Q&A: For every 1 Jewish Zionist, there are 30 Christian Zionists, and Netanyahu exploits this

As Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza has killed thousands of Palestinians and turned the city into a ghost town, the outpouring of global outrage and calls for a ceasefire remains steady.

Yet, the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu continues to employ an unapologetic rhetoric, invoking biblical references to sell his war to the ultra-right not just in Israel but also in the US, where he is enjoying the support of Christian Evangelists, a majority of whom identify with the global Zionist movement for a ‘Jewish homeland’. Their belief comes from the end-of-the-world interpretation of the bible leading to the second coming of Jesus Christ.

This belief is not just theological but also has created significant support for Israel in the political circles of the United States. Under the Donald Trump regime, evangelists took their seats in the power corridors with the likes of Vice President Mike Pence and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In fact, Donald Trump also mentioned in a rally that the move to shift the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was ‘for the evangelicals.’

Even the current US President Joe Biden has publicly identified himself as a ‘Zionist’ and at least 100 members of Congress are avowed evangelicals.

TRT World spoke to Stephen Sizer, the former Vicar of the Church of England. A peace activist authoring three books on the Christian Zionist movement and its support for the state of Israel, Sizer was recently banned from licensed ministry in the Church of England until 2030 for his views on Zionism and Israel’s policies in the Middle East.

TRT WORLD: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been using biblical references in his speeches while he continues his relentless bombing campaign in Gaza. Why is he using such references in his war rhetoric?

STEPHEN SIZER: Well, Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he depends heavily on the United States to veto any UN resolutions critical of Israel's behaviour. And he needs US military support to counter any threat from Syria or Lebanon. Egypt, you may know, is the second largest recipient of US aid after Israel. The stick is used against Palestinians, against the Lebanese, against the Syrians. The carrot is used in Jordan to placate the Jordanian regime and in Egypt to keep them compliant with a US-Israel policy of continuing to colonise Palestinian territories, subjugate the people and as we're seeing in Gaza, commit genocide and, as we anticipate, force the majority of Palestinians in Gaza into Egypt, another Nakba. So he's using the scriptures to resonate with his Christian Zionist supporters in the US.

What is Christian Zionism and is it different from the Zionist movement that was created by Theodor Herzl in the late 19th century?

SS: Christian Zionism is actually the dominant form of Zionism. It has been since before the Zionist movement emerged in the 1870s, 1880s – there were Christians calling for the restoration of the Jews to Palestine from the 1820s, 1830s and the Balfour Declaration with the demise of the Ottoman Empire that Britain's entry, if you like, into the Middle East having defeated the French was to colonise Palestine. And he saw the role of the Jews as serving the best interests of the British Empire. Christian Zionism predates Jewish Zionism by at least 50 years and today dominates the Zionist movement at least 10 to 1, probably nearer 20, 30 to 1. For every Jewish Zionist, there are 20 or 30 Christian Zionists and therefore Netanyahu knows he needs the Christian, particularly the Christian right in America, Canada, Sweden, Holland and in much of Europe in order to maintain his position and to continue the expansion of the Zionist agenda in Palestine.

So Netanyahu’s use of these biblical references resonates with the Christian Zionist base in the United States and Europe?

SS: Yeah, he's quoting scripture. It doesn't mean anything to his Jewish constituents, but it does to those who believe the Bible is coming true. Christian Zionism – it predicated on the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people. They've been returned to the land in fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies that the Messiah is going to return soon. But there will be a war, a final war, an Armageddon, and it will be pitting Israel and its allies against the Arab world, against the communists, against those who have a different worldview to that of Israel.

When Netanyahu uses terms like the Amalek regarded as the staunch enemies of the Biblical Israelites, is he ascribing that term to the Palestinian Arabs?

SS: Yes, he is. The other one that’s used quite a lot is the Philistines. The Philistines were the traditional enemies of the Jews or the Israelites. And so they are painted as the bad guys. The Samaritans again were the bad guys in Israelite history. And so it’s no surprise the Samaritans today, those on the West Bank fulfil that negative role. So the Amalekites and the other Arab tribes that populated the coastal plain into which the 12 tribes of Israel were seeking to settle are seen as the enemy. So it’s an easy, superficial, simplistic way. It’s a kind of a dualism, Manichean worldview, the good guys and the bad guys, we are the good guys, God is on our side. And the bad guys are whoever we want to take out. So it’s convenient in the genocide that’s taking place, the ethnic cleansing in Gaza to demonise the Palestinians as either they’re all Hamas or they are the embodiment of the traditional enemies of the Jewish people in history.

These references are also being repeated with aplomb by Christian evangelist pastors in the United States, especially since the last month, they have upped the ante. It is also significant since Donald Trump claims that he fulfilled their agenda of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and US President Joe Biden identified himself as a zionist. How influential is this group in shaping the US Foreign Policy in the Middle East?

