Are We Confronting a Religious War? Zionism, Christian Zionism and the Dangerous Sacralization of West Asia

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict began neither simply as a religious war nor as an ancient struggle between Jews and Muslims. Its modern origins lie primarily in nationalism, competing claims to territory, European antisemitism, imperial politics, migration, war, dispossession and the collapse of the Ottoman order. Yet something increasingly dangerous is happening to that essentially political conflict: sacred history is being invoked to settle questions that international diplomacy once attempted to resolve through borders, negotiations and law.

That possibility deserves serious examination precisely because Judaism, Christianity and Islam are far larger and more diverse than the militants, nationalists and apocalyptic preachers who invoke them.

The question therefore is not whether Jews, Christians and Muslims are destined to fight. They plainly are not. The question is whether influential political and religious movements are increasingly transforming a solvable political conflict into an absolutist struggle over prophecy, identity and sacred land.

Judaism Is Not Zionism

They are different things.

Judaism has been around for thousands of years. Zionism emerged in the late 1800s in Europe. It came about due to many factors, including anti-semitism, pogroms, and assimilation failing. With the rise of nationalism in Europe, political Zionism emerged. The founders of political Zionism believed we needed our own state. In 1897, the First Zionist Congress took place, and the goal was set to create a publicly recognized Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Zionism took many forms in its early days. Political Zionists, Labor Zionists, cultural Zionists, Religious Zionists, and Revisionist Zionists came later on. They all had different visions of what this Jewish state should look like. Some, if not most, of Zionism was very secular. There were some Jews who were against Zionism because they felt we should wait for God to redeem us.

That history matters today. Jews can be religious and anti-Zionist, religious and Zionist, secular and Zionist, secular and anti-Zionist, or hold positions somewhere between these categories. Jewish critics of Israeli governments cannot simply be dismissed as enemies of Judaism, any more than criticism of Zionism can automatically be equated with hatred of Jews.

On the other hand, antisemitism is a real issue and should not be dismissed because it’s labeled as anti-zionism. People should criticize the government ideology and/or movements, not turn them into Jewish theories.

This distinction matters especially when discussing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His family history illustrates the European origins of modern Zionism, but ancestry does not establish a politician’s ideology, much less prove a religious conspiracy. The policies of an Israeli government should be judged from its legislation, military decisions, coalition agreements, and public statements not from the ethnicity or former surnames of its leaders.

From National Zionism to Religious Zionism

When it is combined with religion, it can become very volatile.

Secular Zionists can view Israel as just a state for the Jewish people to call their own after being persecuted throughout history. When you throw Religion into the mix.  There is meaning behind owning that land.

To some modern-day religious-nationalist Jews.  Owning land in what they believe to be the Land of Israel is part of their redemption.

This distinction changes the political equation. A negotiator can divide disputed territory. It is considerably harder to divide a divine promise.

The danger becomes greatest in Jerusalem.

The Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount is among the most sensitive religious places on earth. For Muslims, the compound containing Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock is one of Islam’s holiest places. For Jews, the Temple Mount is associated with the First and Second Temples and represents Judaism’s most sacred site.

This situation has been maintained for years through a fine balance between these two interests. The Waqf, which is run by Jordan, manages the holy Islamic site. Israel has control over security access, and Muslims can pray at the site. Non-Muslims have always been allowed to visit but not pray. There have been many statements made by Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and the US, all stating they want to keep this status quo in place.

Recently, however, the status quo has come under increasing pressure. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir recently visited the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif and again publicly endorsed Jewish prayer there. Both Jordan and the Palestinian leadership strongly condemned his actions.

That is why the Third Temple movement cannot simply be dismissed as theological eccentricity.

Some Jewish activists openly prepare for the restoration of Temple worship. But it would be inaccurate to turn their ambitions into the collective intention of Judaism or even into an established policy of the Israeli state. There is no sound evidence that Israel has adopted an official program to demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque and construct a Third Temple.

The distinction is crucial.

