4 Reasons to Support Palestinians, But Not Zionists or Hamas

October 19, 2023
American Life, Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, Orthodox International Relations, Palestinian Rights, Protests, Western Civilization
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The COVID narrative was transparently, laughably false. Afghanistan collapsed in short order after 20 years of brutal war. Brave US Marines needlessly died in a botched withdrawal that also featured the Taliban inheriting millions of dollars worth of US military equipment. That fiasco was a harsh blow to the credibility of the US National Security State. Americans suddenly woke up to the realization that “national security experts” were no more trustworthy than the “public health” variety. Everyone seemed to be questioning everything. So much so that when the government tried to sell Americans the Ukraine War as a matter of national security, few were buying it.

The propaganda fell flat. There was no great swelling of support. The tales of Ukrainian super heroism and stirring battlefield victories were seen as the propaganda fantasies they were. Reports of Russian atrocities were taken with heaping tablespoons of salt. Unfortunately for Americans, even without widespread support, tens of billions of tax payer dollars were tossed into the black hole of Ukrainian corruption. Isn’t representative government grand?

Despite the “current new thing” of the Ukraine War, Americans continued to focus on their domestic problems. American debt levels had exploded, the dollar was being devalued, and our Southern Border remained wide open. Americans were rightly fed up. The demand for the mRNA vaccines absolutely collapsed, despite the government pushing them relentlessly. Parents went into rebellion over the abysmal state of public schooling with its curriculum of perverse insanity. Given the complete incompetence of the infamous 3-letter agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, EPA, CDC, NIH, etc.) and their obvious political bias, there was serious talk of defunding or even abolishing some of them. Even among “big government” conservatives, who usually love the Military-Industrial-Intelligence complex, there was palpable exasperation with the Feds. The American people finally seemed to be waking up.

Then the latest round of the seemingly intractable Israel – Hamas conflict happened, and all that was out the window. US domestic priorities have disappeared. Ukraine? Who cares about that? America First has been tossed over the side in favor of undying support for Israel. Formerly sensible people now evidence a raging desire to go to war with pretty much the entire Middle East. Blatant war propaganda is eagerly, unquestioningly swallowed up by the masses as if it were the Gospel truth.

Welcome to collective hysteria. Again.

And, of course, we have been given an ultimatum. Either we support the Israeli National Security State, or we support the terrorist organization Hamas. As an Orthodox Christian, I completely reject this immoral choice. I support neither of these two terror-based organizations. I support Christ, the Prince of Peace, and wish to stay as far away from other people’s wars as possible. At the same time, I support the Palestinian people who have suffered so much since 1948, particularly the Christians among them. Below are four reasons why this is where I stand.

Jesus over Palestine or Israel

1. Orthodox Christians can’t support mass murder, no matter who’s doing it.

Let’s get this out of the way upfront. The targeted killing of innocent civilians, particularly children, is completely immoral. There is no justification for it, no matter who does it. To whatever extent that Hamas intentionally killed, harmed, and kidnapped civilians, their actions are morally indefensible. It does not matter what they have suffered. It does not matter what they think they have to gain. It does not matter how it is done, the ages of the people affected, or who supports them in their atrocities. Targeting civilians is a moral abomination. There are no exceptions.

Since Her founding in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, the Orthodox Church has maintained an unbroken presence in the Holy Land. Below is what the current Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, under whose leadership are most of the Christians in Israel and Palestine, had to say about targeting civilians:

If you want condemnation of whatever Hamas did in regards to targeting civilians in any way, then there you have it.

What Hamas did was absolutely immoral, but we can’t treat their actions as if they happened in a vacuum. The attacks by Hamas were carried out by escaped prisoners from the world’s most closely guarded and surveilled open air prison. How they managed that jail break, and what atrocities they did or not did not commit, are questions that are unlikely to be answered any time soon. As soon as the attacks happened, the Western propaganda apparatus kicked into high gear to dehumanize the Palestinians, Christian and Muslim alike, to prepare the way for whatever retaliation the Netanyahu government sees fit to inflict upon them.

