Director of Evangelicals for the Middle East Refuses to Debate Me

I read anti-Israel Christian leaders religiously. For example, Dr. Benjamin Norquist is the director of The Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East. Norquist has spent a significant amount of time among the Palestinians. In fact, he wrote his dissertation on Palestinian higher education in Bethlehem. On his profile, Norquist has a long black beard and wears a trendy keffiyeh to show his solidarity with the Palestinians. Recently, Norquist was featured on a podcast titled: “A Christian Approach to Understanding the Narratives About Israel-Palestine.” Norquist explained that his goal was to refute the myth that the conflict is based on religion and that the Palestinians have rejected peace. When I saw his post, I challenged him to a public debate, which he refused.

Norquist makes many questionable claims about the beliefs and behavior of Jews, Muslims, and Christians. So, I decided to write a response which addresses both his presentation of Islamic teachings, followed by a second response to his presentation of Christian doctrine. Norquist also wrote a synopsis of his presentation, which I will use as the basis of my refutation of his ideas. In this essay, I will demonstrate that the Jews are sandwiched between Islamic enemies who use the Quran to call for the destruction of the Jewish State, and Palestinian Christians who use the New Testament to call for the elimination of Israel.

1. Norquist erroneously contends that conflict is not based on religion.

Norquist proposed:

“Here’s the template for a cultural myth that is powerful in my evangelical community:

The conflict is religiously based and ancient. The history of the Jews is one of suffering and victimization. Israel is threatened on all sides by hostile neighbors, and Palestinians have rejected every offer for peace. In fact, Palestinians teach their children to hate Jews and Israel from an early age. So while Israeli society is fundamentally virtuous and democratic; Palestinians are basically violent in nature as is Islam. So what else should Israel do, then maximize its military power and maintain control over the Palestinian people and land? And, On October 7th, the evil that was allowed to grow in Gaza broke out. Since then, the tunnels have forced Israel’s hand, regrettably leading too many civilian deaths. But this is actually their fault – they elected Hamas after all, and Hamas is fundamentally dedicated to destroying Israel and the Jews wherever they are in the world.”

2. After I listened to the podcast, I sent Dr. Norquist’s the following challenge to debate:

“I listened to your podcast interview. You argued that there are myths surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and you would like to disprove them… I would like to challenge you to a public online debate regarding the accuracy of your claims. I will take the counter position that the conflict is religiously based and ancient. I will also argue that the Palestinians have rejected every peace offer.” 

3. Norquist refuses to debate me:

Norquist rebuffed: “Hi Daniel. I’m not interested in a formal debate, but I am happy to carry on a private conversation on messenger or a public conversation on the Facebook thread you originally responded to.”

5. Arab hospitality culture does not negate the fact that the Quran commands violence against the Jews.

Norquist sets out to disprove that the conflict is based on religion. In order to disprove that the conflict is based on religion, then Dr. Norquist would need to demonstrate that Muhammad and the Quran do not command their followers to attack Jews, which he cannot do. That being said, I have tried to read over some of Norquist’s writings, and he never actually refutes the fact that the conflict is rooted in religion. He generally starts by saying that he is going to counter these ideas, and instead of disproving them, he just starts telling personal reflections about how he met some super nice Palestinians, and therefore the conflict is not caused by religious beliefs.

Anecdotes about his encounters with Palestinians such as these: “I have never been more persistently and lovingly evangelized anywhere or any time in my life than by a Palestinian man. He and his family fed me and my son in their home and he preached the Gospel to me more insistently than ever before or after.”

That being the case, personal anecdotes about meeting friendly Palestinians does not provide the counter factual evidence necessary to prove that the Quran does not command violence against the Jews. There is no doubt that Arab culture is rooted in hospitality and offering gifts to guests. These are ancient practices. Actually, it is understandable why Norquist would be so overwhelmed by the hospitality of Arab culture compared to the culture of personal-space in America. Likewise, I also have met some super nice Palestinians. One time, I was in Bethlehem, and my friend lost her wallet, and the Palestinian police came and drove us around town to retrace our steps to try to find the wallet, which we did. However, despite their personal acts of kindness, the fact remains that Muhammad deemed the Jewish people to be perhaps his worst enemies.

