Ancient Israel was a covenant people founded by God through Abraham, confirmed at Sinai, and governed by the Torah and the Levitical priesthood. The term Hebrew traces back to Eber, the forefather of Abraham. The term Israelite refers specifically to the descendants of Jacob. The term Jew comes much later — Biblically, it designates someone from the kingdom of Judah after the scattering of the ten northern tribes (a fact which I address at length in The Judeo-Christian Paradox, Part II). To confuse these terms is to commit a category error with dreadfully serious consequences.
Even the editors of The Jewish Almanac acknowledge this linguistic and historical discontinuity (emphasis mine):
Strictly speaking, it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a “Jew” or to call a contemporary Jew an “Israelite” or a “Hebrew.” The first Hebrews may not have been Jews at all, and contemporary Palestinians by their own definition of the term “Palestinian,” have to include Jews among their own people…
Christian Zionists can claim until they are blue in the face that the modern Israeli state shares some kind of continuity with ancient Israel. This despite the fact it has no temple, no high priest, no Ark, and no atonement. Its faith is not the faith of Moses or Abraham.
For over a century, Dispensationalism and Christian Zionism have operated like a parasite in the bloodstream of Christianity. Its progenitors have fed off of ignorance, manipulated sincere faith, and reprogrammed entire denominations to see the modern state of Israel not as what it is — a secular ethnostate founded by terrorists — but as what it never was: the fulfillment of God’s promises. If American Christians remain useful idiots for Zionism, then they too bear the bloodguilt for what comes next.
As should be abundantly clear by this point, in no way can Zionism be called a Christian doctrine, let alone a moral imperative. The modern nation of Israel is not a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. It is, and always has been, an ethnostate rooted in the rabbinic rejection of Christ, nourished by Rothschild finances, and marketed to the Church through bad exegesis and emotional blackmail. And to think that its defenders dare to quote Genesis 12:3 while their object of devotion curses the very One through whom that blessing has been fulfilled.
The promises of God were never based on race. Being born a Jew means nothing if you reject Christ. Christian Zionism teaches the opposite. It says the land, the blessings, the favor of God still belong to ethnic Jews, regardless of their unbelief. It treats a secular government as sacred and demands unconditional loyalty to a state built by atheists and maintained by U.S. taxpayers.
The kingdom was taken from ethnic Israel and given to a people bearing its fruits (Matthew 21:43). That people is the Church. That’s who the promises belong to.
Not to a modern state. Not to a race.
So, Zionist, choose wisely the Israel whom you will bless.