Hamas was said to have beheaded babies, slaughtered concert goers, killed whole families in their homes, and kidnapped hundreds of innocent people. How much of all that is true? No idea. All I can ask is this – can we really trust stories brought to us by the same Western propaganda apparatus that lied us into going to war over Kuwait, bombing Serbia, invading Afghanistan, invading Iraq, destroying Libya, destroying Syria, and provoking a proxy war in Ukraine? The same propaganda apparatus that defended lockdowns, mRNA vax mandates, and still refuses to come clean about the health affects of the jabs? You would think that, after COVID, everything reported as truth by Western media would be treated with a healthy amount of skepticism. (Along with anything reported by Hamas, of course, as the West does not have a monopoly on lies and propaganda.)

We had gotten to that level of healthy skepticism in many quarters, until Israel was involved in a war. It turns out that many of the same people, who were previously skeptical of “official sources”, have now done a complete 180. They now demand that we accept everything at face value that we are told by the mainstream media, the US Government, and the Israeli Government, or we support the murder of innocent Jewish babies by terrorists!

One thing is certain, truth is not the point of Western media reporting. The point is to evoke an overwhelming emotional response, thus generating mass support for apocalyptic of levels retaliation against Palestinians in Gaza. The reporting of harm to Jewish babies has been particularly effective in unleashing a torrent of pure hate. It is now routine to read calls for total ethnic cleansing, mass murder, or both to rid Israel of the Palestinian scourge for all time. In a mere 80 years, Jews have gone from victims of a “Final Solution” to potential architects of one.

There are 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of whom are kids. Their lives, and all other innocent lives, have been written off as of no consequence by the Israeli government and by Zionists all around the world.

US government officials and politicians quickly gave Israel a blank check, absolving its military from any and all responsibility for the deaths of innocent people caused by bombing the most densely populated spot on the entire planet.

While a ground offensive has been postponed, so far Israel has dropped approximately 10,000 or so bombs on Gaza. The results have been horrific.

Quite a number of the victims of Israeli bombing have been children, as one would expect when lobbing powerful explosives into densely populated cities full of them. Western governments and media, however, don’t seem particularly concerned with their welfare. Some children are more equal than others it would seem. While the West rages about the sin of anti-Semitism, which is really anti-Zionism in most cases, no one seems to notice when Palestinian lives are treated as completely worthless.

Gaza is an open air prison for Palestinians. It is blockaded on all 4 sides. Which is why the Israelis were able to cut off food, power, and water (90% of which is undrinkable anyway). If the situation were reversed, and a Muslim government were holding 2.3 million Jews under such conditions, what do you think world reaction would be? Now add in a genocidal bombing campaign. How fast would the US be at war to free those Jews? However, no one in power in the West seems to care about Palestinians.

Perhaps we should ask God for His opinion on the subject?

The level of Palestinian oppression in Gaza is absolutely staggering. Palestinians stuck in this situation have a right to be angry. Especially since they are now being punished, as a collective whole, for whatever the actions of Hamas actually were. Most Palestinians in Gaza were either not born or too young to vote the last time any elections were held in 2006. Innocent Palestinian women and children are not responsible for Hamas, though the Israeli Government most certainly is. Hamas is a radical group that Israel itself helped to form in order to undermine the secular PLO of Yassir Arafat:

To a certain degree, the Islamist organization whose militant wing has rained rockets on Israel the past few weeks has the Jewish state to thank for its existence. Hamas launched in 1988 in Gaza at the time of the first intifada, or uprising, with a charter now infamous for its anti-Semitism and its refusal to accept the existence of the Israeli state. But for more than a decade prior, Israeli authorities actively enabled its rise.

 

At the time, Israel’s main enemy was the late Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party, which formed the heart of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Fatah was secular and cast in the mold of other revolutionary, leftist guerrilla movements waging insurgencies elsewhere in the world during the Cold War. The PLO carried out assassinations and kidnappings and, although recognized by neighboring Arab states, was considered a terrorist organization by Israel; PLO operatives in the occupied territories faced brutal repression at the hands of the Israeli security state.

