Video: Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible

This book talk is part of the RCPI Spring 2024 Book Series and featured “Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible” by Mitri Raheb. “Decolonizing Palestine” challenges the weaponization of biblical texts to support the current settler-colonial state of Israel. Raheb argues that some of the most important theological concepts–Israel, the land, election, and chosen people–must be decolonized in a paradigm shift in Christian theological thinking about Palestine.

“Decolonizing Palestine” is a timely book that builds on the latest research in settler-colonialism and human rights to place traditional theological themes within the wider socio-political context of settler colonialism as it is practiced by the modern nation-state of Israel. Written by a native Palestinian Christian theologian who continues to live in the region, “Decolonizing Palestine” provides an insider’s perspective that disrupts hegemonic and imperialist narratives about the region.

Featuring Rev. Prof. Mitri Raheb, Founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem

Moderated by Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life

This event took place on April 16, 2024.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School.

SPEAKER 2: Decolonizing Palestine-- the land, the people, the Bible. April 16, 2024.

DIANE MOORE: Good afternoon, and welcome to Harvard Divinity School. I'm Diane Moore. I'm the Dean of Religion and Public Life here. And it is our incredible honor to host this conversation and celebration of Reverend Doctor Mitri Raheb's latest book. I know that there are many of you here outside the HDS community as well as within, and I especially want to welcome all of you. It's wonderful to have you with us for this important conversation.

Before I introduce Reverend Professor Raheb I would like to just say thank you to my remarkable colleagues in Religion and Public Life for the behind-the-scenes efforts to make this event possible, both with good food, excellent layout, good weather. They're amazing. So [? Tammy, ?] [? Rachelle, ?] Reem, thank you so much, and to Robbie, our media specialist, for filming this for later viewing from the audience online.

So for this afternoon, we will hear first from Dr. Raheb who will introduce the major themes of his important new work. He and I will have a brief conversation, discussion together. And then we'll open it up to audience questions. So please, please be noting your ideas and questions as we move through this conversation.

So Reverend Professor Mitri Raheb is the founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem. He is currently the most widely-published Palestinian theologian to date with over 50 publications, 50 books that he either authored himself or co-edited. I think that he might be the most widely prolific theologian period with that incredible array.

His latest is the one we're here to discuss today, "Decolonizing Palestine-- The land, the people, the Bible." He's also author-- I'm not going to list them all, but I will list a couple more. "In the Eye of the Storm-- Middle Eastern Christians in the 21st Century," and "Politics of Persecution-- Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire."

Reverend Raheb also served as the senior pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem from June 1987 to May of 2017-- a remarkable pastorate-- and is the President of the Senate of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land from 2011 to 2016. He's a social entrepreneur also and has founded several NGOs, including Christian Academic Forum for Citizenship in the Arab world. And he is a founding board member of the National Library of Palestine and a founding member of Bright Stars of Bethlehem.

He is an elected member of the Palestinian National Council, as well as the Palestinian Central Council-- so a civic leader as well. He is the recipient of numerous awards. I'll just name a few of them.

In 2022, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of divinity from Wartburg Theological Seminary. In 2017, he was awarded the tolerance award from the European Academy of Science and Arts. In 2015, he was the recipient of the Olof Palme Prize. In 2012, the German media prize, in 2003-- he was four years old then [LAUGHTER]-- an honorary doctorate from Concordia University in Chicago for his outstanding contribution to Christian education through research and publication, and in 2006, the recipient of the International Muhammad Nafi Tschelebi Peace Award of the Central Islam Archive in Germany for his interfaith work.

Not only is he a prolific scholar, a remarkable visionary, and a pastor of remarkable talent, but here's a prophetic voice, a consistent one of a vision of humanity and a future that seems a far cry from our current reality. His perseverance, his integrity, his courage has inspired me and I think probably many of you in this room. So it is our great honor to host you for this conversation. And thank you for being with us. Please welcome Dr. Raheb.

[APPLAUSE]

MITRI RAHEB: Good afternoon, and thank you, Diane, for this introduction. Thank you Hilary, Reem, and the whole team for arranging for this event. And thank you all for coming. It's great to see such a diverse group this morning and also supportive group.

It's an honor to be, again, here at Harvard for the launching of my newest book-- Decolonizing Palestine-- The land, the people, and the Bible." And what I would like to do is to run quickly this PowerPoint. I did it in a way that, hopefully, it's easy to follow.

I would like to start with a question that, really, we are all struggling with is, how best to describe the situation that is prevailing in Israel-Palestine. And usually, people used to think of it as a conflict. But the word conflict really implies two groups fighting about something, which really is not the case.

But also, more and more people try to think of this conflict being a religious conflict between, especially, Muslims and Jews, which it's not. Which is good that it's not because we are not doomed to be enemies forever. It means that the political conflict that could be solved if there is will. And here in the media, all the time, I hear it's a war between Israel and Hamas. But actually, this war is against the whole Palestinian people, not Hamas.

And in the book, really, I struggle also with this when I hear, especially when I talk to people in the academia, they always tell me, it's complicated. And really what they mean with that, it's incomprehendable, which means they don't want to deal with it. Interestingly enough, I never ever heard this word in connection with Ukraine, right? It's crystal clear.

Now, in the book, my thesis really is to understand what's happening in Israel-Palestine as settler colonialism. And then this settler, colonial project has been from the beginning, throughout the last 100 years until today, powered by theology. And so I look at the interaction between settler colonialism and theology. So this is my main thesis.

And I will, this afternoon, will do it in two pieces. In the first piece, I will look at the settler colonialism in theory and praxis because I'm not sure if everyone is really very much into settler colonial theory, but also, especially the praxis because you have to see the praxis to understand what is happening. And then in the second part, I will look at the theology. But theology will be with us the whole time.

