On January 17, the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in the Holy Land,

including the Latin Rite Roman Catholic Church, issued a statement

condemning “Christian Zionism.” The statement advances three claims: first,

that the Patriarchs alone represent the “historic churches” and Christian

communities of the Holy Land; second, that certain “local individuals”

promote damaging ideologies, particularly Christian Zionism; and third, that

these ideologies have found support among political actors in Israel and

abroad, thereby threatening the Christian presence in the Holy Land and the

wider Middle East.

The concerns raised are serious and, in important respects, legitimate. Yet

the statement’s imprecise terminology and unexplained omissions weaken

its effectiveness and risk obscuring the very issues it seeks to address.

There are also puzzling features of the document itself. The signatories are

not listed and not all the Churches have published the statement on their

official websites. This contrasts with a similar statement issued by the

Patriarchs in 2006, which was signed, more carefully framed, and explicitly

directed against extreme forms of Christian Zionism—those that undermine

the possibility of a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians. That earlier

statement at least suggested that not all Christian Zionisms were identical.

The core concerns of the 2026 statement are legitimate. The current Israeli

government includes religious Zionist figures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and

Bezalel Smotrich, who claim that Gaza and the West Bank belong to Israel

and who envision the departure of Palestinians from these territories. Were

such views to prevail, the likely outcome would be the disappearance of Arab

Christian communities from the occupied territories. (Christian populations

within Israel proper remain relatively stable.) These religious Zionist

ideologies tend to make little distinction between Christian Arabs and

Muslim Arabs. Their strand of Jewish religious Zionism, drawing on the

theology of figures such as Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, is also explicitly hostile to

Christian presence in Israel.

These concerns are intensified by the influence of American Christian

Zionists, especially in the United States. Their political reach is substantial,

and the appointment of a Christian Zionist such as Mike Huckabee as U.S.

ambassador heightens fears that Jewish religious Zionists and foreign

Christian Zionists together exercise disproportionate influence over policy

affecting local Christian communities.

Yet if this alignment is the central concern, the statement raises questions it

does not address. Why does it single out Christian Zionism while remaining

silent about political Islamist ideologies that also seriously threaten Christian

life and institutions across the region? Further, it falsely presumes all

Christian Zionists hold the same theological and political views.

Figures such as Ihab Shlayan, an Armenian Christian Israeli Zionist, long-

serving IDF officer, and chairman of The Israeli Christian Voice, illustrate the

complexity the statement overlooks. Or the Jewish Catholic Zionist Yarden

Zelivansky, also an IDF member who established the Association of Hebrew

Catholics in Israel. Shlayan is connected to Israeli and American political

actors but has not been endorsed by Armenian Church authorities. He may

be resented for appearing to speak on behalf of Christian communities. This

could explain the statement’s vague reference to unnamed “local

individuals,” but it also underscores the diversity concealed by the term

“Christian Zionism.”

This leads to the central difficulty: The term “Christian Zionism” is used far

too broadly. It presents a flattened and misleading picture of a diverse

phenomenon. There are many Christian Zionists, myself included, who

reject extremist political agendas and support a two-state solution (but are

open to other models). They are deeply concerned about the survival of

Palestinian Christian communities, whether threatened by Israeli policies or

mainly by the rise of political Islam. There are Anglican Zionists, like Gerald

McDermott, who, like me, reject evangelical dispensationalism and work

within a post-supersessionist theology. To classify all Christian Zionisms as

“damaging ideologies” is both poor theology and obscures the big issues.

A second major omission is the statement’s silence regarding Jewish–

Christian theological developments, particularly post-supersessionist

teaching within Churches represented by the Patriarchs themselves. By

saying nothing about the Jewish people or about the theological legitimacy

of Jewish attachment to the land, the statement risks alienating Jews and

Christians committed to post-supersessionist theology. It leaves unanswered

a fundamental question: Is there any legitimate place for Israel at all, or is

Zionism—Jewish or Christian—understood solely as a project of

colonization and empire-building? This silence is especially striking given

that the Latin Church formally recognizes the State of Israel and consistently

supports a two-state solution grounded in natural law.

The situation in the Holy Land is complex and fragile. The statement rightly

identifies genuine dangers facing Christian communities. But by employing

imprecise language, overlooking crucial distinctions, and leaving key

theological and political questions unresolved, it misses an opportunity for

genuine peacemaking and bridge-building. Instead, it risks generating

unnecessary controversy—fireworks that distract rather than illuminate—at

a moment when clarity, nuance, and careful dialogue are urgently needed.