It has been 673 days since October 7, 2023.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. When it comes to words, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has many. Alongside its Book of Confessions and Book of Order, there are countless policies and overtures, Bible studies, and white papers from 226 (and counting) General Assemblies, all with a message that speaks to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Yet the two pictures above could not send more opposing messages about the Presbyterian witness in the face of what is happening in Gaza. Just what are Presbyterians and other practitioners of the Christian faith to make of the messages sent by these pictures, and how do they relate to the PC(USA) policies on Israel/Palestine? What is our witness to be?
The first picture represents the culmination of two days of actions undertaken this month by Interfaith Action for Palestine (IAP) to disrupt Washington lawmakers who continue to send billions in US tax dollars to fund Israel’s bombing and starvation campaign in Gaza and to give an alternative witness to Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a 10-million member pro-Israel lobby group, who were also in DC for their annual convention and lobbying day on Capitol Hill. Rev. Domske, myself, and a dozen or so other PC(USA) clergy, many of whom are members of Christians for a Free Palestine and The Palestine Justice Network, were just a few of the eight hundred clergy, multi-faith leaders, and faith-rooted activists who made up Interfaith Action for Palestine’s in person and online events. Yet again, we came together because we are “sickened that our elected leaders are fulfilling the goals of a far-right Christian Zionist organization” which believes that “all Jews must move to Israel and ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from the ‘holy land’ in order to hasten the “end times” and the return of Jesus Christ.”
Our message was delivered through nonviolent actions—like those taken inside and outside the Gaylord Convention Center where CUFI’s conference was underway, including praying, marching, and holding or dropping banners with messages like “CUFI Kills,” “No God Bombs Children,” and “People of Faith Against Starvation,” and those taken in the congressional cafeterias, including shutting down the check out line by praying, chanting “Congress doesn’t eat ‘til Gaza eat,” and joining hands to sing songs, including the traditional Palestinian Christian song “Yarabba ssalami (God of Peace).” We came together to say what hasn’t been said enough: that Christian Zionism is a dangerous violent theology that kills through funding both the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine, all while using Jewish people as pawns to fuel the overall Right Wing agenda underpinning the current administration policies of the United States.
The second picture, taken just a week after the IAP action, shows U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), an ordained elder in the PC(USA), posing for a picture with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on his most recent trip to Washington DC. Coons stood with a group of 13 other bipartisan Senators, all smiling next to a man wanted in the Hague for war crimes in Gaza. In November 2024, Coons issued a statement rejecting the legitimacy of the ICC’s warrants for the arrest of Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant, stating that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute their “legitimate war against Hamas.”
Since October 7th, Coons has continued to repeat that Israel has a right to defend itself. Meanwhile human rights organizations from around the world, including Israeli ones like Yesh Din and B’Tselem, have found Israel not to be a democracy but rather, according to a 2020 report from Yesh Din, an apartheid regime, and, according to a report this week from B’Tselem, to be committing genocide. At a time when U.S. Gallup polls report that U.S. support for Israel is at an all-time low, with Democrat support for Palestine over Israel at a ratio of nearly 3-to-1, Coons’ decision to cozy up with other Senators for a photo-op with Netanyahu would seem out of step with his base. Where is our moral outrage that a Christian and Presbyterian elder continues to get his picture taken with a man charged, under international law, with crimes of extermination, persecution, and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, all while giving no sign of slowing down but rather continuing with his promise of a vengeance campaign and turning “Gaza into a deserted island”? What about Coons’ own witness as a Christian and Presbyterian elder with tremendous political sway and power as both a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense? In the PC(USA) Ruling elders make ordination vows to try to show the love and justice of Jesus Christ, and in their ordination we pray that God would give them a spirit of truthfulness that they may show the compassion of Christ.
Palestinian theologian and Lutheran pastor, Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, in his book “Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza,” notes that the commonly used “self-defense argument” conveniently hides “the history of seventy-six years of colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid, substituting a narrative of Islamic terrorism at war with a peaceful and democratic state.” Coons’ refusal to hold Netanyahu accountable for his war crimes and defense of Israel’s war on Gaza demonstrates a calculated decision to parrot talking points of empire over the 20+ year Presbyterian witness on Israel/Palestine.
Since 1948, the PC(USA) has been responding to the cries of our Palestinian Christian siblings, calling for peace with justice. Coons recently spoke with TV reporters about working for a ceasefire deal, release of hostages and prisoners, and resuming humanitarian aid into Gaza. Notably absent was any acknowledgment from Coons of the truth of the situation in Israel/Palestine as one of apartheid. Coons has not denounced Israel’s siege on Gaza, which began long before the present onslaught on Gaza. Both (as linked) are official stances of the PC(USA) through the General Assembly.
