In this episode
Last episode we spoke with historian Dr. Rashid Khalidi to help us understand “What’s going on?” This episode we speak with Lisa’s friend, the Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, Pastor of the Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem and Dean of Bethlehem Bible College. You may have seen the video of Dr. Isaac’s viral Christmas Eve sermon. If not, after listening to this conversation, the next thing you do must be to listen to that sermon. It is a theological plea to the global church to intervene in the ongoing genocide of Dr. Isaac’s people—the Palestinian people. Rev. Dr. Munther is the author of The Other Side of the Wall: A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope.
This episode comes to you in partnership with The Historic African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the spirit of the Historic Black Church, which has begun to rise up and call for a ceasefire in Gaza, St. Thomas’s 17th rector, The Very Rev. Canon Martini Shaw and his team decided to focus the church’s Lenten season on understanding what’s going on in Gaza and why it matters for our faith. So, a portion of this episode has been listened to by the St. Thomas’s Community!
We’d love to hear your thoughts. Thread or Insta Lisa @lisasharper or to Freedom Road @freedomroad.us. We’re also on Substack! So be sure to subscribe to freedomroad.substack.com. And keep sharing the podcast with your friends and networks and letting us know what you think!
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https://freedomroad.substack.com/p/christ-in-the-rubble
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Transcript
Lisa Sharon Harper: [00:00:00] Coming to you from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the city of brotherly love and sisterly affection. I’m Lisa Sharon Harper, president of Freedom Road, a consulting group dedicated to shrinking the narrative gap. Welcome to the Freedom Road podcast. Each episode, we speak with national and global faith leaders, advocates, scholars, artists, and activists to have the kinds of conversations we normally have on the front lines.
It’s just that this time we have microphones in our faces and you are listening in. And this episode comes to you in partnership with the historic African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Now in the spirit of the historic black church, which has begun to rise up and call for a ceasefire in Gaza, St. Thomas 17th rector, the very Reverend Cannon Martini Shaw and his team decided to focus the church’s [00:01:00] Lenten season on understanding what’s going on in Gaza and why it matters for our faith. So a portion of this episode will be listened to by the St. Thomas community. Hey, y’all. Hi. It’s my home church. And of course they are welcome to tune into the podcast to hear the conclusion of our conversation.
Last episode, we spoke with historian, Dr. Rashid Khalidi to help us understand what’s going on in this episode. We will talk with my friend and brother, Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, pastor of the Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, Palestine and Dean of Bethlehem Bible College.
You may have seen his viral video on Christmas Eve. It was a sermon. And if you have not listened to it, it is the next thing you must listen to after listening to this conversation. It’s a theological plea to the global church to intervene in the ongoing genocide of Dr. [00:02:00] Isaac’s people, the Palestinian people.
Reverend Dr. Munther Isaac is the author of The Other Side of the Wall. A Palestinian Christian narrative of lament and hope. Now we would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. So I want you to tweet to me at Lisa as Harper or to Freedom Road at Freedom Road us.
You can thread, you can Insta, you can Facebook, but just let us know what you think and let us know how you are processing this conversation and keep sharing the podcast with your friends and networks and letting us know what you think, because, you know, actually when you share we grow and more people get this conversation.
Okay. So, Munther, thank you so much for letting me call you by your first name. First of all, I want to establish that. So folks don’t think I’m not respecting you. And I also wanted to say, thank you also for sharing your time with us on the Freedom Road podcast and also with the church [00:03:00] the African Episcopal church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia. for joining us.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: It’s my pleasure and honor.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Well, I want to start because we always start on Freedom Road with our personal stories. And so, you know, most people do not understand that there are Christians in Palestine and actually have been there for a very long time. So I’m wondering if you can share with us your faith story.
How did you come to be Christian in Palestine?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Well, Christianity started here. And Christianity was exported to the West from here, and it’s only natural that there are Christians in Palestine. It’s only natural that there are Christians in Bethlehem. There has always been a Christian presence in the land of the Bible.
Jesus was born here. The first church was in Jerusalem. Resurrection happened here. And we look at ourselves as the [00:04:00] longest and oldest Christian community in the world, the first Christian community in the world. And oftentimes when people ask us as Palestinians, when did you become Christian?
We say during the Pentecost, you know, the Pentecost. And I grew up in a Christian family. I grew up, you know, from an early age. I was membe, very active in my church. Um, Christianity and and and Jesus the Bible. Everything was, you know, all of these were everything to me from an early from an early age.
It’s part of our identity here in this land, and identity matters, you know, because it’s about rootedness. It’s about narrative. It’s about culture, and as I said, we take pride as a Palestinian Christian community in being the oldest Christian community in the world, [00:05:00] but we also feel the burden of responsibility, the burden of history to continue that presence, especially in the midst of very, very difficult circumstances.
And given that today we are very small in numbers. So we feel the burden of history to continue that presence. That’s why I said identity matters to us and, and the Christian identity and calling is something that is embedded in our you know, who we are.
Lisa Sharon Harper: You know, I read something online. I think it was one of your posts on instagram where you said, or I think it was you who said that the christian presence in Gaza right now is under threat and maybe even erased. Is that did I read that right?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: And this is one… of the one of the very many tragedies of this war of this genocide is that it will most likely bring an end to the Christian presence in Gaza. Given that, you know, many have been already killed, [00:06:00] unfortunately, and those who are in Gaza now, most of them lost their homes.
Most of the Christian community we are in touch with… close to 900 Palestinian Christians in Gaza have all fled to the two churches, the Orthodox or Catholic churches… Catholic church. And they told us that their homes are already destroyed or partially destroyed. Can they survive this even if they live?