So the settler colonialism and the theory of it-- interestingly enough, it was mainly Palestinian Christians who started looking at what's happening in Palestine 100 years ago as settler colonialism. Here, I would like to mention Najib [? Nasa ?] actually the founder of one of the first newspapers in Palestine that came out in Haifa. He started actually, around 1911, describing this situation as settler colonialism.

Was followed in the seconds by Tawfiq Canaan, another Palestinian Christian Protestant. Actually, all of them, interestingly enough, happened to be Protestant, not that-- I'm biased maybe, but this is what it is. And the last really who wrote about it, a whole book, is Fayez Sayegh. He published this book in '65-- "Zionist Colonialism in Palestine."

Now Sayegh was the Palestinian representative, or if you want, ambassador at the UN. And it was during this time and his era that the United Nation adopted the Zionism is racism. Actually, thanks to him and thanks to his work on this.

And if you read, basically, what he's saying in the book, he's saying, what is happening in Palestine is nothing new. This is what has been happening in Africa and in Asia. We need just to connect the dots. Amazing work.

But the theory of settler colonialism was really reinvented in the post Cold War era, especially in anthropology and Indigenous Studies. And here, because the term postcolonial was felt inadequate to describe context where colonization was not yet over but continued to constitute an ongoing reality, a structure rather than an event. Here, especially the work of Patrick Wolfe, Lorenzo Verancini, and lately also Rashid Khalidi in his book on "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine."

So this is the settler colonial theology. But to understand what is the difference between settler colonialism from classical colonialism or neocolonialism, I would like to mention the [? modern ?] features of settler colonialism.

The first is, settler colonialists, they go to a country with the intention to stay there for good. So it's not like they go there, they want to exploit the resources, and go back home. No, they want to go there to settle for good. And the most important thing, with the aim to replace the native people and to eliminate them basically.

The other feature of settler colonialism is that settler colonialists are depicted as the native while the natives are seen as outsider aliens at home. And this, I mean, if you think of what you hear all the time, this is what you see.

The indigenous land is described as terra nullius, empty, or barren land just waiting to be discovered by the settlers and to become their private property. I think you know this story better than I because you have the whole discovery theory there that was implemented in this country 400 years ago. The native people are depicted with racist construct.

They are the savage. They are violent. They are backwards. They are terrorists. While the settlers are portrayed as brave and civilized pioneers. This is what you hear all the time.

Think how many times did you hear the word barbaric when it comes to October 7th while with all the bombing that Israel was doing, you never heard this word. So you can see, even in the media, even with politicians, even with pastors, I keep hearing this. So this theory is not just a theory somewhere there. It's active all the time.

Now, to defend the settler property from the savage, a police state is created and is granted extraordinary power over the native people, including power over their civil affairs, which is, again, still the case also in Palestine.

And here, I would like to, maybe just to make it a bit easier, in settler colonialism, it's all about geography and demography. So the settlers would like to take all the geography, the land with its resources, while actually pushing out the native demography. And I will come back to that, but this is really very important.

And how best to do that? You create an apartheid system because you cannot do that without an apartheid system with all its legal structures. So this is really what distinguished settler colonialism from classic or neocolonialism.

Let me come to the practice of the settler colonialism in Palestine because in the first chapter, I really talk about Bethlehem because for me, this whole book is not only a theoretical enterprise, but it has to do with my very life, very existence. Its very existential practice. And here, I would like to show five stages how the settler colonial project in Palestine developed.

But from the beginning, from the start, it was actually developed as a settler colonial project. It did not develop as such, but that was the intention from the beginning. And interestingly enough, it wasn't the intention of the European Jews. It was first the intention of the British Christian people, so Christian Zionism preceded Jewish Zionism. It's important.

And here, as an example-- in the book, I have three examples-- but as an example here, I talk about Lord Shaftesbury who very early on, 1839 and 1854-- and these two years are important because 1839 was the year when the European powers interfered for the first time in the Middle East to push back Ibrahim Pasha from Egypt who occupied the whole of Syria. And they pushed him back 1839, which means now, Europe was really politically involved in the Middle East.

And 1854, also interesting because that was the year of the Crimean war. Again, another involvement of European powers in Palestine. And basically, what Shaftesbury is saying here, there is a country without a nation, a nation without a country. Again, we come back to this idea of barren land, terra nullius.

Now, the land was not barren because if you see what he wrote in 1839, he's saying, actually, the land is very, very cultivated, very good land. So it's not barren at all. But this is, again, the construct of settler colonialism.

Now, interestingly enough, Shaftesbury was a political figure. But also, he was very much engaged in the church. He was the president of an organization that had the aim of converting Jews to Christianity. So he wanted to send all the Jews to Palestine so that they can convert with time to Christianity. So if you talk about anti-Semitism, Christian Zionists are the most anti-Semite at all.

This idea of Shaftesbury was made and was put to action through another Lord, Lord Balfour. You are familiar with the Balfour Declaration. If you read the Balfour Declaration, it's another sign of settler colonialism because really, it only talks about a national homeland for the Jewish people, while it talks only about the civil rights of the native people who were 95% of the population at that time. So again, the native people are even not seen. And this is, again, another aspect.

In 1922, in an address to the House of Lords, he confessed that, actually, behind his idea, behind this declaration was not only a political [INAUDIBLE], but also was theological ideas. We see, again, how theology intersects with the political.

But here, it's interesting maybe just to mention. For Lord Balfour, he was afraid actually that the poor Jewish immigrants from Russia who were flooding the pogroms there will flood Britain. Like Trump, he didn't want any poor immigrants to come, only Norwegian-- I mean--

[LAUGHTER]

Right? And so he said, instead of them flooding the UK, let's send them to Palestine and used actually the money of the rich Jews in the UK to finance this whole settler colonial project in service of the larger British settler colonial project that was going on worldwide. And so unfortunately, our problem started with the British-- not only our problem, many other countries in the world as you know.

