Jalil Dabdoub | Christian Zionism: Theologically absurd and morally reprehensible

It’s one of the most grotesque distortions in modern Christianity: Evangelicals waving Israeli flags in church, quoting Old Testament prophecies like political slogans, and cheering on a regime whose policies mirror the brutality inflicted on Jesus – the man whose teachings Christians say they follow. As followers of Christ, we are not just disturbed — we are morally outraged.

Christian Zionism is not Christianity – it’s blasphemous. It’s a politicised heresy dressed in biblical language. It’s a weaponised heresy wrapped in Scripture. It hijacks the sacred narrative of the Bible, overlays it with end-times mythology, and somehow concludes that Jesus — who taught enemy love and radical peace — endorses mass murder, Apartheid, and military occupation. All in the name of the Prince of Peace — a brown-skinned, colonised, Palestinian Jew crucified by the empire.

As people who love Jesus and strive to live by his teachings, we can never be silent. This isn’t the faith we inherited — nor is it the Jesus we know. This is a caricature of Christ drawn in the blood of the innocent.

Christian Zionism teaches that the modern entity of Israel is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy and must be defended at all costs — to accelerate the end of the world. In this worldview, Palestinian lives — Muslim and Christian alike — are invisible, irrelevant, or seen as expendable roadblocks to prophecy.

DELUSIONAL THEOLOGY

But this isn’t faith. Its delusional theology wrapped in divine-sounding jargon. And it causes real harm — not just to Palestinians, but to the gospel itself, and to how well-thinking people view us as Christians.

Many Christian Zionists insist they are being “biblical” while supporting mass murder, Apartheid, ethnic cleansing, land confiscation, military checkpoints, and the bombing of civilians. They speak of God’s covenant but ignore the cries of those suffering beneath its warped interpretation. They quote the prophets, but skip over their central message: “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God”.

Jesus — who we follow — never blessed conquest. He wept over Jerusalem. He healed Roman enemies. He welcomed the marginalised. He taught non-violence and blessed the peacemakers. He didn’t cheer for empires — he was tortured and executed by one. Christian Zionism has no room for that Jesus — unless he can be flattened into a bumper sticker or weaponised as a pawn in a theocratic death cult.

To understand how we got here, we must go deeper into history.

For centuries, Christian Europe persecuted Jewish people. From pogroms to ghettos to the Holocaust. Antisemitism wasn’t just a cultural accident that was deeply embedded in European society. When the horror of the Holocaust could no longer be ignored, Europe didn’t fully repent. Instead, it exported its anti-Semitism by backing the Zionist project in Palestine — not out of love for Jews, but as a convenient expulsion plan to remove them from European soil - a way to “solve” the European Jewish question by exporting it.

This matters. Zionism, a secular nationalist movement, gained global legitimacy through European guilt and imperial opportunism. Today, many Christians — often unaware of this history — have adopted a theology that sacramentalises genocide, Apartheid and displacement - calling it divine destiny.

APOCALYPTIC SCENARIO

Much of the so-called “support” for the Israeli entity among Christian Zionists is conditional. It hinges on an apocalyptic scenario where Jews must return to the land so Jesus can come back — and then convert or face eternal judgment. That’s not solidarity. That’s theological bait-and-switch. Its spiritual abuse dressed in prophecy.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Christians — the descendants of the early Church, the people still worshipping in the land where Jesus was born, crucified, and resurrected — are erased. When evangelicals talk about “biblical Israel”, they rarely mean the actual followers of Christ still living there today. Their theology maps over real human lives — flattening a complex, suffering people into abstract symbols in a religious game.

Recently, I read a reply by a Christian Zionist in response to someone questioning why so many people had to be killed by Israel. The response was stunning:

“It seems that you have never read the Bible, try it. You will see where it clearly states that large groups of people were killed for various reasons, only He knows why.”

This reply is chilling in its cruelty, morally repugnant, spiritually bankrupt, and ethically indefensible. It shows disturbing indifference to mass murder, and uses Scripture to justify atrocities. It dismisses real human suffering with a vague “only He knows why”, which makes a mockery of divine justice and undermines the Christian call to compassion, justice, and love. It dismisses real human suffering with a vague “only He knows why”, turning divine mystery into a justification of genocide The statement is a racist and arrogant display of hypocrisy at its finest.

Christianity, especially through the teachings of Jesus, emphasises mercy, empathy, and the sacredness of every human life. Using the Bible to excuse systematic violence and genocide reflects not faith, but a failure to grasp the gospel’s most fundamental moral truths.

Christian Zionism doesn’t just distort the gospel. It desecrates it. It’s not just wrong. It’s a theological Frankenstein stitched together from nationalism, colonialism, fear, and fantasy. It turns the gospel into a war cry. It replaces compassion with conquest. It mistakes maps for morality and converts Jesus into a military mascot.

Let’s be clear: this is not anti-Semitism. We oppose anti-Semitism in all its forms — but also reject the exploitation of Jewish identity to justify oppression. Christian Zionism doesn’t honour Jewish dignity; it hijacks it for an apocalyptic agenda.

We must return to the actual words — and the actual way — of Jesus. Not some warrior-Messiah from someone’s doomsday chart, but the crucified Christ who touched the outcast, forgave his enemies, and died with love on his lips.

Jalil S. Dabdoub is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com