And this is a big if right now.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Let’s remember that two of the Christian community, two women were shot dead in the church while they were at the church campus. So who knows, you know, and they’re really fearful and if they survive, where will they end up? Whether can they wait until their homes are rebuilt?
Will there be resources? Will even Israel allow Palestinians to rebuild Gaza? These are all big question [00:07:00] marks. And we already know that many of them have sought to leave Gaza try to apply for immigration somewhere else. And whether in Australia or the United States or wherever they have relatives.
So we fear that at the conclusion of this war, if they survive and again, this is, you know, we hope we pray they survive. We hope this war ends tomorrow, even tonight. Yes. The future remains unknown.
Lisa Sharon Harper: May I ask you, how does your, your own family, your family story connect with the story of Palestine itself?
Where were they in the Nakba, for example? Where were they during the British Mandate?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Everybody, everybody was impacted by the Nakba. Every family is impacted by the Nakba. I look at my family from my father’s side. My grandfather was [00:08:00] in West Jerusalem. What is now West Jerusalem and had to leave and come back to the West Bank where he originally is from a town called Bait Sahour, the shepherd’s field near Bethlehem.
He was a banker during the British mandate. He lost that and ended up in the Gulf countries in Kuwait looking for a job because there was nothing in the West Bank in, in Bethlehem for him.
Lisa Sharon Harper: So he lost his job as a banker during the Nakba, as in when they were, when they were pushed out?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Yes. And yes. And when the British left and he went to work in a bank or establish actually the central bank in Kuwait. And when Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, he lost the right to return to the land. I mean, this is his home. This is his land. Israel would not allow anybody to [00:09:00] return unless you apply for a lengthy and complicated family reunification process and I still have an aunt who’s in Lebanon.
My uncle, my father’s brother, died in Egypt. Having never visited home. He only lived here when he was a child and their dream was… I know my aunt in Lebanon. Her dream is to come and visit. She was able once to visit in in very unusual circumstances, and many years ago. My father was able to return to Bethlehem on a visitor process in the in the 70s.
Then, you know, married my mother, who was from Bait Sahour and applied for family unification. So my father was able to return. And we ended up living back home. This is home. You know, all of our relatives are here. From my wife’s [00:10:00] side, both her grandparents are refugees, one from Jaffa and one from lead. They lost homes.
They could, you know, my wife grew up listening to stories about the Nakba. Well, how they lost their homes from her mother’s side. They were in the orange industry, you know, uh, exporting oranges. They have lots of money. This is what we know, but they lost everything. And from her father’s side. Her father’s side, they were in Jaffa and they left, and are scattered.
So my wife has relatives literally in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, still in Jaffa and some in Ramallah. Being displaced and scattered is our story as Palestinians.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah, you know, it’s actually interesting. It’s strikingly like the African American experience or the African diaspora experience where we are spread all over the world because of colonization and empire.
So I want to ask you, you know, [00:11:00] over the last five months, as you have been witnessing the genocide in Gaza and also increased violence on the West Bank over the last few years, what have you witnessed?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: So many things, so many things. To begin with, having talked about the diaspora community, I’ve witnessed the unity of the Palestinian people and that memory was never lost. Identity was never lost.
I spoke in Jordan to hundreds of Palestinians and Jordanians, but many Palestinians who Could name we come from this village. We come from that time. I went to London, you know, more than 200,000 participated in the protest and they came to talk to me and to the ambassador. We were together and they would say, we come from this village.
We come from 1948. They remember and [00:12:00] they still identify as coming from a certain village in 1948. I witnessed the resiliency of our people. You know, that’s why I said in London, I never felt as proud as a Palestinian as I felt in the last four months or so having witnessed our resolve, our resilience, our faith… our faith in God being challenged yet strengthened and I’ve witnessed the ultimate hypocrisy of the world who watched and did nothing, even though they boast about caring for human life, human integrity, and human rights whereas in fact when it comes to Palestinians it seems that these things don’t apply.
Such I spoke about even the racism we’ve witnessed the double standards we’ve witnessed [00:13:00] as Palestinians from the way the world continues to react, to the ongoing genocide. But I think finally, I’ve witnessed important developments. I mean, everything is tragic. I can’t think of positives, but at the same time, I looked how the streets continue to speak out. The solidarity of the streets which proves that there is a gap between where people are and where the leaders are. Leaders lack courage, they lack integrity and the moral credibility today is in the streets in those coming to demonstrate and saying not in our name and we hear them. We see them. I think this is really an important fact. It’s hard to say anything positive again. And we’re still hoping that this genocide ends. But these are the things that I continue to think of
Lisa Sharon Harper: these days. [00:14:00] So, when you consider the scripture’s promise of land to the Hebrew people, how do you understand that text as a Christian Palestinian?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: I believe in the Bible. I am a pastor and a scholar. The first thing that I want to address is how is this relevant to anything that’s happening today? Okay. The idea that we can equate and draw a straight line from a promise in the Bible to a certain faith community and immediately assume that it applies today to the Jewish people because they are the offspring of that community that receives the promises is something I don’t accept.
And I… is also something if you think of it, I mean, do we accept it in any other circumstances? And then let’s consider [00:15:00] the… actually what we’re saying. What we’re saying is that God privileges certain ethnicities. What we’re saying is that our fate was decided 4000 years ago.
What we’re saying is that God is not the God of justice. And that the Nakba is the plan of God. And what we went through is a fulfillment of prophecy because this is how God runs history. I really, you know, ask people, do you, do you really consider what you’re saying when you say this?
