In a case of tragic coincidence, the place most closely associated with the uplifting story of Jesus Christ, Christmas and the teachings of the Bible is now being subject to some of the most sustained and severe death and destruction that modern society has seen.
Rev. Munther Isaac, the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour, joins host Chris Hedges on this special episode of The Chris Hedges Report to revisit the story of Christmas and how it relates to Palestine then and now.
Rev. Isaac wastes no time in reminding people that despite the usual jolly associations with Christmas, the story of Jesus Christ is one of oppression, one that involves the struggle of refugees, the rule of a tyrant, the witnessing of a massacre and the levying of taxation. “To us here in Palestine,” Rev. Isaac says, the terms linked to the struggle “actually make the story, as we read it in the Gospel, very much a Palestinian story, because we can identify with the characters.”
Hedges and Rev. Isaac invoke the story of the Good Samaritan to point out the deliberate blindness the world has bestowed upon the Palestinians, particularly in Gaza in the midst of the ongoing genocide. The conclusion of the [Good Samaritan] story is that there is no us and them, Rev. Isaac tells Hedges. “Everybody is a neighbor. You don’t draw a circle and determine who’s in and who’s out.”
It’s clear, Rev. Isaac points out, “the Palestinians are outside of the circle. We’ve been saying it—human rights don’t apply on us, not even compassion.”
Host:
Chris Hedges
Producer:
Max Jones
Intro:
Diego Ramos
Crew:
Diego Ramos, Sofia Menemenlis and Thomas Hedges
Transcript:
Diego Ramos
Transcript
Chris Hedges
In the early 1980s I was in a refugee camp for Guatemalans who had fled the war into Honduras. It was a cold, dreary winter afternoon. The peasant farmers and their families, living in filth and mud, were decorating their tents with strips of colored paper. That night, they said, they would celebrate the flight of Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus to Egypt to escape the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem ordered by Herod. The celebration is known as the Day of the Holy Innocents.
“Why is this such an important day?” I asked.
“It was on this day that Christ became a refugee,” a farmer answered.
I knew the passage from Matthew about the flight to Egypt by heart. I had heard my father, a Presbyterian minister, read it in services every Christmas in the farm town in upstate New York where I grew up. But it took an illiterate farmer, who had fled in fear with his wife and children from the murderous rampages of the Guatemalan army and the death squads, who no doubt counted friends, even relatives, among the dead, a man who had lost everything he owned, to explain it to me.
The story of Christmas—like the story of the crucifixion, in which Jesus is abandoned by his disciples, attacked by the mob, condemned to death by the state, placed on death row and executed—is not written for the oppressors. It is written for the oppressed. And what is quaint and picturesque to those who live in privilege is visceral and empowering to those the world condemns.
Jesus was not a Roman citizen. He lived under Roman occupation. The Romans were white. Jesus was a person of color. And the Romans, who peddled their own version of white supremacy, nailed people of color to crosses. The Romans killed Jesus as an insurrectionist, a revolutionary. They feared the radicalism of the Christian Gospel. And they were right to fear it. The Roman state saw Jesus the way the American state saw Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Then, like now, prophets were killed.
Christmas is not about the virgin birth. It is not about angels. It is not even about a historical Jesus. To debate these topics is to engage in a theological Trivial Pursuit. The Christmas story is about learning how to be human, about kneeling before a newborn infant who is helpless, vulnerable, despised and poor. It is about inverting the world’s values. It is about understanding that the religious life—and this life can be lived with or without a religious creed—calls on us to protect and nurture the least among us, those demonized and rejected.
The Rev. Munther Isaac, the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour, displays at his church the Nativity scene with the figure of the infant Jesus, wrapped in a checkered black and white Kefiyeh, lying in a pile of rubble. Joining me to discuss the meaning of Christmas is Rev. Isaac.
So let’s begin Munther with the Christmas story. Last Christmas, this Christmas, of course, you have created this creche. What is it that you were trying to say through that symbolism?
Munther Isaac
Yeah, actually, when we made it at the church. Some, even our church, were a bit surprised and shocked, because we’re accustomed to think of Christmas as a joyful occasion. But this Sunday we presented this creche, I actually preached and said, this is actually the meaning of Christmas. This represents Christmas more than any other thing, maybe. The idea of Jesus identifying with an occupied community, a community that is oppressed in its pain and suffering. I think many times we forget the actual circumstances in which Jesus was born. We make it a romantic story, forgetting that, in essence, the vocabulary of that story is a refugee family, a tyrant, a massacre, taxation. These are all terminologies that we don’t usually associate with the Christmas story, but to us here in Palestine, they actually make the story, as we read it in the Gospel, very much a Palestinian story, because we can identify with the characters. And so the message to me was clear—if Jesus was born today in our world, he would be born in Gaza under the rubble as a sign of solidarity with the oppressed. Just as Jesus was born 2,000 years ago among an occupied community, a community that is under the yoke of a ruthless empire, in circumstances in which children were massacred. And interestingly, sadly, out of all places, they escaped to Egypt in the very same way today people from Palestine, from Gaza, escape into Egypt. So we see it’s the same story. That’s what I tried to emphasize. And in that, we find comfort as Palestinians, because we can look at Jesus not just as one of us, but as someone who is in solidarity with us, identifies with our pain and struggle and is in solidarity with us.
Chris Hedges
Let’s talk about that call in the Christian gospel—we are enjoined to love our neighbor, not our tribe. This is perhaps most evident in the story of the Good Samaritan. Oftentimes religious systems become tribal. We take care of our own and we ignore everyone else, that’s certainly the ethos of Zionism. But that’s not the message in the Christian gospel, and perhaps you can address that.
