The annual conference of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), one of America’s most visible pro-Israel Christian lobbying groups, is wrapping up today in Washington. It has offered three days of discussions and speeches focused on continuing unconditional support for Israel under the justification of obeying “the Biblical mandate to bless God’s Chosen”.

The problem is not simply lobbying for specific policies. It is that CUFI and other Christian Zionist organisations elevate support for Israel from a matter of US foreign policy into a litmus test of faithfulness to God.

As a Palestinian-American Christian born in the West Bank, I believe this claim is not only politically dangerous. It is theologically distorted and reckless.

Once a political position is treated as divinely ordained, ordinary moral scrutiny becomes suspect. Questions about military aid, settlement expansion, the genocide in Gaza or the treatment of Palestinians are no longer treated as policy debates. In CUFI’s framework, they can be cast as rebellion against God.

CUFI does not speak for all Christians; many Christians across traditions oppose its extreme positions. But its political influence makes its theology consequential.

The issue here is not whether Christians should love the Jewish people. Christians are commanded to love all people.

But love for the Jewish people is not synonymous with uncritical loyalty to the modern state of Israel. It is not the same as blessing a government or excusing policies that have massacred and dispossessed Palestinians, restricted their movement and made life increasingly unbearable for Christian and Muslim communities alike.

The central flaw in CUFI’s rhetoric is that Jewish people, biblical Israel, the modern state of Israel........

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