Palestinian Reverend Calls on US Faith Leaders to Oppose Israel’s Genocide

Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, according to the official death toll, though the true casualty figure is likely far higher with thousands of the dead unaccounted for. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have raided towns and villages across the occupied West Bank, and settlers under military protection have repeatedly stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in recent days. This all comes as the State Department on Tuesday announced the approval of $20 billion in new arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets. We speak with the Reverend Munther Isaac, pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, who joins us in our New York studio for an in-depth conversation. He is in the United States on a speaking tour to encourage faith leaders to oppose U.S. support for Israel’s onslaught. “We’re still calling for a ceasefire, and it feels like we’re still calling for the world to humanize the people of Gaza, to humanize Palestinians,” says Isaac. “If you’re silent, knowing how your money is being spent, that means you approve.”

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The Israeli bombardment of Gaza continues, with 36 Palestinians killed in the last 24 hours, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Among those killed on Tuesday were two newborn twins, a boy and a girl. They were 4 days old. When their father went to register their births at a local government office, the home where they were sheltering, near Deir al-Balah, was bombed, killing the newborn twins, their mother and their grandmother. The Gaza Health Ministry says 115 newborns have been killed in Gaza since October. According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, out of nearly 17,000 Palestinian children killed by Israel in Gaza over the last 10 months, about 2,100 — more than 2,000 — were babies under the age of 2. As we broadcast, nearly 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since October, though the true casualty figure is likely far higher with thousands of dead unaccounted for.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military has issued additional evacuation orders for Khan Younis. The vast majority of Gaza’s population has been forcibly displaced, often multiple times. According to the U.N., around 84% of Gaza’s territory has been placed under evacuation orders by the Israeli military.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have raided towns and villages across the territory. In the northern town of Tammun, Israeli forces seized the bodies of four Palestinians killed in a drone strike. Over the past 10 months, Israeli forces have increasingly used aerial strikes in the occupied West Bank, a practice largely not seen in the territory since the end of the Second Intifada in 2005. In the South Hebron Hills, Israeli forces demolished six more homes of a Bedouin community in Masafer Yatta today. And in occupied Jerusalem, hundreds of Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for the second straight day, under the protection of Israeli security forces.

This all comes as the U.S. State Department announced Tuesday it’s approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles.

In response to that announcement, our next guest, the prominent Palestinian Reverend Munther Isaac, posted on social media, quote, “The US is funding the genocide. Faith leaders must speak up. Words of ‘concern’ and void calls for peace are not enough. Speak truth to power. Silence is complicity,” end-quote. The Reverend Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Christian theologian, is the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. He’s in the United States on a speaking tour and will be giving an address tonight at the historic Riverside Church titled “Silence Is Complicity.” The Reverend Munther Isaac joins us now in our New York studio.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Thank you for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: We spoke to you at Christmastime in Bethlehem, where you had set up this crèche scene, “Christ in the Rubble.” This is many, many months later. Talk about why you’re in the United States, Reverend.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Well, I wish I was not here. I wish I was here in different circumstances. We’re still calling for a ceasefire. And it feels like we’re still calling for the world to humanize the people of Gaza, to humanize Palestinians. So I’m here to talk to faith leaders, and particularly church leaders, my own community, to speak louder, for it’s been 10 months now since this war has broken, and we’re tired of void calls for peace. We’re tired of the same kind of discourse. And it’s time that the voices of faith leaders, it must be heard, given that we are in the country that’s funding this genocide, given that we are in the country that continues to give political cover to this war in Gaza. So, if you’re silent, knowing how your money is being spent, that means you approve. And so, enough is enough. And I hope that more and more faith leaders, pastors, theologians, clergy, speak up more so that this tragedy in Gaza stops.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, yesterday we spoke with the Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy. He was a negotiator under two Israeli prime ministers. And he decried, he criticized Zionist extremism and talked about what it means, what we’re seeing now play out in Gaza. You’re a reverend. If you can talk about the Christian Zionist evangelical community here? Explain to people who they are and how much power they have.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Well, Christian Zionists are Christians who endorse the vision of Zionism of bringing Jews to Palestine. And what many people don’t realize is that Christian Zionists are actually far more in number than Jewish Zionists and that Christian Zionism predates Jewish Zionism. Christians began dreaming of this concept of bringing Jews to Palestine long before the modern Zionist movement.

And the idea was that Jews will someday be restored, using a theological term, which really means convert to Christianity, embrace Jesus as their Messiah. And for that to happen, they must be in Palestine, the biblical land. And many Christians would then add that for that — for the Second Coming of Christ to happen, this must happen first. So they tie it to the Second Coming of Christ.

And today, this movement has grown to become a very strong political force, giving millions of dollars and very much engaged in political lobbying on behalf of Israel. We have many congressmen and women actually repeat Christian Zionist phrases, like “You have to bless Israel,” “Israel is chosen by God,” “It’s a Christian commandment to support Israel.” And when, during the Trump presidency, Trump moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the American Embassy, Trump said — and I quote — “I did it for the evangelicals.”

