Israel: Stolen Name, Stolen Land, Stolen Lives

American evangelical support for the modern State of Israel is rooted in a selective reading of Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” Politicians like U.S. Speaker Mike Johnson invoke this verse to frame political support for Israel as a sacred duty. But this interpretation collapses thousands of years of religious and historical development into a dangerously simplistic equation: modern Israel = biblical Israel = divine favor.

This essay challenges that assumption by restoring continuity to the history of the land and its people. The true heirs of the covenant are not defined by a nation-state or a racial category, but by faithful continuity with divine revelation - and by remaining in the land. By that measure, it is the Palestinians, not the modern state of Israel, who most closely embody the legacy of ancient Israel.

From Gentiles to Israelites: The First Covenant

The earliest inhabitants of Eretz Israel - the biblical land - were not “Jews” in the modern sense. They were Gentiles, Canaanites and Hebrews, tribal peoples of the Levant. Their identity as Israel began not by blood, but by covenant - when they stood at Mount Sinai and received the Torah. That was the moment the people became “chosen,” not by race or genetics, but by acceptance of divine guidance.

From Israelites to Christians: A New Revelation

When Jesus (PBUH) came with a message of renewal and compassion, many of these same people recognized him as the Messiah and embraced what they saw as an update to the covenant. They became the first Christians, not by rejecting Judaism, but by believing it had been fulfilled. Others - those who rejected Jesus - remained within Jewish communities but coexisted peacefully with the early Christians. Only a small, radical faction rejected Christ with hostility, labeling him a false prophet and, according to some Talmudic texts, even mocking him as “boiling in excrement in hell.” These were not the majority, and they were often rejected by their neighbors - leading to expulsion and diaspora, especially into Eastern Europe.

From Christians to Muslims: Final Revelation and Continued Presence

When Muhammad (PBUH) came as the final messenger, many of those same communities again embraced the next step in the covenant. They became Muslims, seeing no contradiction in this religious continuity: from Torah to Gospel to Qur’an. Others remained Christians but continued to live peacefully in the land. They stayed - through Roman persecution, Byzantine rule, Islamic caliphates, Crusader invasions, and Ottoman administration. Their roots were unbroken.

This population - now identified as Palestinians - did not leave. They cultivated the land, spoke its languages, and maintained its traditions. They are the spiritual and biological descendants of those who first stood at Sinai, walked with Christ, and turned toward Mecca.

The Emergence of Zionism: A Break, Not a Return

By contrast, the modern Zionist movement was not a continuation of the covenant, but a radical break from it. Its founders were largely secular, shaped by European racial nationalism, not religious law. They claimed descent from ancient Israel while rejecting both Christ and Muhammad. Most importantly, they emerged not from the communities who remained in the land, but from those hostile exilic minorities who had rejected prophetic guidance and been expelled centuries earlier.

Many Zionists came from Eastern European communities, shaped by centuries of separation from the Levant. While some had partial Near Eastern ancestry, much of their heritage came from conversion and assimilation in foreign lands. And yet, it is these communities who now claim exclusive divine rights to the land - displacing and even murdering the descendants of those who never left and who embraced each successive revelation of God.

The Nakba: Inversion of the Covenant

When the State of Israel was established in 1948, it did not restore the covenant - it violated it. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including Muslims, Christians, and Jews, were expelled, dispossessed, or killed. This was the Nakba. Many of the Jewish Palestinians who remained became Israeli citizens - but the Christian and Muslim Palestinians, whose roots go back to Sinai and before, were cast out.

What makes this tragedy worse is that many of the Christian and Muslim Palestinians had been neighbors, friends, and even relatives of the Palestinian Jews. The communities were intertwined, bound not just by blood but by shared language, customs, and land. Today, those who stayed are subjected to military occupation, siege, starvation, and bombardment, while their former neighbors are forced to serve a nationalist project that calls itself “Israel” but no longer reflects the covenant’s spirit.

Naming a Dog Caesar: When Symbols Become Substitutes for Truth

To name a modern state “Israel” and claim divine rights based on that name is no more legitimate than naming your dog “Caesar” and insisting he is the rightful heir to the Roman Empire. You can feed him grapes, wrap him in a toga, and teach him to bark in Latin - but the name does not grant him imperial dominion. He cannot summon legions, collect taxes in Gaul, or lay claim to Carthage. The name is a performance, not a pedigree; a gesture, not a genealogy.

Yet this is precisely what Zionism has done - draped a modern political project in the language of ancient covenant, assuming that the symbolism alone would confer spiritual and territorial legitimacy. It is a ritual of misdirection: invoke the name of “Israel,” point to a scripture written thousands of years ago, and pretend that a state born in 1948 through secular nationalism and colonial violence is its inheritor. In doing so, Zionism does not renew the covenant - it mimics it, hollowing out its ethical core while weaponizing its symbols. And when evangelical leaders like Mike Johnson sanctify this mimicry with biblical verse, they are not defending divine truth - they are blessing a costume.

Evangelical Blindness: Worshipping the Name, Not the Truth

Evangelical Christians in America, like Mike Johnson, misread Genesis 12:3 by applying it to a modern state whose founding ideology rejects both Christ and Muhammad, and whose actions violate the core moral teachings of the Bible, the Torah, and the Qur’an - all of which hold that to destroy a single innocent life is to destroy an entire world. “Whoever destroys a single life is considered as if he destroyed an entire world” (Sanhedrin 4:5). “That is why We ordained for the Children of Israel that whoever takes a life it will be as if they killed all of humanity” (Qur’an, Al-Ma’idah 5:32). These are not cultural suggestions; they are sacred absolutes. To bless a nation that builds walls, drops bombs, and enforces siege and starvation upon civilians is not obedience to God - it is sacrilege in three languages.

Conclusion: The Covenant Lives With Those Who Stayed

The land does not belong to those who invoke its name, but to those who lived its history, who carried its faith, and who honored its prophets. The true continuity of Israel is not in the state that now bears its name, but in the Palestinian people - Muslims, Christians, and Jews - who accepted each stage of divine revelation and remained rooted in the soil of their ancestors.

To support the State of Israel in its current form - built on dispossession, violence, and apartheid - is not to bless Abraham’s seed; it is to curse the covenant. It is to align not with Moses, Jesus, or Muhammad (peace be upon them all), but with Pharaoh, Herod, and Abu Lahab.

Those who stand with Israel as it starves children, flattens homes, and slaughters civilians will not be blessed. They will be cursed.
They may insulate themselves from public accountability with wealth and power for a time, but they will spend the rest of their lives running and hiding from justice - in courts, in conscience, and in history. And that will be only a taste of what awaits them in the life to come.

For the God of Abraham does not bless tyranny. The covenant was never a shield for oppressors - it was a burden carried by the faithful. And those who have twisted that covenant into a justification for empire will answer not to pundits or politicians, but to the very God whose name they profane.