5. The Quran teaches that the Jews are cursed.

The Quran teaches that the Israelites changed the Torah to suit their own sinful desires. The Quran portrays the Jews as law breakers who altered the Torah and were transformed into apes as a punishment from Allah. Surah 2:75 accuses the Jews of altering the Torah, it declares, “a party of them used to hear the words of Allah and then distort the Torah after they had understood.” A common view of Islam is that it is an extension of Judaism, meaning that the message of Islam came after the message of Judaism, and it borrowed traditions from the Jewish faith and adapted them. However, according to Islam, although Muhammad began preaching in the early 600s CE, there is a concept that Muhammad’s message was not a new adaptation of Judaism, but rather the original message of Abraham. Surah 3:95 states, “Allah has told the truth. So follow the religion of Abraham.”

Surah 3:67 distinguishes: “Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was one inclining toward truth, a Muslim.” Although the original message of Moses was seen as pure during his lifetime, his messages were considered to have been corrupted over time by the Jews, and Muhammad was calling on people to return to the original truth. This original truth was revealed in the Quran, and only Muhammad was preaching the uncorrupted message of Abraham. The logical outcome of this argument is that although the Israelites were originally given the true message, they had corrupted it, and therefore the Muslims became the legitimate heirs to the Abrahamic faith, and not the Jews.

The Quran teaches that the Jews sinned and lost their covenant with God. Surah 2:124 reviews the details according to Islam: “Recall when Abraham’s Lord tested him in certain matters and when he successfully stood the test, He said: ‘Indeed I am going to appoint you a leader of all people.’ When Abraham asked: ‘And is this covenant also for my descendants?’ the Lord responded: ‘My covenant does not embrace the wrong-doers.’” In addition, the Land of Israel loses its status as the central place of worship and is replaced with the Ka‘bah shrine in Mecca. Surah 2:125 continues the narrative: “And remember that We made this House (the Ka’bah) the center and sanctuary for mankind and enjoined the people to dedicate to worship the place where Abraham used to stand for prayer, and We urged Abraham and Ismail to keep My House pure for those who would go round it and those who would retire to it for devotion and prayer.”

Even worse, the Quran teaches that a group of Jews broke the Sabbath by working and fishing on a day when it was forbidden. For this crime, this group of Jews was transformed into despised apes as a punishment. Surah 7:166 proclaims: “So when they were insolent about that which they had been forbidden, We said to them, ‘Be you apes, despised.’” One Hadith presents a story where a man asked the Prophet Muhammad if it is permissible to eat lizards. Muhammad responded that some Jews were transformed into lizards as a curse, so a person should be careful about consuming them. The Hadith records that “an Arab of the desert came to” Muhammad. The man asked if it was permissible to dine on lizards. Muhammad responded: “O man of the desert, verily Allah cursed or showed wrath to a tribe of Bani Isra’il and distorted them to beasts which move on the earth. I do not know. Perhaps, this lizard may be one of them. So I do not eat it, nor do I prohibit the eating of it,” as reported in Sahih Muslim, Book 21, Number 4800.

6. Muhammad prophesied that the Muslims would eventually kill all of the Jews.

During his lifetime, Muhammad waged war against the Jews, took hundreds of Jewish women and children as slaves, and ultimately attempted to ethnically cleanse the Arabian Peninsula of Jews. In the early 600s CE, there were three Jewish tribes living in Medina. In 622 CE, Muhammad made a fragile peace treaty with the Jews. But it did not last, his relationship with the Jewish tribes began to spiral downward when he began to pressure them to convert to Islam. One of the first biographers of Muhammad, records him as calling on the Jews to “become Muslims. You know that I am a prophet who has been sent – you will find that in your scriptures and God’s covenant with you.” Of course, the Jews refused to abandon their faith, which led to constant tension among the two communities. In response, Muhammad began a military campaign to carefully defeat the Jewish desert tribes one by one.