Senator Coons, one of 11 Presbyterians in the Senate (not all of whom are PC(USA)), grew up in Red Clay Creek Presbyterian Church, attended Yale Divinity School, and now attends First and Central Presbyterian Church, regularly preaching in Presbyterian churches, sharing his commitment to putting faith in action. Given Coons’ actions regarding Israel and Palestine, one cannot help but wonder if he knows that the Presbyterian Church (USA), at its 226th General Assembly, approved through its consent agenda, a rejection of Christian Zionism in all its forms and confessed our complicity, as mainline protestants, in this theology that oppresses and erases Palestinians but also exploits Jews.
Our policy states, explicitly, that “Since 1967, Israeli leaders have used Zionism to justify taking land from Palestinians. This practice is called ‘settler colonialism,’ the practice of taking land and pushing out Indigenous people. This has accelerated since 2000 under the leadership of the current Prime Minister of Israel. The ‘Manifest Destiny’ theme of religious justification is being used to justify the takeover.”
Twenty years of policies on Israel/Palestine from General Assembly gatherings of the PC(USA), from 2004-2024, has definitively set the overall direction for how Presbyterians are called to put their faith into action by advocating for a just peace with full and equal human rights for all the people in Palestine and Israel. In 2014, the PC(USA) voted to divest from American companies profiting off the suffering of Palestinians by their financial entanglement with Israel. In 2024, the PC(USA) affirmed a policy to divest from all Israeli government bonds due to their prolonged military occupation of Palestine, which has been subject to dozens of UN resolutions. One wonders where Coons was when numerous Presbyterians joined over 800 peace activists in a 40-day fast for Gaza? It seems he did not receive the message to send food and not bombs.
In January 2024, the International Court of Justice quoted Rev. Dr. Isaac’s now famous “Christ in the Rubble” sermon where Isaac said, “No apologies will be accepted after the genocide. . . . What has been done has been done. I want you to look at the mirror and ask, where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide.” In that same sermon Isaac declared that Gaza has become the moral compass of the world. The truth is that for far too long, too many Christians, including too many Presbyterians, have been silent or adopted the empire’s “self-defense argument” in the face of the genocide being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. With every child bombed, starved, and imprisoned by Israel, the credibility of the western Christian witness is at stake. We must repent, confessing our complicity in Christian Zionism and the unbridled US support for Israel. We must speak the truth and act in solidarity for a lasting peace with justice for all people in Palestine and Israel.
It is past time for more Presbyterians to be emboldened by our own denomination’s policies, and, along with other practitioners of Christian faith, to courageously speak truth to power with our voices and our bodies. The picture of Coons with Netanyahu from July 9, 2025 signals to the world that the Presbyterian Church, and U.S. Christianity as a whole, is supportive of the genocidal actions of Israel. It indicates that the Presbyterian and Christian presence in countering Christian Zionism, amidst the ongoing genocide in Gaza, must be strengthened. The modern State of Israel must not be confused with the biblical Israelites, just as the Bible, which is meant to proclaim the promise of liberation, must not be used as a tool for colonization. Instead, Presbyterians and other practitioners of the Christian faith, including Coons, should seek to take our cues from our Palestinian Christian siblings, such as the call from Rev. Dr. Isaac, to nonviolently seek “justice for Palestinians, the end of apartheid, and true peace in the land are a righteous cause” even as our witness will be the kind of solidarity that “gets one criticized, falsely accused, slandered, and possibly even arrested.”
Ha’aretz ran an article this weekend which explained: ‘Soon No Liberal Will Be Able to Live Here. The IDF Has Already Fallen to Messianism’
If you want a good example of Christian Zionism run amok this idiot has turned on Israel, but is spreading nonsense that HIAS has brought 500,000 illegal immigrants into the USA, paid for by Biden. Hint: HIAS annual reports are available online. They brought fewer than 9,000 refugees into the USA in the last yearly update in 2023. Most of the refugees they’ve assisted are overseas in Ukraine.
Just to be clear, HIAS is only one of the many organizations that participated in resetting refugees through US government funded initiatives.
But it’s report for the USA in 2025 said: “The year brought a historic milestone: resettlement of over 100,000 refugees for the first time since 1995. HIAS was a vital part of this effort, resettling 8,279 people across the country through our network of 30 resettlement partners. HIAS is also a leader in the fast-growing field of private sponsorship; through Welcome Corps sponsors HIAS resettled 119 refugees, and through a special virtual reception program helped about 500 refugees join their family or friends in the U.S. and receive remote case management.
This not a problem of modern secularism causing a loss of faith in God and religious morality in the modern world. This genocide is being conducted like a modern Inquisition by people who falsely claim to have a covenant and instructions from God.
Christians have a problem when pre-schoolers, who weren’t even born yet on October 7th, are being starved to death. The Christian scriptures have summed up the situation this way: “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!
Speaker of the Knesset MK Amir Ohana (Likud).spoke about Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee-Sanders as “a principled leader and a steadfast ally of the State of Israel. Her moral clarity, and the meaningful impact she has had on the U.S.-Israel alliance throughout her years of public service, are deeply valued”.