Because imagine in any other context, if a certain group of people come to another group of people and say, you According to our religion, God promised our ancestors your land, therefore we’re going in and we’re kicking you out. Would we accept this in [00:16:00] any other context? And then, you know, I’m not going into the text themselves. I can do that. I’ve written books on the theology of the land.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Please do. We actually want you to.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: But I want to question the relevancy of these texts in scripture to what is happening today. And I want to, I want to dismantle this idea that the state of Israel today is the same like the Israelites in the Bible.
Why did we assume this? How did we get into this? And whether a political issue of today that at its core is settler colonialism can be justified using an ancient text, because a certain people claims, well, we are the recipients of those promises today. [00:17:00] And let’s remember that theology, the Bible was used to justify slavery, apartheid, persecution of women, even within the church, colonialism, and many other issues. But today, the only injustice and oppression that the Bible continues to be used to justify is actually what’s happening to the Palestinians. Now when it comes to these promises of the Bible, I mean, at its core, it’s a promise of a blessing based on a covenant between God and his people.
And these promises were meant to create space for the community of God, to worship God, and to embody the ideals of faith in God, the Torah on earth. They [00:18:00] were meant to create a space for justice, for purity, for holiness. The land was never, ever meant to be a possession. The idea of possessing land is actually a colonial idea.
The Biblical idea is one of inheriting land, meaning receiving it as a gift from God for the good of the community. That’s why in the Bible, it’s always clear you cannot sell the land in perpetuity because it’s not your land to begin with. It’s my land. The land is mine. And that’s why God says justice and only justice you should follow so that you live and inherit the land that the Lord God is giving you.
Because if you’re not embodying ideas of justice on the land, I’ll take it from you. It’s not your land to begin. You can’t do in the land, whatever you wish. And actually in Leviticus, the scripture says the land will vomit you out because it’s the land does not tolerate injustice, unholiness.
Lisa Sharon Harper: When you say the land, [00:19:00] Sorry, when you say the land is my land, you mean God’s land. Is that what you’re saying?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: This is what God says. And yeah,
Lisa Sharon Harper: So the land will vomit you out if you are not doing justice.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: If you’re not abiding by holiness, if you’re not following the commandments of God. And there were always these very clear commandments that remind the Israelites, the land is never yours to possess.
And what’s also interesting in the land. The land theology in the Hebrew scriptures is that the lands were always, the land was always meant to be a land of equality and inclusion. So the stranger must be treated like the native born. Even when it comes to the inheritance, they receive inheritance like the native born according to Isaiah 47, which is by the way, the exact contrast, if you want to apply these principles today to the Israeli nation state law. And even though I don’t accept the idea that I’m a stranger to the land. I [00:20:00] am a, you know, we’re the native people of the land. Nevertheless, I think the ideas of the biblical vision of the land is that we’re all treated equally.
Not as, you know, classes. There are no second class citizens. We always say in the land. So the inclusion element, the inclusivity of the land is part of the land promises. And again, I think what was said about the land in Hebrew Scripture is actually what should apply to every land in every other context in any other time.
Our land is actually the land of the Bible. I mean, in Scripture, you know, it’s a model, if you wish, to other lands. It’s a prototype. This has always been the idea, the same way God’s relationship with the Israelites was supposed to serve like an example, a model to how God relates to humanity. Even when we talk about the Israelites’ rebellion in [00:21:00] the Hebrew scripture, I always tell people, don’t look at it as something relating to the Jews.
It’s actually an image of every… of all of us’ relationship with God. We see a mirror of ourselves in the Israelites as people of faith. So this is how I read scripture. Yet, sadly, scripture today has become the pretext for colonialism, for even a genocide, you know. Because, and I’m not exaggerating, there are people who used biblical text to justify the genocide, including the Israeli Prime Minister himself, Benjamin Netanyahu, who used the image of the Amalekites. But before he did that, many Christian Zionists did that did precisely that. And I posted once about the mega church pastor who said, I call for Israel to turn Gaza into a parking lot.
And I mean, imagine if someone, imagine if a Christian in Gaza listens to this. Seriously. This is a fellow Christian calling for my [00:22:00] genocide.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Wow.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Because he believes the Bible taught us to take sides with a certain people because it was predetermined thousands of years ago who are the good guys and the bad guys.
History doesn’t matter, context doesn’t matter. God says, bless Israel, we bless the Jewish people today. It’s unthinkable to me.
Lisa Sharon Harper: These are our stories. You’re listening to the Freedom Road podcast, where we bring you stories from the front lines of the struggle for justice.
We’re going to jump back in and I’m going to I want to start, Munther, with this question of Empire because in your sermon, you said that Palestinian Christians think in terms of Empire.
So can you explain what you mean by that? What do you mean by Empire?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: I look at Empire as first as a theological [00:23:00] concept. The principle of power, the language of power, the logic of power and domination and exploitation of the other. But I also use it as a political reality today. I look at the empire as the counter to the kingdom of God in the Bible and empires take different shapes over history.
And they took different shapes. And we would be so mistaken if we think that we don’t have empires today because we do. And I always like to use this, um, very powerful definition of empire used given by the world communion of reformed churches in the document called the Akra confession, and they define empire as, and it’s really important, the coming together of economic, cultural, political, and military power that constitutes a [00:24:00] system of domination led by powerful nations to protect and defend their own interests.