In 624 CE, an unpleasant dispute between a Jewish jeweler and a Muslim female customer exploded into a small war. In the end, Muhammad waged war against the Qaynuqa Jewish tribe and forcibly removed them from Medina. In 625 CE, Muhammad claimed that the Jewish tribe of Nadir was plotting to assassinate him and started another campaign, which ended with the expulsion of the tribe. In 627 CE, the Angel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad while he was taking a bath and commanded him to pick up his sword against the Qurayza Jewish tribe. The Muslim forces laid siege to the Jewish Banu Qurayza’s fortress until they capitulated. Muhammad ordered that all of the men should be beheaded, roughly 800 Jewish men were executed, and the women and children were taken as slaves.

In 628 CE, some of the expelled Jews took refuge in the city of Khaybar. In the end, Muhammad led a campaign against the city and defeated the last stronghold of the Jewish tribes. After the battle, a Jewish woman prepared and poisoned a lamb for Muhammad as an act of revenge for the death of her father. Although the poison did not initially succeed in killing Muhammad, his health gradually declined, and Islamic tradition maintains: “He died as a result of being poisoned following his attack upon and conquest of the Jewish settlement of Khaybar.” Since a Jewish woman is blamed for the death of Muhammad, Islamic texts developed a unique animosity towards the Jews. By the end of his life, Muhammad would grow so frustrated with the Jews that he called for their complete eradication. Muhammad  prophesied that there would be a final battle between the Muslims and the Jews at the end of time. Muhammad declared: “The Day of Judgment would not come about until the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims will kill them.”

7. Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel and its replacement with a Islamic kingdom.

The successor to Muhammad was called the Caliph. For centuries, Muslims leaders would claim this title of successor to Muhammad for themselves. The Ottoman Empire spanned across the entire Middle East and was ruled by a powerful Muslim king, called the Caliph. After World War I, the Ottoman Empire was crushed by the British troops and the caliphate kingship position was abolished. For the Arabs living in the region, they were left with two choices: either continue fighting to restore the caliphate, or embrace nationalism and allow the empire to be chopped into countries. In 1928, a young Egyptian school teacher named Hassan al-Banna decided to develop a community devoted to restoring the supremacy of the Muslim Caliphate. The group was called The Muslim Brotherhood.

In 1987, Hamas was founded in Gaza as an offshoot of The Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is an acronym that stands for: “The Islamic Resistance Movement.” In the desert past, the Prophet Muhammad was recorded as predicting that there would be a final battle between the Muslims and the Jews at the end of time. Muhammad prophesied: “The Day of Judgment would not come about until the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims will kill them.” The 1988 Hamas Charter repeats this ominous directive from Muhammad, and Hamas believes that they are called to fight this ultimate war of annihilation to eradicate the Seed of Isaac. Thus, the root cause of the conflict is Islamic Jihad.

8. Part Two: Norquist sets out to disprove the evangelical community’s belief that God promised the land to the Jews.

Norquist set out to disprove the evangelical community’s belief that: “God brought Israel back to the land after 2000 years in exile, fulfilling land promises and prophecy from the Old Testament. According to those promises from God, the whole land belongs to Israel. And, God will bless our country if we stand with Israel (and curse us if we don’t). Indeed, God is planning for the state of Israel to play a significant role in His plans for the redemption of the world in the end times.”

9. The Bible is a book about the Land of Israel.

The Bible begins with God appearing to Abraham in Genesis in order to promise his descendants the Land of Israel: “And the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.’” The last sentence in the Bible concludes – following the Jewish canon order –  with an affirmation that God promised the land to the Jews: “So said Cyrus the king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth has the Lord God of the heavens delivered to me, and He commanded me to build Him a House in Jerusalem, which is in Judea. Who among you is of all His people, may the Lord his God be with him, and he may ascend.”

