Israel, Palestine, & Christian Responsibility: A Challenging Conversation (Fisk & Bannoura) Ep #257

Dru Johnson (00:00)
Today’s episode is a particularly long one where we’re gonna talk with two authors from Being Christian After the Desolation of Gaza, ⁓ Bruce Fisk and Daniel Bannoura This is a conversation where we’re gonna go through ⁓ from the Palestinian perspective of what it has been like interacting with Israel. These are both Christian theologians who are thinking about, have been actively involved.

they pulled together a bunch of people who have been very involved in Christ at the checkpoint and ⁓ various Christian advocacy movements for Palestinian Christians and the Palestinian people. ⁓ this will be a long and extended conversation. I drilled down, I pushed back on some things, they pushed back on some things for me and corrected me where they thought I was speaking in correctly. ⁓ and so it’s really to kind of give you a taste of.

All the things that Palestinians are thinking and and seeing from within ⁓ the land of the Palestinian territories and Israel. ⁓ okay. We will also have a response from Robert Nicholson, who is going to give kind of ⁓ his view from a pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian, he would say he’s pro-both, and I think everybody involved in these conversations would say they are both ⁓

Pro Israel, the the Israeli people, pro-Palestinian, the Palestinian people. It’s just how do they work together? ⁓ how are they gonna mete out a society that works together? ⁓ all right. So it’s gonna be a long conversation. ⁓ we’re gonna go down some rabbit trails. I have lots of random thoughts. ⁓ and ⁓ I learned a lot from both reading the book and talking to them. And so I’m very grateful for this time and I think I understand so much better many of the little things I’ve heard here and there, or many of the

The arguments that kind of get thrown out there, a lot of them make a lot more sense to me after this conversation. So if you like what we do for the Center for Hebraic Thought and the Biblical Mind, ⁓ you can ⁓ like and subscribe. You can give us that golden five-star rating that we’re always looking for on your podcast feed. And if you want to give to us, we will work with you on that one. You can re give recurring gifts or single gifts at thebiblicalmind.org slash give.

Now on to part one of our discussion of being Christian after the desolation of Gaza.

Daniel Bannoura (02:30)
yeah, there’s a lot to unpack when it comes to that question, Dru. ⁓ it’s not the Israel Gaza conflict. It’s ⁓ a reality of a hundred and fifty years of ⁓ Jewish and Western Jewish, what we call now Zionist ⁓ ambitions in Palestine that have rendered the Palestinians insignificant and

an obstacle for Jewish domination over Palestine. So that led to catastrophic things and events that decimated the Palestinian society and made the majority of us Palestinians as refugees who cannot go back to the land. And also specifically because I’m a Palestinian Christian and a theologian and a scholar in in Christianity and the history of the Middle East, devastated the Christian population in Palestine.

Where the majority of us have become refugees who cannot go back to Palestine. Complete eradication of Christian villages in the north, in the Galilee, massive numbers of ⁓ Christians who have left the land since then, whether in the West Bank, whether in Gaza. Gaza right now is almost empty of all Christians, ⁓ also Christians in what is today Israel. So to reduce it to Israel and Gaza conflict ⁓ takes away from a very entrenched

problematic ⁓ reality of domination of what we can call now ethnic cleansing that happened in 1948 that pushed the Palestinians, the majority of the Palestinians out of the land to create a Jewish homeland, and what is now described in Gaza as a genocide, as a collective punishment and an eradication of life in Gaza. So there’s a lot to to say about the history, the politics, but also for us as theologians here, is how theology, how the scriptures have been

weaponized rather than the Bible as a text of of of goodness and of God’s mercy and love for humanity. Now it’s become a political tool to justify what I just described. And now anyone, Mike Huckabee to Ted Cruz, you name it, could easily wield the the Bible as a weapon to justify the suffering of the Palestinians. So that’s the biggest thing as like we have to unpack all of these things that are at play. And that that which is that this is the biggest this is the saddest reality

That have made Christians, whether ⁓ scholars and theologians and Bible scholars, all the way to the parishioners and the lay people, complicit in the suffering of Palestinians. Because it’s their faith now has been used to justify all of that. So all of these things have to be tackled. And there’s a lot of ⁓ propaganda, sorry to say, and also anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry.

Dru Johnson (05:08)
Hmm.

Daniel Bannoura (05:18)
That have informed a lot of the ways that Christians and especially Western Christians, especially American Christians, how they thought about the Middle East and how they thought about this issue.

Dru Johnson (05:27)
Yeah, thank you for that. ⁓ we we everybody always says, well, we have to look at the historical context, right, when we when we deal with this issue and because it is thick and it’s difficult and you both have propaganda on all sides and you have ⁓ true stories on all sides. ⁓ and it’s it’s very difficult to separate those out. And also you just have on the ground realities where people just see things from their village, from their perspective. ⁓

So Bruce, I wonder if you could tell that same story, but how would an I Israeli tell that story? Where would the points of tension or difference be for them? Yeah.

Bruce Fisk (06:00)
can I just can I just tag on something, let me first tag

on something that ⁓ go relates to your first question, something that Daniel didn’t mention, was I think that I run into a lot ⁓ the either naive or ⁓ uninformed conflation of Jews with Israel.

Dru Johnson (06:22)
Hm.

Bruce Fisk (06:22)
So

the ancient people or the modern Jew is ⁓ you could call them a nation, a religion, an ethnicity. people go around on those questions of how to define a Jew, but that needs to be separated, doesn’t it, from a nation state, a modern political entity that has come into being with the the rise of many other nation states.

And so we have I think a default sympathy as evangelicals and as Christians for Jews, but now this ⁓ maybe predisposition or orientation has been mapped onto a state such that when the state behaves in certain ways it becomes inappropriate or unspiritual or in other ways ⁓ wrong to criticize the state. And there’s this there’s this, you know, this obvious

Dru Johnson (07:10)
Yeah.

Bruce Fisk (07:17)
serious effort on the part of Israel and and many to to equate Israel with the Jew. ⁓ Israel calls itself the Jewish state or the nation state for the Jewish people. and ⁓ w what we see then is this

notion that any criticism of the state and its behavior, its government, its military, etc., becomes anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic. So that’s that’s another thing that I see as constantly, you know, encountered in my in my conversations. ⁓ if you want could you repeat the second question? Yeah.

Dru Johnson (07:56)
can I stop you there? Yeah. I’ll I’ll go to the

that next question that kind of what is what an Israeli perspective would be on the same. But kind of pulling what I’m hearing in both of your answers is things that I think, well, when I run into people and I you know, I I say that things that I think are just basic facts about Israel and the West Bank and Gaza, and you realize people don’t know very basic things. Like Daniel, you talked about Christians and Palestinians in the same breath, and I think most Christians in the West don’t

Daniel Bannoura (08:23)
Right.

Dru Johnson (08:23)
know

that most of the Christians in Israel are ⁓ Arab and Palestinian. and then on the flip side, a lot most people do not know that most Israelis are not super religious folks. you know, I always say pick pick a crunchy granola, you know, liberal desert person ⁓ in California ⁓ and that’s like your that in my mind, and make them from North Africa. And that’s your typical Israeli, right? so

So really just like almost like a complete lack of contact contact with the actual people who live in these places and what they do and what they believe and what their what their personal hurdles are. ⁓ so yeah, maybe I could now have you kind of tell us how what you I’m you’ve you know lots of people in the area, you’ve heard all the different variations on the story. What’s gonna be the typical variation of the story that an Israeli is gonna tell you from, you know, eighteen ninety forward or something?

Bruce Fisk (09:24)
I I can start and then Daniel you can Right. Right. Right. So seventy nine, eighty percent of Israel proper is Jewish. a and the other

Dru Johnson (09:25)
Israeli Jew, I should clarify. Yeah.

Bruce Fisk (09:37)
20% or so are mo most of the other 20% are Arab Palestinians or Israeli Arabs, if you want to call them. ⁓ So Israeli Jews have been raised to ⁓ on a certain narrative, parts of which have you know credibility in my mind, and other parts need to be challenged. ⁓

We all have our national mythologies. I think at the at the core of the Israeli national myth is the the notion that we can’t trust anyone else. Israeli Jews are ⁓ only to trust themselves. And so whatever treaties might be signed, whatever alliances might be formed, none of that is stable and fixed, and s at some point the world’s gonna turn on us.

So that’s that’s hardwired into them. And then ⁓ I’m always struck when I travel in in the Jewish areas of of Israel-Palestine at the I wanna say the ignorance of Jews of their Arab and Palestinian neighbors. Like they really don’t have much contact. ⁓ I I remember being

At a at a Shabbat dinner, ⁓ and in attendance were some of my students who happened to be Egyptian, so they were Arabic-speaking Egyptians. And the family, this Jewish family, was so excited to have Arabs that they could talk to, practice their Arabic with them over dinner. when next door to them and just down the street were Arabs, Arabic speakers, but they didn’t have any contact with them. They had no relationship with them. Now that’s of course one

Dru Johnson (11:16)
Mm-hmm.

Bruce Fisk (11:17)
story but there’s just a huge divide so that the myths, the propaganda, the the suspicions, the fears.

That circulate don’t get challenged by relationships. So when I encounter Jews in Jerusalem who tell me that Arabs want to cut their throats, my only response is come come with me. You know, let me come come with me and I’ll introduce you to some of my friends. because they don’t have that opportunity or they don’t take that opportunity. So ignorance, fear, and ⁓ sense of isolation, I think, has bred the kind of mentality that has given

Dru Johnson (11:42)
Mm-hmm.

Bruce Fisk (11:55)
Given

rise to the sort of disproportionate responses, the brutality, the sort of justified ⁓ militarization of the society in order to keep themselves safe. They’re on this quest for security, and somehow they think that the only way to do that is through the so-called iron wall or the iron fist. Daniel, what’s what are you going to add to that?

