Eastern Christian Anger Isn’t a Verdict on Israel |
In recent days, senior Eastern Christian leaders in Israel and Jerusalem released a public statement sharply criticizing Christian Zionism. The language was forceful, and the reaction beyond the region was swift. Among Western Christians who support Israel on moral, historical, or theological grounds, the statement was widely read as a sweeping judgment — not only on Christian Zionism, but on Israel itself and the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty.
That reading, however, misunderstands what such statements represent.
Eastern Christian critiques of Christian Zionism are not best understood as theological verdicts or moral condemnations of Israel. They are responses shaped by history, geopolitics, and proximity — by what it means to exist as a small, exposed minority in one of the most politically charged places on earth.
Eastern Christian churches in Jerusalem — Armenian, Greek Orthodox, Syriac, and others — are minority institutions operating in an environment where public positioning carries real consequences. Their leadership has long been shaped not by abstract ideological debates, but by survival under dominant political forces. As a result, their public language often reflects caution and risk management rather than doctrinal precision.
That caution, however, is frequently misread when detached from Jewish historical memory. Any serious discussion of Jewish–Christian relations must begin with an unvarnished truth: Christianity has historically been one of the greatest sources of destruction for Jewish communities. From the Crusades, which annihilated Jewish populations across Europe in the name of the cross, to the Inquisitions, which criminalized Jewish life and enforced conversion through terror, Christianity was not a neutral neighbor to Judaism. Blood libels fueled mob violence, forced conversions shattered families and erased communal continuity, and pogroms followed in the wake of Christian societies long before modern racial antisemitism emerged (historical overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism#Christian_antisemitism).
This history is not incidental. It defines why Jewish resistance to Christian proselytization exists at all.
For Jews, evangelism is not an abstract expression of faith. It is inseparable from centuries in which conversion was demanded under threat of death or exile. That legacy remains visible in modern missionary movements that........