NEAR  ·  Philosophy & Politics
Israel Does Not Exist  ·  Part II of II

Israel
Does Not
Exist

Netanyahu said the quiet part out loud.
Palestinian Christians are dying in churches older than the United States.
The political case is no longer deniable.

May 2026 Part II — The Evidence Champion
Benjamin Netanyahu seated at a conference table with advisors, Mar-a-Lago meeting, December 2025
"Christian Zionism facilitated the rise and success of Jewish Zionism."
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, meeting with Christian Zionist leaders, Mar-a-Lago, Florida · December 31, 2025

He said it. In a room full of Christian supporters. On the last day of 2025. The man your church has been defending, funding through political pressure, and blessing with unconditional moral support — he looked at his Christian Zionist audience and told them what they actually were: a tool. A mechanism. A facilitated means to an end that was never theirs to begin with.

The sentence was not a thank-you. It was an acknowledgment of utility. You helped us rise. You helped us succeed. If you heard that as partnership, read it again. If Christian Zionism merely facilitated the rise of Jewish Zionism, it was instrumental — not equal. The Christian moved the pieces. Someone else played the game.

That is where we begin Part II. The theology was the subject of Part I. This is the political and evidential record. By the time we reach the end of this article, the question will not be whether you can support the modern State of Israel. It will be whether you can explain why you still do.

I. The Churches Are Burning

There is a church in Gaza that has been continuously active since the fifth century. The Church of Saint Porphyrius, built in 425 AD, is one of the oldest operating Christian churches in the world. It predates Islam. It predates the Ottoman Empire. It predates the Crusades by six centuries. On October 19, 2023, an Israeli airstrike hit its compound. Eighteen people died — civilians who had taken shelter in what they believed was a protected religious site.

Open Bible with light streaming toward the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem at dusk
The light of the text  ·  and the city it claims to illuminate
October 19, 2023
Church of Saint Porphyrius, Gaza City — 18 killed
An Israeli airstrike struck the compound of the Church of Saint Porphyrius (est. 425 AD), one of the oldest continuously active Christian churches in the world. Civilians — including Christian families — had gathered there believing the site would be protected. The IDF stated it was targeting a Hamas command center beneath the compound. Eighteen people died, including children.
December 16, 2023
Holy Family Church, Gaza City — 2 women killed by IDF sniper fire
Two Christian women — Nahida Anton and her daughter Samar Anton — were shot and killed by IDF sniper fire inside the compound of Holy Family Church, the only Roman Catholic church in Gaza, while attempting to move within the church grounds. The Vatican issued a statement condemning the killings. A third woman was wounded in the same incident.
July 17, 2025
Holy Family Church, Gaza City — 3 killed in second strike
Holy Family Church was struck a second time. Three people sheltering in the compound were killed. The church had been designated as a refuge for displaced civilians throughout the conflict. By mid-2025, it had been struck twice and remained structurally damaged.

Three strikes. Three churches. Eighteen dead in one, two sniped in another, three more in a second strike on the same building. These are not combatants. These are not rocket launch sites. These are the descendants of the people Paul wrote to in Acts 2 — Gentiles who received the gospel before most of the Western church's ancestral nations had heard of Jesus.

The Palestinian Christian community in Gaza is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. As of this writing, more than 33 Palestinian Christians have been killed since October 7, 2023 — a community that numbered fewer than 1,000 in Gaza to begin with. The proportional toll is staggering. And it has been met, by the Western evangelical church, with near-complete silence.

The Question That Silences the Room
If Hamas had struck a church in Jerusalem and killed 18 Christians, American evangelical media would have covered it for weeks. The contrast with actual coverage of Saint Porphyrius — the oldest active church in the world, struck by the state American evangelicals fund with political capital — is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of record. Who you grieve tells others whose death you value.
II. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef — What the Theology Actually Teaches

I want to quote Rabbi Ovadia Yosef directly, because the quote matters and because it should be read in full before anyone accuses me of selective emphasis. Rabbi Yosef was not a fringe figure. He was the spiritual leader of Shas, one of the largest ultra-Orthodox political parties in Israel, and the most influential Sephardic rabbi of the twentieth century. When he died in 2013, an estimated 800,000 people attended his funeral — one of the largest funeral gatherings in Israeli history.

"Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world — only to serve the People of Israel. Why are Gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat. That is why Gentiles were created." — Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, founder and spiritual authority of the Shas party, weekly Saturday sermon, October 2010. Reported by the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, October 16–18, 2010.

This is not a fringe position unearthed from a marginal pamphlet. This was delivered as a weekly public sermon, reported by Israeli newspapers, and — crucially — did not end Rabbi Yosef's influence or Shas's political power. Shas continued to govern. Rabbi Yosef continued to rule on halachic questions that shaped Israeli policy until his death three years later. His rulings remain authoritative within the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic community.