I think every word here matters because this is precisely what’s happening in our land today. It’s the coming together of economic, cultural, political and military power. And we see this today because many times people forget that Israel serves the global economy in a good way. There are strong economic ties, but also arms trade between the _____ nations, the U.K. The U.S.A. And Israel. We look at Israel as an extension of empire serving the interest of empire. And it’s very clear today how in the American politics. The biggest reason politicians support Israel is because it serves the interest of America.[00:25:00]
So it’s the coming together of these. Economic, cultural, political and military power that constitutes the system of domination by powerful nations, and I can add nations that use the veto rights nations that, you know, control the economy of other nations to protect and defend their own interest. And this is why you see how the West continues to exploit nations in the East and the Middle East for its own interest.
So, empires today live. Exist. And the important feature to me, as I said, I look at them theologically as the counter of the kingdom of God. They rely on power, domination. They always justify everything…
Lisa Sharon Harper: Very quickly, very quickly, just to make sure we’re understanding what you just said. You understand them to be the counter to the kingdom of God.
In what way? How?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: In many ways, first of all, for example, they [00:26:00] rely on power. The language of empire is war. They… empires are comfortable with exploiting people. People are commodities. People can be shifted and moved to other places to serve the interest of empire. The language of empire relies on dehumanizing and even demonizing the other so that it can justify violence.
Violence is the language of empire and violence is always justified. For example, invading Iraq was to promote freedom and democracy. Israel’s genocide and Gaza is self defense. It’s actually, you know, they’re fighting a war on behalf of all of the civilized. They told us this is what Netanyahu said.
And so the language is determined by the empire to justify violence for the sake of exploiting the vulnerable people to serve [00:27:00] the interest of empire. And the sad thing, when I compare it to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God, I always use this term, it’s the kingdom of meekness. It’s the kingdom of the meek those who are righteous, those who are thirsty for justice and righteousness.
It’s who are humble in spirit, not the proud, you know? If I want to explain empire theologically, I would just go to the Beatitudes and look at the characters of the people of the Kingdom of God, and then contrast them. So blessed are the merciful Jesus said. And empire has no mercy. Empire is ruthless.
I mean, how do you accept the killing of 13,000 Children and ongoing while you’re still debating and deliberating the technicalities of a ceasefire? There’s no mercy.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Unbelievable. Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the land. The empire believes blessed [00:28:00] are those who use force and who always rely on their mind.
And who believe in the language of war and domination for they shall inherit the land. So it’s the exact opposite of the kingdom of God and you can go on and on with every one. Blessed are those who are thirsty for righteousness in the empire. It’s those who are thirsty for self interest, for might for, control, dominion of others.
So it’s that comparison that shows how Jesus offers actually, and this is how we understand Jesus, as offering a radical alternative to the ways of empire. Having lived and ministered and was born under an empire, served, created his kingdom in the shadow of empire. A kingdom, by the way, that survived 2,000 years later, while other empires came and fell.
Let’s remember that.
Lisa Sharon Harper: So in your sermon, in that Christmas [00:29:00] Eve sermon, you also said after genocide, you have said there will be no forgiveness. So rather after genocide, there will be no forgiveness is what you said. And you said what has been done has been done. So, you know, when I posted your sermon on my, on my Instagram page, a few people took issue with that saying, how can you say there’s no forgiveness, especially if you’re a Christian, Jesus is all about forgiveness.
And I mean, my counter to them was look, you do not get to say whether somebody who has been genocided can needs to forgive you for not doing anything. I mean, come on, right? But I do want to ask, I’m going to give you an opportunity to speak into this. What is it that you meant by that? And do you still think that?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: So my words, we will not accept your apologies. I think of forgiveness as something that only God grants. I can’t, you know, I [00:30:00] look at it this way, but in terms of apologies, what I meant is that I will not accept anybody coming after the genocide and saying, whoops, we didn’t know. And say, no, you knew this is what I meant.
Lisa Sharon Harper: You couldn’t, that’s right.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: I wouldn’t accept because I look at the Christian history and I look at, you know, people we’ve looked. Uh, read about, learned from, and I look at a certain pattern, um, you know, Bonhoeffer. Everybody was against him. No one respected what he said. And then later, everybody’s celebrating him.
Martin Luther King, the same. And what I want to say, I don’t want you to come 20 years from now or 10 years from now or after the genocide and say, oh, you were right. We wish we listened. I wouldn’t grant you that because you know, it’s not a matter of knowledge. Truth is evident. But you [00:31:00] are using certain excuses to say, well, we thought something else, we were not ready.
And then after the genocide, you will come, give us money and say, rebuild Gaza. We are people of charity, we’re people of grace, and we want to help you appear like the good guys. And this is what I said, no, no, I will not accept this. We will not accept this no apologies after the genocide and the reason we say this because this is the first genocide in history that is broadcasted live.
The people of Brazil and the Israeli soldiers themselves are showing us what they’re doing and the people of Gaza are broadcasting their own massacre. We are watching, but then the soldiers are broadcasting and posting images in which they’re mocking the people in Gaza, mocking the destruction, rejoicing, [00:32:00] celebrating.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: And Israeli politicians and military leaders told us what they were going to do. And then you want to come later and say, whoops, we didn’t know. No apologies won’t be accepted. And this is what I meant, especially by those who turn a blind eye only to come and appear righteous by giving charity.
And this happens all the time.
Lisa Sharon Harper: What do you say to people like Biden and others who call themselves Zionists, especially Christian Zionists, who say that there’s a Biblical mandate that you cannot do anything against the state of Israel. Otherwise you will incur the wrath of God. Basically, if you curse the state of Israel, things will not go well with you is what, what they’ve been taught to believe.