Now, just to mention, Herzl actually adopted this idea because he thought this might be the answer to the so-called Jewish question. And he adopted the settler colonial idea from the British. But not all Jews thought the same way. And this is important to see the width of Jewish thinking.

Somebody like Martin Buber thought, actually, this settler colonial idea is really not-- doesn't do right to the Jewish values. And so he, actually, was talking about the binational state, where you don't eliminate the native people, but you share the land with them on equal footing. But unfortunately, like all prophets, his voice was not heard. So that was the first stage.

The second stage was really taking the land. And that what happened in 1948 when Israel took 77% of the land. 520 villages were destroyed. 800,000 people became refugees. Ilan Pappé called it ethnic cleansing.

But the state was given a biblical name. And that actually led to people confusing the state of Israel with the Israel of the Bible or Israel in the Old Testament. Again, you can see how theology even was weaponized there.

10 years after the establishment of the State of Israel, 1958, Ben-Gurion-- the first president-- wanted to celebrate that. How did he do that? He created a Bible study group. This is good for our pastors-- a Bible study group.

Interestingly, he invited a military generals like [INAUDIBLE], archaeologist, like Aharoni-- I'm sure people study Aharoni here-- again, settler colonial archaeologist-- rabbis and a few Christians, especially Albright, the archaeologist. And the book they chose to study was the book of Joshua.

And there was really a debate between them-- the idea of conquest and settlement. Do we need first to conquest the land and then settle it, or slowly settle, build settlements, and then have the ultimate conquest? They were different opinion at that time.

But you can see, actually, how the Bible was in the work all the time. In fact, Ben-Gurion saw himself as the Joshua of the 20th century. He described himself that way.

[INAUDIBLE], who came after him, 1967, said, no, no , Ben-Gurion is not Joshua. I am Joshua because I am the one who actually occupied the West Bank in 1967. And again, 1967, we can see how theology was used, weaponized.

The name of the war was called Six-Day War, which means God created the world in six days, finished his job, went to rest. The problem here, the Israeli did not rest, and we did not rest after all of these years. And the colonization of what they call Judea and Samaria-- basically the West Bank-- started head on a large scale. And a new leadership model emerged in Israel. The rabbi politician replaced actually the secular politician, which accelerated after 1977 when the Likud took over.

And in fact, in the year 1967, we see that all kind of religious fundamentalism emerged out of that war-- Jewish messianism, Islamic fundamentalism, if you want to call it, or Islamism, and Christian Zionism. They all had to do with the war in 1967.

The fourth stage was really negotiating a compromise-- the Oslo Agreement, 1993. The idea, land for peace, where we thought peace is coming. But actually, while for the 30 years, the Palestinians were negotiating with Israel this peace deal, Israel took more land from the West Bank than before. And again, this is a story you know because while the government here was negotiating with the native people, all the West part of the United States was occupied during the negotiations. Which led to the bantustanization of the West Bank, Judea, and Samaria.

And I think you are familiar with this. You can see how Jewish settlements spread like cancers while Palestine is vanishing slowly but surely. And you can see it more clearly in this map. Everything that you see in violet is under Israeli military rule.

And you see these turquoise or green spots on the map? These are Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. If you look carefully, you can identify two vertical line of settlements-- one in the Jordan Valley, the other one on the western side of the mountains-- and three horizontal, which makes a grid. And again, this is important to understand settler colonial way of taking over the geography while actually containing the demography.

Now, this idea actually was not a new idea. Sharon, the late prime minister of Israel, went extra to South Africa to see how the White people there actually can control the majority of Black people. And this is what he came back with, which is the idea of bantustanization that I talked about.

And if we look at the section of that, which is the Bethlehem County, just to give you a feel of what really settler colonialism mean because otherwise, it's theoretical. This is my homeland where I live, my city where I live.

So first Israel annexed the northern part of Bethlehem, declared it part of Israel. And then in the first 40 years, Israel built 19 Jewish settlements on Bethlehem land-- colonization basically. If you look carefully, it's in the north, but also southwest. Why southwest? Because this is the most fertile area in Bethlehem. We have the mountain range going from north to south, so the western side of those mountains are the side that gets all the rain, while the Eastern side doesn't get that rain.

And then you have these three settlements in the middle of nowhere. They sit there, because they sit on the largest underground water aquifer. So again, they control the water. They sit on the water. And then you have the settlements along the Dead Sea because they control the minerals, tourism, et cetera.

Everything you see here in blue is under Israeli military control. So we have no control as Palestinians. As if this was not enough, what you see here in brown is declared military zone, which means you are not even allowed to be there.

And then Israel built these so-called bypass roads to bypass Palestinian towns but connect Jewish settlements. But actually, they have a different function because we are not allowed to build west of this road, nor are we allowed to build east of this road. So these two roads are actually confining Bethlehem. And from here to here, we are talking about three miles. I mean, this is not like the US where everything is extra large.

And if I go back quickly, you can see how the colonization continue to grow day by day. Then came the wall barriers, checkpoints. And this is the Jewish settlements that are being right now. You can see that there is a set of settlements all the way now in the east that Israel is building.

So if you take the whole area in Bethlehem-- this is West Bank that is controlled by Israel-- it is 66% plus the 20%, so 86% of the land of Bethlehem, Palestinian land of Bethlehem is under Israeli Jewish either military or settler control. So if you want to understand settler colonialism, here is-- I mean, it's not a theory. Here, you can see it.

And the last stage was really sealing the settler colonial project that started with President Trump. Continued with the current Israeli government under Netanyahu. And what I have here from Netanyahu's Twitter is actually the first sentence in the coalition agreement.

It says, these are the basic lines of the national government headed by me. The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the land of Israel. When you hear the land of Israel, eretz Israel, it means historic Palestine, which means I don't have right to be there. I'm tolerated until they can get rid of me at some point. That's what it is.

And then he continues. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the land of Israel in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea, and Samaria. So here, you can see actually settler colonialism pure. All the geography while the Palestinian demography is actually eliminated in the text. They are not there.