Please understand, I am not personally trying to convince the reader that God exists and that He promised the Jews the land. I am just pointing out that it is impossible to claim that the Bible itself does not contain a story about God promising the Jews the land. Despite this fact, after the completion of The New Testament, some early gentile Christians started applying the promises made to the Nation of Israel to themselves, which led to the belief that God had rejected the national mission of the Jewish people, and fulfilled their mission with an entirely new group of people called The Church. This teaching is known as Replacement Theology, which is the idea that the promises made to the Seed of Isaac transferred to The Church.

10. Rev. Naim Ateek tries to De-Judaize the Bible.

In the last few decades, Palestinian Christian theologians have invented an updated Palestinian version of replacement theology. Rev. Naim Ateek is the founder of a theological group called Sabeel (Arabic for “the way”). The organization is branded as The Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. In this revisionist teaching, Jesus is transformed into a Palestinian liberator from the Zionists. In the past, Jesus was a Jewish man living under the Roman occupation of Jewish land, but Jesus is transformed into a Palestinian man resisting the Jewish occupation of the land of Palestine. Ateek reinvents: “Palestinian liberation theology focuses on the humanity of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who was also a Palestinian living under occupation.”

Sabeel has become one of the leading international headquarters to spread anti-zionist propaganda into many western churches. Ateek is calculating and has devoted his life to developing a strategy to separate the Bible from Zionism. He wrote, “The center should go beyond the immediate area of conflict to reach Christians abroad, especially the West. This outreach should aim at… de-Zionizing the Bible.” Put simply, Ateek created a theological center devoted to finding a way to twist the Bible into a weapon against Jewish nationalism. These anti-Zionist Palestinian Christian theologians created a new political version of Christianity which was designed to cancel Zionism. Some have labeled this mixture of politics and religion Christian Palestinianism.

In his book, For Zion’s Sake, Dr. Paul Wilkinson demonstrates that Christian Palestinianism was invented as a response to cancel Christian Zionism. He summarizes the main tenants: “Christian Palestinianism is an inverted mirror image of Christian Zionism. All the basic elements of a Christian Zionist eschatology are reversed, so that the Bible is seen to be Christian, not Jewish, the land of the Bible is Palestine not Israel, the son of God is a Palestinian not a Jew, the Holocaust is resented not remembered, 1948 is a catastrophe not a miracle, the Jewish people are illegal occupiers not rightful owners, and biblical prophecy is a moral manifesto and not a signpost to the Second Coming.”

The goal of the Palestinian Christian ideology is to strip the Jewish people of the right to own the Land of Israel. In order to accomplish this mission, Ateek attempts to develop a line of reasoning that the early books of the Bible started with a narrow tribal mentality, but the later books of the Bible progressed toward a broader universal mentality. This transformation continued in The New Testament, which he contends called on the Jewish people to move past the belief that they require a specific piece of territory, and replaced it with the universal Kingdom of God. Ateek postulates, “in the New Testament, an amazing thing happens, the focus is no more on the land… the focus is on the Kingdom of God,” which is wherever “God is sovereign.” Old Testament Professor Walter Brueggemann echoes the same thought: “One can see at the edge of the Old Testament an inclusion of other people in the sphere of God’s attentiveness, an inclusion that intends to mitigate any exclusionary claim by Israel.”

Palestinian Christian Priest Elias Chacour exclaims: “We have been taught for centuries that the Jews are the Chosen People of God. We do not believe anymore that they are the Chosen People of God.” In this new version, God is described differently, God is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because that would be considered a form of discrimination against the rest of humanity. New Testament Professor Gary Burge phrases it this way: “The New Testament changes the spiritual geography of God’s people. The kingdom of God is tied to neither an ethnicity nor a place.”

Burge proposes, “Christ fulfills the expectations of Jewish covenant life and renews the people of God rooted in the Old Testament and Judaism. Thus, Jesus is the new temple, the new Israel.” He explains that the Rabbis got it all wrong: “To think Christianly about land and promise is to think differently than Judaism.” Finally, he concludes, “Christ is the locus of the promise of land!” From this reinvented framework, these Christian anti-Zionists leaders preach that the New Testament teaches that God has rejected the promise of the land, and thus, anyone who believes that God has given the land to the Jews is disobeying God.