Dru Johnson (12:21)
Yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (12:22)
Yeah, no, thanks, Bruce. Yeah, I yeah, I totally I totally understand the Jewish narrative, ⁓ or the the Israeli narrative specifically, of of this kind of belonging and going back to Jerusalem, the the whole spiritual legacy that they inherited of that land, of the stories of David and Solomon and the prophets and so on. And it’s and it’s it’s it’s fair and it’s beautiful, and I and I can resonate with with it as a Christian myself.

The the problem is that how those stories are are being utilized today. ⁓ how do we think about David today? You know, should we vanquish the enemies? You know, who’s Joshua today, right? Should we, you know, bash the heads the heads of babies and you know, and and that’s kind of the language that was used if you know, Dru if you kinda paid attention to the rhetoric used by Christians and Israelis about the Amalekites and how the biblical narrative has been used not to justify

Dru Johnson (12:59)
Mm.

Right.

Daniel Bannoura (13:18)
The erasure of the Amalekites in the Hebrew scriptures are now being instructed used in in in Gaza. So I I totally get that and I sympathize with it. There’s a a a nasty legacy of of anti-Semitism that has animated Jewish thinking towards the other, to to Bruce’s point, that made it very hostile and based on suspicion and fear. My problem is that how that translated, especially through Christian Zionism and Christian support for the Jewish people.

That is now coming at my expense. So now I have to pay for the sins of white European Christians who v you know victimized Jews for two thousand years. So that’s kind of the issue there. That is that is

that is also coupled by the ⁓ hostility towards Arabs, ⁓ seen who are seen as other, as seen as less than and and uncivilized. ⁓ and therefore to your point, Dru, about while people are just finding out about Christian Palestinians, it’s like

Are you kidding me? Like we’ve been around for 2000 years. We’ve been Christians before your ancestors, your pagan ancestors became Christians, right? But why don’t you know about I yeah, I’m assuming that your your European ancestors at some point were pagan. ⁓ but ⁓ but you but you know what I’m saying? Like, why wouldn’t you know about the rich, beautiful legacy of Christians in the Middle East? But that’s part of you know, we mentioned propaganda, right? But that’s part of the brainwashing.

Dru Johnson (14:29)
Well, don’t make any assumptions about me. But yes, they were pagan ancestors. You’re right, they were.

Daniel Bannoura (14:51)
We are the good guys. We’re the Christians in the West. We’re the good guys. And those those scary brown people in the Middle East are the bad guys. And we and it’s okay if we can take over the land and colonize it. We’re okay if we drive the Palestinians out. But so what do you do with the Palestinian Christians? We gotta you’re gonna lump them together with the bad guys. So how do you do this? You basically ignore them. Like they there are no Palestinian Christians. There are no so that’s an easy move.

To create that simple binary between the good guys, us and the bad guys, them. And if you do that, if you create that simple binary, then you can do anything you want with the bad people. You can you can destroy all of Gaza because these are bad people. And we saw this, I’ll just kind of give an anecdote here. There has been a you know obviously a lot of outcry because of what we saw happening in Gaza. But every time Christians are killed in Gaza, for example, there was an strike on a Catholic church that killed three Christians in Gaza.

And that’s when the uproar in the media, and I think President Trump called Netanyahu and scolded him for killing Christians. But then on every day you’re killing Muslims. But there’s no the same kind of moral clarity and like, you know, you know, concern for the livelihood of people doesn’t show up when it comes to Muslims. So there’s this kind of very ⁓ very latent bias that exists. If if Gazans were white Ukrainians or Christians, you would not see what we ha we saw in Gaza.

So obviously there’s something there that is embedded in our psyche, in our ways of thinking about the other that has justified not just what happened in Gaza, but a hundred years of this issue between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Dru Johnson (16:27)
Yeah, I I’ve heard even journalists say that if you look at the coverage, and and some of the the critical edge, and of course you guys know better than anybody that some of the deepest critiques of Israel come from within Israel. ⁓ and ⁓ but speaking of the coverage, there you know, there’s this kind of overt chastisement of Israel, but no chastisement of Gaza at all, or Hamas at least. And the the under the subtext there is, well, they’re just barbarians. Of course they’re gonna act like that.

Right. ⁓ but Israel should know better. You know, they’re the they’re this better foe or something like that. so there’s all kinds of weird ways in this in which this might be instantiated ⁓ into our thinking. ⁓ I I I have a I I did actually write w down one it’s not even a question, it’s just a thought. ⁓ because ⁓ I’m a combat veteran myself, as people who listen to this podcast are probably sick of me saying.

And so I, you know, my dad was a Vietnam vet, my uncles were all in World War II. ⁓ I I’m very experienced, you know, I did nine combat deployments down to Colombia over the in the nineties. ⁓ so I’m very experienced with regional wars from f from a ground perspective, you know, I was just at one forward operating base, so I don’t know everything that was going on. I’m interested, and this is just a thought that’s been brewing in my head for the last few weeks, that for a lot of Christians and not.

⁓ people who are interested in this area or have lay interest in some way, like they they just don’t understand conflict, right? Like they don’t understand regional conflicts. And so they’re it’s kind of like when college students on their s ⁓ student evals which you can all sympathize with, on their student evals they’ll complain about things. And you’re like, well yeah, that’s not just this college. That’s you go to any college, you’re gonna complain about that ’cause that’s what all colleges do. And I wonder how much the kind of lack of

knowledge about how regional wars work and re regional conflicts work kind of drives a lot of the ignorance in engine in this discussion as well, from your perspective.

Daniel Bannoura (18:34)
⁓ I I I have a different yeah, so Dru, I have a very ⁓ different position as ⁓ a person from the Middle East who have who have been on the receiving end of American and Western imperialism throughout history. ⁓ and so I have a lot of things to say that would be critical of how the US has been thinking and dealing with the Middle East and the the and support of Israel that has basically

Dru Johnson (18:35)
Yeah, go ahead.

good.

Daniel Bannoura (19:03)
destabilize the region for over the last 80 years. And also but also Dru, I want to also push back and realize that conflicts do not happen in a vacuum. And for example, when you think of Iran, we should not assume that Iran had forgotten about 1953 when the CIA and you know the British intelligence overthrew a democratically elected president or prime minister to install the Shah who brought so much corruption and violence into Iran.

Things do not happen in a vacuum and we have to understand that long legacy of interventionism, of imperialism, ⁓ and the destruction of Iraq recently that’s still is very is is still very live in people’s imagination. And for for the vast majority of the region, ⁓ the Arab world or the Muslim majority world, Israel, is stick that sticky issue. You tell us democracy is important. You tell us that you are the good people, you follow human rights, you you are free people.

But then why do you support Israel, a force that has destroyed the Palestinian people, has taken land from Lebanon, from Syria, is taking more land from Lebanon right now, it’s taken more land from Syria over the last two years, and also has destroyed the Palestinian people. So there is a sense in the Middle East, in in those nations, of this legacy of Orientalism and imperialism that really kind of really puts them at edge, but also

Current like affairs and how the US thinks about the Middle East has really made this very complicated and very messy. And so, not to justify any of these actions, we should not be surprised if ISIS come to the fore when you destabilize Iraq. Don’t expect Hamas, don’t be surprised that Hamas would come to the fore when there’s this unconditional support for Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. Just like the ANC in South Africa should not have been surprising or shocking to us. Just like slave revolts.

in the US should not have happened. Or just like Jewish revolts against the Roman Empire would have been surprising to the Roman soldiers, right? So we have to understand that legacy of oppression and ⁓ denial of freedoms and rights leads to violence and leads to resistance. And that’s what you have happening in throughout the Middle East and North Africa. And there’s a long list, laundry list of of stories and countries and nations destroyed because of that legacy of colonialism and imperialism.

Dru Johnson (21:28)
Yeah, it is an area r literally overlaid with imperialism. I mean, like you said, going back to the Roman Empire, ⁓ the Muslim empires, right? They were colonialists who came in. I mean, none none of the people from that region are Arab, right? ⁓ by nature, right? that they’ve all become Arab because of imperial powers. So I wonder how you do parse out, like how do you help people because we have the same thing in the United States with indigenous people, right? We talk about

Daniel Bannoura (21:34)
Yeah.

Right.

Dru Johnson (21:56)
lands taken from certain indigenous people and then we have to go, well, yeah, but they took it from somebody else and they took it from somebody else. And there’s this chain of being of you know local conflicts that ⁓ turn regional and national in some cases. So where do we, you know, as Christians, we we always say there’s this deep history. Well where does that history begin and how do we place ourselves in that history? Do we

You know, the one option is you just say, Well, this is where things are today, status quo, let’s go from here, right? But I’m hearing you say that’s not that’s not gonna really help.

Daniel Bannoura (22:29)
Yeah, I’ll ⁓ yeah, there’s a lot to say there. So I mean, as a Christian, of course my ancestors were very confused and angry when when Muslim invaders came over to and took over the land and they forced taxes on the people, right? But after a few generations and a few centuries, well, okay, Muslims are not my neighbors, and they’re kinda nice people. And maybe I spe I speak Arabic with them, I still speak Greek or Syriac, but we’re fine, you know, and then if they become your neighbors and then you just have to love your neighbors.

