty, and oppression represent outright rejections of the commandments. As such, they render the divine promise null and void. Already twice in their history - 586 BCE and 70 CE – the Jewish people have been exiled from the promised land due, as their prophets taught, to failures to uphold their covenant responsibilities. So much for a “biblical right.”

As important as the theological dimensions of this issue are, more urgent are the real-life implications of forcing this deeply troubling ideology on the Palestinian people. We should be clear that annexation of the entire West Bank is now the clear intention of the Israeli and the United States governments. This would represent a massive land-grab, the takeover of the historic homeland of 3.2 million Palestinians who live and work and raise their families there, as they have for hundreds of years before the first European Jews began colonizing Palestine in the early 20th century. Annexation is the nightmare scenario. When Netanyahu spoke openly of his intention to annex the West Bank in 2019, the pushback from the Arab world and the international community was ferocious. It was appropriately seen as a grave violation of international law and a dangerous escalation that could plunge the entire region into violence. Six years later, many of the guardrails have been torn down, and the fascists in Israel’s and the United States’ governments are poised to enact this nightmare scenario.

Let’s also be clear that the annexation of the West Bank would be the end-game for Palestinian aspirations of statehood. The land of Palestine is currently de facto controlled by Israel. Once Palestinian land is de jure part of the state of Israel, this will open the floodgates for wide-scale ethnic cleansing and mass expulsions of Palestinians. The settler violence and military crackdowns in the West Bank that have been intensifying in the past 15 months, are set to escalate further. The Israeli Defense Minister has spoken openly of bringing what Israel unleashed on Gaza to the West Bank. It is increasingly likely that large numbers of Palestinians in the West Bank will be killed or forcibly driven out, as they were in the Nakba in 1947-48, when over 750,000 Palestinians, 80 % of the population at the time, were expelled from their homeland and forbidden to return.

If these things come to pass, it will represent a triumph for the Zionist lobby, in both its Jewish and Christian forms. Millions of establishment, pro-Israel Jews and millions of pro-Israel Christians believe that Israel indeed does have a “biblical right” to the West Bank (and East Jerusalem and Gaza). Now, it seems all the pieces are in place to enact this so-called right. Our nation’s foreign policy will be unapologetically governed by a heretical, extremely dangerous, religious doctrine, in itself a flagrant breach of the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state.

In short, there is no “biblical right” to the West Bank or East Jerusalem or Gaza, or any of the occupied Palestinian territories. The Zionist settler-colonial project set out from its outset to capture Palestine for itself and eliminate as many Palestinians as possible. Zionism is an illegitimate project no decent person should support. It has been responsible for generations of death and destruction, violence and counter-violence. Palestine must be decolonized. It’s the only chance for a just and lasting peace. Let us continue to speak out and actively resist the false, violent ideology at the heart of the Trump administration’s foreign policy toward Palestine and Israel. Let us keep hope alive for a just and lasting peace based on a decolonized Palestine and a liberated Israel, one democratic state with equal rights for all its citizens, and let us be part of making that a reality.