When an American Christian Zionist Can’t Even Say the Words “Occupation” or “Justice”

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March/April 2022, pp. 26-27

Christianity and the Middle East

By Daoud Kuttab

YOU WOULD THINK that Joel Rosenberg’s own identification is enough to turn off any non-Israeli Middle East leader. He prides in his Christian Zionist evangelical ideology and boasts of his newly adopted Israeli citizenship, brought about most likely because his father is of the Jewish faith. He is similarly proud that his two sons have served in the Israeli army, one in a special unit.

Yet reading his latest book, Enemies and Allies, one is taken back by how leaders of major Arab countries, kingdoms, and emirates open the doors for him for repeated visits and audiences with their own top leaders.

Rosenberg, his family and different delegations of pro-Israel white evangelical leaders have been invited and have met the leaders of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Ironically, these very visits and meetings with Arab heads of state probably helped him to visit the previous president of the United States in the Oval Office with the help of then-Vice President Mike Pence.

Primarily a sensational New York Times bestselling novelist, Rosenberg’s books talk of wars and assassinations, all conspired by the enemies of the U.S. and Israel and all thwarted by the courageous Israelis and some of their Arab friends and, of course, with eminent help from America.

It is not clear how he made it into all those capitals. Was it his sensational anti-radical Islam novels or his strange dual citizenship and contacts with both Israeli and American leaders or simply perfect timing? Is it the fact that conservative Gulf leaders wanted something from the anti-Iran Trump administration, including the right to buy F-35 American fighters, or Sudanese, who wanted to be removed from the terror list, or the Moroccans, who wanted Washington to recognize their sovereignty over the Western Sahara? Rosenberg was the perfect messenger to help those countries improve their standing with Donald Trump and company.

On more than one occasion you get the sense that Rosenberg himself is surprised by his own success. He can’t believe that an American Israeli whose sons serve in the Israeli army is enjoying multiple visits and meetings with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) or Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Zayed (MBZ) or being flown by royalty over Jordanian lands. The author himself is often surprised by the convergence of fiction and nonfiction as he walks into a Jordanian palace that was targeted in one of his novels or in the Oval Office where American foreign policy was being cooked up.

This is not to say that the author is not genuine in his faith, and in the messages that he is trying to send to pro-Israeli American evangelicals, of the existence of Arabs who are nice and generous and actually don’t hate Israel.

Rosenberg also acts as the semiofficial messenger of America’s evangelicals, rarely giving an indication that his role as an unelected spokesman of white pro-Israel evangelicals is nowhere close to being representative of their flock. He talks about the 600 million worldwide evangelicals or the 60 million white American evangelicals as if their political opinions, and often divergent views of the world, are one and the same as his own. Rosenberg talks on behalf of American evangelicals in absolute terms, such as this line from his conversation with MBS: “I told him that the vast majority of the 60 million evangelical Christians in the United States love and strongly support the State of Israel and the Jewish people. I wanted him to know how deeply we care about Israel and why this was a deeply held theological—not political—conviction of ours that would never change.” 

Ironically, U.S. public opinion polls show that this so-called evangelical majority is dwindling. Furthermore, the very idea that people “will never change” is rather presumptuous.

But while one can argue about issues of evangelical representation, it is even harder to take Rosenberg seriously regarding peace and justice in the Middle East. The author bends over backward and carries out intellectual somersaults trying to vindicate his new friend MBS. Does he really think anyone believes him or believes that the brutal murder of the respected Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (who was a professional colleague and friend of mine) can happen by Saudi employees without the crown prince knowing about it?

When it comes to Israel and Palestine, the book fails to even tell his readers about the reality facing Palestinians. Although he talks warmly about his Palestinian friends, he admits that when he and his wife meet with Palestinians, they don’t talk politics! The word occupation appears only twice in his 400-some page book, and both are within quotations of a reference by a British member of parliament. 

While it is natural as an Israeli American that he mentions Israel 864 times, Egypt 446 times, Jordan 293, and Saudi Arabia 177, the word “Palestine” is mentioned only 13 times—and none of those by the author—it is either part of a quote or an official name such as American Task Force on Palestine or the Palestine Liberation Organization. But for a man of “peace,” who mentions that word 475 times, it is shameful that the word “justice” doesn’t appear a single time in a book that supposedly documents his and his group's peace efforts?

What is further infuriating is that this Christian leader, who lives in Jerusalem, doesn’t let his readers know that Palestinian Christians exist. He mentions only twice the term “Arab Christians” in reference to believers of Christ in Jordan and Egypt but never once does the term “Palestinian Christians” appear in his exhaustive study as a Christian leader in the Middle East. In fact, Palestinians, whether Christians or Muslims, are treated only within the biblical commands that Israel must be kind to its neighbors. Even Palestinian Christian evangelicals are never referred to in the entire book.

Politically, the author fails to provide a single line about what Palestinians want and even when mentioning the Arab (Saudi) peace plan he commits forgery by saying that it seeks to find a solution to “disputed lands” (a common right-wing Israeli term) and not the correct and internationally recognized term, which appeared in the document he was referring to, “occupied Arab territories.” Rosenberg also commits forgery when saying that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Palestinians a capital in East Jerusalem (unless he means that the village of Abu Dis, where some Israeli leaders plan to have a Palestinian capital, is East Jerusalem?) Also, the population of the West Bank (even without East Jerusalem) is 3.2 million and not 2 million, as he states.

Never once is the two-state solution mentioned and there is no discussion of an independent state or the right of self-determination. The West Bank is never mentioned and instead he uses the religious Jewish settler term of “Judea and Samaria.”

Rosenberg buys the entire Israeli narrative without any question and repeatedly says that the problem is that Palestinians don’t want to have direct talks with Israel when, in fact, any neutral observers would clearly argue that Israel, under Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and now under Naftali Bennett, has been the obstacle to peace. They have either lied about wanting to have negotiations (Netanyahu) or have said outright (as Bennett has stated more than once) that they don’t want to meet or talk to the Palestinian leader, let alone discuss the idea of a Palestinian state. Rosenberg repeats the “three Arab Nos” (no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel and no peace with Israel, an Arab League resolution signed in 1967), despite the fact that the one saying “no” now is Prime Minister Bennett, not the Palestinians.

Award-winning Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab is founder and director general of the Community Media Network in Amman, Jordan. His book, Sesame Street, Palestine: Taking Sesame Street to the Children of Palestine, describes the ups and downs of producing a world-famous children’s program for children enduring Israeli occupation.