SS: It actually goes back to the 1960s, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan with the Six-Day War. The propaganda that went with the Six-Day War in 1967 was that Israel was attacked when actually Israel was being preemptive in attacking Egypt and so on. It was kind of a wake-up call for evangelical Bible-believing Christians, particularly in America. And it was exploited as the fulfilment of Bible prophecy. The Jews regained Jerusalem for the first time in 2000 years. So you had people like Billy Graham, Jimmy Carter and others saying, this is the Bible coming true. So the evangelical movement in America really woke up at that point and they began to read the Bible as if it was a Bible prophecy coming true.

We would call that chronological snobbery. It’s the idea that our generation is the most important one and that the Bible is coming true in our generation. The reality is it’s happened all the time. In the Reformation, this is going back 4 or 500 years. The Roman Catholic Church was seen as the Antichrist, as the enemy. During the early settlement in North America, a little bit later, it was the British seen as the Antichrist. In the early 19th century, it was the French. Napoleon was seen as the Antichrist figure. Then clearly Hitler will fill that role. But then Osama bin Laden was portrayed as the Antichrist. Then it was Saddam Hussein. And we changed the demon figure we have, depending on who we want to destroy or who we want to deem as our enemies.

So you’ll find books coming out in every generation attempting to say the Bible is coming true today. The reality is people forget when Bible prophecy doesn’t come true and they have this expectation. It’s like a drug. It becomes an addictive drug. They must have more. They must have more. And so you have the television evangelists, the popular Christian preachers know that if they can present their teaching and their interpretation of the Bible as something that’s dogmatic and about to happen, then they’ve got people’s attention.

And more importantly, they’ve got people’s money because a lot of it has to do with money. And exploiting, sadly, what’s happening in the Middle East. I think Trump and Netanyahu are quite cynical in their exploitation of the Bible because they know it furthers their own agenda. It keeps them in power. And Netanyahu knows that world attention, the global south, Turkey, Russia and other countries are highly critical of Israel’s policies and they’re desperate to hang on to the US administration and Europe to cover their backs.

So, for example, they’re talking about America funding or paying off Egypt’s debt if they take the two million people from Gaza. They’re now talking about asking the US and the UK to police Gaza after the war. Israel doesn’t want to do it, but it will bring others in. So it’ll be like Iraq, like Afghanistan. They’re subcontracting the colonisation, if you like, or mopping up.

What I’ve tried to do over the years is show that the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian scriptures actually teach the opposite of what they claim. God’s people in the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian Scriptures were always inclusive, not exclusive. It was always on the basis of faith, not race. You know, it’s absurd to suggest that Muslims are Arabs, so all Arabs are Muslims. That’s not true. You know, many non-Arabs are Muslim and many Arabs are not Muslims, they are Christians or Zoroastrians or whatever.

So this simplistic idea that the Bible promises an ethnic group that traces its ancestry back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, excluding Ishmael, Hagar, excluding the other nations that happen to be living in the Middle East at the time, is not consistent with what the Bible teaches.

So there is absolutely no justification for the killing of civilians, a genocide for the kind of saturation bombing we’re seeing in Gaza at the moment. And Netanyahu knows that. And so he’s pulling out of scripture a verse here, a verse there to try and placate his main constituency, which is the Christian Zionist movement.

Christian Zionist organisations and churches are sending thousands of people to Palestine, especially to the occupied territories. A lot of money also goes into funding these settlements as well. What role has this movement played in terms of consolidating Israel’s settler-colonial state?

SS: I think it’s had a significant influence. If you believe that the Jews are God’s chosen people, then as Christians, you will defend them, you will criticise our enemies, you will demonise their enemies, and you will lobby for them. You will elect politicians that agree with your theology. If you believe that God has given them the land between the Nile and the Euphrates, then in practical ways you will help support the settlements.

You will fund them, you will twin churches with settlements. You will advocate for them. You will talk. You will talk about Judea and Samaria. You will use biblical language to describe the land rather than Palestine. If you believe that Jerusalem is the eternal, undivided capital of Israel, then you’ll find practical ways to achieve that. And the most obvious way is to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem because if the US embassy is moved to Jerusalem, everyone has to follow suit because we all have to deal with America.

And so Trump’s promise to move the US embassy where his predecessors, Clinton, Obama, and others refused to because they knew it would be a powder keg. They knew it would be highly controversial. The international community does not recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Tel Aviv is considered the capital because Jerusalem is a divided city and a city which was taken by force, which is inadmissible in international law. The acquisition of territory by war is not a mere symbol.

War is between people. If you could steal people’s land by invading them and everyone would do it just because you have a more powerful army doesn’t mean you can walk into your neighbour’s land. So the campaign has been to move the US embassy. Move the embassy as we recognise Jerusalem as Jewish, as Israel. And therefore there’s no way that there is any viability to the Palestinian state because if you take Jerusalem out, you end up with what we would call Bantustans or ghettos.