You still have to get along and you’re gonna buy you’re gonna buy your tomatoes from somewhere, you know. So you’re gonna buy it from your neighbor, from the farmer next door. ⁓ so yeah, I mean the history develops obviously, and there are a lot of ⁓ developments and fascinating kind of rich histories that exist in the Middle East that d deserve some reflection on just a robust and beautiful interaction between Muslims and Christians and Jews in the Middle East. There’s some tension obvious obviously, but for the most part, you move towards a sense of

Neighborliness and equality, and hopefully move move towards democracy and equal representation. Moving now, but look at this moment here when you have a system for now what is described as a system of a two-tiered legal system between Jews who rule over the land and Palestinians who are second or third class citizens, or not even citizens, residents. We know that this is.

unethical. We know that those system of systems of hierarchy and racism and apartheid are unacceptable. We can go back to Abraham and you know cherry pick, you know, Genesis twelve, but are we are we choosing peace? Are we choosing equality? Are we choosing dignity and humanity for you know, are we choosing equality under the law? Or are we saying because of Genesis twelve or Genesis 15 or Ezekiel 36, therefore I’m gonna

Take over the land of the Palestinians and build a settlement. Right. So I think there are some basic foundational laws that we know that exist, international law, human rights, Geneva Conventions, UN resolutions, just basic laws of equality and and neighbor love that should dictate how we think. That’s the current system that exists today. You don’t have to go back a hundred years to your point, Dru. Today is a system, just go to the land and you can see it. It’s a system of

systemic racism and segregation and and like I said, now it’s been declared by all major human rights organizations to be a system of apartheid, similar to Jim Crow America, similar to South Africa. So this is very obvious to anyone who goes and sees sees the land, visits with Palestinians, sees the walls and the checkpoints and the annexation of land. This is a very obvious unjust system. so we can we can discuss history all you want and I’m here for it. but at the same time

As Christians who supposedly love their neighbors, love their enemies, you know, what whatever that means to us today, because now we love to kill our enemies as Christians. If you love your enemies, surely you would want to pay attention and listen to their stories and understand that a system of hierarchies and racism and segregation is not right. And if you follow Jesus, then surely you want to be on the side of justice and mercy and goodness and not on the side of power side of power.

And domination. So this should be easy, Dru. I hope. Obviously, it’s not easy for a lot of people. But what but that for me, and I’ll stop here, and maybe Bruce could jump in now. That’s been the most heartbreaking thing for me as a Christian when I see my siblings in the faith who are at the forefronts of justifying such blatant, obvious, what we can call in Christian language, evil. And it’s obvious. But why is it the Christian who supposedly

Dru Johnson (25:49)
Mm. Yeah.

Bruce Fisk (25:53)
I don’t know if it’s

Daniel Bannoura (26:14)
Are so better than Muslims because they love their neighbors, are so ready to be to, you know, ⁓ to call for war and to justify war using the Bible. That’s been like the most tragic thing. And I think that’s what the work of the book that was published and we’re kind of slightly tangentially discussing here. That’s why this book was so important. What do we do as Christians when we saw some so much destruction in Gaza?

Dru Johnson (26:35)
Mm.

That’s good. I wanna come back to Jim Crow. But Bruce, did you wanna hop in here and ’cause he’s he’s kind of addressing some of what you said about th the fundamental fear in Israeli society, ⁓ creates all of spin out effects and you know, the kinds of Well, anyways, you wanna hop in here?

Bruce Fisk (26:52)
right.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure. So c a couple of points. W one has to do with the Christian fear post nine eleven of Islam, ⁓ which has just accelerated exponentially. So so we’ve got now a Christian population in North America and lots of places w which has a fundamental distrust of Islam as a religion and then, you know

⁓ is Muslim ⁓ practisers, practitioners, and some kind of conflation of Islam with Islamism or with militant Islam. all of that

Dru Johnson (27:31)
Mm-hmm.

Bruce Fisk (27:34)
sort of pairs nicely with ⁓ an eschatological or an apocalyptic perspective that many of these same Christians hold that sees themselves somehow because of nineteen forty eight and the establishment of Israel, because of nineteen sixty-seven and the the claiming by Israel of the Temple Mount.

⁓ confirms to many of these folk that, you know, we’ve we’re watching the kind of last days ⁓ unfold. And the last days, you know, if you read literally and I would argue incorrectly the book of Revelation, ⁓ you know, it’s not a time for sissies. You you people get hurt. And so, you know, it’s it sucks for Daniel and other Palestinian Christians, who happen to be in the in the war zone. They just need to get out of the way because, you know,

the Antichrist or the Devil or God or somebody’s up to something in that part of the world and you know, war is a time when people get hurt. ⁓ so I I’m sympathetic towards you, but you need to recognize that you’re, you know, you know part of something much bigger.

So that kind of ⁓ that’s not all Christian Zionism, that’s not all Western Christians and evangelicals, but it’s certainly a piece of it. ⁓ so you’ve got this anti-Muslim sentiment. You you know, you you talked about, Daniel, you talked about ⁓ historical context for why some of these things happen and and the importance of that. But then you also, I thought, rightly pointed to the present reality. And you know, you we could argue, and there are really

Smart people, and I think people of goodwill who are writing books that really don’t they collide in terms of explaining the history. I’ve done enough reading to be persuaded of certain accounts and certain evidence. But there are people that have read the story of the last 120 years and have concluded, you know, certain things that are essentially Zionist or certain type of Zionism.

Dru Johnson (29:16)
Mm.

Bruce Fisk (29:35)
And okay, so we could debate that and if we really are serious, we should do our homework and sit down together and talk. but even having done that, we can look around us today at what is happening, the legal regime that’s in place, the militarization, the the impact on

civilians, non-combatants, non-participants, and all of that, and it’s just very easy for me to conclude that whatever past narrative you embrace, the present is not sustainable. And it’s certainly not defensible. ⁓ And so ⁓ sure, let’s have our arguments about whether the Arab nations around Israel were, you know, out to get Israel in 1948.

Dru Johnson (30:10)
Mm-hmm.

Bruce Fisk (30:26)
I’m happy to have that debate with you, but look around you today, as Daniel said. And and that’s when it seems to me a little bit more clear, to which Israelis would respond, yeah, it sucks for Palestinians, but this is the unavoidable necessity if we’re going to ensure our security. To which I would respond, you’re not becoming more secure the way you’re going about this. And I think if anything, October ⁓ twenty twenty-three showed that very, very clearly.

Dru Johnson (30:46)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm. There, man, there so the problem is I don’t write any questions ahead of time, so I just can’t think of it. But I’m I’ve got so many questions. I I want us at some point to d ⁓ define Zionism minimalistically if we can. the us versus them thing that keeps coming up here is, and I notice it after October 7th. I go to Israel fairly regularly. I used to work for a th a think tank over there.

It ⁓ what I notice and I’d be interested to see if you saw the same thing in your Israeli friends, it shifted from a it really sucks for Palestinians. I wish this weren’t the case. We we know lots of Palestinians. We you know, we we know this is not you know, this is not the way it’s supposed to be. And then after October seventh, those same people were saying, It’s their kids or my kids and I’m choosing my kids and that was it. Like there was not there wasn’t even a discussion to be had. And again, I I I get it, I understand.

why that, but I thought that’s not a sustainable position, as you said. That’s just that cannot carry you through. ⁓ and we’ve even seen the deleterious nature of that in policing in America. When police take the mentality of good guys and bad guys, when you take combat zone mentality ⁓ out on the streets, it’s always gonna end poorly for somebody, usually not the police officer. ⁓ so sorry, that was me ranting. But ⁓ I do want to define the word Zionism because the first time I went to Israel for a co an academic conference

I wasn’t even sure what Zionism was. ⁓ I wasn’t that interested, but at some point I said, Can somebody define this? And literally the guy who’s a good friend of mine now, he said, look over that hill. You just see a hill and you think there’s a backside of the hill. When we look at that hill, we see armies waiting to invade us. that was l that was literally his definition of Zionism. And he didn’t mean it in a good way. He just meant that’s the psyche that drives this kind of thing. I and I I I want you to

Push back and tell me why this is wrong or maybe why you think it’s okay. It in my mind, if you believe that the Jewish people who are in Israel right now, whether they’re boo Jews or whether they’re atheist Jews or religious Jews, if you don’t think they should be killed or run out of the land, then you’re some form of Zionist. Because I don’t know what other word to put there. That you believe they actually should exist there in some way. And then it’s now we’re talking about

Daniel Bannoura (33:19)
Yeah.

Dru Johnson (33:21)
what degrees, what reas what theologies or what political philosophies ⁓ fund them. W what how are you using the word Zionism and where would it be different from that that kind of a simplistic continuum?

Daniel Bannoura (33:33)
I’ll I’ll ⁓ maybe Bruce could answer the question that question. I’ll I’ll give it a try as well. But before I do that, I wanna just push back, Dru, on on your language. And I mean this in a very kind way. ⁓ when you ⁓ I’ll be kind, but I’ll be firm. I’ll be firm. ⁓ the language that I I’ve been to Israel multiple times, I get why you would say that. ⁓ but that language ⁓ unintentionally erases the other people.

Dru Johnson (33:45)
You don’t have to be kind. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (34:00)
Erases the Palestinians. When you go to Tel Aviv, for example, that is the site of what is called Yafah for the Palestinians. When you go to Jerusalem, that’s an illegally occupied city of the Palestinian people. Right? So it’s I I get that that is part of the parlance, but that language in in many ways ⁓ is violent towards Palestinians because it erases them. They they become insignificant, an insignificant minority, like the natives of this country, right? We don’t talk about that.

Right. They’re just there in their own reservations. Right. So there’s

Dru Johnson (34:32)
Right. Well I’m from Oklahoma,

so it’s part of my upbringing, the indigenous people. Right.

Daniel Bannoura (34:35)
There you go. Yeah, yeah,

there you go. So I think we just have to be intentional. Both people call that place home. I, as a Palestinian, for me, that’s just Palestine. That’s there is a legacy of a a place called Palestine that is inclusive to Jews, Arabs, Christians, Muslims. That’s that’s historically Palestine. So it’s always been before 1948, every map you open, every even today, every textbook you open, you know, biblical scriptures like this is Palestine. So

Dru Johnson (34:52)
Well, it’s what it was called by Jews ⁓ up until the the twentieth century, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (35:03)
But that but that language we use is is intentionally or unintentionally. I think for most people it’s unintentional, but for those in power, it’s very intentional to erase the Palestinians. If it is us Israel, well, what are these people like yelling about? You know, they it’s Israel. So I think we just have to be careful so like we can just like for we can just humanize both people and say Palestine, Israel, Israel, Palestine. You’re holding those two things intention because they are intention, and you’re humanizing both people who claim that place to be home for them.

so I’ll I’ll just I thought I would I w I think it’s important for Christians. Yeah, that’s important for Christians.