As I said, this can only be done through an apartheid system, which B'Tselem-- a Jewish human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, and others have talked about it. Which actually brings us to Gaza.

What's happening in Gaza was actually the last chapter of the settler colonial project. I think Netanyahu and his government were hoping that through this war, they can displace the Palestinians and push them into the Sinai, Egypt. It didn't work because the Egyptians didn't want to do that.

And so what do you do? You make life in Gaza unlivable. You destroy the hospitals, the schools, the infrastructure, everything that-- actually, nothing is left for people to survive. And this is what is happening because the settler colonial project of Israel actually failed because right now, there are 6.5 million Palestinians, 6.5 million Jewish-Israeli.

So after 100 years, this project was not able to get rid of the Palestinian demography. They did that '48. They did that '67. They keep doing it through all the measurements they are doing, and still, they are in control of the demography.

So this is how I understand actually what's happening in Gaza, and this is unfortunately our campus in Gaza before and after, during the Holy Week. Actually, the airstrike destroyed the whole campus, our campus in Gaza. So why do you destroy a university with a focus on arts and culture? Again, because you want to make life unlivable.

And so what's happening in Gaza, when it is described as genocide, it is interesting that it was South Africa who went to the International Court of Justice. Why South Africa? Because South Africa is a country that actually suffered under settler colonialism.

If you look who are the countries that came in support of Israel at the ICJ, all of them settler colonial countries. I don't have here Canada, but Canada is also the fifth country.

So that is the theory. That is the practice. And now, we come to the theology that powers the settler colonialism. And I always keep saying that the settler colonial project is maintained by the hardware, all the toys that Israel gets for free from the United States and other countries, including the dumb bombs that they received during this war. But more dangerous than the hardware is the software, and the software is provided by Christian seminaries.

I have to be careful here, Harvard Divinity School, so. No, but unfortunately, many seminaries, not only in the States, worldwide, even in the Global South, they provide Israel with this software. And I will look at it because it is really the Christian Zionism in all its forms-- there are different kinds of Christian Zionism approaches that provide the software for the settler colonial project.

In the book, I focus on two. One is very well known, which is the American evangelical brand of Christian Zionism that really got a huge push forward after 1967 because these nationalist Christians in this country thought that America lost the war in Vietnam. But Israel won the war in 1967. And so they thought God was on the side of Israel, not on the side of the US.

And this is why Israel started playing a much bigger role in their theology after that year, which, again, developed further in 1977 when the Likud party took over because the Likud party was more religiously oriented party in Israel, not like the Labor Party. And they understood it was big and the first one who understood the importance of Christian Zionists in this country as a Christian lobby for Israel.

But I think this kind of Christian Zionism is known to you. For me, in the book, really, I try to focus for the rise of liberal Christian Zionism, which nobody before talked about. So for me, really, this is maybe a very important aspect of the book.

Most of these theologians came as students of Karl Barth. Karl Barth, as you know, a very important German theologian after the First World War. And many of the American theologians that are like prophets in this country, if you look deep down, you will discover that they are actually-- they have a subtle Christian Zionism.

In the book, I talk about Brueggemann, who is one of the prophets in all Christian seminaries here. I mean, every one of us reads his book. But if you look carefully, you can find actually many traces of Christian Zionism in his writings. Reinhold Niebuhr-- I don't talk about him. He's the worst maybe when it comes to liberal Christian Zionism.

Here, I just want to quote because I think this is really-- you'll understand. Paul van Buren was one of Karl Barth's students-- American liberal theologian. And he wrote, the role of the Christian church is to extend the revelation of the God of Israel to the nations. Christianity should do this not only by preaching this gospel to the nations, but also by rendering service to the people of Israel.

The service takes an external and internal form. Externally, the Christian church must become the extension of the Anti-defamation League. You know Anti-Defamation League? You know it, right?

They are called Anti-Defamation, but they keep defaming everyone who criticizes Israel. So they have to change their name. But this is on the side. Combating all anti-Semitism among Gentiles. So I mean, even calling people Gentiles, I mean.

It also takes the form of defense of the state of Israel, both raising money for Israel defense military and defending the state of Israel against all anti-Zionist calumny. All criticism of the state of Israel, whether based on alleged injustice to the Palestinians or claims that Israel is unjust to third world peoples are simply lies. It is the job of the Christian church to combat all these lies against Israel, being told the truth by Jews-- that is the government of the state of Israel.

I mean this is worse than evangelical Christians. But this is one of the most sophisticated liberal, critical, progressive American theologians. So that is the other kind.

And this actually led me to redefine Christian Zionism because I think, when people used to hear the word Christian Zionism, they thought of these crazy evangelicals. And [? in a way, ?] put them aside, they are crazy. But what about all of these liberal theologians that every day we read their books, and we take them at face value.

And so in this attempt to redefine Christian Zionism, I came with this definition-- Christian Zionism is the Christian lobby that supports the Jewish settler colonialism of Palestinian land using scriptural constructs within a metanarrative while taking global consideration into account. And what this really implies is, first, the definition is less focused on the biblical discourse of Christian Zionists because in most of the book that deals with Christian Zionism, they try to find some verses in the Bible somehow to show that these Christian Zionists are crazy or they didn't understand the Bible right. So it becomes like a battle of exegesis that doesn't lead anywhere.

And so I say, it's less focused on biblical discourse because it varies considerably from literalist to post-holocaust theology from conservatives to liberal. So I wanted to find a definition that can accommodate all of them.

The emphasis of our definition is on the lobbying aspect of the Christian Zionism, not on what people believe, but what they do based on that belief. They can believe whatever, but what they do they believe is really the dangerous thing. The Christian Zionist narrative is always embedded within a metanarrative so that those who espouse it do not see themselves as engaged in pure political lobbying, but rather as agents of a grand plan from which they read and interpret both scripture and history.