That is not ancient history. Support for Hamas has been a recent policy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s that seems to have had unintended blow black:

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” the prime minister reportedly said at a 2019 meeting of his Likud party. “This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

Not only has Israel imprisoned the Gaza Palestinians, but it has seen fit to saddle them with a radical  Islamic movement as a government. One wonders how far the Palestinians could have advanced, if the Israeli Government had simply left them alone to sort out their own governance?

As an Orthodox Christian, I cannot support the actions of Hamas. Neither can I support the Israeli government’s oppression of the Palestinian people, nor the current genocidal campaign against Gaza. Both Hamas and the Israeli Government are morally abhorrent.

2. This Oppression Cannot Continue.

Whether we want to admit this or not, the European Zionists who founded the State of Israel did so as a colonial action against the indigenous population.  They were not native to the land, but came and seized it from those who were. Nor were the resident Palestinians simply “Arabs” who had migrated to Palestine after the coming of Islam. The Christian Palestinians are very much descended from the original Hebrews. The Muslim Palestinians largely are as well, though their ancestors had the opportunity to freely marry and produce offspring with a much larger pool of potential mates.

While Zionism was originally an atheistic enterprise, the nascent Israeli state used Jewishness as a test of true citizenship out of necessity. This led to Israel’s character as a “Jewish State”, rather than a modern state with citizenship rights separated from religious identity.  Here is a discussion from Haaretz concerning Zionism, Israel, and the failure to form a secular Israeli identity:

For the atheistic Zionists, God was dead and therefore the Holy Land became the homeland; all the traditional holidays became national holidays; and Jerusalem stopped being a heavenly city and became the very earthly capital of an eternal people. But it wasn’t these decisions, or many others, that prevented secular nationalism from serving as the foundation for the establishment of the State of Israel.

 

The main reason for Zionism’s inability to establish a secular entity with a constitution – in which religion is separated from the state – lay elsewhere. The problematic nature of defining the “Jew” according to secular criteria – cultural, linguistic, political or “biological” (despite all efforts, it’s still impossible to determine who is a Jew by means of DNA) – was what eliminated the option of a secularized identity.

 

For example, in 1918, Ben-Gurion – the future founder of the state – was convinced, as were many others, that most of the population of the Land of Israel had not been exiled, but converted to Islam with the Arab conquest, and therefore was clearly Jewish in origin.

 

In 1948, he had already given up on this confused and dangerous idea, and instead asserted that the Jewish people had been exiled by force and had wandered in isolation for 2,000 years. Shortly before that, he presented the weak and depleted religious Zionist stream with a valuable gift: In the famous “status quo” letter, all the laws pertaining to marital status, adoption and burial were given over to the Chief Rabbinate. The fear of assimilation was the nightmare shared by Judaism and Zionism, and it won out in the end.

 

Within a short time, the principle of the religious definition was accepted in identity politics: A “Jew” is someone who was born to a Jewish mother or converted, and is not a member of another religion. In other words, if you don’t meet those conditions, you cannot be a part of the revival of the “Jewish people,” even if you adopt Israeli culture, speak fluent Hebrew and celebrate on Israeli Independence Day. It’s a very logical historical process: Since there is no secular Jewish culture, it’s impossible to join by secular means something that doesn’t exist.

From the founding of Israel in 1948, non-Jews suffered violent expulsion and second-class status for those who remained. Following their conquest in 1967, the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have had no citizenship rights at all. This situation cannot continue without eventually destroying Israel itself. At some point, Jews will have to learn to live with Christians and Muslims in the same way they did prior to the founding of the Zionist State. Honest and thoughtful Jews have said as much:

The Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz, whom Isiah Berlin called “the conscience of Israel,” warned that if Israel did not separate church and state it would give rise to a corrupt rabbinate that would warp Judaism into a fascistic cult.