Munther Isaac
Yeah, and I’m grateful you mentioned the story, the parable of the Good Samaritan, because actually, this is one of my favorite stories. And in that story, actually, the people who fail to show mercy and compassion, the people who fail to see the Samaritan as a neighbor, are religious. They represent the religious institution. In our religiosity, we become tribal. In our religiosity, we focus more on what to do and not to do, and forget the essence of our faith, which is love God and love neighbor. So I think in that story, in its essence, Jesus is lamenting the fact that religious leaders failed to show compassion to that wounded person. And then it was a Samaritan, someone who was despised. You know, the Samaritans were a despised community, a community that, at the time, were considered even demon possessed. When the disciples of Jesus were with him, and the Samaritans wouldn’t allow Jesus to pass by through their city, the disciples suggested, why don’t you call for fire to come and consume the Samaritans? In the same way, we hear today in American politics and Israeli politics, suggestions to nuke Gaza and get rid of it completely, or get it over with quickly. So then Jesus makes those people that were despised the center of the story, actually, the example to follow, challenging our prejudice. But in that story, there is a really important element that I think, captures the essence of what Jesus was trying to say, because the person who was wounded, in need of help, Jesus says, was left naked and unconscious. He couldn’t speak, so you can’t detect from his accent is he a Jew, is he a Roman, is a Samaritan? He had no clothes. His clothes would not reveal his identity. And I think that’s the point of the story. He was a human being, and as such, that story begins with the question, Who is my neighbor? A question which the teacher of the law asked Jesus. And behind it is the assumption, who is my neighbor that I should love, and who’s not my neighbor, and I’m obligated—I’m not obliged to love. That’s the question, who’s my neighbor. It assumes that there are some people we must love, and others we don’t have to love. And the conclusion of the story is that there is no us and them. There is no—everybody is a neighbor. You don’t draw a circle and determine who’s in and who’s out in that manner, in that question, Who is my neighbor? And that’s the point of the story. When someone is in need, everyone is a neighbor. And we can’t choose as if we only help those who are like us. Actually, Jesus said, what good are you if you only love those who look like you or who are like you? So it’s an important concept, because we are used to and we’re good at loving those who look like us, who think like us, and we are actually masters of drawing these lines, these circles, in which we decide who’s in and who’s out, and in that process, we are willing to even go the distance of dehumanizing and demonizing others. And so clearly today, the Palestinians are outside of the circle. We’ve been saying it—human rights don’t apply on us, not even compassion. People have been watching a genocide live and not doing anything. To me, we need to go back to the essence of the teachings of Jesus. It’s not just about loving God, but you can’t claim to love God if you don’t love your neighbor, and then you don’t choose who your neighbor is. And this is what we as people of faith, and in particular, if we follow Jesus, this is precisely our calling. It’s a beautiful story, the story of the Good Samaritan, for all of these elements involved in it.
Chris Hedges
I want to talk about religious institutions as you may have encountered, I certainly have encountered the last acceptable prejudice of the left is against those of us who come out of a religious tradition, no matter what that is. Paul Tillich, the theologian, writes that all institutions, including the church, are inherently demonic, and you can read “Moral Man and Immoral Society” by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, a very important book for me, where he talked about institutions, including the church, as essentially dedicated to their own perpetuation and survival, often at the expense of the moral life. And Niebuhr argues, and this is, of course, Tillich’s point, that in order to obtain the moral life or live the moral life, one often has to defy the institution, including the religious institution in which they find themselves. And you brought this up that the religious and the story of the Good Samaritans and this is, of course, echoed in Jesus going into the temple with the money changers and other stories in the Bible, there was a conflict between the institutional hierarchy of the religion at the time, which, of course, was in Jerusalem, was he was going after the money changers in the Jewish temple. But that is hardly limited to Judaism or any other religion. Let’s talk about that struggle to live the moral life, to stand with those James Cohen called “the crucified of the earth” and how that often puts us in conflict with the very religious institutions we may belong to.
Munther Isaac
Yeah. Well, first, I mean, we need to acknowledge that there is a lot of good that comes from all religions, the religious institutions, a lot of actual good that has happened over the years and is certainly true today. And so I would not characterize them in the language that was quoted. However, I like the classification of the Kairos South Africa document, a document from 1986 which spoke of three different theologies. And I think it captures the essence of what you are trying to say. And it shaped a lot of my ministry as well. The Kairos South Africa document talked about state theology—the theology that serves the Empire, the theology that stores in power, enables them to dominate, gives them the language for superiority. And in the South African case, it’s apartheid. In our case, it’s Zionism and Christian Zionism. It’s those who feel entitled, chosen, superior and they function on a different sphere of reality because God supports them, or God has empowered them. So there is certainly that state theology, as Kairos South Africa document calls it, but I think what you’re alluding to is what the Kairos South Africa document calls church theology. By that, they mean the theology that oftentimes prioritizes peace and reconciliation at the expense of justice, and so the response to a crisis like what’s happening today in Gaza, a genocide, is a prayer for peace. And in some cases, they go beyond that into acts of charity, yet fail to call out those who are committing a genocide. And I think we need to call out that line of thinking, despite the elements of good that exist in it. But if we fail to call out things by name and speak truth to power, we only empower the oppressors. And I think that church theology, as the Kairos South Africa called it, was very evident, even today, as I look at, again, a genocide taking place in front of all the world to see and at best, all we get is statements from church, praying for peace, calling for a cease fire, yet failing to call a genocide a genocide the same way they fail to call the system we have in Palestine as apartheid, insisting that there is only a conflict. I think behind that is this spirituality of neutrality, and that neutrality only enables the oppressors. And I certainly believe that it’s our calling to go with what the Kairos South Africa document calls the prophetic tradition, speaking truth to power and then also taking sides. And I think many times, in Christian theology, we fail to capture this important idea of the fact that peacemaking means you take sides. I surprise people sometimes that I say God takes sides, and it’s like no God is with everyone. I say, Yes, God loves everyone, and so on. But when there is an oppression, God takes the sides of the oppressed. When there is injustice, God takes the side of those who suffer injustice. When there is marginalization and supremacy, God takes the side of the marginalized, God takes the sides of the poor. It’s explicit in Scripture. You don’t have to imply it from here or there. It’s direct in Scripture. And so when I said Christ is under the rubble, and this is a sign of God’s solidarity with the oppressed, my message was that God’s solidarity must become, in turn, our solidarity. We need to side with the oppressed. We need to speak on their behalf, empower their stories, defend their rights, advocate on their behalf, protect and do everything we have in our means, in the ethics of Jesus, to show that God is inside of the oppressed, and that it becomes, in turn, our obligation as Christians to side with the oppressed. And this is different than we pray for peace and we are neutral. And this is more risky, and let’s remember that solidarity by definition, is costly. And I think this is what many times church leaders try to avoid—controversy, costly solidarity, and only prefer to stop by the idea we pray for peace and we hope both sides reconcile.