So for the liberals, it's the Holocaust. For the evangelicals, the second coming of Christ, et cetera. Alongside the metanarrative, Christian Zionists are always connected to local or global issues and considerations, thereby combining their ideas with struggles and fears in their specific contexts. That's important. While they lobby for Israel, they are actually lobbying for other issues as well important to their specific context.

Finally, Christian Zionist support for the Jewish colonial settler has less to do with head knowledge than with hard knowledge. This is why it's so difficult to actually to have a conversation with them because it's very emotional. The metanarrative changes depending on time and place. And local considerations vary depending on the context.

But what all Christian Zionists have in common is an emotional attachment to the Zionist settler colonial project in Palestine. Emotional attachment-- this is why with a debate, it really doesn't help because it's very emotional. In this approach, the hermeneutical key to understanding Christian Zionism is not so much the biblical hermeneutic, but rather the lobbying in support of the settler colonial project.

Now, interestingly enough. The question is, is settler colonialism something that could be defended based on the Bible? It was actually a Finnish theologian, Pekka Pitkaenen, who actually showed that the first six books of the Hebrew Bible actually provide the blueprint of settler colonialism, culminating in the book of Joshua.

And in this settler colonial theology, two themes are prominent-- the promised land and the chosen people. And I have two chapters on those, but I will spare you this because you have to read the book. I don't want to tell you everything now.

But what does it really mean if the Promised Land is nothing but the confiscated land? And what does it mean if chosenness become like exceptional religious nationalism? These are the two questions I deal with in the book.

Now, maybe to end with, I think you saw maybe when Netanyahu when he announced that the Israeli troops are entering Gaza on October 27, he had to quote something from the Bible. And he quoted first Samuel chapter 15, verse 3, where it says now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not. But slay both men and women, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. And this is what they are doing.

It's not like-- but for him, he had to quote something from the Bible. And this is, again, that is what Jewish Zionism from Herzl until Netanyahu, actually. That was their intention. It didn't always work the way they wanted.

But as I said, this is not the only Jewish voices because today, many Jewish voices are actually pro-Palestinian in this country-- Jewish Voices for Peace and Not In My Name and If Not Now and others. And again, it's important to see the spectrum of Judaism because the question is, do you support Netanyahu, or do you support these other prophetic voices?

To conclude-- so for me, the Bible is like the bazaar in the Old City of Jerusalem if you were there. Actually, you can find there anything you want. So the question, is the Bible a tool for colonization or liberation?

If you are looking for text of settler colonialism, very easy. Go to the book of Joshua. Though, as theologians, we know this is fiction. This is not history. This was never the case in history.

It is the Israelites, Palestinian who actually were under imperial rule that they saw their liberation and taking over the land from the empire in the future, but doing that retrospectively. This is how the people in the Bible envision the future by looking at the past. So it's fiction, and yet it is weaponized all the time.

If you are looking for texts to support justice, you go to the prophets, Jesus, and others. So what you find in the Bible says not so much about the Bible but more about you. So you find actually what you are looking for. It doesn't matter if you are a Jew or a Christian, you will find there what you are looking for.

So let us decolonize the Eurocentric theologies. This is what I-- my last chapter in the Bible. Dismantle or settler colonial structures and work towards a land that is shared equally, a society that is inclusive in nature, and where faith is a source for liberation and innovation. Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

DIANE MOORE: Mitri, thank you for what is not only another remarkable and comprehensive, book but for your powerful ability to translate complicated ideas in a very accessible way without compromising the integrity of the depth of what you've done. This is one of your great strengths, and it's clearly apparent in this important book.

So I'm wondering if you can reflect a little bit about what you're experiencing, or do you feel like there's been any movement among the Christian communities with which you work following the October 7th?

MITRI RAHEB: You mean in this country or?

DIANE MOORE: In your context. If you want to speak about our country, but-- this country, but.

MITRI RAHEB: I mean, I think after October 7th, we saw that many Palestinian Christians became even more vocal than before-- not all of them-- because those living inside Israel or in Jerusalem actually became very fearful like never before. Many Christian leaders even deactivated their Facebook social media because they were afraid because Israel was really cracking down on anyone who even had a post.

And today, actually, a new law was announced in Israel that prohibits people from citing Quranic verses in support of Palestinians. Or there was another thing. I forgot what it was. So just today, so I mean, the cracking on people is-- so the empire is showing its real face, I think, in this war. And we can see it there.

But still, many theologians in the West Bank have been very active. I can tell you several of my colleagues and myself, we have been doing Zooms almost on daily basis-- I mean, like crazy. And the interest is actually growing worldwide. And this is-- maybe for the first time, I had some hopeful signs in this country, especially among young people. Some of them are sitting here, so.

DIANE MOORE: Thank you. Thank you. I want to say, one of the things that I've learned from you over the years and has caused profound introspection on my part is that I was myself trained in the liberal Zionist framework. That was my own seminary training, a little bit here, but also in my doctoral studies at Union Theological Seminary where a profound, progressive, prophetic Christianity is really centered. So that was just such a wake up call for me.

And I think your threading of the ways that continues to be present in progressive theological circles, Christian progressive theological circles, it's just really profound, both, again, intentionally and in many ways, unintentionally-- a kind of deep embeddedness. And the combination of what it meant to have the Holocaust theologies emerge out of a sense of representation of Christian anti-Semitism is something I can really relate to-- yet, again, this broad swath. Then it becomes a zero-sum game yet again.

I wonder if you could speak a little bit about that tendency, even in our theologies, which, by definition, are intended to be more subtle and more interpretive and more present. But what are the theological roots, do you think, of this zero-sum framing?

MITRI RAHEB: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think you are right. I think in the book, maybe this is really the first time that people realized the importance of this liberal Christian Zionism because before, I think people were not very much aware of that. And I mention, as an example, Brueggemann, who's a good friend, and I like lots of his writings. I mean, it's progressive liberal. Even on Palestine, he wrote some good things.

