Dear ,

I hope you are staying well. I am grateful for the opportunity to share with you the ISCZ Newsletter for July 2026.

Please find below a link to our most recent post, "The Battle for a 'New Christian Zionism'" by ISCZ Director Mimi Kirk.

In addition, Bad Theology: Busted | Episode 10 - "Christian Zionism in the U.S. Media Landscape," with Drs. Harriet Malinowitz and Adam Vander Tuig, is currently live and publicly available for download!

You are also invited to check out the following resources and events:

• The latest Librarian's Corner, an author spotlight and reading recommendation from ISCZ Library Manager Deanna Roberts
• Bad Theology: Busted! is seeking a Production Assistant. Learn More Here
• An opportunity to learn more about and register for the Hosanna Preaching Project 2026 — Courage to Witness: Theological Risk-Taking for Palestine
• Information about the upcoming online film salon from Voices for the Holy Land (VFHL), Marketing the Genocide: Israeli Hasbara and the Brainwashing of America
• A new field report from Rev. Addie Domske, National Field Organizer for ISCZ parent organization, FOSNA. By sharing, we highlight the necessity of BOTH practice informed by scholarship AND scholarship informed by practice in the pursuit of liberation. Read More
• An opportunity to support the essential work of ISCZ.

Best,

Jesse Steven Wheeler

Associate Executive Director, FOSNA: A Christian Voice for Palestine

Ibrahim Fawal (1933-2020) was a Palestinian-American academic. Born in Ramallah, Palestine in 1933, Fawal later moved to the United States where he earned a bachelor's degree from Birmingham-Southern College and a M.A. in film from UCLA. He worked as an assistant to director David Lean during the filming of Lawrence of Arabia in 1961, before returning to Birmingham, Alabama where he became a professor of film and literature at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Fawal's first novel, On the Hills of God, was published in 1998 and tells the story of the Palestinian Nakba, or "catastrophe", through the eyes of a young Palestinian man named Yousif Safi. When we first encounter Palestinian Yousif Safi in June 1947, he is filled with hopes for his education abroad to study law, and with daydreams of his first love, the beautiful Salwa. But as the future of Palestine begins to look bleak due to the pressure on the United Nations from the international Zionist movement, Yousif is frustrated by his fellow Arabs' inability to thwart the Zionist encroachment and by his own inability to prevent the impending marriage of Salwa to an older suitor chosen by her parents. The story is based on the author’s actual lived experience, and on extensive historical research. On the Hills of God was the recipient of the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, and has been translated into Arabic and German.