Chris Hedges
Yes, it’s a kind of studied, quote, unquote, objectivity that commits them to nothing. Would you say that this characterizes the response to the genocide by most Christian and religious institutions?
Munther Isaac
Unfortunately, yes. It’s changing, but, especially in the beginning, and that’s why I have been calling out church leaders. And let’s remember that there are some Christian traditions who still support and call for this genocide to continue justify it, try to explain it. Sometimes give it even theological terms. Whether it’s the fundamentalist who—it’s Christian Zionism. We see today, the new ambassador, Pompeo—there is no occupation, it’s all Judea and Samaria. So they have their own sphere of reality, the biblical one they function with. Or it’s even some progressive theologians who said it’s the just war theory. Israel has the right to defend itself. They are the ruler executing the justice that should happen. And as such, they use the just war theory. A Palestinian Christian friend of mine, a theologian, his name is [inaudible], said, they make the killing of 17,000 children the justice of God. I mean, this is unthinkable to us. So sadly, it went from endorsing, supporting, justifying, and then many, especially in the mainline tradition, just made statements. And sometimes these statements repeated the Zionist phrases—Israel has the right to defend itself. We call for Israel for restraintment, not to kill innocent civilians. We are concerned that Palestinians are killed and so on. Nothing about genocide, nothing about accountability, nothing about the rule of law, interestingly, when it comes to Israel committing war crimes that everyone now is seeing and it’s proven. And so again, this has been part of the system that enabled Israel to occupy and colonize Palestine for years and now to commit obvious war crimes.
Chris Hedges
Well, shouldn’t these Christian institutions be calling for a cessation of all weapons to Israel?
Munther Isaac
I believe so, and I’ve said it, and I’ve called for churches to church leaders for a weapon embargo. Listen, at the end of the day, it’s about, do we believe, as Christians, in the rule of law? Do we believe that those who commit war crimes should be held accountable? And in particular, when it comes to the United States, Christian leaders cannot just say, well, it’s our government. Well, you voted for this government regardless of where you voted, by the way, because it’s across political divide. Both Republicans and Democrats support Israel. So it’s your politicians who give the green light and the political cover for this war, and it’s tax money that’s funding this war. So if, as a faith leader, if you’re silent, then that means you approve with how your elected representatives are voting, and that means that you approve with how your money is spent. There’s no other interpretation of it, and so we need to code for accountability. And I think for now, obviously, I would support weapon embargo on Israel.
Chris Hedges
Munther, are there any institutional structures within the Christian religion that have embraced that position in calling for a halt to weapons to Israel?
Munther Isaac
We’re beginning to see some voices rise today. There is a campaign in the United Kingdom, “Advent Not Weapons,” something like that. I can share with you the exact title of it. There are certainly some pastors who are aligned with this vision. I am involved in a group called Kairos Palestine, and we have global Kairos for justice groups all over the world who have called to relate to Israel as an apartheid state, and as such, implies sanctions, and today we are calling for weapons embargo. So we’re beginning to see some groups, some grass root groups, not yet on the institutional level. On the institutional level, some have called Israel an apartheid state. Some have called for boycotting settlement goods, the PCUSA, United Church of Christ, and other Protestant mainline denominations. But I think this needs coordinated efforts. This needs serious engagement. And it also means going against the norms of your society. And I think many people find this challenging to do.
Chris Hedges
Every war I covered, starting in Latin America, I was in El Salvador during the war, of course. Archbishop Óscar Romero, when he called on Salvadoran soldiers not to fire on their own compatriots, was assassinated. But every war that I’ve covered the institute—I covered the war in the former Yugoslavia, and then I was in the Middle East, dealing with the Christian Zionists—they, especially in a war time environment, we saw it in 9/11 in the United States, the institutional churches have almost immediately sacralized the conflict, and we see this replicated in Israel and those religious leaders who dare to speak out against the war, or in this case, the genocide, are often persecuted by their own institutions. And I wondered if you could talk about that. In particular, any Jewish religious leader or Rabbi who has denounced the genocide. What has the institution, the religious institution, done to them?