What do you say to that?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Well, first of all, I think this is a gross misinterpretation of Genesis 12:3. “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you” because the text is about Abraham, his [00:33:00] offspring. Uh, and you look at, uh, actually the text doesn’t mention Abraham’s offspring, Genesis 12:3, but then you look at how the salvation history unfolded.
This was never about blessing a state. Moreover, the blessing, according to Paul in the New Testament, the blessing of Abraham was fulfilled to the nations through Christ. That blessing is one of, you know, salvation, life.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Wow.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: And somehow we turned that text, which is the pretext for salvation history that ends up with the sacrifice of Jesus to the world.
We turned it into a blueprint for how. people should relate or the foreign policy of countries or people how should relate to a secular state today. When people say we should bless the Jewish people, with all due respect, we [00:34:00] should bless all people as Christians. This is our calling. We’re called to love all people.
I don’t think why, I can’t understand, and maybe I do actually, with our shameful history of antisemitism as Christians. Yeah, it’s good to emphasize that we should care more for the Jewish people. That does not mean accepting everything they do, especially when, and this is what, you know, at least the people ask me a lot of Christian Zionism and I’ve written a lot on Christian Zionism.
I’ve debated Christian Zionists. Search that online. And today I look at it and I answer in a very simple language. Zionism today has resulted in a system of discrimination and apartheid. Don’t take my word. Take the word of the leading human rights organizations that have described the policies of Israel, the actions of Israel on the ground as constituting apartheid.[00:35:00]
And as I said, listen to the witness of Amnesty International Human Rights Watch. Even Israel’s leading human rights organization, B’Tselem and Yejdin and others. Of course, Palestinian human rights organizations demonstrated that many years ago, no one listens to us. But now it’s becoming common knowledge that Israel is a system of apartheid.
Can you as a Christian really say, I am a Christian who supports apartheid?
Lisa Sharon Harper: I think that’s, I really actually think that that’s like one of the most important things that you’ve said so far, and you’ve said a lot of very important things. I mean, when you ask the question of whether or not we support a state.
You’re actually, you’re assuming that you should support, policies, the way that that state interacts in the world, as opposed to a people, which is not a state. And also it needs to be said, nation states did not come into existence until the 18th century, the late 18th [00:36:00] century, early 19th century. I mean, that was the first nation states that we know of.
So that is literally just can’t be what God was talking about in the scripture.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Yet, we’ve been pushed and manipulated to accept that and, you know, anybody who opposes that is called antisemitic whereas all we’re talking about as Palestinians is our rights to live in our land in peace and dignity and without discrimination.
This is what we’re asking for.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Munther, do you think that there’s a, um, what’s the impact of the lack of teaching on ethics in the evangelical church on the way that evangelicals, which are the crux of the Christian Zionist movement, the way that evangelicals in engage with Israel, how does our lack of understanding or even literally basic categories for this, this [00:37:00] thing called ethics play into this dynamic?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: It’s not… I mean, listen, I grew up evangelical and maybe I still consider myself evangelical. Yet, the more you read Jesus, the more you discover the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, the more you question everything you, or many things you, uh, and, and before we talk about the lack of ethics or morality in our circles one of the passages that has challenged me completely that, you know, and I think that a passage we don’t take seriously enough is the one in Matthew 25.
In which, you know, you look at how God differentiates between the two groups of people to the right and to the left, and you think it’s based on the way we worship. You think it’s on our [00:38:00] doctrine. You think it’s on our theology. None of that. All of the things we use as Christians to differentiate between one another and to differentiate between a true Christian and a nominal Christian, if you wish, or an unbeliever, or, you know, as I said, different Christian groups, none of it.
He says it’s how your faith comes to action precisely with the marginalized, with those who are hungry, thirsty, even the prisoners, whether you go and risk and visit them. It’s mind boggling to me that such important teachings of Jesus seems as if they are put aside. And it’s not as if Jesus gives a sermon on encouraging his followers, we should be kind to one another.
It’s not that. Jesus said, it’s based on that, that you know, God decides whether you inherited the kingdom or not. [00:39:00] Not only that, it’s how you treat me. You see how central it is to our faith. Is it missing? Definitely. I think sadly it is missing. From the ethos and teachings of many churches, not just the evangelicals, but definitely it’s missing from the teachings of or the practices of Christian Zionism in which you even ask, you know, is there any good news to the Palestinians in that theology at all?
I think we missed, and I think the idea of Jesus. You know, what is a Christian? Someone who definitely believes in Jesus, but it’s also someone who follows Jesus.
Are we truly following Jesus? Are we his disciples? And many times, I also remember growing up the [00:40:00] discipleship booklets I studied and I grew up part of, and I grew up in evangelical circles.
I’ll be very honest, you know, it was about the points, you know, read your Bible. Pray, go to church, share your faith. You know, this is, I mean, and then you read the teachings of Jesus. Well, it’s about sacrifice, denying oneself, giving to the poor always seeking what’s for the others. The Good Samaritan, Matthew 25.
My goodness. None of that is what we were taught on what it means to be a Christian, even though this is how Jesus defines who are his followers.
Lisa Sharon Harper: It’s really striking because I think that one of the ways that we see how we got here, like if we were to ask the question, how did we get here? The church itself is splitting over this question of how we should be engaging over Gaza.