The Governor’s cultural visits will include a trip to the Western Wall, Judea, Samaria, and the UAE, as well as meetings with senior Israeli and UAE government officials.
Her statements defending Trump’s “animals” comments about migrants and promoting a false narrative about “terrorist” entry through the U.S.-Mexico border aren’t based upon any text from the Christian scriptures, e.g. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”
Scripture has much to say about “the foreigner,” “the sojourner” and “the stranger.” In the NIV translation, the word “foreigner” alone is mentioned over 140 times! See: 21 Bible Verses About Refugees — World Relief Organization.
The Hebrew scriptures unmistakably require believers to give foreigners staying in the land equal protection of the same laws as the native born. “When strangers sojourn with you in your land, you shall not do them wrong. The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:33-34).
FYI, Israel’s patriarchal families supposedly spent hundreds of years living as strangers in Egypt. They were clearly not described as “converts” or “proselytes”.
See: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson visits Western Wall. and House Speaker Goes FULL APOCALYPSE In West Bank Visit.
I’m agnostic. But I do know the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Job, and the Deir Alla Baalam inscription prove that Yahweh was originally just one of many other Gods. The Torah originally said that the “Council of the Gods” or “Sons of God” were given dominion over the Earth, not the “Sons of Israel”.
I have no idea what Zionists think they are doing. Their Christian scriptures in Matthew 6, and 25, Romans 4, Acts 2, 7, and 17, Galatians 3, and 1 Corinthians 11 make it impossible to ritually practice Talmudic Judaism anymore.
They are supposed to be showing compassion and love to others, including Palestinians, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and comforting those in prison. There is supposed to be no distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, and the Christian God is supposed to be all in all. Full Stop. I haven’t seen any evidence that Christian Zionists or the America First GOP are allowed to do any of those things, since they seem to have declared them all illegal.
They are supposed to pray at home in private, and keep it short. Their God supposedly already knows what they need. Their God does the blessing and cursing of every nation, not just certain races. Abraham was given the promise he would be the father of all nations and bless them, without circumcision, work or wages. Everyone else will supposedly be saved the same way, by faith. Their God doesn’t live in temples made with hands or sprinkled with the ashes from heifers. He poured out his spirit on all flesh, and is supposed to dwell in believers hearts. He walks in them and talks through them, makes them prophesy, see visions, dream dreams, etc.
So, anyone making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, writing prayers on scraps of paper, and ritually shoving them into a crack in the wall in order to follow a tradition of Judaism is wasting their time. If you are wearing a head covering when you prophesy about what God has ordered everyone to do to bless “Israel”, you didn’t get the memo. Christians aren’t supposed to do any of those things that way anymore. Any man doing them while wearing a skull cap is dishonoring themselves.
Just to clear up any confusion. An Orthodox Jew may be quoted as later having apologized for buring New Testaments, but they simply omit the fact they are sorry, but rules are rules, and they were simply fulfilling the law. Orthodox Jews commenting on the article here explained the dilemma:
Without getting into whether I agree or disagree with their actions, the fact that the old testament is also printed together with their new testament doesnt make it against halacha to burn. On the contrary, the Rambam clearly states that a sefer torah that was written by an apikorus (even if it is a “kosher torah scroll” with ink on parchment) MUST be burned!!! It has absolutely no kedusha and one may not learn from it.
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‘If the “Torah” is published in the same book as the New Testament, it is a mitzvah [commandment] to burn it. Even a Torah scroll that was written by Christians with all the illuminations. It is a commandment to burn it. Talmud tractate Shabbos and chapter Kol Kisvay. So an ignoramus shouldn’t tell us what Jewish law says. We are guided by the Shulchan Aruch, a codification of Jewish law, not personal opinions shaped by reading newspapers ,what leftist say etc..
See: “Or Yehuda Residents & Students Burn New Testaments”
“Backed by Shas officials, students from Or Yehuda yeshivas gathered hundreds of copies of the new testament along with missionary materials, which were later taken to a central location in the city and set ablaze last Thursday night.
A vehicle with a loudspeaker made its way down N’vei Rabin Street, calling on secular Jews to bring the copies of the new testament and other materials given to them by the messianic Jews, which were later set ablaze.
Shas officials in Or Yehuda explain that missionaries are working with fervor in the city, which they point out is against Israeli law.
See: Israel: MP tears up Gospel after calling it an “abominable book”
Michael Ben-Ari a religious conservative was photographed tearing up a copy of the New Testament which was given to him by Israeli Evangelicals
Yesterday a photographer captured the shocking scene of Israeli MP Michael Ben-Ari tearing up a copy of the New Testament and throwing it in the bin. He did not commit this act in just any old place; he did it in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament. Mr. Ben-Ari is a member of HaIhud HaLeumim (National Union).