11. Pastor Mitri Raheb steals the story of the Jewish people and applies it to Palestinians.

Palestine was never a nation. In 135 CE, the Roman Emperor Hadrian crushed a Jewish revolt in the Land of Israel and renamed the territory Syria Palaestina. So the name “Palaestina” has been floating around since the time of the Romans. The entire Palestinian narrative is based on a trick on words. The Arabs pretend that since the Romans referred to the geographical area of ancient Israel as Palaestina, then there must have been an ancient group who called themselves Palestinians. But, there was never an ancient community who called themselves Palestinians.

Mitri Raheb is the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. In his book, Faith in the Face of Empire, Rehab steals the entire story of the Jewish people and claims that it happened to the ancient Palestinians. Some have called this teaching Replacement Narrative, in which the ancient story of the Jewish people living in the Land of Israel is replaced with a narrative about the ancient Palestinians living in the land of Palestine. According to the Palestinian Replacement Narrative, the stories about the Jews are transferred to the Palestinians.

The Bible presents a chronology of the Jewish people building a nation and having their northern kingdom sacked by the Assyrian Empire. Raheb borrows the entire biblical Jewish story and says that it happened to Palestinians. Raheb begins by borrowing an ancient name for the Jewish people and falsely claiming that it was a reference to the ancient Palestinians. In Hebrew, the word “am” means “people,” and the words “ha aretz” means “the land.” The name: “Am Haaretz” means the “people of the land,” and it is an ancient title for the Jewish people living in the Land of Israel. But, Pastor Raheb borrows this traditional name for Jewish people and magically pronounces that it was a designation for the ancient Palestinians.

Raheb recounts: “starting with the Assyrian Exile, only a small minority group was deported, and only a small percentage decided to leave. The vast majority of the people remained in the land of their forefathers (2 Kgs 25:11.) They remained the Am Haaretz, the native ‘People of the Land,’ in spite of the diverse empires controlling that land. That is why in this book I choose the people of the land as the description for the native inhabitants throughout history, for it is they who are the enduring continuum.” In this sentence, Raheb takes an ancient name for the Jewish and people and deceptively tries to apply it to the Palestinians. 

Again, Palestine was never a nation. And yet, Raheb mendaciously speaks as if there were an ancient nation called Palestine which existed for thousands of years. Raheb exudes, “As a Palestinian, the history of my country can be traced from primeval times until the present.” He even goes further and pretends this ancient nation has been occupied by different empires for nearly three thousand years. In Raheb’ specious retelling, the Palestinians were originally conquered by the Assyrians. Raheb produces the list of foreign armies who conquered the Nation of Israel, and instead pretends that these conquests happened to the Palestinians.

Raheb posits: “The emergence of five regional powers around the first millennia BC and the development of those powers later into formidable empires have shaped the fate of Palestine throughout the last twenty hundred years as an occupied territory and a battlefield for competing empires. The occupation of Palestine by Israel today is thus another link in a long chain of uninterrupted occupation. Such occupation is the defining feature of of our history, beginning with the Assyrians (722 BC), the Babylonians (587 BC), and the Persians (538 BC), followed by the Greeks (333 BC), the Romans (63 BC), the Byzantines (326), the Arabs (637), the Tartars (1244), the Mamluks (1291), the Mongols (1401), the Ottomans (1516), the British (1917) and the Israelis (1948/67).”

There are many logical flaws that arise when you try to switch stories about the immemorial Israelites and somehow turn them into legends of the Palestinian progenitors. Here are just a couple: The New Testament recounts the geographical tension between the Jews and the Samaritans, who had their own semi-separate territory. But, the New Testament never mentions a separate nation called “Palestine” which had an independent territory located within the national borders of the Nation of Israel. Additionally, Raheb lists a dozen different armies that he said engaged in wars with the ancient Nation of Palestine, and yet, not one of these countries ever mentioned engaging in a battle with a nation called Palestine.