Dru Johnson (35:36)
Yeah, no, it’s a good clarification. I don’t know if I buy

it, but I get it. ⁓ and ⁓ I only because I I was speaking geographically, like I I lived in in Israel, the geographic state of Israel, recognized by the UN. ⁓ I traveled to the West Bank quite often. I have friends in the West Bank and in Gaza. We’ve had Gazans on this on this podcast. ⁓ Khalil Sayek. I don’t know if you Khalil, but so yeah, I

Daniel Bannoura (35:41)
What why don’t you

Sure, yeah, yeah. Well then then

well then, Dru, then then I would say there’s work you have to do in being in Palestine. So like you can go to Israel and not see the Palestinian or not see the Palestinian story, the Palestinian history. You probably been to Israel many times, but you never visited an ethnically cleansed village in the north of the Galilee, right? You never spent time with Palestinians like in Haifa or in Birusabia, Bersheba. So so there’s that kind of work that you have to do.

Dru Johnson (36:12)
Right.

Daniel Bannoura (36:30)
When you go to Israel, maybe you have to also to step ⁓ you know off the tour bus and spend more time. they okay. Sure, the the point is that intentionality in meeting the people who have been there for generations and generations, that our academic programs, our our churches, ⁓ and our conferences ignore.

Dru Johnson (36:35)
Well, I I’ve never been on a tour bus in Israel except with students. I I I’ve only lived there and and traveled independently many times. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (36:54)
because they don’t fit into what whatever project we’re working on, right? So I think that’s there’s work that you and others have to do in maybe spending more time in Bethlehem than in Tel Aviv and see what that does to you the way you that you think about Israel and Palestine. So

Dru Johnson (37:06)
Well, I

think I have spent more time in Bethlehem than Tel Aviv by as as by by the count of it, yes. ⁓

Daniel Bannoura (37:10)
that’s great. That’s great. Yeah, no,

I I’m thinking I’m talking to the general audience here who haven’t been done that. Yeah.

Dru Johnson (37:14)
Yeah, yeah. No, and

I I I I get I get the point. ⁓ what’s that? Yeah, Zionism. And I think this is where Zionism becomes the like v because Zionism determines what we are calling the place and who has the right to be there and how should they be there. And ⁓ without getting into two state or one state solutions, ’cause ⁓ I’m not unless it’s helpful for thinking about it, ⁓ what is a minimalist definition of Zionism that gets us to at least figure out what we do and don’t agree with?

Bruce Fisk (37:17)
So Zionism.

Daniel Bannoura (37:20)
There you go.

Bruce Fisk (37:45)
I could take a a s a crack at that. ⁓ it clearly the term has evolved over time. So when you ask that question, you’re partly asking, you know, w when what what Zionism was around when. And of course there were competing definitions of Zionism during the the last century.

Dru Johnson (37:52)
Mm.

Right.

Bruce Fisk (38:06)
I would say to answer it minimalistically that the the form of Zionism that has won today, okay, the the the the regnant, the dominant Zionism of today, is more much more than what you just said, which w your your working definition was anybody who is is willing to tolerate or even ⁓ celebrate Jews in the land. Something like that was I think your working definition. Yeah.

Dru Johnson (38:12)
Hm.

Yeah, tolerate would be the minimum min minimal minimal. Yeah.

Bruce Fisk (38:35)
I I I think the w the way the term has evolved and and the version of it that has emerged is that it’s much more than presence in the land, it’s hegemony over the land.

So it had that involves military power, that involves legal ⁓ constraints, and of course that involves a demographic majority, right? ⁓ seventy thirty or an eighty-twenty ⁓ Jewish ⁓ domination. And that’s precisely why Israel hasn’t declared its borders all the way over to the Jordan River, because then they would have inherited millions of Palestinians that they don’t want to encounter include and and grant citizenship to. Why? Because

Dru Johnson (39:12)
Mm-hmm.

Bruce Fisk (39:15)
Zionism as conceived requires hegemony and control and domination. so that’s the way I’m using the term. ⁓ so you can be if you’re anti-Zionist in that sense, you’re somebody who says, I’m not going to support a state project that privileges one people and insists on the legal superiority of one people, that insists on the demographic ⁓ majority of one people. I’m just not on board with that.

I don’t support those no notions, whether it’s in Israel or anywhere else. I would not support a white America for the very same reasons. So that’s my my my notion of anti-Zionism. It has nothing to do with whether there are Jews in the land or how many Jews are in the land. It has to do with the structures that surround them, support them, and preserve their control.

Dru Johnson (39:57)
Or a Muslim West Bank or like same thing if yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (40:11)
Yeah, there have always been ⁓ Jews in in Palestine, historically speaking. A lot of Jewish migrants came from Europe and they came alongside the Palestinians and it was fine. I think it’s when forty-eight, when you take over the land and push a people out, that’s when Zionism becomes a problematic ideology. ⁓ to I I would go fur f ⁓ further from Bruce and I would say Zionism is just a form of Jewish supremacy. It’s a belief that Jews have to be supreme in the land. How do you establish

A Jewish state, where? Like how do you do it and where? Upon whose land? If you’re coming from Ukraine or Brooklyn or Russia or Germany to Palestine to establish Israel through Zionism, then by definition you’re gonna take over someone else’s land or someone else’s homes. Right? So yeah, sure, Jews could live in the land, but how do you live? How did you come into the land and how do you live today in that land? So that is these are the questions we have to interrogate and

the majority of Jews in the early twentieth century were n refused that Zionist project. Eventually Zionism won the day, and especially a very aggressive form of Jewish settlement won the day. Just that is, to Bruce’s point, is very aggressive and very intolerant and and frankly very dismissive and harmful towards the the indigenous population. That’s the issue here. So you have a lot of incredible and beautiful anti Zionist Jews who are saying.

I yearn to go to Jerusalem next year when I do my Passover, but I know that I need to live in justice and mercy with my neighbor, and therefore I reject Zionism. And it’s actually an affront to my Judaism. B so it’s the same legacy, the same history, the same faith, but it’s saying that Zionism as an idea ideology is antithetical to my Jewish belief.

Dru Johnson (41:48)
Right.

Right. Yeah, and of course Zionism, what you guys know, ⁓ with Herzl and the kib kibbutzniks, you you know, you have all kinds of people who are participating in in all kinds of Zionist projects. But again, I think that’s one of the things that most Christians have no idea about, right? They’re they’re shocked that it’s you know, that ⁓ that it’s Marxist communists who were actually attacked on October seventh, right? The very the very people who you would think would be the last people you would, you know, they’re they’re they’re already sympathetic and on the side of many people.

⁓ the okay, so that’s really helpful to help w thinking about Zionism. and now I think ⁓ thinking about practical realities on the ground. let’s go post October seventh, because that’s where your book picks up and you’ll get it right. Being Christian after the desolation of of Gaza. ⁓ and I wanna before we talk about Gaza, I actually want to talk about something completely outside of Gaza, which is ⁓ settler violence.

against Palestinian villages has shot up in the last two years, right? It’s gone it’s gone gangbusters. There doesn’t even seem to be now I have not kept a close eye on the most recent things, but for a long time there doesn’t seem to be any police or military control of of the settlers. It it was almost like a we’re gonna ignore that because it looks small. I it I I see that as a really potential like

a really bad thing going on that doesn’t look like that big of a deal to a lot of people ’cause you think, it’s just people going and burning a house down or something somewhere. What do you guys think that’s a big deal or is that like a sideshow?

Bruce Fisk (43:37)
I I think it’s a huge deal. I I think it’s ⁓ it’s not new though. I mean the yes you say the rates have increased, the acceleration, the the ⁓ the the the the boldness, the aggressiveness, and the state sponsorship have all sort of increased dramatically.

But you know, I’ve been going back and forth and leading student groups and living in Palestine since the second intifada, and it’s been there all along. ⁓ I can remember probably since like 2006, I was at a village that was demonstrating because the root of the wall was taking some of their land. And as part of the day’s events, there was a ⁓

There it was a soccer game and there were internationals there from Italy, from France, from everywhere. So young guys in their twenties. ⁓ and they w we set up a a soccer game between them and the local Palestinian kids. And this was going on in a just a farmer’s field, nowhere near the wall, and ⁓ the wall wasn’t built yet, but nowhere near the the the boundary. And ⁓ and so we’re we’re having a wonderful time. I’m just watching, I’m not participating, but it’s just a big festive occasion.

And these folk in a military Jeep pull up along a a road, ⁓ rim road along against the f the barrier, and they just shot tear gas into the middle of our soccer game. ⁓

Now, those weren’t settlers, I suppose, those are soldiers. But either way, ⁓ this was behavior that was completely uncalled for. There was nobody throwing any rocks. I was there, I witnessed this whole thing, and I was one of the ones who got gassed. ⁓ This kind of behavior, with the state’s support, is not new. What we see with Ben Gavir, with Smotrich, even with Netanyahu, who is a new level, ⁓ and it’s rising to her.

Dru Johnson (45:25)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Bannoura (45:37)
Okay.

Bruce Fisk (45:42)
horrific heights but it would be ⁓ misunderstanding to think that ⁓ the the settler violence is you know just a result of october seventh. That said, there are also many settlers who don’t even know they’re in the West Bank.

they’re there because the government, you know, provides subsidies and it’s a nice little hilltop village close to Tel Aviv, or they’re there because they’re hippies that want to get in touch with the land of their ancestors, but they don’t really have any political a agenda. So there’s all different kinds of settlers. Israel is a very diverse society. But the idea that this project is just a few bad apples or a couple of kids or a few hundred kids that are, you know, out of control, who always get caught and

Dru Johnson (46:17)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Bruce Fisk (46:30)
and get pr prosecuted like you hear from people like Mike Huckabee is nonsense. It’s just nonsense. It’s a it’s a it’s a systemic problem that’s getting a lot worse. And and I’m sure I’m sure Daniel you wanna speak to that.