Munther Isaac
They are literally persecuted, especially right now, after October 7, it’s hard to openly criticize the actions of the Government of Israel. But they are speaking out, and they are now fighting even some legal consequences. Groups like B’Tselem…
Chris Hedges
B’Tselem, it’s secular though. B’Tselem is a human rights organization, not a religious…
Munther Isaac
Yes, but at least it shows that some Jews with conscience, are speaking. Rabbis for Human Rights. And certainly in the United States, Jewish Voice for Peace is doing an incredible job and others, and it’s not just a Jewish Voice for Peace, I think it’s becoming more prominent. It shows that there are those within the Jewish community who are insisting, not in our name, it’s wrong, it must stop. And I think the major shift right now, Chris, is that those within Judaism, who are speaking out are finally seeing that Zionism is a problem, and are finally beginning to realize what we’ve been saying from the beginning, the question—is Zionism redeemable? And I hope this conversation takes place on a more serious level, within the Jewish community, in Israel and in the diaspora, the idea that Zionism is a settler colonial entity, and it’s deemed to collapse, you cannot continue to—unless you plan to completely eliminate all Palestinians. And this is what scares me. So going back to your question, there are some voices in the land, Jewish voices that are beginning to speak. They have always been there, but I think in the beginning of the war, they were hesitant, given the severity of what happened on October 7 and the level of how many people were killed and how they were killed. But now they’re beginning to realize that we can’t be silent when there is a genocide happening by our state.
Chris Hedges
But very few of these figures are leaders within these religious institutions. Is that correct?
Munther Isaac
Yes, and not just within the religious institution, even those in the secular domain are still a minority. The political discussion in Israel is how far do you go? It’s not whether there is a middle or the left, the middle and the left pretty much no longer exist. And so it’s, in a freaky way, Netanyahu is now considered in the middle, and then those [Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich and others are the ones who are leading Israel into a more right wing direction. The scary thing also is that, more than ever, since the inception of Israel, the religious language is so strong in the political discourse. Look at the Nation-State Law, but also the agreement…
Chris Hedges
You should explain what the Nation-State Law is for people who don’t know.
Munther Isaac
The Nation-State Law is the basic law that was passed by the Israeli Knesset despite a strong objection from many on the secular side, and, of course, the Arab parties. It’s one or two pages, I think, document, but in its essence, it emphasizes that the whole land is Jewish, and that only Jews have the right for self-determination in the land of Israel. So they say, actually, explicitly, the right for self-determination is exclusive to the Jewish people only in the land of Israel. And that goes on to explain that building Jewish settlements in the West Bank, they call it Judea and Samaria, is a national duty and right. So this is discrimination by law. I mean, if this is not apartheid, what is? When you say only one people have the right for self-determination, over against even the indigenous citizens of Israel, who are the Arabs, the Palestinians, who have been there long before Israel was established as a state in 1948 and since that Nation-State Law, it kept going more and more to the right, to the extent that, when this current Israeli government was formed in January of 2023, they stated explicitly in their agreement, this is their agenda. This is their declared intentions that the land belongs exclusively—they call it the Land of Israel—belongs exclusively to the Jewish people. And I think we need to stop for a moment and try to imagine the response if the Palestinian National Council or the Palestinian Liberation Organization said such a statement—the land of Palestine belongs exclusively to the Arab-Palestinians or to Muslims. I mean, imagine the uproar. Imagine what we would be called, what Palestinians would be called. But somehow the Israelis say it. They are welcomed as heroes in their Congress. They are exercising apartheid, not just in practice, but in their laws, and they are still considered the only democracy in the Middle East on the right of freedom and human rights and so on, and the Palestinians are the problem.
Chris Hedges
I want to talk about religious Zionism. When I lived in Jerusalem, the liberal Zionists, and I don’t want to pretend that they weren’t just as vicious towards the Palestinians. In fact, if you take 1948 and 1967, when you had the largest ethnic cleansing—750,000 in ’48, about 350,000 Palestinians driven from their homes [in ’67], that was under liberal Zionism, but it was different. I mean, they didn’t like the religious Zionists. When I was there, they outlawed the Kach Party, led by Rabbi Meir Kahane. That’s changed. I think Ben-Gvir recently visited Kahane’s grave. These are the heirs to Kahane, and they speak—even Netanyahu—they speak or they use biblical passages to justify the genocide, so that now this assault against the Palestinians, this attempt at erasure, is given a religious veneer. Can you talk about that change?
Munther Isaac
Yes, and again, it’s important what you said. It’s not as if liberal Zionism was friendly and then this… Because oftentimes some get the impression that it’s only when Zionism became religious that we have a problem. But certainly now this is dangerous, because when you bring the religious dimension to it, first, you make it a religious conflict. And again, this is scary. It’s scary because when you make it a religious conflict, you, by definition, become on the right side simply for representing your religion and your God, because we assume your religion is the right one and your God is the right one, and everyone else is false gods, idols and so on. So it becomes your mandate, and that’s dangerous. When you have a mandate from God to implement the will of God by force, you’ll do anything because you have God on your side. And again, not only are you now righteous, but then by implication, those on the other side are, as Netanyahu said, the Amalekites. It’s okay to completely erase them. It’s okay to completely kill them, and so there is no telling where this will lead us. And I find it, again, shocking that the very same people in the West who condemn and vilify Muslims when they do this, they are okay with Israel doing it. Actually, you have those on the Christian right who support it. So we need to continue to emphasize that—what we have in Palestine is not a religious conflict. And we need to continue to emphasize the danger of bringing this language of divine entitlement into such discussions. Because, to put it very, very simply, if my side of the argument, if I have an argument with you, Chris, my God told me so then how can we continue the conversation, you know? Because any position you take, makes it a position against God, so it becomes impossible to talk. And if we don’t give to a set of laws that we all agree on, which is, in this case, the international law, it might not be perfect, but it’s something we all agree on at this stage. Then if everyone brings their own set of reality, understanding of reality, based on their religion and their interpretation of their scriptures and religious entitlement, then there’s no telling where this will lead us. It’s chaos, it’s violence, it’s madness, and it’s frightening, honestly, where this will lead us.