 

“Religious nationalism is to religion what National Socialism was to socialism,” said Leibowitz, who died in 1994.

 

He understood that the blind veneration of the military, especially after the 1967 war that captured Egypt’s Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Syria’s Golan Heights, was dangerous and would lead to the ultimate destruction of Israel, along with any hope of democracy.

 

“Our situation will deteriorate to that of a second Vietnam, to a war in constant escalation without prospect of ultimate resolution,” he warned.

 

He foresaw that “the Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police — mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 million to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel. The administration would have to suppress Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab Quislings on the other. There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Force, which has been until now a people’s army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations.”

What many Americans do not realize is that there are millions of Jews who are not Zionists. In traditional Rabbinic Judaism, only the Messiah can restore the Kingdom of Israel. For anti-Zionist Jews, Judaism is a religion not a land grant. These Jews consider the State of Israel, and the presuppositions on which it was founded, to be completely invalid. Many of these anti-Zionist Jews, including rabbis, support freedom for the Palestinians and inclusion for them in Israeli society as equals.

Not surprisingly, Zionist Jews and Christians frequently vilify anti-Zionist Jews, and are even known to attack them physically.

There are many, many Jews who support the cause of peace. On October 18th, 2023 over 350 American Jews, including two dozen rabbis, held a prayerful sit-in at Congress demanding a ceasefire in Gaza as thousands more protested outside. Nor are they alone, as there are substantial Jewish peace movements around the world and most especially in Israel. Pro-peace Israelis oppose the criminal government of Bibi Netanyahu, who is both unpopular and on trial for charges of fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes.

To keep his freedom, Netanyahu formed a governing alliance in 2022 with Jewish ultra-nationalists whose eliminationist rhetoric sounds identical to that of Hamas. Netanyahu is highly unpopular with Israeli military leaders and members of the security services. Netanyahu’s policy of supporting Jewish settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank required deploying half the active duty Israeli army to guard the settlers. That is a high price for the Army to pay for placating Netanyahu’s political allies. This occupation duty has reduced the time Israeli soldiers can spend improving their combat readiness. It is also harsh duty involving a great deal of daily friction with native Palestinians. Some Israeli reservists, bitter about their experiences on active duty in the West Bank, have declared their unwillingness to mobilize in the current call-up. Many Israelis believe the deployment of so many troops to the West Bank was a critical factor in enabling the Hamas rampage.

It seems strange, given all the previously stated information, that the US and the West are willing to support Palestinian genocide following the lead of such a corrupt, unpopular Prime Minister.

The satire Website The Onion absolutely nails the situation with an unpopular and indicted Netanyahu who is trying to benefit politically from the negligence of his own government

Despite the oft expressed desires of the radicals who control the Israeli Government, Israel is unlikely to completely kill off or expel the Palestinian populations in Gaza, West Bank, and within the borders of Israel proper. That means an endless cycle of violence, retaliation, and more violence. Such a bleak future should be completely unacceptable for Western supporters of Israel. By continuing to oppress others, Israelis will increasingly become the monsters they claim to oppose. By helping them do it, the US and the West will become equally monstrous.

Everyone living within territory controlled by Israel should have equal rights. For those who object to that statement on Biblical grounds, let me make something abundantly clear. The Orthodox Catholic Church is Israel from a Christian Theological perspective. For Christians, the modern State of Israel has no connection to the Kingdom of Israel whatsoever. Modern Rabbinic Jews are largely not descended from Abraham, but rather from non-Hebrew converts to Judaism. Rabbinic Judaism is not the faith of Moses. Rabbinic Judaism is younger than Christianity, formulated only after the destruction of the 2nd Temple in AD 70. Jesus and the Apostles would not recognize Rabbinic Judaism as the same as the Temple-based faith they practiced when they were on Earth. The Talmud contains anti-Christian teachings, and can be used to justify valuing Jewish lives over non-Jewish ones.

