An ordained Baptist minister explains why uncritical support for Israel is not only not Biblically mandated, it stands in opposition to Biblical teaching in which the Arabs are also blessed as the descendants of Abraham.

“Much of our Christian emphasis on foreign policy in the Middle East today is based on the promise that God made to Abraham in Genesis 12:3, “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

The first half of this verse is a promise that God made to just one person, Abraham. The original Hebrew is in the second person singular, meaning that God is speaking only to Abraham. The King James Version correctly reflects this grammatical construction, since “thee” is singular, referring only to one person, whereas “ye” would refer to multiple persons.

Matthew Henry’s commentary states of Genesis 12:3a that “This made it a kind of league, offensive and defensive, between God and Abram.”

Of the second half of the verse, Matthew Henry says, This was the promise that crowned all the rest; for it points to the Messiah, in whom ‘all the promises are yea and amen.’ Note, (1), Jesus Christ is the great blessing of the world, the greatest that ever the world blessed with.”

Recently Genesis 12:3 has been spiritualized by Christian Zionist preachers, who say that this verse applies not just to Abraham, but also to Abraham’s descendants, specifically to the modern state of Israel founded in 1948. Supposedly, it means that evangelical Christians as individuals, and America as a nation, are bound to provide unquestioning support, financial and otherwise, to the state of Israel. It is said that if America fails to back up Israel in every way possible, financially, militarily and otherwise, then God will be through with America and will have us nuked.

When it is pointed out that the various Arabs nations, including Palestine, are also descended from Abraham, the Christian Zionists say that the promise of Genesis 12:3 applies only to the descendants of Isaac (Of course, there is no mention of Isaac in Genesis 12:3. They often misquote the verse, saying it refers to “blessing Israel,” but Israel is not mentioned in the verse either).

Zionists say, based on their non-literal, speculative, spiritualized interpretation of Genesis 12:3, that we are to give total, unquestioned support to some of Abraham’s children, while others of Abraham’s children are to be hated, persecuted, ethnically cleansed, bombed back into the Stone Age, maybe even nuked.

But in Genesis 21:13, 17-18 God also bestows His blessing on Ishmael and his descendants, saying, “For I will make him a great nation.” According to the same principles of interpretation by which we have made Genesis 12:3 a command for political support of the modern nation of Israel, Genesis 21:18 must be taken as a command for political support of the modern Arab nations. (Anybody want to start up a “Christian Ishmaelist” movement to lobby for Arab national greatness?)

Christian Zionists claim to have 70,000,000 followers in America, who insists that our politicians render unquestioning obedience to the military and political agenda of the Israeli Government.

Does God really demand that we support all actions and activities of the Israeli Government, even if those actions violate God’s moral standards of righteousness?

It should be pointed out that even in Old Testament times, when Israel was a nation specially chosen by, and ruled over by, Jehovah, He did not expect His people to support and endorse all actions of the government of Israel.

When the Government of Israel committed human rights violations, the prophets openly condemned them, 2 Kings 6:21 –23, 2 Chronicles 28:9-11, Nehemiah 5:7-11, Jeremiah 34:11-17, Amos 2:6-7, etc. Nowadays, liberal Jewish groups still protest human rights violations in Israel. Nevertheless, most fundamentalists Christians would never dream of doing such a thing – it is against their religion. It is their duty to either deny that such violations take place, or else to endorse and commend such violations. We have been told that God will smite us if we disagree with anything that Israel does.

The lawgiver Moses commanded the Hebrews that they should not oppress the strangers or non-Jews in their lands, Exodus 12:49, 22:21, 23:9, Leviticus 19:33-34, 25:35, Deuteronomy 10:18-19, 23:7, 24:17, 27:19. That message, of course, is not mentioned today – it is considered “politically incorrect.”

When King Ahab and Queen Jezebel unjustly expropriated the vineyard of Naboth, the prophet Elijah publicly denounced the kind for this unjust action, 1 Kings 21:17-24, Jehu cited this official action of the government of Israel against Naboth as justification for overthrowing that government, 2 Kings 9:25-26.

But nowadays, when the Israeli government expropriates the lands and properties of Palestinians without compensation, we look the other way and say nothing about it.

In Jeremiah 27:1-5, the prophet Jeremiah picketed a public meeting of the government of Judah with representatives of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon. He was protesting the foreign policy of Judah. We would never do anything like that today – it would be considered a violation of the command to “bless Abraham.”

In Jeremiah 27:6-17, the prophet advocated the surrender of Israel’s territory to the King of Babylon, in return for peace – today, we would call it “land for peace.” But today, our warmongering televangelists denounce “land for peace” as unthinkable for any reason whatsoever, and threaten God’s wrath against anyone who would support such a thing.

Supposedly it is better for Jewish and Arab children of Abraham to keep on killing each other over the land (while these sanctimonious war profiteers collect the money from sales of their Armageddon videos. Could it be a conflict of interest to allow American foreign policy to be dictated by these mega-millionaire preachers, who stand to make a profit if there is a war in the Middle East?)”