Ultimately, the Palestinian Replacement Narrative becomes incoherent. The Palestinians self-define themselves as Arabs, which means that they include themselves as being the descendants of the Arabs who invaded the Land of Israel in 637 BCE, but Raheb describes the ancient Palestinians as being conquered by the Arabs during the 637 BCE invasion. On the reverse side, the entire Bible tells a story about the Jewish people trying to defend their homeland from foreign conquerors, but Raheb tries to flip it, and force the Bible into telling a story about the Jewish people being foreign invaders. Shamefully, Raheb’s incoherent revisionist propaganda is repeated by Rev. Isaac Munther.

In the Bible, the Israelite prophets discuss the moral implications of their homeland being conquered by more powerful forces. Had they been sinning? Would God spare them? Rev. Isaac calls these Hebrew prophetic moral self-examinations of power and punishment: The Theology of The Empire. However, Rev. Isaac steals this theological discussion and applies it to the Palestinians. Rev. Isaac gave a famous sermon called, “Christ in the Rubble.” In his fiery sermon, Rev. Isaac labels the State of Israel a racist empire, which the Palestinians are resisting. He denounces: “Here in Palestine, the Bible is weaponized against us. Our very own sacred text. In our terminology in Palestine, we speak of The Empire. Here we confront The Theology of The Empire: A disguise for superiority, supremacy, chosenness, and entitlement.” And, “This war has confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal. Maybe it is the color of our skin.” Followed by, “The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling!”

Even though modern Israel is smaller than my own State of Missouri, Rev. Isaac intentionally exaggerates the size of the country, and presents Israel as a massive empire. In this replacement narrative, the Palestinians are engaged in a theological discussion of the implications of fighting against the empire of Israel, in a way similar to the Hebrew prophets. Ironically, Palestine is a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the Arab League, which band together with the power of an empire to harangue Israel relentlessly in the United Nations, but no mention is made of it.

12. Jewish self-determination is the attempt to break free from centuries of Christian European and Arab Muslim oppressors.

The United Nations functions like a social club based on a social contract. When it first began, the club established a set of rules that must be met to be handed membership. When a group of people meets these requirements, then they are granted statehood. In the legal structure of the United Nations, there are essentially two categories of rights: national rights and civil rights. National rights are given to a set of people who meet the criteria to be granted a state, which is also known as the right to self-determination. In contrast, civil rights are given to individuals within a country. Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people have the right to a state. In 1948, the Jewish people were granted the right to self-determination, meaning the Jewish people achieved statehood.

Many well intentioned people are concerned with finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One proposed solution is to create a Palestinian State located next to Israel, which will be located on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This theory is called, “The Two-State Solution.” The idea is that the Jewish people will have a territory where they can express Jewish self-determination, and the Palestinian-Arabs can have a territory where they express self-determination. Unfortunately, Norquist only promotes Palestinian Chrisitian leaders who do not believe that the United Nations had the legal authority to recognize the historical ownership of the Land of Israel by the Jewish people, instead they feel that only the Arab-Palestinians have the right to be proclaimed the true owners of the land.

13. Rev. Munther Isaac slanders the idea of a Jewish State as being a racist concept.

Instead of rejoicing that the Jews were granted the right to self-determination and freedom, many propagandists try to depict the establishment of a Jewish State to be an inherent act of discrimination against the Arabs. They deceptively try to portray Jewish self-determination to be a form of racial superiority, and therefore illegitimate, and thus the Jewish State should be undone. Rev. Munther Isaac is a Palestinian Pastor in Bethlehem. He wrote a letter to American Christians pleading with them to consider a Jewish State to be a racist concept. Rev. Isaac grieved, “Non-Jewish citizens of Israel are not just enduring discrimination. They are experiencing apartheid. Israel’s infamous 2018 nation-state law — which, among other things, stated that Israel’s right to ‘exercise national self-determination’ is ‘unique to the Jewish people’ — along with other policies and practices, has transformed de facto discrimination into racism de jure.”

(Please note: Rev. Isaac’s accusation is demonstrably false. In truth, the existence of a Jewish State is compatible with democracy. In fact, Freedom House is an organization that measures every nation by the same standards and determines if the countries should be considered democracies. Freedom House has determined that Israel is a free democracy.)

