Before we dive into this complex and controversial topic, it is important to clear up what anti-semitism is and what it is not. Anti-semitism can be defined as prejudice or discrimination against or hatred of Jews. It is NOT the legitimate criticism of policies or actions of the Israeli government.

There is also the issue of Genesis 12:3 which is commonly misinterpreted. Genesis 12:3 reads:

“I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

God spoke those words to Abram who later on was renamed Abraham. God said He would bless those who blessed Abram and curse those who cursed Abram. Christian Zionists would have you believe that, if anyone or any nation says anything or does anything that blesses the State of Israel or the Israeli people, that person or nation will be blessed. But if anyone or any nation says something bad about the State of Israel or the Israeli people or criticizes them in any way, they will be cursed. Clearly, that is not what this Bible verse says.

Okay, so what is really going on in Palestine and what is really behind the hostility between the Israelis and Palestinians? While the roots of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine can be traced back to the Zionist movement of the early 19^th century, Theodor Herzl, who convened the first Zionist Congress in Switzerland in 1897, is considered the “father” of political Zionism.

Zionism called for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Christian Zionists support the return of Jewish people to the Holy Land. They consider the proclamation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948 to be a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. They also believe that establishment of a new Jewish temple in Jerusalem is necessary to usher in the return of Jesus. They are wrong in both cases.

Christian Zionists believe that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is in line with the land promises God made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. However, these land promises were already fulfilled under Joshua and King Solomon. Joshua 23:14 says:

 “… not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God promised concerning you; all have come to pass for you, not one thing of them has failed.”

And 1 Kings 4:21 says:

“Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt.”

But this is not what Zionists and Christian Zionists believe. They believe that Israel has a God-given right to displace the Palestinians from their historic lands. And their actions match their beliefs.

David Ben-Gurion was in many ways the founder of the State of Israel and was its first prime minister. He led the Zionist movement from the mid-1920s until well into the 1960s. He also masterminded the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. In its definition of ethnic cleansing, Wikipedia characterizes ethnic cleansing as massive expulsion and also as a crime. Here is the definition:

“At the most general level, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the forced expulsion of an ‘undesirable’ population from a given territory as a result of religious or ethnic discrimination, political, strategic or ideological considerations, or a combination of these.”

The book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, written by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, is the most thorough and comprehensive book on the subject.  In that book, Pappe writes:

“The moment British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour gave the Zionist movement his promise in 1917 to establish a national home for the Jews in Palestine [known as the Balfour Declaration[,he opened the door to the endless conflict that would soon engulf the country and its people.”

After the Ottoman Empire collapsed during World War I, Britain took control over Palestine in 1920 (the British Mandate). But in February 1947, Britain decided to quit Palestine and transfer the Palestine question to the United Nations which had been formed two years earlier on October 24, 1945 after the conclusion of World War II. On November 29, 1947, the Partition Plan under UN General Assembly Resolution 181was adopted. Under this plan, Palestine was to be divided into three parts. On 42% of the land, 818,000 Palestinians were to have a state that included 10,000 Jews while the Jewish state would stretch over almost 56% of the land which 499,000 Jews would share with 438,000 Palestinians. The third part was a small enclave around the city of Jerusalem which was to be internationally governed and whose population of 200,000 was equally divided between Palestinians and Jews.

But back in 1942, David Ben Gurion had already publicly staked out the whole of Palestine for Israel. And in December 1947, the Zionist movement started its ethnic cleansing operations in Palestine. On March 10, 1948, Plan Dalet, the Zionists blueprint for ethnic cleansing, became operational. Here is an excerpt from Plan Dalet:

“These operations can be carried out in the following manner: either by destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their debris) and especially of those population centers which are difficult to control continuously; or by mounting combing and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the villages, conducting a search inside them. In case of resistance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state.”

Between December 1947 and May 14, 1948, Zionist forces destroyed 300 villages in Palestine and expelled 175,000 Palestinians. By July 1949, Zionist forces had killed 13,000 Palestinians, had destroyed and depopulated 530 villages and towns and had expelled 750,000 Palestinians. This became known as the Nakba (meaning the “catastrophe”). By then, Israel had captured 78 percent of historic Palestine.

In December 2009, a group of Christian Palestinians composed a “Kairos” document stating that the document  is the “Christian Palestinians word to the world about what is happening in Palestine.”  From that document:

“We declare that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is a sin against God and humanity because it deprives the Palestinians of their basic human rights, bestowed by God. It distorts the image of God in the Israeli who has become the occupier just as it distorts this image in the Palestinian living under occupation. We declare that any theology, seemingly based on the Bible or on faith or on history, that legitimizes the occupation, is far from Christian teachings, because it calls for violence and holy war in the name of God Almighty, subordinating God to temporary human interests, and distorting the divine image in the human beings living under both political and theological injustice.”

Seventy-five years after the proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948, and after numerous massacres and further displacement of Palestinians, South Africa applied to the International Court of Justice for measures to be taken against Israel concerning its military activities in Gaza. In its December 29, 2023 application, South Africa alleged that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, following the October 7, 2023 attack upon military and civilian targets by Hamas militants, amounted to genocide. In its application, South Africa stated that, between October 7 and December 29, at least 21,100 Palestinians had been killed and 1.9 million Palestinians (85 percent of the population) had been forcibly displaced from their homes. Since that time, the number of Palestinians killed since October 7, 2023 is believed to be closer to 200,000.

On November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Minister of Defense, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.