For more information on the previous statements, see 3 Harmful Myths Most Christians Believe About Judaism

By justifying Israeli oppression and murder of Palestinians, you are not pleasing God. You are only bringing judgment upon yourself. Regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or the inconvenience their existence poses to those in power – all are made in the image of God and are worthy of infinite compassion. No one deserves to grow up under oppression just because of where and when he was born.

We are constantly being presented with a false choice between maintaining the status quo and the destruction of Israel. That is not at all the case. A third way of citizenship for all is a pathway to lasting peace.

3. This is not solely a Jew versus Muslim Conflict.

It is hard to think of a more vilified group of people than Muslims. I am not going to defend Islam, an anti-Christian religion which has left sorrow and slaughter in its wake since the 7th Century AD. However, individuals are not a religion. This is a distinction lost on those who think the only good Muslim is a dead one. The American and Israeli National Security States have capitalized on Western fears of Muslims to justify both oppression of the Palestinian people and the endless wars since 9/11.

Not only is that murderous prejudice indefensible, but in the case of Palestine, it is a complete misrepresentation of the historical situation. Since the founding of Israel in 1948, Christian Palestinians have suffered alongside the Muslims. American Evangelicals may love Zionist Jews, but they have not returned the favor to Christians under Israeli occupation.

Even now, there are Christians in Gaza who are being bombed by the Israelis. Below are pictures from an Orthodox Church in Gaza:

This Church is extremely close the Baptist Hospital that suffered a “blast” of disputed origin

Update 10/20/2023: The IDF targeted the Church of Saint Porphyrius on 10/19. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem expressed its “strongest condemnation” of the strike. “Targeting churches and their institutions, along with the shelters they provide to protect innocent citizens, especially children and women who have lost their homes due to Israeli airstrikes on residential areas over the past 13 days, constitutes a war crime that cannot be ignored,” the patriarchate said in a statement.

These are Orthodox Christians, not Muslim Jihadists, and they are being murdered while many American Christians cheer every bomb dropped by the IDF. Nor is Christian persecution limited to only Gaza and the West Bank. Christian persecution by radical Zionists, aided and abetted by the Israeli Government, has been increasing for years inside Israel – spitting attacks, beatings, violations and seizures of Holy Sites.

Based on their public statements, it is quite clear that the Zionist radicals dominating the Israeli government want to completely remove all Christians from the Holy Land. American Christians should be standing with those suffering under Israeli persecution. Instead, far too many choose to look the other way. In contrast to them, as Orthodox Christians, we boldly say no to violence, no to terrorism, and no to the oppression of Palestinian Christians and Muslims alike.

4. Persecution and Suffering Won’t Stay Contained.

Israel has asked for immediate aid of $10 billion from the US. No doubt that amount and more will be provided, even as the US faces an unprecedented fiscal crisis. The US and Western National Security States are fully on-board with whatever Israel needs. That will include censorship of anti-Israel / pro-Palestinian speech. COVID laid down the precedent for censoring speech and controlling behavior in a “crisis” to prevent “misinformation” and keep everyone “safe”. Now that Western governments have combatting both terrorism and antisemitism as justifications, expect Orwellian levels of control. Westerners ignore this trend at their own peril. Where will dissidents turn for support, when so many of their fellow citizens will be cheering on the repression?

There is no reason for Americans to assume only foreigners will bleed in this conflict. We could easily find ourselves sucked into a regional war. Biden has sent two carrier strike groups to the Middle East already, and appears ready to commit ground troops. Israel has attacked Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah has 100,000 troops and an impressive arsenal. This war can get out of hand very quickly. The US is already drowning in debt with a severely dysfunctional social order, even without a major war on its hands. Imagine what could happen if we find ourselves in the middle of one?

We Christians worship the Prince of Peace. Our Lord even said, “Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.” Time to take our Faith in Christ seriously, and demand peace and justice for the Palestinians.

Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America

While the world may have moved on from Ukraine, we certainly haven’t. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is still under severe and mounting persecution. If you have not signed our latest petition supporting the UOC, and holding the Patriarch of Constantinople accountable for his role in persecuting the Church of Christ, please click here to sign.

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