I mean, you have many churches that are Christian Zionists that are [00:41:00] looking at that and going, this is all God’s part of God’s plan. It’s all, it’s all very spiritualized and it has nothing to do with an interaction with actual policies on the ground and how we should be treating each other and whether or not God would actually sanction genocide or the kinds of treatment that we see in the policies that are being handed down. And then you actually go to the scripture and they’ll pull out scripture and say, well, God does, God does actually sanction genocide. Look what he did to the Canaanites. When you have a faith construct that is created in an ungrounded way, it’s not tethered to earth.
It’s not tethered to actual how people interact with each other and whether or not those ways of interacting are just and good, but it’s only it’s only based on or tethered to what you believe about the [00:42:00] spiritual realm. Well, then that kind of, doesn’t that give license to any kind of evil to be done in the name of that religion?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: And oftentimes we bring our own ideologies and worldviews into scripture and make it say what we want it to say. This is why, you know, what I always tell American Christians and evangelicals is that your theology is actually American theology. It’s all about the ego, the self expansion, prosperity, it’s an American concept, you know, it’s that.
You know, so you bring your own perception, your own ideology, and then impose it into scripture and make scripture to say what you wish. I mean, and also, I mean, look at the concept of the prosperity gospel, which is the anti gospel. It’s the exact anti-gospel. How did we get there? It’s the American dream being, you know, made into a gospel.
You bring [00:43:00] your own narrative. Now, when it comes to reading scripture, you know, at least we need to, you know, the thing we always say as Palestinians is let’s read scripture at the checkpoint. This is why we need the idea of Christ at the checkpoint. What does it mean? Wow. It’s scripture in a situation of.
Oppression, segregation, what’s God’s message to both the Palestinian and the soldier stopping that Palestinian? Um, let’s relate our reality.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Can you explain the checkpoint for folks who may not be familiar?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Checkpoints in Palestine define our realities. We go through checkpoints everywhere we want to go to, whether we want to go to another Palestinian town or for the very, very few privileged Palestinians who can cross to the Israeli side, you have to go through checkpoints.
But checkpoints are everywhere in the West Bank being stopped [00:44:00] by Israeli military bases, military checkpoints, uh, inspecting your Ids. You can’t walk around in the West Bank without your ID and you cannot plan anything because Israeli soldiers can block a road at any time and then you’re stuck for hours or you cannot go to the next place.
Which is, unfortunately, so checkpoints define our reality. They speak the language of discrimination, power, and they remind us who is in charge, who’s in control. And, of course, how do you justify that security? You know, the empire always has a language. Oh, because by the way, most of the time they don’t search on these checkpoints.
They’re just there to delay and humiliate. So we know that they are there too. And sometimes they just close just like that. The concept of Christ at the checkpoint, a movement I lead that [00:45:00] started at the Bible college in 2010, by the Reverend Alex Howard, who’s a teacher to all of us is the concept of asking the question, what would Jesus say or do if he is to cross a checkpoint today?
Lisa Sharon Harper: Walking Freedom Road from coast to coast and around the globe. This is the Freedom Road podcast.
So what would Jesus do if Jesus was to cross a checkpoint? Take us there. Well, it’s,
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Well, it’s, first of all, it’s reminding those who discuss the theology of land. this conflict that to us, this is about real life circumstances and consequences.
It’s about our livelihood. It’s about our existence. [00:46:00] And second, it’s about relating faith to reality. These are the questions. I mean, I don’t write about the land as an exercise while sitting in the library to write an academic paper. And my concern is not whether I get the footnotes correct or the quotations correct.
My concern is how to survive. And how to experience the presence of God with us walking through these checkpoints, how to help my people see that God walks with them whenever we go through troubles and tribulations. This is how and why we go to scriptures seeking comfort seeking. And so we don’t write theology in the library.
We always write theology at checkpoints is what I always say. Um, and, um, you know, I can tell you stories of how many times there is discussions in the West [00:47:00] about the land when Americans are discussing the land as if it’s empty, our land, writing about the theology of the land, the future of Israel, the tribulation, you name it, the restoration of Israel and, you know, the moment you just say a theological belief, “I believe God gave the land to the Jewish people.”
We just say, hello, we live there. What is your proposal? Do you think we should leave? Is this what you’re saying? Or should we accept to live as second class citizens? Is this your vision? Is this what you’re saying? So people many times make these claims without considering the consequences.
But I think it’s really also importantly said that part of that question is to bring Jesus to the center. What would Jesus do? We’re Christians. We’re followers of Christ. And Jesus is our… definitely, you know, we follow him. We want to live like him. We want to be like [00:48:00] him. It’s challenging. I know he said, love your enemies.
It’s very challenging. At the same time, he’s our, and to use a fancy word, he’s our hermeneutical lens at the same time. He’s the one we understand scripture through. He embodies the will of God. He embodies the presence of God. He embodies. Uh, the, the, uh, the kingdom of God with us, the kingdom of God with us.
So he’s how we understand life, and he’s how we want to answer through him. We want to answer all the difficult questions we go through.
Lisa Sharon Harper: So after genocide is a one-state solution possible when we were, when I was there with you in 2016, when were you saying to me that nobody here really wants a two state solution.
That’s not, that’s not our solution. That’s the West’s solution. U.S. in particular has been pushing for a two-state solution. We want a one-state solution. We want to be able to be in the land as a full citizen, have voting rights, have [00:49:00] political rights.
One of the things we learned last, in our last episode with Dr. Khalidi is that during the British mandate, one of the things that happened was that political rights were taken away from Palestinians. They no longer could vote. They could no longer be represented in public office. And so in a one-state solution, you would actually have the ability to be represented, to have voice in the government, to be able to have a true democracy.