Daniel Bannoura (46:44)
Yeah, I mean that’s that’s my that’s my upbringing in in Bethlehem. That’s or that’s what we always experience, whether it’s the settlers, whether it’s Israeli soldiers, ⁓ whether it’s violence from the settlers, whether it’s kidnapping of Palestinians, the shootings of like the shooting of my cousin, their my dad, a Palestinian pastor, arrest been arrested five times, my neighbor who was killed. Like this is this is very common for us as Palestinians. There is a there is

My my concern with this kind of this is this is a recent thing that is happening is we tend to exceptionalize certain things, like we exceptionalized Netanyahu to be in right wing, we exceptionalize Gvir and Smotrich or what’s happening with the settlers now. This for us as Palestinians who have been on the receiving end of this, this is not not new. Yes, there is an increase in the severity and the frequency.

But this is the this is the natural outgrowth of of to our previous conversation of Zionism. If you believe the West Bank or what you call Judea and Samaria to be your land, then who are these squ people who are squatting on your land? God gave it to you. Why would you consider them anything but less than and therefore you can beat them up, you can attack them, right? So that is what Jewish supremacy looks like practically.

It’s always been there, Dru. So we have to be very careful. This is not about Netanyahu or his government. This is what Zionism looks like. Try practically. What has changed, Dru, is because of the devastation of Gaza, there’s been more interest to pay attention to what’s happening to the Palestinians. So you see an increase in in that footage, social media as well. You always have content coming out of the West Bank and Gaza. So media agencies respond to that content. That content was not ⁓ available.

Ten years ago, 15 years ago. So that’s there’s a shift in media, there’s a shift in empathy towards or sympathy towards the Palestinians. Maybe not empathy, but maybe some kind of sympathy that would want to highlight that. So you have the New York Times now talking about the rape of Palestinian prisoners, you know, ⁓ which was like a huge outcry. But as far as I remember, Palestinians have always been abused in Israeli soldiers. I’ve been like assaulted at a checkpoint, like physically myself.

Dru Johnson (48:35)
Mm.

Daniel Bannoura (49:02)
Right, but that’s always been part of our story, but now suddenly people are paying attention.

Dru Johnson (49:07)
Well and that’s yeah, that helps ⁓ put it into focus for me because I I was thinking, well, the only reason I actually saw any of the settler violence stuff is because I have a friend friends who are from Gaza or Palestine who were posting it constantly. That’s how I was keeping up with it. I wasn’t through certainly not through a news outlet that I was paying attention to. ⁓ okay, so th here’s the realist part. the realist question at the end of the day, because I’ve been the kid

Daniel Bannoura (49:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Dru Johnson (49:34)
you know, the kin the kid in a village with an sixteen representing the US government, who was seventeen years old, right, in the military. ⁓ that’s not a super fun position to be in, for anybody. It’s not a super smart position for anybody to be in. but also, you know, before I joined the military, you know, I was a skinhead punk rocker. I’ve been beat by police. My my stepfather grew up in he’s black, grew up in j under Jim Crow law in the South in the forties, fifties and sixties.

so no illusions about what was actually going on there. Be before there were iPhones, I knew what I knew how police officers often treated a gr a grown black man pulled over in Oklahoma at least. So there’s part of me that says, you know, just the pure realist, not the theologian, not like thinking about it pastorally, just like, yeah, this is what happens when you put these people in these situations with these narratives running through their heads. ⁓

I I don’t know how it would turn out any other way. I mean, I have these kind of conversations with students, you know, when they have a boyfriend or girlfriend, I’m Well, yeah, if if that’s the setup, that’s what the relationship is gonna be like, right? There’s not really any other way to go about it. So help me break up that block in my mind of like, okay, so what do we do when all of this seems so obvious? You know, the more you understand the scenario, the more everything makes sense. But it doesn’t make it any better. It just makes it worse in some ways, ’cause you get used to it or just say

well that’s just the way those people are over there, you know, those Middle Easterners, they’re crazy. Right? ‘Cause Americans are not. And we and we follow all those international laws and everything. Yeah, so thanks, Obama.

Bruce Fisk (51:06)
I I wanna

Daniel Bannoura (51:09)
Hmm.

Bruce Fisk (51:11)
Right. And I and

I and I wanna say that that you know, that police brutality or or whatever example we want to bring up, that too happens in a social context. And in the global context of what’s going on in Israel Palestine, you have all kinds of aid and ⁓ cover and protection by particularly the US, ⁓ that that tolerates this stuff. And you know, I’m I’m

Not able I’m not

qualified to to address all of the various you know balancing forces at work here and certainly it’s far more complicated than all I ever understand. But when you have a country like the US giving it so much cover in terms of military hardware, in terms of diplomacy, in terms of the UN and the Security Council, you have you you foster or you promote or you at least allow for the kind of ⁓ things to happen that we’re talking about. So

So yeah, you could say, well, yeah, boys will be boys, but but no, there’s gonna be a a a a school teacher, there’s gonna be a principal, there’s gonna be a society that says boys stop being boys.

So I mean that’s just one comment that that that probably doesn’t come across well, but but I mean that the larger context can’t be ignored. ⁓ you know, there’s no guarantee that this is gonna end well or justly. there’s no guarantee that Palestinians ⁓ are going to ⁓ do any better than the North American Indian in the long run, a hundred years from now. We don’t know what the future holds. all we have is the present and all we can do is say, we’re gonna kick against the darkness, we’re going to

Dru Johnson (52:28)
Yeah, no, that’s helpful.

Bruce Fisk (52:55)
⁓ Resist. We’re going to push for justice. You know, a lot of the younger Palestinians these days have lost any real dream of a two-state solution. They really are more interested in human rights. They’re interested, okay, you win Israel, here are the keys, you get everything, but now just give us our rights. Give us, you know, our protections, allow us to be ⁓ live out our lives in dignity. We want to get to the to school, we want to get to work, we want to be safe. Well, even that kind of scenario.

Dru Johnson (53:09)
Hm.

Bruce Fisk (53:25)
It was looking less and less plausible or feasible given what’s happened in the last three years. ⁓ So but I you know I don’t think because it’s hard to picture a better future that that gets us off the hook.

Despair is the is the luxury of the privileged, right? And I’m one of those privileged old white dudes that doesn’t face this on a daily basis. But I’m gonna continue to push and continue to look for a solution or to encourage the people involved to look for solutions that keep justice and human dignity at the center.

Daniel Bannoura (54:06)
I I would I would say two things here. One, yes, thanks Dru for making that connection with ⁓ the Jim Crow. ⁓ and that’s the thing I think we ⁓ like we need to interrogate the stories that we have been telling ourselves, especially in the US, about our goodness, our inherent goodness. And just look at the last hundred years, whether it’s hundred and fifty years, whether it’s slavery, whether it’s segregation, whether it’s anti-Semitism, whether it’s like anti

Catholics from Italy or you know Ireland coming to the US, you know, ⁓ Japanese, Chinese, you know, you name it, right? There’s always this bigotry towards this other who’s different. Even a c a Catholic, you know, who’s not wasp enough, you know. So you always have that legacy of dehumanization in this country, and we have to to reckon with that legacy. We’re better off than we were 50 years ago or 60 years ago, but that’s an inherited that’s a story that is true, and we need to emphasize it.

But relatedly, my second point, ⁓ if it was not for Christian Zionism and Christian support for Israel, based on biblical reasons or otherwise, none of this would exist. We would this conflict would have ended. ⁓ I’m reminded of the South African example. The apartheid in South Africa began in nineteen forty-eight. And the US was okay supporting that system of of apartheid. Right? It wasn’t until the end of the eighties where some kind of laws were

Dru Johnson (55:22)
Yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (55:29)
has in Congress to sanction and boycott South Africa. So it took like the US 40 years to say apartheid is wrong. So this is one more one more, another chapter in that story of dehumanization of people. But Christian Zionism is a blight on the church and I think we have to confront it. I totally I get why Christians want to repent of anti-Semitism or supersessionism and want to come up and kind of be more affirming and be post-supersessionism.

sep post-supersessionist or be philo-Semitic to support and love the Jewish people. ⁓ but the thing is that’s that’s great and we can do it theologically in in the academy, but what does it actually mean practically? And who are we replacing, right? We used to hate the Jewish people. Who do we hate right now? I’m kind of reminded by a quote from ⁓ Gedeon Levi, an Israeli journalist, who says the Jews have become the new white man and the Palestinian has become the new Jew. Now this is one

Dru Johnson (56:12)
Mm.

Daniel Bannoura (56:28)
people group that you can hate. So you replace Jews with white people. Now they become white. And now the Palestinians are the new Jews. So I think we have to reckon with the legacy of our seminaries, our scholarship, where we want to repent from supersessionism that now we can justify the denial of human rights for the Palestinians and denial of justice. And and also just turn a blind eye to the suffering of the Palestinians today. So there’s work to be done in the academy. Dru, and that’s why I think some of your work is really important and the work

Bruce is doing is really important. But also go down the list of the teachings at you know, this the the sermons at churches, you know, what we’ve been taught from Sunday school. You know, like when when ⁓ Ted Cruz is telling Tucker Carlson, this is what I learned in Sunday school, Genesis twelve, I need to support Israel. Well, he his his political ideology was developed at Sunday school. So we have also to confront that that harmful ideology that is not just bad theology.

Christians are always like we’re we’re good at making bad theology, but we have a lot of bad theology. But the problem is now that this bad theology has real life impact and it’s justifying evil. ⁓ so this is like I think this is kind of and this is the moment that this book wants to highlight for us. This is a pivotal moment in our faith, and we need to reckon with our complicity in evil. Just like we had to reckon with our complicity in anti Semitism.

racism and so on. This is one more iteration of that violence that is being justified by by Christians.