So, this is a very strong political force, which brings me back to what I was saying, that we can’t be silenced when the Bible is weaponized right now to continue a genocide in the same way, because when we look at Zionism and Christian Zionism, in reality, they have contributed to the Nakba in 1948, to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, of Palestinians, many hundreds of thousands of refugees. Israel was not created on an empty land. And as a pastor, I question: Where is the concept of peace and love and justice and compassion in all of this? It’s shocking to us that many Christians don’t see even the humanity of Palestinians because of this theology.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you spoken to the lobby group Christians United for Israel? It’s one of the largest pro-Israel organizations in the United States, has something like 11 million members. The group’s annual summit largely focuses on advocating for increased U.S. military aid to Israel.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: I’ve never spoken to them directly. I don’t think they will even recognize me as a Palestinian to speak to. It’s a very extreme group. It’s a very militarized group. And it’s shocking to me, again, that such a thing exists in our Christian thinking, because Jesus is the antithetical of all of this.

And the twisted irony in groups like Christians United for Israel is that in the end times scenarios that they fascinate about, they think of a scenario in which two-thirds — you know, when the Jews gather in Palestine, two-thirds of them will be massacred in a big Armageddon type of war, and then the other third will convert to Christianity. And somehow this group is considered pro-Israel or, you know, fighting for the Jews, when, in essence, some of their views are truly antisemitic. And rather than channeling all of these efforts and movement into peace and coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis, they’re promoting war, which, again, shocks me.

So, I hope they listen. But I also hope that people of good conscience in this country, faith leaders from different traditions, speak up against them. And many actually gathered outside of the meeting of Christians United for Israel to show their protest and to say, “Not in our name,” and I’m very grateful for that.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, earlier this year, nearly 150 Mennonites were arrested on Capitol Hill in an act of peaceful civil disobedience as they called for immediate ceasefire in Gaza. So, clearly, the Christian community is divided on this.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: It’s divided. And in December, in the sermon I gave in Bethlehem, I said Gaza has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza has divided the world, not on the basis of religion or ethnicity or nationality, but really on moral, ethical grounds. And it has divided even many Christians. And I think that’s a good thing, because we need to know where you stand.

And we’re certainly beginning to see many movements among faith leaders, among Christians. For the last months, many, many Christians are speaking up, conducting not just vigils, pilgrimages, walking in the street, demonstrating. As you said, some have been arrested. Even in the university encampments, I’ve seen many of my pastor friends are there supporting the students, which has actually been one of my messages, that we need to defend, support and encourage those students and be with them. To me, that’s where the street belongs, in the streets — where the church belongs, I mean. It belongs in the streets. So, we’re beginning to see a divide.

But to be honest, by and large, the majority of faith leaders, Christian leaders in particular, are still silent or not strong enough in their calls for peace, for, you know, the United States is still funding this war. You can’t just call for peace. You need to call out your political leaders. You need to speak to them. You need to put pressure on them, to say this is not ethical to continue to fund such a war or to continue to give the political cover. So, more is needed right now. I’m beginning to see some change, but with the urgency of the moment, the numbers of people being killed — 16,000, 17,000 are already — children are being killed in this war, so we can’t just resort to old calls, “Let’s pray for peace,” and hope things get well.

AMY GOODMAN: Has the Jewish opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza surprised you, the number of people in the United States, Jews who have been arrested, who have engaged in protest?

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Yes and no. And I say no because even before this war, there has been a divide. And actually, surveys showed that, ironically, support to Israel among white evangelicals have always been stronger in the United States than that of the Jewish community. And I also say no because it’s part of the Jewish faith and tradition to be for justice. And, you know, I’ve seen the work with the civil rights in this country, particularly.

But, yes, because it’s really getting stronger and stronger. Groups like IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace and Rabbis for Ceasefire, they’re really speaking up and being well organized — and not just speaking, demonstrating. Many of them, I think, have been arrested. And I’m grateful for their clarity in their opposition to Zionism, because we need to call Zionism for what it truly is. And it’s not just that they’re standing for a ceasefire or peace right now, but they’re clear in their diagnosis of the problem. The ideology of exclusion that Zionism is promoting, and supremacy, has to be called out. And I’m grateful that many Jewish groups in the United States now and around the world is speaking up against Zionism.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you leave us with a graphic picture of Bethlehem, with your hometown, a religious site for the entire world, what it looks like? Before, you mentioned a divide. The divide right through Bethlehem itself, the physical wall.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Amy, for the first time in history, Bethlehem and Jerusalem are divided. Bethlehem has always been kind of the little sister of Jerusalem. I still remember vividly when I was a child and my mother used to take us to Jerusalem for shopping. It used to take us 15 minutes on a bus ride to get from Bethlehem to Jerusalem.

Right now we’re isolated. We can’t get to Jerusalem. Bethlehem is a little town besieged by a wall and Israeli settlements, colonies, suffocated in a very small area. And all the land, including the green area around us, is being confiscated by Israel, and it’s out of reach to us, meaning we can’t grow as a community. And we can’t, you know, think of a future if there is nowhere else to go. They’re clearly pushing us out of the country.

And with the isolation from Bethlehem and since October 7th the restriction of movement even to other Palestinian towns, it truly feels like a city isolated. There’s so much unemployment. And right now all it takes for Israel is to close two checkpoints, and Bethlehem becomes another Gaza, another isolated block. This is true for other Palestinian blocks, towns and villages.

AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: So, it is a really sad reality, and we’re really anxious that this war on Gaza could expand to the West Bank.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us, Reverend Munther Isaac, Palestinian Christian theologian, pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. He’s speaking tonight at the historic Riverside Church here in New York, his address titled “Silence Is Complicity.”

That does it for our show. To see our podcasts, video and audio, go to democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.