The danger lies not in pretending that such a government program already exists, but in recognizing what could happen if increasingly influential religious-nationalist forces succeeded in overturning the existing arrangement.

Any serious attempt to remove, destroy, or displace the Islamic sanctuaries would almost certainly have repercussions far beyond Jerusalem. Al-Aqsa is not merely Palestinian property in Muslim consciousness. It belongs to the sacred geography of a worldwide religious community of nearly two billion people.

A struggle over territory could suddenly become a struggle over faith.

Christian Zionism: When Prophecy Becomes Foreign Policy

The most unusual element in this political coalition is that some of Israel’s most fervent supporters are not Jewish at all.

They are evangelical Christians.

Christian Zionism predates the modern Israeli state and even political Zionism itself. Certain Protestant traditions interpreted biblical prophecy as predicting a Jewish return to the Holy Land preceding the Second Coming of Christ. Modern Israel consequently acquired significance far beyond ordinary geopolitics.

Polling has long shown the depth of these beliefs among American evangelicals. Pew found white evangelical Protestants far more likely than other Christian groups to believe that God gave the land to the Jewish people and that modern Israel fulfilled biblical prophecy concerning the return of Christ.

There is nothing inherently illegitimate about a private citizen believing biblical prophecy. Religious freedom protects Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, and others equally.

The difficulty arises when eschatology becomes a substitute for foreign-policy analysis.

Americans should decide relations with Israel based on the American Constitution, national interest, world obligations, and desire for peace. Not what one Diplomat believes Genesis, Revelation, Messiah, and the Armageddon will bring.

This brings us directly to Mike Huckabee.

Mike Huckabee and the Problem of Biblical Diplomacy

Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor and governor of Arkansas, was confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to Israel in April 2025. He arrived with a long record of evangelical Christian Zionism and support for Israeli settlements.

His appointment therefore represented something historically unusual: an American ambassador whose personal understanding of the territory under negotiation was openly informed by biblical theology.

In June 2025, Huckabee said he did not believe the creation of an independent Palestinian state remained a U.S. foreign-policy goal and suggested that such a state might conceivably be established elsewhere in the Muslim world rather than in the occupied West Bank.

Even more alarming was his discussion of Genesis 15:18 on Tucker Carlson’s show in Feb. 2026. He mentioned a stretch of land from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates River. Many countries condemned this statement and believed he was implying that Israel should take over these lands as well. The US embassy said this was not an official stance of the United States of America.

That clarification is extremely important.

Huckabee is entitled to his theology as a private believer. But an American ambassador speaks from an office carrying the authority of the United States. When biblical entitlement enters diplomatic language, audiences in Damascus, Beirut, Amman, Riyadh, Baghdad and Cairo may reasonably wonder where American policy ends and evangelical interpretation begins.

That can distort perceptions of America throughout the Muslim world.

Huckabee has not, however, acted uniformly as an apologist for every Israeli action. In July 2025, he strongly condemned an attack on a Palestinian Christian site at Taybeh as an “act of terror” and demanded accountability for settler violence.

So both facts need to be looked at when making a judgment on this. He has shown strong religious-backed empathy towards Israel’s claim on land but has also spoken out against attacks on Palestinians. It can be argued that America’s diplomatic relations should allow the bible to play a role when discussing land disputes.

“Greater Israel”: Theology, Strategy and Exaggeration

We need to be careful with the term “Greater Israel” as well.

There are maximalist religious and nationalist views that call for Israel to control land past its currently accepted borders. Others take verses from the bible and believe Israel could encompass even more.

However, we cannot say that it’s Israel’s policy to take over Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.

It also doesn’t happen to be false. These ideas are out there.  As Huckabee’s 2026 comments show, the Bible can play a role in politics. But they are not all the same as religious beliefs, extremist ideals, or military objectives.

A related document frequently cited in this discussion is the 1996 paper A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, prepared by a study group for the incoming Netanyahu government. The document advocated a harder regional strategy, including containing and “rolling back” Syria and removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.