Dru Johnson (58:03)
Yeah, that’s ⁓ that’s a really good flow of thoughts. That brings us to I have two questions. I want to get to Gen Z because I think the story is changing when those of the my kids’ age, right? They’re all 20, 20 somethings. ⁓ but the yeah of all the things that people don’t know about the Middle East, one of them is ⁓ people are shocked when you tell them th simple things like

Daniel Bannoura (58:11)
Mm.

Dru Johnson (58:28)
Well, there’s a whole border of Gaza against Egypt that is run by right wing Muslim, you know, Muslim government, right? ⁓ you have Jordan, you have ⁓ Syria with its own problems. you have Saudi Arabia, right? ⁓ why I I mean I’ve even heard, you know, Middle Eastern experts just say out loud that all of these countries were quietly rooting for Israel, ⁓ against Gaza here. Why do you suppose the countries in the region

have basically stepped away from holding Israel accountable for what they’re doing in Gaza. I mean, I know that’s a big geopolitical question, but it’s kind of the one everybody in the region, you know, kind of looks around and goes, Yeah, why aren’t you guys doing anything? You’re just kinda sitting there watching with popcorn, it looks like.

Bruce Fisk (59:15)
Yeah, and there’s

Lots of corruption, lots of complicity, lots of collusion, you know, going back to nineteen forty-eight. ⁓ and so there’s lots of blame to go around, right? ⁓ many of these regimes are despotic, they’re non democratic. ⁓ they may be more interested in trading with Israel than any kind of human rights agenda for their own people, much less for Palestinians. All of that is true. ⁓ but but is that on the shoulders

Of the Palestinian, right? I mean, is that therefore reason to sort of roll our eyes or or shrug our shoulders and say, okay, this cause, you know, needs to just there’s 22 other Arab nations, the Palestinians can just go, you know, live somewhere else. I mean, that kind of language ⁓ is so condescending and so orientalist and so remarkable that it would never fly anywhere else.

⁓ in the world, but somehow that kind of lumping together of the Arab world ⁓ flies ⁓ in the cre comments on on Israel-Palestine. But yeah, I don’t think the the Arab nations are doing any better than the West, for the most part, ⁓ with maybe a couple of exceptions. for the most part, sure, let’s let’s

Spread the bra blame around, but that doesn’t solve the problem and it doesn’t give us a path forward.

Dru Johnson (1:00:43)
Right. Well, good. Okay.

Daniel Bannoura (1:00:45)
Yeah, sorry, Dru, just to jump

in really quick. Yeah, I mean I I think it’s laughable to say that Arab nations whether or or at least the people of these countries are not pro Palestine. It’s very clear that they are. ⁓ many of these governments, like ⁓ Bruce said, these ⁓ are corrupt governments that wanna appease the US government. ⁓ Jordan and Egypt have been pacified by the US and they get billions of dollars annually from the US to

Stay keep you know keep to their own and someone like Jordan, both countries are very poor and they rely on that ⁓ that wealth, that money from is from the US. And that’s part of the peace agreement they had signed with Israel that and for the sake of peace they would get that money. So but if you ask any Jordanian, any Egyptian, they have a very clear position. ⁓ and many but also ⁓ the you know what is called the axis of resistance in the Middle East has been decimated, you know.

Bruce Fisk (1:01:10)
So

Daniel Bannoura (1:01:37)
Think about the destruction of Iraq, think about Libya, think about ⁓ Syria and you know, obviously a very corrupt and evil system you had in Syria, but also sanctions and so on. That was, you know, very, very you know, there’s a lot of internal issues obviously in Syria at the time, but also was very dis you know, economically and politically and militarily very destroyed. So you have a very weakened resistance movement against Israel. And of course Israel remains as the

The one and only nuclear power in the Middle East, and Iran is seen as a threat. And of course, now we have this war with Iran. So there’s been a very focused goal of Israel and by extension the US to pacify these the region and to put put it under the control of the US and Israel. But the just to finish here, there’s a very clear position that the Arabic the neighboring countries have taken to normalize relations with Israel. There’s what the the

Dru Johnson (1:02:25)
Yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (1:02:35)
Two thousand and two peace ⁓ normalization plan by ⁓ the these countries saying, hey, we cannot fight Israel. We don’t have their Apaches and their you know F-16s and the nuclear bombs, but we have a peace treaty. Hey, would you we would we would love to normalize relations as long as only insofar as you would ⁓ set the Palestinians free and give them their own sovereignty and self-determination. That hasn’t changed from ⁓ these countries, ⁓ Saudi Arabia.

All of these countries are kinda are very clear on that position. ⁓ hopefully things would change and there would be a political will in Israel and in ⁓ and the US. To your point, Dru, there’s a dramatic shift in the American ⁓ opinion about Israel right now that could eventually lead to some kind of meaningful change in American foreign policy that could lead to that. But if there’s no political will from is from the US, Israel is gonna enjoy all the

all the clout and all the power and all the wealth it’s gonna get from the US, why would it stop? Why would it pursue justice if injustice brings it wealth and power? It’s gonna keep occupying and controlling. So this is not an issue with the Arab countries. It’s an issue of the power dynamics. And I’ll finish with this side note to Bruce’s point. Yeah, these are ⁓ corrupt governments and and governments in ⁓ in the Middle East. So what about the the freedom loving democratic countries in Europe?

What have they done? You know, those who those who repented from anti Semitism and said never again, why would they allow it to happen again? So I would blame Germany more than I would blame ⁓ a corrupt government like Jordan, for example.

Dru Johnson (1:04:11)
Hmm.

interesting. ⁓ yeah, so let’s turn to those those Gen Z. ⁓ it’s it’s been fascinating. two reactions by Gen Z, and again, my kids are in this age, so I kind of try my students are all in this age. ⁓ one reaction is after October seventh, they didn’t even know what Gaza was like, they just have no idea what’s going on there, right? If they’re Christian, maybe their church talks about Israel, you know, again in this kind of very broadly positive way.

Daniel Bannoura (1:04:22)
Yeah.

Dru Johnson (1:04:39)
⁓ and then the other one was almost equally naive. ⁓ that eventually just became like this very anti-Israel, but it didn’t there was no principle below it. It was just Israel bad. I mean, in some cases, I even because I was in New York City at the time, you saw people just Israel bad, Hamas good, and you’re like, Okay, we have ⁓ we’ve left the world of reality. So ⁓

I’m now thinking about over the horizon as nuance develops in this next generation and as they learn to think more theologically about this. but I’m wondering what what the paths are that you see.

Bruce Fisk (1:05:05)
As nuance develops, this

Dru Johnson (1:05:16)
Can guide people into better rather than worse. And even the kinds of questions that, you know, if you’re a young person and you’re growing into eldership or leadership in your church, what are the kinds of questions that you need to be asking your church now so they can begin thinking through these things afresh? In some ways we have a new opportunity to think through all of this, right? Because of the world events.

Daniel Bannoura (1:05:36)
⁓ some some brief comments here. ⁓ just a side comment about the comparison between Israel and Hamas. ⁓ while Hamas, you know, we can agree as Christians its ideology, it’s problematic and it’s violent and harmful. ⁓ any killing, targeting of civilians. ⁓ and for me as a as a radical Christian pacifist, even targeting any human being is ⁓ I cannot defend ⁓ as a Christian. When I look at the cross, ⁓ I cannot justify any kind of violence towards anyone.

But I think if you want to compare Hamas to Israel, I think there’s a di very clear difference between a state that has been practicing terrorism and ethnic cleansing, an apartheid legally by law against people, and between ⁓ a military group that comes as a response to that system. There’s a difference between Black Panther movements and Jim Crow. There’s a difference between the ANC and apartheid. ⁓

Dru Johnson (1:06:32)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Bannoura (1:06:33)
There is a difference between systemic violence that is entrenched in the system that has always been harming and killing people, and between the violent, the physical violence that we see on TV. So I th I think between the two, I think for me it’s very obvious which is the more criminal, which one is the more violent or or or even evil. ⁓ but you know, and and I’m happy to say both have committed awful things. But I think we have to understand the power dynamics, the structures of power, who’s controlling them. Yes, yes.

Dru Johnson (1:07:00)
Can I can I push back on that a little bit? And

and I and I’m pushing back only because of something that I think anybody who’s seen these kind of things would think this was an obvious pushback. So I don’t even know if I hold it to be true. ⁓ is, you know, when I lived in Israel, Palestine, I you know, you saw you could tune in the radio station, you know, from ⁓ parts of the West Bank or from Gaza, right? You could see the television show, right? And and everybody in Israel has seen these infamous

Sesame Street knockoffs, where they’re teaching children to dress up as bombers and to stab the Jew here in the heart, not here, because this won’t kill him. So you need to stab him here, right? Like this training, ⁓ I think for most people that’s gonna feel very different, even if it’s just a feeling. That feels very different than ⁓ you know, kind of a even a state sponsored programmatic system where you’re disenfranchising, committing violence, destroying property, etc.

And and I don’t know how to disambiguate that fe I ’cause to me it just feels different and I don’t know if that’s justified or not. But I think that’s what most people would push back and go, like, no, th these aren’t Israel’s not the worst person. Maybe they’re equivalent, but not the worse.

Daniel Bannoura (1:08:14)
I’m I’m okay to to work with equivalent. I at least both both both are maintain some complexity and nuance and they’re not being flattened into bad versus ⁓

Dru Johnson (1:08:17)
Okay.

Daniel Bannoura (1:08:24)
Yeah, yeah, Dru, I would challenge that a bit. I think I I know that clip you’re referring to. I’ve I grew up in Palestine. I’m a product of the Ma the Palestinian educational system. I’ve never experienced any of that. A lot of research has been done comparing the Palestinian educational systems and curricula with Israeli ones. And at best they’re very similar. And at worst the Israeli ones are way more harmful and way more violent. I I can show you footage after footage of of Jewish kids spitting on Palestinians.