But really, it became clear to me when, after reading his book on the land the second time because he wrote that book for the American audience. He talk about the feeling of landlessness among Americans. You move all the time.

But then when I started looking at our situation as settler colonialism, I had to ask that question-- how can a very liberal progressive theologian like Bruggemann write a book about the land and not mention the settler colonial project in this country? And that's the blind spot.

I guess people were talking always about the segregation as the original sin in this country, right-- like, Wallace book. Actually, the original sin was something else, which was the settler colonial project in this country.

And so I have-- not in this presentation-- a slide where I have-- maybe I think I had it here-- Vice President Pence when he talks about our forefathers who came in this country were pilgrims, and their model was the Israelites. And so I say, when the US look into the mirror, it sees Israel, not itself. And when Israel look into the mirror, it sees the US.

This is when Netanyahu said, you know, what's wrong with Gaza? You killed in Afghanistan so many-- so this the settler colonial embedded understanding where a settler is something that is so-- you know? I think that is part of the problem.

But the other thing is, I think that when we do theology, we don't take the power structure really into account. And for me, we cannot do theology without looking at the power structure. I mean, everyone in this country and in Germany and everywhere look up to somebody like Bonhoeffer, right? But who wants to be like Bonhoeffer today to really put everything on the line to support those who are being eliminated?

They talk about him. But who would like to walk the talk? Only very few. I'm not sure if this answers your question.

DIANE MOORE: You're touching on it. And I really just want to say, I appreciate the-- again, the interweaving of these threads and recognizing how they are mutually reinforcing. And We speak also here in the presentation, also, I think, eloquently in the book about the profound, and I will say, subterranean emotional power of these narratives that I think have a kind of knee-jerk reaction.

And the there's so many pieces in the book that you pull to help build this foundation. But the language Judeo-Christian, the language of the association of what it means to be connected to exceptionalism, the ways that Zionism is a European Christian project. I think you represent that so profoundly in the book and many of your publications.

MITRI RAHEB: Maybe too that, I think also there is a subtle cultural Zionism that is there. And maybe when I do a second edition, I thought of it just late. So when, for example, President Biden says, I am a Zionist. If there were no Israel, we had to invest in Israel. That is not something-- he's not powered by liberal nor by these evangelicals. This is a subtle cultural Zionism that is promoted through the media.

And as you said, it is in the subconsciousness. That is the danger of it. It's not in the consciousness. It's subconsciousness. And this is why people are infected with it without knowing it.

DIANE MOORE: Well, excellent. Now, the current equation, of course, with anything that is considered to be anti-Zionist is anti-Semitic-- this now simple equation. I was struck too by your comment in the '65 Zionist presentation and how Zionism was declared racism in '65 and how far we've come.

Now, relevant to that, I just learned from one of our former students who's an expert in technology that Facebook is currently working on a program to make Zionism itself a marked category so that if you challenge Zionism, you will be potentially associated with hate speech so that anything that would be [? a ?] [? challenge ?] Zionism.

So I think you're right about the kind of creep, the subtle creep culturally and historically of how these different ideas end up getting embedded into a subconscious and then reproduced often unconsciously. So again, just going to say, your own work and the lifting up of these contradictions, I think, is such an important and critical contribution to our own unlearning, I will say, as Christians, for those Christians in the room, that I feel like both the association of Christianity with empire, of course, is a consistent challenge.

Christianity with whiteness is another critical challenge that those of us who are recognizing the impact of these embedded cultural norms and assumptions know that our work is a lifelong project of unlearning. And this notion also of what it means to live in the complexity of these contradictions, I think, is the other thing that I am so grateful to you for.

What does it mean to name these questions, and then be able to create and create opportunities for communities to come together, not to challenge those contradictions, but to live in them as generative possibilities for our unlearning and our movement toward a more just world of peace. Because otherwise, when we do the zero-sum, which is earlier in my question, we end up closing off all the avenues that we desperately need to wrestle with to be able to recognize the depth of these challenges and to challenge them or mitigate them.

So thank you again for your book. I just want to say, before I turn it over to the audience, how grateful I am personally for your scholarship and for your vision and again, for your presentation.

MITRI RAHEB: Thank you. Thank you, Diana. We really appreciate all your support also. It's a pleasure.

DIANE MOORE: I also have to say before I turn it over that I was neglectful to not mention the most important colleague in the room, which is Hilary Rantisi. Without Hilary Rantisi, Mitri Raheb would not be here, but neither would Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative, which is the real foundation of this work.

[APPLAUSE]

She didn't necessarily help with the background, which is what I was also grateful to our colleagues for helping to prepare. So let's open it up for questions and comments from the audience about this book, about the presentation, about the current challenges we're facing. OK, over here.

AUDIENCE: Hello. Thank you very much. It was a very moving presentation. I even noticed I'm a visiting fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, and I had a question and a comment.

I had been participating with the students here at Harvard. And first to say that the majority of them are not here. So I'm very surprised that I didn't see the solidarity with [INAUDIBLE] present. But I also have been very surprised participating with them that I don't see adults there. I have seen the youth of Harvard that are mobilizing very long, and I'm very sad about that. I'm usually the oldest one there. And so this is a comment.

And my question-- I was surprised because I have seen that some of the Zionist Jewish that come to confront the Palestinians to the students for peace-- there's also Jews for peace-- are people that are from our campus-- older. And they bring Korean kids. I don't understand.

Two times, I have seen a lot of young Korean Christians with these people that come out of campus. What could be the link between Korean Christians and Jewish [INAUDIBLE].

MITRI RAHEB: Yeah, the link I think is that evangelical Protestant Christianity is mushrooming in the Global South unfortunately with American funding. It's the Americanisation of Christianity in the Global South. And we see that in Africa like crazy. We see that in Latin America like crazy. But we see that in certain Asian countries, especially Korea, but not only Korea.