Chris Hedges
It’s also the externalization of evil. So in my tradition, and I believe yours, the greatest battle is actually a passage in the Quran where the prophet talks about the struggle. The greatest jihad is the struggle within us, the struggle to make sure that the evil within us doesn’t actualize itself. And the great writers of the Holocaust, Primo Levi and others, write the same thing. But when you externalize evil, then evil is embodied in the other who when you, in this fantasy, when you eradicate them, you see the way the Israelis talk about the Palestinians in Gaza as essentially either being witting or unwitting agents of Hamas. But when evil is embodied externally in the other, then you defeat evil by erasing, killing the other.
Munther Isaac
Yes, and then the killing of the other becomes, actually, a righteous act, an act that is defended as justice, as I said, the justice of God, when you use, for example, the just war theory, or you’re doing humanity even a surface. Look at how Palestinians were described in the beginning of the war and throughout—animals, the Amalekites. And even beyond that, I think it takes a lot of years and systematic dehumanization of the Palestinians to reach the level where we are right now, I am shocked. And I say this honestly, I am shocked when Christian leaders defend the killings in Gaza by just repeating the claim Hamas is using Palestinians as human shields. And, I don’t want to get into whether this is right or wrong, regardless of it’s been widely disputed, but the whole idea that, even if true, that to you, it’s okay to kill 100 Palestinians to get to one Hamas militant, is shocking to me, and it makes me think how much dehumanization of Palestinians did it take, and even demonization of Palestinians did it take for you as a Christian ministry, to reach this level where it’s okay for you to say, just kill 100 of them, to get rid of one or two Hamas militants. It shocks me, because it proves what we’ve been saying. They don’t look at us as human beings. They don’t look at us as equals. And this doesn’t happen day or night. And I refer here to what another Palestinian theologian, Yousef AlKhouri said. He’s from Gaza, and we Palestinians continue to emphasize this war did not start on October 7, but to him, the genocide itself began, not in 1948, the genocide began with talking about Palestine as a land without people. Because that’s when we were erased. That’s when they looked at the land and they didn’t see people. They knew the land had people, but they’re not people of equal worth. They can be removed. They can be erased. They can be displaced. We can make them give half of their land to the new incoming Jewish settlers and so on. And so once you look at a whole group of people as inferior, and then you use the system, tragically, of theology to justify that, by making some people superior, entitled or by demonizing the religion of others, as we see often the case when it comes to the Middle East and Islam, the result is what we see right now in Gaza. This didn’t happen day and night. You don’t wake up and decide it’s okay to kill Palestinians on this scale. It took years of dehumanization and demonization of Palestinians to the extent that when the war on Gaza happened in 2023, the world was ready to accept this tragic fate for the Palestinians.
Chris Hedges
I want to talk the Amalekites. That’s a term that Netanyahu now throws around regularly. But talk about that biblical story, because it’s quite chilling. As I remember, you can correct me, it’s been a while since I was in divinity school, it’s not just the slaughter of the men, women and children, but even the animals. It’s the complete destruction. But talk about that story, because it’s become a refrain used by Israeli leaders and by the IDF, by soldiers to justify the genocide.
Munther Isaac
Erase their memory, even, erase anything there. So the Amalekites were a group of people in the ancient times that had a problem with the Israelites. And the decree from God was to destroy them, to kill them all. So that phrase become synonymous to enemies of God, enemies of the people of God. So if you are enemies of the people of God, you are enemies of God. And there is this justification of, as you said, killing everybody, erasing their memory. It all stems from this logic of reading a biblical story and drawing a straight line to the Israel of today, and reading a straight story again from those who dwelt the land back then, and when the Israelites came, they fought with them—with the current indigenous Palestinians of the land. And determining all over again, that God is on our side. We are the chosen ones. God gave us the land and as such. And again, the whole concept of, for example, the Israeli UN Ambassador carrying the Bible in the UN is chilling, you know? It gives this assumption again, that God is on our side, we are entitled. And the fact, as I said, that the world was ready to accept the characterization of Palestinians and the people of Gaza as the Amalekites, which means accepting their total erasure, killing, destruction, even remove their memory, is shameful, is chilling, and, sadly, years from now, it will be studied as a case point how not to use scripture. But when it was done, not many people speak to challenge that language. And by the way, it’s not just Netanyahu. In my book, I mentioned the many evangelical pastors who use the very same language. So let’s be clear, it’s not just as if the Israeli politicians, many, many, many pastors and theologians use the same language.
Chris Hedges
I want to ask about Christian Zionism, but I’m reminded of a quote by the theologian H. Richard Niebuhr, who said religion is a good thing for good people and a bad thing for bad people. And this is kind of the perfect example. Let’s talk about Judea and Samaria. That is a term that is now used regularly by the Israeli government. It’s a biblical term to describe the West Bank. What are they doing?