It is legitimate to examine the document as evidence of an influential strategic school. It is not legitimate to treat everything that subsequently happened in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran as proof that one thirty-year-old paper secretly directed American and Israeli history.

Geopolitics is rarely that tidy.

Hindutva and the New Israel Connection

Another striking development has been the growth of admiration for Israel among sections of Hindu nationalism.

India once stood among the strongest non-Arab supporters of Palestinian nationalism. It recognized Israel in 1950 but did not establish full diplomatic relations until 1992, and it recognized the State of Palestine in 1988.

With India under the rule of the BJP and, more recently, Narendra Modi, we have seen an increase in closeness to Israel. This has been through defense technology and intelligence, or simply business and politics. There has also been some research done on how certain beliefs in Hindutva and Zionism are similar. They can be used to describe one’s civilization and to make claims about certain areas and history.

Yet “the Hindus” have no single position on Israel any more than “the Jews,” “the Christians,” or “the Muslims” do. India officially continues to support a two-state solution, even while its strategic partnership with Israel has deepened substantially.

What is politically significant is the emergence of a transnational ideological sympathy among some Hindu nationalists, Israeli nationalists and Western anti-Islam movements.

Their religions are profoundly different. Their strategic interests are different. What sometimes joins them is not theology but a common perception of political Islam as a civilizational adversary.

That is precisely where legitimate criticism of Islamist extremism can slip into indiscriminate hostility toward Muslims.

Islam, Sharia and the Politics of Fear

The rhetoric describing Islam as following a secret three-stage program minority coexistence, infiltration, and eventual imposition of Sharia should be approached skeptically.

Islam contains approximately two billion people, dozens of major societies, multiple schools of jurisprudence, Sunni and Shi’a traditions, secular political movements, monarchies, republics, democracies, dictatorships, and innumerable disagreements over the relationship between religion and government.

Radical Islamist movements unquestionably exist. Some explicitly seek Islamic states governed by their interpretation of Sharia. Their ideology should be scrutinized without hesitation.

But moving from that fact to the proposition that Muslim politicians in Western democracies constitute agents in a coordinated Islamic conquest is a very different claim requiring evidence.

Muslim politicians should therefore be evaluated exactly as Christian, Jewish, Hindu, or secular politicians are: according to their stated policies, conduct, and constitutional commitments, not assumptions derived from their ancestry or religion.

Christian Apologists trying to disprove Muhammad’s existence or the Quran’s history would be acceptable as well. It is ok to question other religions.  Just as Muslims can question Christian beliefs.  And Jews can question them both.  It’s perfectly fine to study old texts.

But textual criticism is not evidence that contemporary Muslim citizens secretly seek political conquest.

Freedom of religion requires freedom to criticize religion. It also requires refusing to turn theological disagreement into collective suspicion.

Iran, Shi’ism and the Twelfth Imam

The Sunni-Shi’a divide can lead to oversimplification as well. Yes, the belief that the 12th Imam has gone into occultation and will return one day as the Mahdi is a fundamental part of Twelver Shi’ism. But that belief has spawned many political interpretations. Some were very quietist.  It is not safe to assume that Iran wants to bring about nuclear war to help usher in the end times. Some scholars have warned against reading Iranian actions this way.

Iranian hostility toward Israel, support for armed regional movements, and nuclear activities raise genuine security questions. Israel likewise views Iran and its allies as major strategic threats.

But strategic rivalry, regime survival, deterrence, nationalism, and regional power competition remain at least as important as eschatology.

They should not be viewed as purely a Sunni-based religious alliance to oppose Shi’ism. The Abraham Accords aimed to enable peaceful relations between Israel and the Arab countries that joined the agreement.

Nevertheless, they have contributed to new regional alignments in which Israel and several Arab governments share concerns about Iranian power.

Gaza and the Human Cost of Sacred Politics

They are all people who exist on this planet.

We can’t ignore what the Palestinians have gone through and simply write it off to religious ideology. Since October of 2023, the Gazans have been through death, destruction, homelessness, and lack of basic needs. Violence has continued after the October 2025 ceasefire agreement was put in place. As of September 2026, OCHA said 94% of Gazans required emergency shelter and household items. 65% of households are currently living in tents or improvised shelters.

