FOR RELEASE

Washington, DC (7/14/2025): 3,300 individuals and 263 organizations have endorsed the Scriptural, historical, and legal right of Palestinians to live and thrive in the West Bank, Gaza, and all historic Palestine, rejecting the call by other “Christian” voices for Israel to annex and ethnically cleanse the area.

On February 25, 2025 at the National Religious Broadcaster Convention in Dallas, Texas, a group calling itself American Christian Leaders for Israel (ACLI) issued a statement arguing for Israel’s “right” to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, tendentially referred to as “Judea and Samaria.” A project of the extremist International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), the ACLI agenda assumes the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Claiming to represent “millions of American Christians” and to speak for 3,000 pastors and organizational leaders across the United States, it is part of the Christian Zionist movement that provides unconditional support for Israel and its most extreme policies. This entanglement with the exclusive and heretical theological positions of Zionism stretches into a congressional project called the House-Knesset Parliamentary Friendship Group. The stated goal of this group is to “bring together selected American and Israeli lawmakers to discuss ways to strengthen the partnership between the US and Israeli legislative bodies.” It might sound harmless on the surface but what it does is deepen US complicity in the war crimes that Israel carries out on our behalf and with our funding. 

Deeply disturbed that such a distorted interpretation of scripture might be mistaken as being representative of Christianity as a whole, a diverse coalition of Christian voices committed to just peace in and beyond the Holy Land came together under the initiative of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) to issue a proclamation, titled, “Christian Leaders, Activists, and Persons of Conscience Stand against Forced Displacement and Reaffirm the Inalienable Palestinian Right to a Life of Freedom and Dignity in their Ancestral Homeland.”

Based on a reading of Scripture that sees the Holy Land as comprised of a mosaic of faiths and ethnic communities, the statement recognizes efforts by ACLI and other Christian Zionists to erase or prioritize one people over another as being “wholly inconsistent with the God witnessed to in the pages of scripture and with our moral and ethical obligations as followers of Jesus and the Biblical prophets.” As underscored by FOSNA Associate Executive Director Jesse Wheeler, who helped spearhead the initiative, “We must publicly renounce such efforts and make it clear that those affiliated with ACLI and similar organizations do not speak on behalf of Christians or Christianity. Moreover, we must categorically reject any thinly-disguised plan to annex Palestinian land and engage in continued violence against innocent civilians in the occupied West Bank, in Gaza, and beyond.”

As of July 8, 2025, the statement has received 3,563 unique endorsements. It has been signed by 2,819 Christian individuals and 207 organizations and institutions, together representing tens of thousands of Christians. The statement has also been affirmed by 56 organizations and 481 individuals who support the purpose and demands of the statement but may not fully adhere to its theological assertions or Christian identity.

International law and the findings of all major human rights organizations across the globe buttress the statement. It expresses the deepest moral commitment of Christians and people of conscience in all faith and secular communities who reject ideologies of religious nationalism and ethnic supremacy that masquerade as theology or biblical teaching.

As a follow-up initiative, Christians for Ceasefire and Just Peace (C4CJP)—a broad DC-based activist coalition of national and local Christian organizations, including FOSNA and ISCZ—led a counter witness at the US Capitol. Held Tuesday, May 6, this was the same day that ACLI held their congressional advocacy summit calling for unconditional support for the Israeli government, despite the fact that it has cut off all supplies to Gaza essential for human survival, including water, food, medicine, and fuel. Over 60 people visited all House offices, while other Christian leaders held a press conference, making it clear that ACLI support for such measures is inconsistent with what it means to follow Jesus. God’s love transcends national, ethnic, and racial boundaries and is offered for all people. Brochures of the statement were distributed to congressional offices, staffers, and other visitors. Copies were also mailed to each office. In addition, C4CJP, FOSNA, and ISCZ, alongside many others, helped lead and participated in the Interfaith Action for Palestine to counter Christians United for Israel (CUFI)—the largest “pro-Israel” organization in the United States—during their Annual Summit in Washington, DC, June 29–July 1, 2025. More than 65 people were arrested as part of the action. 

The Christian statement against forced displacement and false doctrines can be found in its entirety below:

Christian Leaders, Activists, and Persons of Conscience Stand against Forced Displacement and Reaffirm the Inalienable Palestinian Right to a Life of Freedom and Dignity in their Ancestral Homeland

We the undersigned have dedicated ourselves to defending the Bible from false interpretations, most especially from those calling for the persecution, exploitation, and elimination of entire people groups. We have seen tragic examples of this over the centuries, for which we must not only repent but also must actively prevent from ever happening again.

Such is the case for an erroneous, distorted Biblical interpretation that calls for, and actively encourages, the forced removal of Palestinians. “Christian Zionism,” as it is commonly known, is a heretical theology that encourages the violent uprooting of families and entire communities from the lands and properties on which they have lived, worked, and cultivated for generations.

Calls to expand the borders of modern Israel and forcibly remove the Indigenous population represent a profound misreading of the Biblical witness, a rejection of the Gospel message, and the erasure of thousands of years of Palestinian history and culture. 

To us, such a policy is profoundly unchristian, the very antithesis of what it means to follow Jesus, an Indigenous Palestinian Jew born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth. Indeed, we believe that Jesus and the Hebrew Prophets would be vehemently opposed to such destructive acts.

We stand in fellowship with the Palestinian Christian communities of the Holy Land, and we honor their witness when they warn us that the world's oldest, continuous Christian community is in danger of extinction. Our siblings in Christ are under direct threat from the Israeli authorities and radical settlers who seek their removal and elimination.

As Christians, however, we stand together with all Palestinian communities struggling against ethnic cleansing, cultural erasure, and genocide: Muslim (Sunni, Shia, etc.) and Druze, Christian (Arab, Armenian, Syriac/Aramaic, etc.), Jewish (Indigenous Palestinian Jews, alongside African, Samaritan, messianic, and many others who stand in opposition to ethnic cleansing and genocide), as well as non-religious and other religious minorities comprising the remarkable historic diversity of Palestine. A mosaic of different faiths and ethnic communities have lived in the Holy Land for centuries, and the attempt to erase any of them or make exclusive claims for one, at the expense of all others, is a crime against God and all humankind.

We condemn the demand that the occupied West Bank be referred to as Judea and Samaria. Doing so is an act of philosophical erasure that will then be used as justification to forcibly displace innocent people from their ancestral homes. 

Let it be declared that:

The undersigned signatories reaffirm the Palestinian people’s inalienable right—affirmed by theology, history, and international law—to a life of freedom and dignity in their homeland. We reject all efforts—from the United States, Israel, and others—to dispossess the Palestinian people. Peace will come only when all peoples of the Holy Land today—Palestinian and Israeli, Christian, Jew, Muslim, people of all faiths and none—live together in a shared land. We reject ethnic cleansing. We reject the supremacy of one people over another. And, as Christians, we categorically reject the misuse of the Bible to justify acts that betray the core of our faith and the ministry of Jesus.

The statement and signatories can be found at the following link: www.fosna.org/sign