Munther Isaac
What they’re doing is eliminating thousands of years of history of culture, of civilizations. What they’re doing is imposing one phase of history, okay and I’m not going to even go into the archeological arguments of how accurate and how historical these biblical stories are. I’m just going to assume it’s true. So what they’re doing is imposing one reading over every other reading, making it superior to any other reading, and in the process eliminating thousands of years of history and cultures and civilizations. What they’re doing also is justifying settler colonialism, making it acceptable today, because let’s be honest, what right did—or even today, let’s not talk about 1948, a Jewish person living in Brooklyn, and we have many of them today, settlers in the West Bank—by what right does he come and claim possession of a house and live in the West Bank and have more rights than a Palestinian? He needs something to prove that he’s entitled to this. And so this is where the Bible comes to aid. So what they’re doing is finding the language that makes settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, which is what happened when Israel was created, making it Jews returning to their homes. And if you think with me for a moment of that simple statement, Jews returned to their home. Chris, you grew up in a church, and I’m sure you’ve heard this, it’s very common in church circles. Not just among evangelical Christian Zionists, it’s very common everywhere. And so you see what happened here, settlers came to Palestine, created a mass refugee crisis, expelled people from their homes, destroyed their villages, their memories, started a state under the ruins of their towns and villages, yet somehow called it, “We are returning to our home.” Why? Because the Bible says so. And this has become the normal reading. It’s not disputed. And interestingly, when I say Israel is a settler colonial entity, some people dispute that. What they’re doing is making it acceptable that—and this is what shocks us—you deny a Palestinian from Gaza the right to return to their towns and villages from 1948, yet somehow you celebrate the fact that a Jewish person, as I said, from Brooklyn, who comes and settles in the West Bank on a land confiscated from Palestinians, you make that a return to their home. This is what they’re doing. And the world buys it. The Christian world, by and large, bought it, celebrated it. And of course, we can’t undermine the effects of the guilt of the horrors of the Holocaust. But nevertheless, you see what happened here is that settler colonialism became “we returned to our homeland.” And I think there’s one more thing that happens here when you call it Judea and Samaria, you completely not neutralize the international law, you completely neutralize the human rights of Palestinians for self determination. So when someone like Pompeo said it’s Judea and Samaria. He then said there is no occupation. So he imposed a different sphere of reality. And when I heard this, my first reaction was, so who’s that pointing a gun at me every day I go to drive my kids to school? Am I delusional that there is an Israeli soldier? You say there is no occupation? Am I delusional that there’s literally a military checkpoint outside of our town? Or he is living in this delusional, created, imagined sphere of reality from the Bible, and he is reading everything through that lens. And let’s be clear, it’s not like he’s using the Bible to put on ethical, moral lenses, to read a conflict and try to be fair and call for righteousness and peacemaking. No, that’s irrelevant. The teachings of Jesus become completely irrelevant. What matters is this way of [inaudible] reading scripture, in which they offset nations from thousands of years ago into today. And it’s exciting to them, especially when some of them link it to the second coming of Christ. All of this happens when you call it Judea and Samaria and eliminate completely the Palestinian narrative, or the Palestinian existence. We exist on this land.
Chris Hedges
Well, do we really even know where Judea and Samaria was? I mean, those are very imprecise archeological terms, I believe, certainly does not correspond, probably, to the borders of the West Bank. I want to talk a little bit about Christian Zionism. Christian Zionism, it didn’t call itself Christian Zionism, but it actually predates—certainly began at the end of the 19th century. It was all sorts of figures. And just, by the way, in terms of the settler colonial project that Israel carried out against the Palestinians and attempting to use the Bible to justify it, that’s exactly what the Puritans did in New England when they carried out the genocide against indigenous communities in the Americas—they went to the Bible and branded them as Satanic and talked about building the city on the hill. So it was, again, it was the appropriation of the Bible to carry out genocide in the United States, what became the United States, very similar process that we’re seeing in Israel. But let’s talk about Christian Zionism, because with the falling away of support for the Zionist state by younger Jews, the government has catered more and more to these Christian Zionists, [John] Hagee and others. You come out of the evangelical tradition—I do not—so you probably are more in touch with it. I wrote a book about the American or the Christian right, called “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America,” I believe that they are heretics who—I don’t think Jesus came to make us rich, or I don’t think Jesus blessed the white race above other races, or these people were very involved in sacralizing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with the demonization of Muslims. So I’m very fierce in terms of these people, but let’s get your take on Christian Zionists, because they’ve become cheerleaders for the genocide, for the most part.
Munther Isaac
Unfortunately, and in their lust for power they see Israel as a natural ally. And let’s remember that the influence of evangelicals on events here on the ground is old. It’s from the ’80s, at least, when, during the Reagan era and the rise of the religious right and you know the history. And then we saw another rise during the [Donald] Trump first presidency, and already were beginning to sense that there will be yet another wave of those evangelicals rising to power. And as I said, in their lust to power, they are willing to drive the whole region into madness. Thank God nothing happened when the embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and then Trump said I did it for the evangelicals. And again, when evangelicals support such a move, they base it entirely on what I said. The Bible said so. It’s Jewish land. It’s the supremacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and they want to impose it on everyone else. It doesn’t matter to them what the international law or UN resolutions say, they are all irrelevant to them. What matters is how—it’s not what the Bible says, it’s their interpretation of the Bible. And this sense of, as I said, the sense of supremacy comes also in how they look at people who are different than them, let’s remember that. And as much as I still value many things in the evangelical tradition, I think it’s important to call these attitudes of prejudice, to call them out. And at the end of the day, you know, when talking to Christian Zionists, or when evaluating Christian Zionism, there are multiple ways of doing it. There is, of course, I’m a theologian, so let’s read the Bible. Does the Bible say so? Does the Bible really call us to support a Jewish state today? And then there’s also the other question, does it matter? In other words, is it relevant? How we read scripture, text like Genesis 12—I would bless those who bless you—and so is this how we resolve issues today, by looking at religious texts and trying to decide to whom did God promise the land? And many times, when I speak to evangelicals, honestly, I say, are you listening to yourselves? Show me one other context in which you solve something by bringing a religious text and asking the question, to whom did the deity promise this piece of land? I mean, if we applied in any other context, we will be called back minded and weird and not make any sense. But somehow here it becomes normal, that we are willing to ignore history, people who lived in this land. And so I keep telling evangelicals, are you really listening to yourselves when you use the Bible for what’s happening today? And I think it’s also finally important when we talk about Christian Zionism, to highlight that actually it’s an oxymoron. And this is why—because what is Zionism, and what did Zionism produce? And we need to be honest about the nature of Zionism and the fruits of Zionism. You know, Jesus said you shall know from their fruits, you shall know them. Zionism, by its definition, creating a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, necessitates the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, because Palestine was not empty. So you want to create a homeland. It’s not about going to Palestine to seek refuge, let’s remember that. Zionism is not that. Zionism is we want to create a homeland on someone else’s land. So, and the Zionist leaders were clear, there’s a problem in Palestine, in that it’s inhabited. I think someone used a metaphor, Palestine is this beautiful bride, but it’s taken. So by definition, Zionism means the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. By definition, then what happened, on practice, is that Zionism created a safe state that discriminates against the Palestinians. Today, we have a system of apartheid. Today we have a genocide. So when you look at all of this, and we need to ask, can we put the word Christian before all of this? And for that matter, can we put the word Jewish before all of this? This is why groups like Jewish Voice for Peace now are very clear in that they oppose Zionism because they say we stand for freedom, equality and human rights, and Zionism is the antithetical of that. Zionism is opposed to all of that. I think it’s important to be critical and call things by name. Zionism is ethnic cleansing and racism and colonialism. This is what Zionism is. I don’t see how some people still try to romanticize Zionism, and I actually don’t see a future for Palestinians and Israelis in this time together. If we truly hope to reach a day in which we share the land, with an ideology like Zionism, it doesn’t work. It only leads to violence, destruction, and the current result that we are in. And in this formula, the powerful wins, sadly, and it’s the innocent people from both sides, but right now, especially from the Palestinians, who pay the price.