On October 2nd, 2026, there was an Israeli airstrike that took the lives of many Palestinians, including Christians, who lived in Gaza City.

Israelis have also been through trauma since October 7th, 2023, when those who attacked Israel under Hamas killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages.

Both sides have experienced tragedy.

The Palestinians do not deserve to have Israelis killed because they have suffered. Nor do Israelis have the right to take Palestinian lives.

When religion gets involved, that logic goes out the window.

The Most Dangerous Hilltop on Earth

Al-Aqsa may therefore be the ultimate test.

Jerusalem can survive competing memories. It has done so for centuries.

What it may not survive is an attempt by one community to erase another community’s sacred presence.

Any movement to destroy or remove Al-Aqsa or the Dome of the Rock to construct a Third Temple would represent an extraordinary escalation. Conversely, attacks on Jewish worshippers or denial of the profound historical Jewish attachment to the Temple Mount would deepen the same absolutism.

It isn’t ideal, but there’s a reason why we maintain the status quo.

When apocalyptic movements dictate what happens in our governments, it will become very hard to deter them. Politicians negotiate because they have a future.  They want tomorrow to happen.  If someone believes in an apocalypse, then an apocalypse will only prove their beliefs correct.

That is why Jerusalem requires less prophecy in diplomacy, not more.

Are We, Then, Confronting a Religious War?

Not yet in the simple sense.

The struggle remains simultaneously territorial, national, military, colonial in the interpretation of many Palestinians and scholars, existential in the interpretation of many Israelis, geopolitical in Washington and Tehran, and increasingly theological among some of the movements surrounding it.

That final development should concern everyone.

Judaism does not require perpetual war with Islam. Christianity does not require America to fight wars to fulfill biblical prophecy. Shi’ism does not mechanically require Iran to initiate Armageddon. Hinduism does not require India to participate in an anti-Muslim geopolitical bloc. Islam does not require Muslim citizens living in America or Europe to secretly overthrow constitutional government.

Those sweeping propositions turn complicated civilizations into caricatures.

The real danger comes when particular political movements convince their followers that God has already settled questions of territory, sovereignty, and war.

Then negotiation becomes apostasy.

Compromise becomes betrayal.

And political opponents become enemies of God.

Jerusalem cannot be governed safely under that logic.

The United States carries a particular responsibility. Its diplomats should understand biblical history without converting Scripture into territorial policy. Israel has the right to security; Palestinians possess political and human rights that cannot disappear because another community possesses a powerful biblical narrative. Iran’s policies can be challenged without reducing Shi’a theology to an apocalyptic conspiracy. Islamist extremism can be confronted without depicting ordinary Muslims as infiltrators. Antisemitism can be condemned without declaring every criticism of Israeli policy antisemitic.

The alternative is precisely the religious polarization now gathering around Jerusalem.

A world already strained by Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, sectarian politics, great-power rivalry and nuclear weapons does not need a contest over whose Messiah will inherit Jerusalem.

The sacred city should instead remind all three Abrahamic religions of something their extremists too easily forget: possession of a holy place does not confer possession of God.

If Al-Aqsa were ever seriously threatened with destruction, the consequences could extend far beyond Palestinians and Israelis. A local conflict could acquire a global religious vocabulary capable of mobilizing populations from Jakarta to London and from Tehran to Washington. In a nuclear and technologically interconnected age, humanity cannot afford another Crusade, particularly one conducted with missiles, drones, artificial intelligence, and weapons of mass destruction.

The danger therefore is not that a predetermined religious world war has already begun.

The danger is that political actors may gradually create one.

Preventing it requires preserving the holy sites, protecting civilians, rejecting collective religious hatred, restraining territorial maximalism, restoring political negotiation, and keeping private eschatology out of public diplomacy.

Jerusalem has enough prophets.

What it desperately needs now are statesmen.