What you just read is the theology of the people you are being asked to fund, defend, and interpret as the fulfilment of God's covenant. The Gentiles — you — were born to serve. That is not my characterization. That is Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, in his own words, delivered from a pulpit, reported in the Israeli press, and greeted with institutional silence by the American evangelical community.

III. Shas Is in Netanyahu's Coalition

One might want to distance the Netanyahu government from Rabbi Yosef's theology — to say that Yosef was a religious leader and Netanyahu is a secular politician, and that the two spheres are separate. That argument does not survive a reading of the coalition agreements.

Shas — the party Rabbi Yosef founded, whose theology he defined, and whose voters remain deeply shaped by his rulings — has been a core coalition partner in the Netanyahu government throughout the current conflict. The party holds multiple cabinet portfolios. Its leader, Aryeh Deri, has served as Interior Minister and Health Minister. The theology of Goyim-as-servants is not a historical artifact; it is the spiritual context of active governing partners.

Party Role / Portfolio Relevant Context
Shas Interior Ministry; Health Ministry Founded by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. "Goyim were born only to serve us" — Yosef, 2010.
Religious Zionism (Otzma Yehudit) National Security Ministry; Finance Ministry Itamar Ben Gvir; Bezalel Smotrich. Explicit Greater Israel territorial expansion policy. Both have called for population removal from Gaza.
United Torah Judaism Housing Ministry Ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi bloc. Settlement expansion in West Bank.
Likud Prime Minister; Defence; Foreign Affairs Netanyahu leads. Self-described secular; no theological claim to the state. Manages the coalition.

This is the government American Christian Zionism is defending. Not in 1948. Not in the abstract. Right now. This government, with these portfolios, with Rabbi Yosef's party holding the Interior Ministry and shaping who gets to live where in the Holy Land.

Figure in a suit kneeling before a faceless enthroned man, map of the Middle East behind them
Gentile hands  ·  foreign throne
IV. The Man Leading It Is an Atheist

Benjamin Netanyahu has, at various points in his public life, described himself as secular and has stated explicitly that he does not believe in God in the conventional religious sense. In interviews over the years, he has spoken of Israel's right to exist in terms of history, security, and national survival — not in terms of covenant, prophecy, or divine mandate. He is, by any working definition, a secular atheist leading a nation-state.

This matters theologically, and it matters politically.

Theologically: Romans 11 specifies the conditions for covenant restoration — faith, not ethnicity; repentance, not real estate. A secular state led by a self-described atheist, no matter how many flags fly over it, does not meet the biblical conditions for covenant fulfilment. You cannot dress a secular state in prophetic clothing and call it the hand of God. The man giving the orders does not believe in God. That is a fact available to anyone who reads a news archive.

Politically: The claim of theological legitimacy — the claim that supporting Israel is a religious obligation, that the land was given by God, that opposing Israel is opposing the divine plan — this claim cannot come from an atheist head of state. The legitimacy claim is being laundered through Christian Zionists who believe it, and used by a state that doesn't. Netanyahu himself told you: you facilitated this. You supplied the theological cover. He supplied the geopolitics.

The Theological Legitimacy Loop
The argument runs like this: Israel must be supported because it is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy. But the state's own Prime Minister does not believe in biblical prophecy. He does not believe God gave the land. He believes Israel exists because of history, military capacity, and geopolitical alliance — and he is grateful that American Christians believe something he does not, because their belief produces political results he can use.

You are not partners in a divine project. You are the theological supply chain for a secular political project — which is exactly what Netanyahu told you on December 31, 2025.
Theological Framework · Bob Enyart
The Plot — Excerpt: The Bride of Christ
Enyart's Bride excerpt from The Plot (BEL Books, ISBN 978-1-891451-02-7) makes the distinction that resolves the theological legitimacy question: Israel was the divorced wife (Jer 3:8, Hosea 2:2). The Church is the Bride of Christ — a different covenantal relationship, not a replacement. Neither entity is the 1948 state. The modern state has no covenantal standing in either relationship — it is not the restored wife (conditions for restoration in Romans 11 unmet) and it is not the Bride (the Bride is the Church, not a nation-state). The theological legitimacy claim for Christian Zionism collapses when this distinction is held.
Read: The Bride of Christ — PDF excerpt →  ·  See also: Part I — The Theology →
V. The Greater Israel Project — What the Map Actually Shows

The phrase "Greater Israel" refers to a territorial vision held by Religious Zionism and associated movements: the annexation of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), Gaza, and in maximalist versions, portions of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria — lands described in some readings of the Abrahamic land grant as belonging to the covenant people. The vision is explicitly theological, drawn from Genesis 15:18–21 and related passages.