Of Jewish kids, Israeli kids singing, the killing of Arabs and Palestinians and Muslims and in in the classroom setting, on on school trips in in Israel. So I think you can find that clip from twenty years ago, but I think the data on the ground is a bit

Dru Johnson (1:09:09)
I I’m

speaking to Gazans directly that were telling me their experiences in Gazan schools. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (1:09:15)
okay. Yeah, I cannot speak I cannot speak to that.

I I’m sure there would be a lot of anti-Israel, anti you know, even anti anti-Semitic sentiment in Gaza for sure. ⁓ but also again, what is the context? ⁓ if you have an if you have your boot on the neck of that person, that person is gonna is not gonna be hunky dory with you. So ⁓ again, we have to think of ⁓ we have to think of the system and what the system and how these awful feelings and anger and even anti Semitism could develop.

Not because it’s innate or because it’s natural, it’s bec as a byproduct of the structure that has you know destroyed hope for equality and then hate, violence becomes as a rational response to that. So it’s a very tragic reality. Like I’m not disputing you that point, Dru, but we ha before we talk about these examples of of what Palestinians have been doing or saying or putting on TV, we have to think about the structure.

that leads people to such to act in such a way.

Dru Johnson (1:10:14)
Yeah. ⁓ a a good friend of mine, she actually studies curriculum in Israel, so I’ll I’ll definitely have to ask her ⁓ about and she and she would be aware and would not hold back if she ⁓ if she thought there was a difference. Bruce, you wanna hop in here with your super loud microphone that hopefully we’ll fix in post?

Daniel Bannoura (1:10:21)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Bruce Fisk (1:10:30)
Yeah.

Yeah,

sorry about that. ⁓ well so I thought you were gonna go to maybe the campus demonstrations ⁓ in the US ⁓ not long ago that you know arose in response to Israel’s behavior in Gaza. And ⁓ you know, we all know college students, you have them in your home. ⁓ but these these kids ⁓ as far as I think we can tell, we’re not necessarily that well informed. But one thing that marks this gener

generation is that they’re pretty reluctant to ⁓ to support various kinds of human rights abuses. They’re they’re they have friends who are gay, they have friends who are Muslim, they have friends who are whatever, and they they stand in solidarity with people that are on the edges, people that are marginalized.

And so one of the things that was happening in those campus demonstrations were these kids recognizing the kind of marginalization and injustice and crying out against the perpetrator. And that of course gets narrated in all many different ways, but one of the ways it gets narrated is that it’s anti Semitic, you can’t be anti Israel without being anti Semitic. And of course

Every demonstration is going to have its fringe figures, but my sense is that the Jewish and non-Jewish kids in most of the campus demonstrations were not driven by some kind of deep-rooted hatred of Jews. They were driven by what they saw on TikTok or whatever that looked to them like ⁓ mass killing and mass injustice. ⁓ and so my hat is off to them if if what they see are human beings around the world rather than you know ⁓ groups, nations.

⁓ partisan bodies, tribes. I I hope that’s the way of the future as they grow up, that they see us more as fellow humans on this planet than as than as tribes that are in, you know, perpetual competition.

Dru Johnson (1:12:32)
Yeah, and I I think that they in in as a whole, my read on them as a whole is that they’re they are more much more sympathetic to people on the who used to be on the margins or ⁓ or traditionally put on the margins socially and otherwise. And they do have more access to information than any young generation before them as well. And so you have that combination. And I agree a lot enough again in New York City, I think a lot of it was very uninformed or underinformed.

But it was that kind of gut instinct, that gut reaction ⁓ to what what was what was happening. ⁓ and I think it’s fair to say anytime you have that kind of ⁓ resistance, public protest or resistance, people with bad intentions and bad theology are gonna also get in there and co opt it as well and you know, stoke flames and that stuff. So we shouldn’t be surprised by any on on any situation, whether that was the pro Israel or pro Palestinian protest, et cetera. ⁓

Okay, well I I do want to go back to this thing that I was asking for that ⁓ what are like how do we guide these people? I have a lot you know, I I work with college students every every year. a new batch. How do we guide them forward? Like what are the things as Christians they absolutely need to be thinking about? Right now it’s it’s Israel and Palestine. Who knows what views are gonna be ten years from now? I mean it’s I’ve I’ve quit

guessing I can call balls and strikes on what’s gonna happen in this in this part of the world. But, you know, how do we future proof them to think more clearly about ⁓ what is now the nation state of Israel in regard to their Christianity?

Daniel Bannoura (1:14:14)
I I I’ve been teaching at Notre Dame for for two years now and ⁓ I get to spend a lot of time with these students and it’s interesting to see what’s happening and how they think about this issue. ⁓ some of them are influenced by Nick Fuentes and very like hateful and anti Semitic stuff that is making them anti Israel as well. ⁓ but ⁓ and I agree with Bruce, some of them are just motivated by concern for justice ⁓ and peacemaking and kinda refusing kind of American kind of propensity to

propensity to be at war. ⁓ and some of them are are just driven by this kind of America first, you know, ideology that why are we w wasting our money in the Middle East and so on or or, you know, killing the troops and putting them in danger, whatever. ⁓ and some of course are driven by this kind of concern for international law and human rights and equality and so on. So all of these things are at play, so it’s interesting to see how where that’s gonna how that’s gonna move forward.

but I but something that I’ve been trying to emphasize which has been also concerning for me, which to see ⁓ to see the kind of the the special interest in Christian Palestinians vis-a-vis or against the Muslim. ⁓ and there’s a special kind of tribalism that many Christians fall into. Something that we’ve done as Palestinian Christians is like, hey guys, look at us Christians in the land, pay attention to what we are dealing with. It’s legitimate and it’s but it’s tribal, it works.

Dru Johnson (1:15:30)
Yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (1:15:43)
But it’s but it still feeds into that narrative of we don’t care about Muslims. And the major the vast majority of Palestinians are Muslims. So when you’re emphasizing the the minority, there’s a bit of it just unease I have towards it because it’s not challenging the inherited, like I said before, the inherited at le apathy or even hostility towards Muslims and Arabs. So I think that’s kind of my appeal to Christians, just to adopt a very Christocentric attitude of

of loving the neighbor in a very radical way. I think the example of the the parable of the Good Samaritan is a powerful narrative to to share. ⁓ and you know and if you go to the Sermon on the Mount, the constitution of God’s kingdom on earth, ⁓ to love our neighbors and to love our ⁓ our enemies. And he brought them together. The love, the Hebrew Bible is to love the neighbor. and that neighbor was understood in racial religious sense. That’s the Jewish neighbor. But then Christ kind of radicalized that.

it says, no, actually the neighbor is a Samaritan. And the Samaritan could be a neighbor to you if you just think about it. But also loving of the enemy, this is like I think this is one of the clearest commandments, I think, from Jesus, from Matthew five, but it’s the hardest to follow, especially again because of our culture, that we are trained to always hate the enemies and kill them and destroy them. So this is like the biggest tragedy, I think, for our witness as Christians, that we just don’t take Jesus seriously. We think Jesus is weak.

When he says love the enemy. So there’s a radical teaching of Jesus that is antithetical to our culture. And I’m just kind of concerned for young Christians from Gen Z and others who are motivated by hostility, for tribalism, even anti-Semitism, ⁓ but are not der driven by radical love. ⁓ so so that’s kind of my hope for us is to unearth that r that beautiful prophetic tradition that

Began in the Hebrew scriptures and continued in through Christ of that radical pursuit of justice and mercy and loving of neighbor. And if we do this, this is gonna be easy. It’s not really that that hard. If you see the Palestinian as your neighbor, you’re not gonna stand idly. You’re gonna do something about it. ⁓ so yeah, that’s kind of my hope for younger generations to realize that. I am hopeful there is for the first time in history, more Americans are more sympathetic to Palestinians.

Sadly, it took a genocide for people to wake up. It’s really sad that so many of us have to be slaughtered for Christian Americans to wake up. ⁓ if your audience is evangelical, or the majority of them are evangelical, evangelicals are lagging behind as usual ⁓ with these issues. So there’s a lot of work to be done in evangelical spaces as well, ⁓ especially because of our theology. Shameless plug here, kind of

Would encourage people to look into the work that we are doing as Palestinian Christians through the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice, Palestinian Christian theologians and and leaders who are kind of speaking up. I think there’s a l this is a really important time in history f in our faith. And I think it behooves a lot of us in the West to kind of come alongside our siblings in Palestine, work alongside them, walk alongside them, visit them, spend time with them, but also

speak up about what’s happening and also spend time at least in learning and listening ⁓ and hopefully that would transform the way that they think about this issue.

Dru Johnson (1:19:10)
I I will push back because I’m a Hebrew Bible person. Love your neighbor as yourself is the beginning. It goes on to say, ⁓ love the foreigner as yourself, for you were once born, which is what Jesus is doing with the good Samaritans, is showing he knows his he knows Leviticus. but still still still reinforces your point.

Bruce Fisk (1:19:11)
Yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (1:19:13)
A okay.

yes, yes.

No, totally. I no the yeah, I I agree I think it how it was understood

how was it understood, I think the first century is a bit different. But totally I think the the Hebrew scripture is rich in this very expansive vision of the neighbor, of the poor, of the orphan, ⁓ totally and the stranger. So I yeah.

Dru Johnson (1:19:33)
Right. Right.

Well, and the

fact that he could say, You have heard love your neighbor but hate your enemy and nobody balked at it means that that was ⁓ it was the meaning to most people there. Bruce, you wanna hop in here and give us a final thought?

Daniel Bannoura (1:19:47)
Exactly. Yeah.