And you said that’s what we really want, but I want to ask you now, after the genocide, is a one-state solution possible and even pushing it even further is even a two-state solution possible.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Yeah. I think we should just step back and understand how did we get here. Israel is a settler colonial entity. For Israel to become a state. They had to [00:50:00] empty big portions of the land. That’s how Palestinians became refugees. Eight, 750 to 800,000 Palestinians became refugees. In 1948, which is hard to believe that now we’re talking about 2 million refugees in Palestine.
So then the idea was that, you know, not all Palestinians left. There are still Palestinians in the land. What do we do with them? And after so much conflict and deliberations, the Palestinians said, let’s divide the land will accept the division of the land, which is what the international community pushed for from the very beginning.
And the Palestinians settled on 22 percent of the land, saying we’ll accept the state on only 22 percent of the land, even though they’re not geographically connected to one another, but we’ll find ways. And this is the basis on which Palestinians went into negotiations in Madrid in the year [00:51:00] 1990 and then later into Oslo, which was supposed to be only the first step.
But after Oslo, which was, you know, stages into getting to a Palestinian state, this is what Palestinians thought. Israel spent the years after Oslo building Israeli settlements on the West Bank on the 22 percent that we thought will become our future state, meaning that if we have a state that will be on less than the 22 percent which is why all peace negotiations failed.
The Palestinian leadership insisted we went on this based on what the international community told us was a two-state solution on the land occupied in 1967. Israel gets what it got in 1948. The two state solution became almost impossible because of the settlements and the roads connecting the settlements.
The annexation of many pieces of land within the West Bank into parts of Israel, where we have Israeli ministers, [00:52:00] government officials living on the West Bank on these settlements, illegal settlements. This is when, you know, Palestinians gradually said, well, if you don’t want to give us our own state, then we want to be incorporated into your state.
And have our full rights there. And Israel’s solution was a status quo in which Palestinians are besieged within communities. It’s you know, many Palestinians use the example of a Swiss cheese where we get this space in the middle and Israel gets the cheese. So we squeeze within these spaces isolated.
This is why today, if I want to go from Bethlehem to Ramallah, I have to drive on roads controlled by Israel. The Palestinian authority only self-governs what is inside the cities. Does that sound familiar by the way, the idea of you know,
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yes, it does. Jim Crow. [00:53:00] That’s Jim Crow. It’s also apartheid.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: And it’s apartheid.
So, we kept saying, Lisa, we kept saying, this is not sustainable. The political leaders kept saying that we as church leaders kept saying that I, you know, God knows how many meeting I had with politicians and church leaders in which I said, this is not sustainable. And sadly to say, I hate to say this. We saw this coming.
We never saw a genocide to be honest. But we saw violence. So now we’re at a state where after all of this violence, we’re even asking ourselves is the two-state solution or the one-state and and more than ever, it seems that world leaders are talking, coming back to the idea of a two-state. Yeah, would that be possible practical, you know, they talk about land swaps, they talk about disbanding some settlements.
At the end of the day, what do we want? And if you ask the majority of Palestinians, what we want is the [00:54:00] opportunity to live in peace and, with no discrimination, our land with freedom to move freely without checkpoints, with representation with sovereignty. We don’t have borders. We don’t have an airport.
We don’t have, you know, Israel controls everything, with the possibility of self determination and, on a basic, basic level. I want to be able to drive from Bethlehem to Nablus uninterrupted. She’s just 2 hours from me. I want my children to grow up in an environment where they think there is a future for us in our land.
Theologically, I always use the language of sharing the land. Living together in the land as equals, but rights equal opportunities, regardless of once national or religious or ethnic identity. This is the ideas of the Kingdom of God that we have always strived for. [00:55:00] Would that be possible today?
Is the one -tate or the two-state the best way forward? We leave it to the imagination of the politicians, while continuing to insist that unless we dismantled apartheid, we’re not going anywhere. And unless we accept the other as equals in the land, we will not go anywhere. If we look at each other as inferior, there is no future.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yes, that’s perfect. I want to ask you about a term that has been outlawed by our Congress. It’s been declared to be hate speech in the U.S. from the river to the sea. Can you talk to me about what does that mean to the majority of people who are living today in the West Bank and in Gaza? And what are the roots of it?
I mean a lot [00:56:00] of people who have banned it and call it hate speech say it has its roots in the Hamas charter, where it’s calling for the genocide of Israeli people from the river to the sea. I’m actually, just recently was made familiar with the reality that actually it’s got its beginning in the Israeli Knesset that actually “from the river to the sea” is something that’s that was an idea that they had.
They would they they wanted to establish Israel from the river to the sea. So how do you hear those words. How do you internalize them?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Well, I want to bet you that the vast majority, especially in the United States or around the world who use this term has never read or heard of the Hamas charter. And the you know, the ultimate hypocrisy to me is that Israeli politicians have used and continue to [00:57:00] use this term, but in concrete ways, meaning only Jews have exclusive rights to the land of Israel from the river to the sea.
In fact, just before the war, Benjamin Netanyahu in the United Nations carrying a map of historic Palestine without any reference to a future Palestinian state or to the existence of Palestinians. To him, it’s all one Israel. So Israel can call and actually practice and act upon this, yet when Palestinians use it they’re immediately misrepresented as saying something else.
And so this is again, not just the hypocrisy, but the racism behind the pushback we see on this term. The term is simple, Lisa, we live in historic land that its borders have always been defined from the river of Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.