The current coalition government is the first in Israeli history to include parties whose stated platform is Greater Israel expansion. Bezalel Smotrich, Finance Minister, has published maps of Greater Israel that include Jordan. Itamar Ben Gvir, National Security Minister, has advocated for Jewish settlement across the entirety of Gaza following the elimination of its current population. Both men serve in a cabinet led by Netanyahu.

The Christian Zionist theological framework supplies the prophetic legitimacy for this project while the project is executed by people who either do not share that theology (Netanyahu) or hold a version of it that explicitly subordinates all non-Jews to servant status (Shas). The Gentile believer funds the project. The beneficiaries of the project believe the Gentile believer was born to serve them. This is not paranoia. This is the documented theological position of a governing coalition partner.

A suited finger points to a blood-stained strip on an antique map — the Gaza corridor — surrounded by men in dark suits
The Greater Israel project  ·  what the map actually shows
VI. The Unanswerable Argument

I want to state the closing argument as plainly as possible, because I believe it is unanswerable, and I want to give every opportunity for someone to answer it.

The modern State of Israel, under the current government, has:

The Record — What Has Actually Happened
1. Struck three Christian churches, killing at least 23 Christians — including women sniped while walking within a church compound — in a community that traces its Christian heritage to the first century.

2. Included as a coalition partner the party founded by a rabbi who publicly declared, from a pulpit, that Gentiles were created to serve Jews — and that governing partner holds the Interior Ministry.

3. Included as coalition partners parties whose stated policy is the annexation of Palestinian territory and, in the words of current cabinet members, the removal or elimination of the non-Jewish population from Gaza.

4. Been led, throughout this conflict, by a self-described secular atheist who acknowledges no theological claim to the land but accepts the political benefit of Christian Zionists who believe on his behalf.

5. Admitted, through its own Prime Minister's mouth, that Christian Zionism was the facilitative mechanism for the rise of Jewish Zionism — not a partner faith, but an instrument of policy.

You cannot support a nation where Christians are among the first targeted for slaughter — and call it faithfulness to the gospel. You cannot defend a government whose coalition theology holds that you were born to serve them — and call that a biblical alliance. You cannot provide theological cover for a secular state whose leader explicitly credits your theology as the tool that built his — and call that standing with Israel.

You are not standing with Israel. You are standing with a political project that has used your faith as a means to an end, killed your brothers and sisters in their ancient churches, and told you, to your face, that this is exactly what it did.

VII. The Political Verdict
What the Political Record Shows
Netanyahu said it: "Christian Zionism facilitated the rise and success of Jewish Zionism." The head of the state you are defending told you, on December 31, 2025, that your faith was the facilitative instrument of his political project. This is not a hostile interpretation. It is the verbatim record.

The churches are struck and burning: Church of Saint Porphyrius (Oct 2023, 18 dead), Holy Family Church (Dec 2023, 2 sniped; Jul 2025, 3 killed). Over 33 Palestinian Christians killed since Oct 7 in a community smaller than a mid-size American suburb. These are not collateral casualties. These are the body of Christ.

The coalition theology is documented: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef — founder of Shas, current governing coalition partner, Interior Ministry — publicly declared that Gentiles were created to serve Jews. This was reported in the Israeli press, greeted with no institutional sanction, and the party continued to govern. It continues to govern now.

The leader is an atheist: Netanyahu does not believe the land was given by God. He does not believe in the covenant. He benefits from Christians who do. The theological legitimacy claim originates entirely in the people being used, not in the people doing the using.

The Greater Israel project is policy: Coalition partners hold cabinet portfolios while publishing maps that include Jordan as Israeli territory and calling for the removal of Gaza's non-Jewish population. This is not fringe commentary. It is the governing platform of current ministers.
"Christian Zionism facilitated the rise and success of Jewish Zionism." — Netanyahu, December 31, 2025. He told you what you were. The question is whether you will believe him.

Part I established what the Bible teaches: God divorced Israel, Israel is cut off and not yet restored, the Times of the Gentiles are not yet fulfilled, and Christian Zionism is a theological error built on manufactured footnotes. That is the theological case.

Part II is the political case: the state you are defending has killed Christians in churches, is governed by partners who believe you were born to serve them, is led by an atheist who acknowledges no theological claim, and has now told you, in the clearest possible language, that your theology was a tool.

The argument — theological and political — is complete. Israel, as a prophetic fulfilment, does not exist. Israel, as a Christian obligation, does not exist. What exists is a secular state that has been extraordinarily well served by people who believed otherwise.

Back to · Part I of II
Israel Does Not Exist — The Theology