And so that is actually the connection because you have this Christian Zionist construct that is there. And so this is why they come. Thanks God we have also other Korean Protestant, especially theologians, who are very, very outspoken when it comes to Palestine.

I noticed when the society for biblical literature in October came out with a very nasty one-sided, unacademic, unprofessional, document or statement that those who really stood up against it, majority of them were Asian-American. And I have to say that. So you have both.

DIANE MOORE: Let me just help you understand. There are many, many students here at the Divinity School who are engaged in pro-Palestinian efforts. A couple of them are here.

But I want to say two things. We had a event last night where the room was filled, about 50 or 60 with a talk back about-- relevant to another program that Hillary runs where we are able to take students from across the university in context in the region as part of a larger course. And they did a TalkBack last night to share their reflections. It was profoundly moving, and the room was filled primarily with students.

I also want to say, currently, right now, there is sadly a scheduled other presentation relevant to Black liberation that is currently happening. And I think many of our students are at that event. So that's part of the richness of here, but I want to make sure that we give a shout out to our students.

AUDIENCE: My name's [INAUDIBLE]. I'm an economist and a retired professor from Harvard. I'm always intrigued by the Palestinian issue. And you just educated me really well about the theological and religious aspect.

But as the economist, I see that's really intermixed with politics and economics. And that actually entangled the United States and many countries with Israel. And can you comment on for us, is there some way to sort that out? So let's just look at the historical and religious aspect.

DIANE MOORE: Thank you. [INAUDIBLE].

MITRI RAHEB: Yeah, I mean, economy definitely plays an important role because the empire works with politics, economy, ideology, military, you name it. And I mean, the settler colonial project has lots of economic. In fact, when Britain started the project was to control the trade routes. So economic ideas were actually at the forefront. Though, they didn't talk about it because they had to talk about some nice things, not about the real interest.

And still, with the exploitation of Palestinian resources, even with Gaza, I mean, one of the issues is that on the shores of Gaza, you have huge amount of gas that Israel would like to control. The colonization of, as I showed you, like in Bethlehem, had to do with agriculture taking really the fruitful land. So basically leaving nothing for the Palestinian, exploiting everything underground, above ground.

And yeah so economic interests plays a big role in all of that. But it's not only economic interest. It's really the bundle of all of it what makes this project so dangerous.

And the economy of Israel right now, the largest export in Israel are military equipment and surveillance equipment that are sold worldwide. And this is why Israel has to do a war every three to four years because they had to test those weapons on real ground, real grounds meaning [INAUDIBLE] people.

So now, in Gaza, they tested all the artificial intelligence led military equipment to see all their faults and to make them better. So yeah, I mean, that is also-- war is important factor in the Israeli economy because without it, they will lose one of their major income.

DIANE MOORE: Just to reiterate, your important representation of the narrative of theology, Christianity as giving legitimacy to the external representations of structural and direct forms of violence. So the narratives matter.

And that's where, I think, your work is so critical because without the narratives, it would just be raw representation, exploitation. But the narratives give or try to-- at this point, I think is pretty explicit-- but soften or give legitimacy to structural direct forms of violence, so. We have the hand up there. Great. Thank you.

AUDIENCE: Thanks for the wonderful talk. And I just wanted to follow up on the liberal Christian Zionists of today. Are they still motivated by like the second coming and trying to convert them all to Christianity? And if not, what is their motivation?

MITRI RAHEB: No, the liberal-- no, that's not part of their idea. It's only the evangelicals who are anxious for Armageddon, you know? And actually, they are, as I tried to say, really the anti-Semite if you look carefully because they want to bring all the Jews to Palestine so that 2/3 of them will be killed in wars. This is why they love wars. And the last third will convert to Christianity. So they are calling for the annihilation of the Jewish people.

But Netanyahu and the others, they love them. They share bed with them because they satisfy their selfish interests. No, the liberals, their metanarrative is the Holocaust because why? They were mushroomed in '67-- maybe I did that very quickly-- because the question was, what if-- the big question was, what if Israel would have lost the war in '67? Maybe this could have led to another Holocaust. And this is why they needed to be the lobby in support of Israel as we saw like from Bibi. So their metanarrative is different.

AUDIENCE: Hi, there. I'm a doctor.

DIANE MOORE: We need a mic though.

AUDIENCE: The mics aren't working.

DIANE MOORE: Just speak up.

AUDIENCE: I'm a doctor, and I actually work in the Harvard Medical School system. I came--

DIANE MOORE: Speak up a little.

AUDIENCE: I came up-- I came here because it's not a school that I would normally go to because it's the Divinity School. I go to the other center of healing, which is the hospital system. So I actually came here to see if there was healing going on here.

And what worries me considerably is that while you argue against the zero-sum game, which denies one group of people existence versus another group of people their existence, you actually reinforce that message by using history itself as a bazaar.

I've been in the Jewish-- I've been in Jerusalem in the Old City. I've been into the East Jerusalem. I've been to Muslim-dominant countries. So I've spent a lot of time traveling there.

And I would say, you've used history in your book in the same way you would go to the bazaar-- picking certain things that weaponized religion, weaponizing religion to alienate, ostracize one group against another. And I think, as I said, I came here to understand whether there would be healing going on here. What I've seen is a use of history to justify a zero-sum game.

1948-- I'm just going to give you one example. You talked about 1948. You know and I know that a war was launched by the five neighboring countries a few days after the independence of Israel was announced and accepted by the nations.

And Israel, the Israelis that were there fought. They had their allies just like the surrounding countries were allied against them. And they won.

And you dotted your history without the mention of major events which turned, even down to October the 7th, when Hamas attacked Israel on a religious holiday. You haven't mentioned the Yom Kippur War and an attack of that those proportions on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. October the 7th-- a similar holy day. They were attacked by Hamas terrorists. People were murdered, brutalized from many, many nations.