This is where Palestinians live today. [00:58:00] And in this land, we’re not free in this land. We’re not equal. Even the Palestinian citizens of Israel live a second-class citizen in a state that defines itself as a Jewish state and has so many laws that discriminate against them. So this has nothing to do with eliminating Israel.
This has everything to do with having freedom and equal rights for the Palestinians. And to be honest, you know, I laugh at the concept, not laugh. But the irony to me is that it’s Israel who insists there will never be a Palestinian state, but they don’t want us as equal citizens of their state.
What do you want? Seriously, what do you want? So you want a system that dehumanizes us, looks at us as inferior and does not give us equal rights. [00:59:00] That’s apartheid.
Lisa Sharon Harper: In perpetuity. I mean, that’s what they want that it’s, it had, this has to be forever. And that’s one of the things that got me in the very beginning of all of this, this is not sustainable.
This is not going to last another 50 years. Human beings fight being oppressed. That is just what humans do. So they think it’s a brilliant question, which you ask. It’s the question. What do you actually want?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: It can last. If you continue to eliminate the Palestinians, okay, and look at the native Indians and how they were put in isolation, you know, reservations.
The difference is that, we’re almost the same numbers right now, Palestinians and Israelis. They can’t do this to us. So I will always say existence is resistance. You know, we’re here. We’re not going anywhere.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Wow. Wow.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: So it can only work if we’re eliminated. [01:00:00] And this is why we’ve always seen what’s happening in Gaza coming.
We’ve said they’re going to force these Palestinians in Gaza to leave. And now they’re pushing Egyptians and Jordanians to take them. Why don’t they accept their Arab neighbors as refugees? You see what’s behind that. You know, it’s the idea of ethnically cleansing Palestine. This is how it works. So the question is, what do you want?
You can’t have it both ways. You know, ultimately, you either accept dividing the line between Palestinians and Israelis and giving Palestinians a state and giving that we accept it 22%. That’s all we ask. Or you just make us part of the that state with equal rights only and we’ll accept that.
Lisa Sharon Harper: So in your view, what is getting in the way of this lasting peace being established in the region?
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: In my view, [01:01:00] of course, there are many, many obstacles. And I can begin from inside. Palestinians are divided. We have not done a good job in creating new leaders. You know, we can blame ourselves. We definitely have our faults. We definitely have signs of corruption. You know, we can blame ourselves.
And then on a bigger circle, Israel is the one with the power. Israel is the one with the keys. Israel is the colonizer. And ultimately they are the one with domination over the Palestinians and oppressing us. You know, when people ask what should Palestinian, if Palestinians do this and that, I say, how is that going to change the decisions of Israeli politicians?
You know, many times. People say Palestinians should have new elections. I say if we have new elections, will Israel withdraw from the West Bank? I don’t think so. [01:02:00] So I want to acknowledge that we have shortcomings, but I want to ultimately point that the occupation must end and the system of apartheid must come to an end.
But even beyond that, as long as Israel has immunity, as long as Israel is never held accountable and can always rely on American vetoes whenever they not just break the international law, even commit war crimes. Israel will continue doing what it’s doing. What people miss is that the occupation is beneficial.
Israel is not paying the bill for this occupation. They rely on support, even though they have a flourishing economy with the IT and arms industry. You guys are paying a lot of that bill that enables this occupation. So the occupation is profitable. And Israel is not held accountable. Israel is never sanctioned.
And when [01:03:00] the people try to do that role by, for example, calling for boycotting Israel to make the occupation at least, you know, costly for Israel, the BDS movement is criminalized. This is again, the ultimate hypocrisy of the Western world. Nonviolent resistance is not okay. Violent resistance is not okay.
What do you want? And you know, the audacity that you try to get to tell and dictate on an occupied people how to resist their occupier is my goodness. So, what needs to change? I think the international community must come to terms with the idea that we either apply the law or we don’t. I’m talking about the international law.
Otherwise, you know, why do we need the United Nations? Why do we need the International Court of Justice? If nothing is implemented, honestly, it’s an important question we ask as long as powerful nations [01:04:00] going back to the definition of empire continue to dominate and control we will not go anywhere.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Consider 50 years from now. What do you hope to see in Palestine
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: Fifty years from now, I hope to see my grandchildren having Israeli friends.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Oh, wow.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac: I’ve always said, I hope to see my children have Israeli friends. It’s sad to say, I don’t see a wish. When my grandchildren have Israeli friends, will we be able to live in a land without fear of the future? There has never been a time in which we could say we don’t fear the future in which [01:05:00] we’re not afraid of the unknown.
I want to live in a land where I can simply, you know, drive on the weekend, and go places without fear of checkpoints and restrictions and violence. Not be locked within one small, big city. One small, you know, crowded city. Our dreams. These are very basic are very simple. They have to do with everyday life.
We’re tired of the occupation and all dehumanization it carries. And it applies. And the fact that this occupation has managed even to dehumanize us around the world as Palestinians and as Arabs, we’re tired of that. And I, as I said, even as a pastor, I want to pastor a church in which I don’t have to worry about whether there will be people to pastor in the next 20 years or whether they have been forced out [01:06:00] in multiple ways.
Which is a very real fear we’re facing now, even as I speak that, you know, will we be here 20 years from now? Will my children be here 20 years from now? This is a very serious and real question we ask.
Lisa Sharon Harper: The conversations leaders have on the road to justice. This is the Freedom Road podcast. Thank you for joining us today. The Freedom Road podcast is recorded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This episode was engineered and produced by Corey Nathan of Scan Media. Freedom Road Podcast is executive produced by Freedom Road LLC.
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