That being said, Rev. Isaac goes even further and smears Israel as a “terrorist entity.” He urges: “We need to talk about Israel as a terrorist entity.” Obviously, if the entire State of Israel is nothing but a terrorist entity, then it has no right to exist. However, the sinister double standard is that Palestinians already established a legally defined Arab State. In 2012, the UN General Assembly recognized Palestine as a non-member observer state, and the 2003 Constitution of Palestine heralds Palestine to be an Arab-Islamic State.

The truth is that the majority of the countries in the world are fashioned based on some type of ethnic or religious identity. For example, there are fifty-seven countries that self-identify as Muslim states. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation is an international coalition of countries founded in 1969, consisting of 57 Muslim member states. They champion themselves as “the collective voice of the Muslim world.” Palestine is recognized as a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which means that Palestine is already recognized as a Muslim State. There are 22 Arabs states which comprise the Arab League, representing roughly 460,000,000 citizens. Palestine is recognized as a member of the Arab League, which means that Palestine is already recognized as an Arab State.

Rev. Isaac has never denounced Palestine as being an apartheid state because it is legally defined as an Arab-Islamic State. There are twenty states where Arabs have already been granted the right to self-determination, but there is only one state where Jews have been granted the right to self-determination. And yet, Rev. Isaac calls for the Jewish State to be eliminated and replaced with an Arab State called Palestine. Clearly, he feels that the Arabs have the right to build a state, but he does not think that Jews should have the same opportunities. In conclusion, Rev. Isaac does not believe that Jews and Arabs should have equal rights.

14. Rev. Munther Isaac blames Israel instead of Hamas.

Anti-Zionists and Palestinian Christian leaders do not generally come out directly and say the words, “we support Hamas.” Likewise, it would not be common to hear them actually say the sentence, “Hamas is innocent.”  However, Hamas and these anti-Zionist Christian Palestinian leaders share the same exact message. Rev. Isaac wrote a famous sermon called, “Christ in the Rubble,” followed by an updated sermon called, “Christ is still in the Rubble.” In the fiery speech, he rages that Israel started the war, and that Israel is not defending itself from a Hamas attack. He openly mocks Americans hold that Israel is justified for fighting a war against Hamas. He laments that “so many defended” this war “as just and as self-defense.”

The co-founder of The Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East, Rev. Mae Elise Cannon goes even further and considers Israel to be a “pariah state.” She grieves about Israel’s continued engagements against Hamas: “If you do not advocate for the end of this war for the sake of Palestinians lives, do it for the Jewish people that you love. Because the longer this goes on, the worse antisemitism gets around the world, and the more Israel becomes a pariah state. “ Even if they do not say the exact words: “Hamas is innocent,” they argue that the Israeli army is attacking and the Hamas terrorists are defending, which is the logical equivalent of arguing that Hamas is innocent.

15. In Conclusion:

There is an unholy alliance between Hamas and the anti-Zionist Christian Palestinian leaders. In Rev. Isaac’s speeches, Palestinians are always portrayed as being like Christ, and the Jews are always depicted as killing Christ. Palestinians are always painted like Jesus as a baby, and the Jews are always painted as failing to live up the peaceful teachings of Christ. Here is how the partnership between Hamas and Palestinian Christians works. Hamas says that Allah has commanded them to murder every Jewish on earth, and these Christian Palestinian leaders come behind them and say that when Jews defend themselves, then it is like killing Christ. Jewish self-defense is repackaged as the ancient blood libel that the Jews killed Christ. Put simply, Christian Palestinian sermons are designed to deny Jewish people the right to self-defense.

Hamas and the anti-Zionist Palestinian Christians have the same theology. The end result is the same; Hamas uses the Quran to deny Jewish people the right to own the land, and Christian Palestinian leaders use the New Testament to deny Jewish people the right to own the land. Hamas teaches that Allah has rejected the Jewish people and given the land to Muslims, and the Christian Palestinians leaders teach that Jesus has rejected the Jewish people and given the land to the Palestinians. Both groups use their own religious text to wage war against Jewish independence.