Bruce Fisk (1:19:50)
Let me add

Yeah, let let

me add let me add two two things. thanks, Daniel, for those comments. ⁓ your final comment about sort of paying attention to the Palestinian community. It’s been really delightful for me over the last twenty-five years to watch n young voices emerge, including Daniel’s. And there’s really a lot to offer there coming out of the Palestinian community. ⁓ many based in the Bethlehem area, but some are taking posts in places like Notre Dame.

there’s a lot ⁓ a lot to to listen to and to learn from and that that’s part of the broader concern I have for this Gen Z crowd that we’re talking about and that is that they need to be encouraged to listen to the global south as we call it or to voices outside of their bubble their North American bubble

Not all of those voices are are going to steer them in the right direction. there’s an awful lot of ⁓ Christian Zionism in the global south that’s very much driven by prosperity theology and the notion that if we bless Israel, God is going to make our country and ourselves prosperous. That’s rampant in in Latin America where I live and and elsewhere. ⁓ but there are many voices and perspectives that that they need to be introduced to. And of course we could talk a long time about that.

The other comment I would just make finally was is just to kind of

point out that in the binary world that we see in particular in the US, but not just in the US, a lot of it is infected by the toxin of certitude, it seems to me. This idea that I see clearly, and the binary is of course between me and God on one side and you and you know the enemy, the devil on the other. my views are correct, yours are flawed, and I’m not gonna even waste time listening to yours.

Dru Johnson (1:21:31)
Mm.

Bruce Fisk (1:21:48)
That kind of certitude or, you know, you could say hubris, ⁓ goes all the way up and down the food chain in in the Christian church. And ⁓ we need something like epistemic humility to take over and take its place, where we recognize that we don’t see things clearly, that we have things to learn, that I have things to learn from ⁓ from people in my own country that have different stories, that I have things to learn from people in Israel and Palestine. ⁓

And if we can somehow discourage them from settling into sort of that binary thinking that that that is so much a part of our culture, I think they’re going to be more likely to be able to learn ⁓ from those around them and proceed in humility ⁓ along the lines that Daniel was suggesting.

Dru Johnson (1:22:41)
I and I’m gonna give a plug, ⁓ an Amen plug on that. ⁓ I’m a I’m an ambassador for Langham Partnership. So if you want to get started reading some majority world scholars who are doing some fantastic work, they have a whole library of books they publish from majority world scholars and who I have ⁓ made lots of friendships and learned lots of things from that I would have never learned from someone stuck in North America. ⁓ yes, very good. I’ll in a a a final note, ⁓ besides Bethlehem Institute for Justice and Peace.

Daniel Bannoura (1:23:10)
Peace peace and justice, yeah.

Dru Johnson (1:23:11)
⁓

peace and just sorry. anybody you think that is doing this well from the pro and I mean I pro Israel, ⁓ you know, pro-Palestine I I hope we’re all pro pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian in in meaningful ways, right? ⁓ but do you think there’s anybody from the typical pro-Israel side who’s doing some of this well? They’re actually involving Palestinian voices, they you know, they they wanna they wanna support Israel and whatever that means.

But they are not neglecting ⁓ their Palestinian neighbors.

Daniel Bannoura (1:23:43)
Yeah, there are fantastic groups. ⁓ b from the Christian pres from the Christian side, it’s very limited. I’ve been part of many conversations and trips and meetings with messianic Jews, so Jews who believe in Jesus, and those conversations never went forward, mostly bec for a lot of reasons, but I think there’s there’s a lot of kind of ⁓ ideology among messianic Jews, especially because of

Dru Johnson (1:23:56)
Hm.

Daniel Bannoura (1:24:11)
The official position of the government and denial of certain rights, and some of them even were stripped of their citizenship because the court found them to be Christians and not Jews. So they stripped them from the so that so they tend to be more protective and more quote-unquote Zionist. so that kind of made it hard for us to kind of s ⁓ s ⁓ meet ⁓ see eye to eye. at the same time, I’m I had been very active with

Dru Johnson (1:24:22)
Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (1:24:37)
With a peace camp in Israel, a lot a lot of fantastic organizations doing work, joined Palestinians and Israelis within Israel, so Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jewish Israelis, and also those in Israel who come to the West Bank and join us in protests, act as human shields to protect us from the Israeli military. ⁓ there are groups like ⁓ and I’m sure ⁓ Bruce is aware of some organizations as well, some groups like ⁓ standing together ⁓

Combatants for peace and so on, they’re doing some phenomenal work, working alongside Palestinians. There’s also the parents ⁓ circle, Palestinians and Israeli circles coming together. There’s also Roots, Judur in Arabic. It’s a joint Israeli-Palestinian initiative, ⁓ active in the West Bank and and Israel proper. ⁓ in the US, we have an incredible number of Jewish rabbis and scholars and theologians who are doing that work.

even within Jerusalem you have these anti-Zionist or non-Zionist Orthodox communities that are are now becoming more some of them are kind of strange, but some of them are like, yeah, wait, we actually stand with Palestinians now. Of course, very problematic in many ways. but ⁓ but yeah, there’s a very yeah, ⁓ there are in in diaspora in the US, Jewish communities have been very active in standing for Palestinians.

Dru Johnson (1:25:42)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Right. Yeah. There there’s all kinds of interesting groups there, yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (1:26:02)
Reformed, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, all of them have been doing some really cool work. So grateful for that as well. So

Bruce Fisk (1:26:09)
J just to add one name to that litany, and I have other groups I could mention, but ⁓ when when we were thinking about the title of the book that we’ve just edited, just ⁓ January of that year, 2025, Peter Beinart’s book came out, Being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza. And when I read that book, and I’ve you know listened to Peter Beinart many times, he’s a ⁓ practicing ⁓ modern Orthodox Jew

Out of New York ⁓ with a very high profile, and a gentle and thoughtful man who’ll listen to and talk to anybody, I said, you know, he’s asking his Jewish community to do something very difficult, to think about how they should conceive of themselves and maybe how they’ve wrongly conceived of themselves ⁓ leading up to what happened after Gaza, after October 7th. And so we kind of ⁓ rift on his title, and so when when we came up with our

Ours, it was being Christian after the desolation of Gaza, we changed that part, but it was really kind of a little bit of a side tip of the hat to his work, and we are trying to do something similar in you know in the Christian community. But he’s just an example of somebody. Of course, he draws a lot of fire, he gets a lot of criticism. But he’s been you know, he made a turn. He was a devout Zionist for years and then ⁓ abandoned that position because he saw where that Zionism was going and he couldn’t.

didn’t follow it. but he’s a a you know, a synagogue attending, praying, a Torah studying ⁓ Jewish scholar in New York who I I just look to as a a wonderful model of how to dialogue and how to challenge his own tribe, his own people, and we’re trying to do something similar. So just a shout out to Peter Piner.

Dru Johnson (1:28:01)
That’s that’s really helpful. And I saw him mention several times and I went and looked at that book because of the mentions in here. ⁓ real quick ’cause I didn’t quite get an answer. I’m trying to figure out what you call somebody who’s an Israeli, but they just want to live in the land and they want to live with Palestinians, but they believe that they should be able to live there as well. What do we call them if not a Zionist? Do we have a good catchphrase for for that? I just practically speaking.

Bruce Fisk (1:28:26)
Human?

Dru Johnson (1:28:27)
A mench? Yeah, well literally a mensch, yeah.

Daniel Bannoura (1:28:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, you can you can live in the land. ⁓ as long as your attitude is of equality and democracy, I don’t care what name you wanna give we can give you. But if your ideology puts yourself and your ethnicity and your religion above others, whatever name you wanna give it, that’s a wrong ideology and we have to dismantle it. So I’m not yeah, I’m not including that. Yeah. Go ahead, Bruce.

Bruce Fisk (1:28:51)
Yeah and

Yeah, I I don’t have

a name either. as Daniel said early in the conversation, Jews, Muslims and Christians have been in the land for centuries. ⁓ so it’s just more of the same. ⁓ you know, they were under the boot of various empires, sure. But they were coexisting and you know, with tensions, but then, you know, my by and large, it was it was really the Christians who were the hardest on the Jews by far, much more than the Muslims. and so whatever they’re called, w you know, the friends of mine that

that that I know in in Jerusalem and in in Israel proper ⁓ who

are wanting to be there as part of their heritage and maybe they were born there, that’s the land they know. But they’re deeply troubled by what their state and their government is doing and even what their so society is promoting. They feel responsibility and they live they they they lie awake at night and they they work hard and they ha carry a very heavy burden because it’s hard to be a a Jew who’s critical of the system right now.

So yeah, they’re ⁓ they’re brothers and sisters on the on this planet, ⁓ who do have a heritage and do have good reasons why they might want to be there. But it’s the terms, right? It’s on what basis and at whose expense. Those are the questions that we have to worry about.

Dru Johnson (1:29:59)
Mm-hmm.

That’s a good place to end it. I didn’t get to read all the essays, but the four or five that I read were very good and very ⁓ very well written and ⁓ and challenging and I had to stop and think at many points. ⁓ I have to say I I lived in Jerusalem ⁓ for six months and I was in my thirties with kids and thought

Well, now I get to live here for six months and I get to travel back and forth for the next couple of years. I’m gonna figure out what I’m gonna get to the bottom of this whole thing. And I have to say, every day I live there and every trip that I’ve ever been on back to the land, I have more and more questions and less and less answers. And and so ⁓ so it bothers us even more when we hear somebody go, They just need to do X, right? And you’re like, ⁓ okay, that’s cute. ⁓ w they do they do lots of things need to be done, but it’s never one thing.

Daniel Bannoura (1:31:02)
Yeah.

Dru Johnson (1:31:08)
I thank you very

Daniel Bannoura (1:31:08)
Yeah, I I think I

think at this point, Dru, just to emphasize this, I th I think sort of pointing the fingers at people, maybe us Christians need to do the work. Maybe we are the ones who are are are part of the problem and we need to fix our hearts and our and our ac and our minds before we do anything and say anything else.

Dru Johnson (1:31:25)
Well, and I think the book helps do some of that excavation because I think a lot of us are just not thinking about most of the things going on ⁓ in this at this point. I thank you ⁓ very much for taking all of this time, ⁓ straight from Peru and all the way from Indiana as well. Which is almost a majority world country in some spots. but really appreciate it and I appreciate the book.

Daniel Bannoura (1:31:39)
Yeah.

There you go.