So you turn Jericho, Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus, Jenin, and Ramallah into ghettos for Palestinians, and you take the best land for the Israeli colonies, the settlements. And it’s a bit like if you have your car on a hot day, the metal gets very hot. And if you sprinkle water onto the hot surface, what happens? It evaporates. So the little blobs of water gradually get smaller and smaller and smaller until they disappear.

That’s Israel’s strategy in the occupied territories and in Gaza. It is to depopulate them and steal more and more land. So Jerusalem is key to that strategy. And, if you believe that there’s going to be a war of Armageddon, that we are on God’s side, Israel is on God’s side, and anyone who opposes us is on the enemy’s side. If you believe that worldview, then you want to get on with it. You will weaponise, and you’ll build military alliances with Israel. You will sanction and threaten Syria or Iran, as we did with Iraq or Afghanistan. You will take out the countries that are deemed a threat to Israel’s viability and future. So you can see how Christian Zionists’ politics is shaped by their theology. What we believe affects how we behave.

So you are inferring that it has had an effect on America’s foreign policy, especially on the question of Palestine?

SS: Very definitely, because US politicians depend on US electorates to stay in power and the way in which the Zionist lobby has worked and it works in the UK and other European countries. For example, I can only really speak from the UK, but 80 percent of our politicians of the Conservative Party and the Labor Party are Conservative Friends of Israel, Labor Friends of Israel. And so in a two-horse race, how do you guarantee winning? you back both horses. You bet on both horses and you’ll always win. So the Zionist lobby backs US politicians who are Democrats and Republicans. And if a Republican politician or a Democrat politician begins to waver and has a conscience and for example says there must be a ceasefire in Gaza, the money will go to his opponent.

And so they’re all outdoing one another to prove that they are more loyal to Israel than their opponents. And it’s the same in the UK. We’ve had politicians disciplined in both the Conservatives and the Labor Party because they’ve challenged their government and the Opposition’s policy on Israel. They’ve said we must have a ceasefire and they’ve been criticised for that. Sadly.

So they back both sides in to ensure that whoever wins their agenda is fulfilled. How does the electorate come into this when electing people to the offices?

SS: You know, the electorate in America is largely influenced by its civic and religious leaders. And if the civic and religious leaders demonstrate their commitment to Israel and their belief that Israel is a fulfilment of God’s purposes, then that shapes the worldview of their constituents, their parishioners, and their members, who in turn will elect politicians.

So church and state work very closely together. It’s true in the UK as well. You know, I’ve been demonised and I’ve been isolated and others like myself for this very reason because we’ve challenged our own ecclesiastical leaders over their view on Israel. At the moment we’re challenging religious leaders to acknowledge that Israel is an apartheid state, that it’s practising segregation.

The wall is called Hafrada. In Hebrew, Hafrada means to separate. It’s separation, it’s apartheid. But we cannot get our religious leaders or our political leaders to acknowledge that because they know if they do, they will be challenged to implement sanctions, boycotts, and divestment, as we did in South Africa. So that’s at the moment what we are seeking to do and what we’re seeing in Gaza today is the outcome of that. The segregation is the denial of fundamental human rights to Palestinians because Israel does not want to share the land, share democracy with the Palestinians.

Does using such biblical references give some sort of cover to Netanyahu’s policies on Palestine and especially the ongoing bombing campaign in Gaza?

SS: Yes, it’s as I said, it’s a dualistic theology. Good guys, bad guys. God is on our side. God is not on their side. Therefore, it allows you to tolerate human rights abuses against your enemies, which you forgive on your own. It’s a dualism, a Manichean dualism.

The other dimension is that one of the promises that is a dominant theological view within Christian Zionism goes back to a promise God made to Abraham. God said to Abraham in Genesis 12, “I will make you a great nation. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you.” Now, what Christian Zionists have done is they’ve taken that promise that was made by God to Abraham and no one else, and they’ve universalised it. They’ve made it an eternal principle. So as long as we bless Israel today, God will bless us. If a nation a community or an individual curses Israel, God will curse them.

And so it’s called a prosperity gospel. The belief that America is a great nation, is a prosperous nation because it defends Israel. So there’s a vested self-interest. If I want to be a healthy, wealthy individual, if I want to be a prosperous person and my clergy and my pastor tells me, bless Israel and God will bless you, I’ll do it because it comes from that crude, self-centred desire, the belief that, you know, it’s like the lucky rabbit’s foot. If I rub the lucky rabbit’s foot, I will have luck.

You know, it’s superstitious. It’s a promise God made to Abraham and no one else. But it’s at the core of this theology. So Christian Zionists believe God will bless them and their nation as long as they support Israel. So it’s tragic.

We must treat everyone the same way, irrespective of their colour, ethnicity, or religion, and if our human rights, if our view of people is predicated on us and them, then then it’s self-defeating. And it’s going to lead, as we’re seeing in Gaza today, to pogroms, ethnic cleansing and genocide.