So I love the analogy of religion and the Bible as a bazaar. I study the Torah to the extent that I can. But the truth is, you have used histories as a bazaar. And in an institution like Harvard, that really is not going to emphasize healing. It's going to emphasize division and ostracization.

MITRI RAHEB: Yeah, thank you. I think your understanding of healing is something that is weird to me to say the least because healing means-- and I know many groups who would like to see some Jewish-Israeli and some Palestinians hugging each other and loving each other without looking at really what's happening.

I mean, I showed you what's happening to Bethlehem. What healing would you expect there? What healing would you expect when my land is taken by Israeli settlers and [INAUDIBLE] funded by US and British and I'm not sure which country you are originally from.

So this idea of healing without looking at the context, at the power relations-- and I don't want to talk about '48 because it didn't start in '48. It started much, much earlier. It didn't start in October 7th. It started 100 years ago. And if you don't see that line, then you are picking up and reading history in such a bazaar and such a bazaar way. I tried to look at history in a holistic.

AUDIENCE: I see a much longer line back 1,000 years. But I do want to just say one thing

DIANE MOORE: Sir, I'm going to ask you to sit. But thank you for your question, and we can continue the conversation. But I want to make sure there are others in the room who can also-- [INAUDIBLE], go ahead.

AUDIENCE: Thank you so much for your presentation. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about thinking about Christian Zionism and addressing Christian Zionism who you see as responsible for taking hold of it? Is it academic institutions in which Christian leaders are trained?

Is a Christian leaders? Is it their congregations? Is it politicians who have a very religious background and a religious kind of theology that they're bringing into their politics? Where do you place the levers of power in terms of grappling with how to take on Christian Zionism?

MITRI RAHEB: Yeah, I think it's-- in another book, I work with a notion of empire. And I think we need to look at empire as a whole. And theology is just part of-- Christian theology is part of empire.

And by the way, to our friend there, I was much harsh much more harsh on Christian Zionists than on Jewish Zionists in this article. But so it seems he didn't notice that.

So for me, it's really part of empire. And this is what's happening here, I mean. So it's the empire that keeps generating the ideology to defend its existence because I think, as Diane said, if you look at empire without theology, it's ugly. But theology-- which it's not only a Christian theology, it's all these nice things about democracy and so on-- it gives the empire the feel that this is something really for the good of the whole world.

AUDIENCE: Thank you.

DIANE MOORE: Yeah, I think we have no mic. So, yeah. Yes, you, yes.

AUDIENCE: OK, thank you. OK. Hi, my name is [? Reshma. ?] Thank you so much for your talk. I'm very grateful for you.

I'm coming from over at the Harvard Business School. I am surrounded by-- also an economist. I'm surrounded by, I would say, progressives, lots of progressives who are my colleagues, whose religion is capitalism. And I do really see the deep and unquestioning attachment to this theology of capitalism in a very similar way as our respective faith practices.

And so I struggle with exactly what you brought up, which is how do we engage with people who genuinely, truly believe that they adhere to progressive liberal values, see themselves as that, but are unable to recognize that they are adhering to a fundamentally supremacist, you know, and X, Y, and Z ideology or religion? Is it that-- because I have just barriers over and over again.

So is it that we give up and find the people who recognize there's a problem there, or? Because it is an emotional thing. It's not an intellectual adherence. So what are the steps?

MITRI RAHEB: I'm not sure I have the answer, but it's a very good question. Let me maybe connect it to theology a bit because one form of Christian Zionism that I didn't talk about in the book, but hopefully in my next book, is the prosperity gospel that has now spread as Christian Zionism in the Global South. This is what is being actually exported, that form of Christian Zionism.

You bless Israel. God will bless you, meaning you will be successful in your businesses. But this is something maybe also you need to work on it in the future, or we can work on it in the future because I really don't have all the answer to it.

DIANE MOORE: I think we have time for one more question. Let's see. Back here. You've been very patient. Yes.

SPEAKER 10: Thank you so much for your talk. I was wondering if you could speak to the tension and the narratives behind people and their political leaders, and maybe if there's any theological things we take from that? I'm kind of thinking of, like, in the book of John, there's references to the Jews as others, equivocating leaders of Rome similarly. Like, I think equivocating people of Israel as Israelis or something.

But yeah, and I guess we talk here a lot about Palestinian civilians in Gaza and Hamas and Israelis and the Israeli government. And I guess, yeah, with your experience as a pastor and your experience living in Bethlehem, how do you see that relationship between people and political representation-- yeah, political representatives?

MITRI RAHEB: Yeah I mean, it's important not to demonize the whole people because of their government. That is true for any country in the world. And this is why in the presentation, I tried to talk about the spectrum within Jewish thinking itself to show this wasn't the only trend within Judaism. There was other trend, mentioning Martin Buber and Jewish Voices for Peace, just as two example, to show within every nation, you have a spectrum of people that we need always to recognize because otherwise, that might lead to the othering of people, demonizing people, et cetera. And also, this helps you to find people with whom you can work together towards a common goal, which is, again, another important aspect. I'm not sure if this answers your question, but at least it tries to.

DIANE MOORE: We are at time, but I want to thank all of you again for taking time to be with us and for this rich conversation. Please stay if you're able to mingle among each other and to continue the conversation. Or please take this conversation to your own communities. We need opportunities to really wrestle with these hard questions with more frameworks.

And grateful again for your presence and the work you all are doing to just become more informed about these challenging times of what's happening today. So thank you, and let's give another round--

[APPLAUSE]

MITRI RAHEB: Thank you, Diane. And Thank you Hillary. Thank you, Harvard Divinity School for hosting this book talk. Thank you all for coming. I really appreciate the dialogue with all of you. And hopefully, we'll stay in touch.

SPEAKER 2: Sponsor-- Religion and Public Life's Religion, Conflict, and Peace initiative.

SPEAKER 3: Copyright 2024-- The President and Fellows of Harvard College.