Chris Hedges
Well, it also requires vast historical amnesia. What is it? Seven centuries of Historic Palestine has been dominated by Muslim rulers of the Ottomans and others. But you have to erase centuries and centuries of history and go back to a document that, in the case of the Hebrew Bible, was written, what, 4,000 years ago. But it does require historical amnesia.
Munther Isaac
Absolutely, and archeology comes to aid. And if you want an illustration of all of this, just look up the whole industry of pilgrimage, biblical tourism. Because you have millions—before COVID and before this war—coming to the Holy Land, as they call it, and going on a whole tour on sites that only existed in biblical times. The whole tour is designed as if to tell you that nothing exists in Palestine. There is nothing to see besides the biblical sites and the fact that Palestine was a desert and Israel turned into a garden of Eden. They don’t visit beautiful sites, beautiful pieces of history, including, interestingly, Byzantine churches and all the pieces of art, Islamic art, Christian art. All of this is eliminated, and you come and visit the Holy Land and get the impression that it was empty for 2,000 years. Jesus came here, and then we walk in His footsteps by going to Galilee. And of course, you’re not walking in Jesus footsteps at all, you walk in Jesus’s footsteps when you spend time with people, care for the poor, for the [inaudible], preach the kingdom of God. They do none of that, and instead, they jump from place to place, which again, gives the impression that Palestine was empty for 2,000 years. Nothing happened from the biblical times until today, Israel came to revive it and gave us the opportunity, finally, to visit the places where Jesus lived. And this Palestinian theologian, Mitri Raheb, said, the Palestinians, and particularly the Palestinian Christians, were replaced by the State of Israel. And today, in the minds of most Christians, when you think of the land of the biblical land, the Holy Land, the first thing that comes to mind is Israel and the Jewish people, not the Palestinians, and surely not the Palestinian Christians who lived here and survived for 2,000 years, who kept those sites for you, who kept the Christian presence so that now you can come and totally ignore that we actually exist on this land.
Chris Hedges
Yeah. I mean also, archeology by Israeli archeologists is weaponized, so they will destroy layers upon layers of civilization in order to dig down to find the remnants of a synagogue or a Jewish community and discard the rest. I want to talk about what’s happened to religious sites in Gaza. 80% of the mosques have been destroyed, and also what’s happened to the Christian community. We should note that Palestinian Christians, not surprisingly, are the oldest Christian community in the world. They destroyed that Greek Orthodox—the Israelis—Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza, they have the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians—let’s call it the slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Palestinians before the genocide—has seen the Christian community. I think a few decades ago, Bethlehem was about 85% Christian. I don’t know what it is now, but probably about 20% or something. So there’s been an assault against Palestinian Christians. They have not—the Israelis—have been as fierce against them as they have against Palestinian Muslims and I think, like you, I mean, one of the things that’s been so disturbing about the genocide in Gaza is the way they have targeted religious institutions for destruction.
Munther Isaac
Well, everybody’s a target in this war, and nowhere is safe. No place is safe. Tragically, for the Christian community, they thought that church was safe. But not only was the church, the historical Church of Saint Porphyrius bombed, I mean, the church itself still exists, but…
Chris Hedges
Let me just interrupt you, Munther. For people who don’t know, I think this church goes back to the fourth century. Is that correct?
Munther Isaac
Fifth Century.
Chris Hedges
Fifth century.
Munther Isaac
So not only was—it was targeted. Thankfully, the church itself still exists, but the building adjacent to it fell on it, and it’s now, it collapsed, but the historic church is holding it. 18 people were killed in that bombing. And also in the neighboring church, the Catholic Church, which is more recently, but two women were killed by snipers inside the premise of the church, inside the church compound. Nowhere is safe. And I think one of the myths of what’s been happening in Palestine for the last years or so is that Christians are caught in between, as if we have nothing to do in this conflict, and we’re the victims just by being bystanders. But nothing is, this is not true at all. From 1948, Christians became refugees. Christian towns were destroyed, churches were closed, and since then, our land is confiscated. Many of our people were killed in the different uprisings, the wars and so on. We are Palestinians, and at the end of the day, Israel looks at us as Palestinians. And actually, in some cases, especially in the Old City of Jerusalem, the heads of churches. It’s not just me, you know, the heads of churches, the Orthodox, the Catholics, they have spoken, I think three years ago, of a systematic plan to empty Jerusalem of Christians. They talked about the attacks on Christian sites, the harassments, the incitements against Christian sites, and Christian clergies spitting on them, burning churches and so on. So heads of churches in Jerusalem have used the language that we feel that we are being targeted. The Israeli police did some measures to try to stop this, but many still look with suspicions on the seriousness of these efforts to stop these attacks by the religious extreme Jewish groups on Christian sites. So, again, nothing is further from the truth when you say Palestinians are caught in between, or as if we have nothing to do with this conflict, because we are part of the Palestinian people. We live under apartheid, and our siblings and Gaza are going through a genocide, and really our hope right now in this Christmas season is that they survive. We want nothing other than their survival and the rest of Gaza and hopefully, by Christmas, this war is over.
Chris Hedges
Let’s talk about Bethlehem and what the mood is like. I was in the West Bank. I was in Ramallah this summer. Since October 7, Palestinians who had jobs in Israel have been denied entry. The economic situation, especially in depressed areas like the Jenin refugee camp, is dire. I’m talking about shortages of food, water, the bulldozers, Israeli bulldozers, when they go in, rip up not only the sewer pipes, but destroy the electrical grid. What is Bethlehem like now at Christmas?
Munther Isaac
I actually feel bad talking about Bethlehem, given the fact that there is a genocide in Gaza, and that’s the only reason we’re not talking about Bethlehem right now, is that it’s nothing in comparison. But if we assess the situation here, by all means, it’s the worst we’ve witnessed in many, many years, on all levels. We are now almost completely isolated. There are more gates, more checkpoints, roads that are completely blocked. Sometimes they open the gates certain hours. Sometimes we don’t know, they close them. So going from one place to the other in the West Bank, so leaving Bethlehem to the north to Ramallah or to the south to Hebron, you need to think wise. I mean, do I want to go through hours of waiting at checkpoint or not? And in some cases, especially in the night, do I want to risk being the target of settlers’ attack or not? So we feel a strong sense of isolation and fear and anticipation thinking what happened in Gaza, could it be our fate if the world was silent over what happened there? What if the settlers actually do what they are telling us they want to do? So there is this fear and anticipation that caused, actually, many to leave. And at the same time you mentioned it, the fact that we are cut off Jerusalem many Palestinians, and remember when I say many Palestinians used to work in Jerusalem, we’re still talking about a tiny fraction of the Palestinian people. But even that tiny fraction is no longer able to go and work in Jerusalem. So that has severe economic consequences on all over the West Bank, but Bethlehem is suffering the most because of tourism. There is no tourism. There’s hardly any tourists left in Bethlehem since October 7. Bethlehem depends so much on tourism. So there is so much unemployment, and it feels sad that churches now—most of our work actually has shifted from normal church life into sustaining families, helping people pay fees, trying to ask for help from outside so that we can sustain our families. I’ve never seen it this bad, and at the same time, I’ve never seen so much despair. And we are witnessing another wave of immigration. 10s of Palestinian Christian families have left the Bethlehem area since October 7, and sadly, it’s those who can afford to leave, those who felt that they were able to survive COVID, they will not be able to survive another two or three years without tourism.
Chris Hedges
And just to close, as a Christian minister, how does your faith in this dark moment sustain you?
Munther Isaac
Well, first, we need to continue to fight to keep the faith. It’s something I emphasize in my sermon over and over, that they can take everything from us, but they cannot take our faith, faith in God and in the goodness of God. It’s hard, but I strongly believe it’s harder without faith in a just and good God. And when I said that God is under the rubble, or Christ is under the rubble, I was trying to bring God nearer to us and encourage people not to always think of we want survival. We want to be delivered. We want deliverance. But oftentimes, God is experienced in the midst of pain. It’s Christmas season, and I’m reminded of the meaning of the word Jesus. One of the names of Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. This takes us to where we began. It’s not simply that God is in my heart, but this Emmanuel, God with us in the midst of injustice, in the midst of oppression. God with us when the Holy Family became refugees in Egypt, or God with us when the Holy Family had to leave Nazareth and come to Bethlehem for census and taxation and so on. So it’s God with us when we go through checkpoints, God with us when we feel the sense of despair and that we are isolated and left as if abandoned. Christmas gives also the sense of hope, because it’s God’s visitation to us. I always say Jesus was born on our side of the wall. I see something in this, and I’m talking about the physical wall, and beyond the psychological and spiritual walls that exist between the world and Palestinians that are embodied in this ugly, physical wall that separates us from the rest of the world. And I say there is meaning in the fact that Jesus was born on our side of the wall, whether 2,000 years ago or even today. And because of that, we have to continue to fight for that faith. And it’s this faith that enables us to survive and to have hope. Because without this, I don’t think we can survive, honestly. Because if death has the final word, if the Empire has the final word, if the logic of might is right has the final word, then there is no sense of continuing this life here, because ultimately, it’s all in vain. But God has said his word, whether it’s Jesus in Christmas or whether it’s the resurrection in Easter Sunday, we need to remember this. And yeah, it feels dark right now, honestly. It feels on the Saturday of the Easter story and the tomb, dark, isolated with no end in sight. But in the midst of this darkness we’re fighting to keep the faith, to remember that the final word ultimately belongs to our good God.
Chris Hedges
Great. Thank you. That was Reverend Munther Isaac. I want to thank Diego [Ramos], Thomas [Hedges], Sofia [Menemenlis] and Max [Jones], who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.Substack.com.
