What does it mean to support the Palestinians?

I’m always careful not to conflate issues. Despite the childish claims we often hear about "sellouts" or accusations that certain political actors have betrayed God, the reality is that political strategy doesn't always intersect directly with faith in God. The world is complex, and solutions to its problems are rarely simple. Yet some preachers possessing the maturity and reasoning skills of a six year old routinely confuse political decisions with expressions of faith. Their arguments often lack even basic logical coherence. Yes, some strategies are poorly thought out but being a bad strategist is not the same as being unfaithful to God.

However, there is one political matter that we can be unequivocal about when it comes to being unfaithful, and that is to support the disbelieving Jews (Israeli Zionists) against the believing descendants of the Israelites (the Palestinians). These supporters reject El’Lāh, our King, and His order.

Cursory knowledge of the Abrahamic tradition and its history which I cover in the course “The Great Overview” puts everything into perspective.

The Palestinians are largely the living descendants of the ancient peoples of the Levant, many who trace their lineage to the believing Israelites of old. Over the past thousand years they pledged to uphold the covenant’s final expression as proclaimed through the noble Ishmaelite Messenger of God, Muhammad. Many were rabbinical Jews and others were Messianic Jews who acknowledged the Messiah, Jesus. Many intermarried with the Ishmaelite believers who arrived in the region, forming a union between two houses of Abraham.

Who we refer to as “Palestinians” are largely believers who descend from the Israelites. They don't stop being Israelites. Their Arabic names do not negate their Israelite heritage with a most famous example being Mūsa bin Maimūn (later Latinised to Maimonides, d. 1204 CE), one of the greatest Jewish rabbis in rabbinical Judaism.

So, to support them is to support the Israelite faithful against the Israelite rebels. God is always on the side of the faithful. This is covenantal reality. God praises the Children of Israel when they uphold the trust, and condemned them when they violated it. The same is true for any people. When God speaks of the Children of Israel, He distinguishes, both sharply and repeatedly, between those who were righteous and those who were treacherous.

“Among them are those who are upright, but many of them are defiantly rebellious.” (Qur’an 5:66)

This internal struggle within the House of Israel is ancient. It began with Joseph and his brothers. It continued with Moses, who faced not only Pharaoh, but his own “stiff-necked” people (Exodus 32:9). He was resisted by Korah, by those who worshipped the golden calf, and by the generation too afraid to enter the promised land. Joshua and Caleb stood nearly alone in their trust in God. Then came the cycles of disobedience, treachery and repentance during the age of the 12 judges (Numbers 1:5–15, Qur'an 5:12).

It continued with the Prophet Samuel, who was dismissed by the elders demanding a king “like the nations around us.” (1 Samuel 8:19-20) Then came Saul contrasted with David, the penitent king after God’s love. Yet even David faced betrayal from within, including from his advisors. The pattern held with his son Solomon: while he built the Temple and was gifted with wisdom, his later years saw disquiet from the Israelites he had established in the land.

In the Northern Kingdom (Israel), prophets like Elijah and his successor Elisha stood almost alone against apostate Israelite rulers such as Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 18:20-40). In the Southern Kingdom (Judah), prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel were mocked, imprisoned, or ignored by kings and priests more interested in power than in truth.

Jeremiah wept over Jerusalem while its elite scoffed at his calls for repentance. (Jeremiah 20:7–8) Ezekiel spoke to exiles who still refused to see their own guilt (Ezekiel 14:1–5). Micah, Amos, and Hosea thundered against the false confidence of a people who honoured God with their lips while their hearts were far from Him.

Even after exile and return, the same pattern remained. Nehemiah had to confront corruption among the elite (Nehemiah 5). Malachi rebuked priests who offered blemished sacrifices and a people who cynically asked, “How have we wearied God?” (Malachi 2:17)

So by the time Zechariah and his son John were raised calling Israel back to covenantal fidelity, they were standing in a long line of voices sent to a rebellious house. To the Jewish elite, the Pharisees and Sadducees, John said:

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matthew 3:7–10)

John made a powerful rebuke of their ethnic and ancestral pride, warning that biological descent from Abraham is meaningless without genuine loyalty, repentance and righteousness. The metaphor of the axe at the tree root implies imminent divine judgment which subsequently led to Ishmaelite stewardship of the covenant.

The faithful remnant continued to hope for deliverance, while the corrupt establishment, like the Zionist Ashkenazi today, clung to a veneer of piety while resisting the very God they claimed to serve. And when these prophets were not ignored, they were killed. John was beheaded by the Jewish king, Herod.

Jesus, the Israelite Messiah, continued with an Abrahamic restoration message and a final ultimatum for the Jews. But he too was opposed by the Jewish elite - those who sat in Moses’ seat but did not walk in Moses’ path. Those who turned the Temple into "a den of thieves" and viewed Rome as a more manageable master than the living God. Jesus put it plainly:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets.” (Matthew 23:29–31)

This is then echoed in the final Proclamation:

“Is it not that whenever a messenger came to you with something your souls did not desire, you acted arrogantly? Some you called liars, and others you killed.” (Qur’an 2:87)

Yet alongside them were faithful Israelites such as the disciples, the followers who recognised the voice of the Messiah and followed him. And so the pattern endured: a remnant who submitted, and a majority who resisted. Belief and disbelief, not between nations, but within the House of Israel itself. With the righteous Israelites as exemplars, God tells us:

“You who have faith, be God’s helpers. As Jesus, son of Mary, said to the disciples, ‘Who will come with me to help God?’ The disciples said, ‘We shall be God’s helpers.’ Some of the Children of Israel believed and some disbelieved: We supported the believers against their enemy and they were the ones who came out on top.” (Quran 61:14)

When the final Prophet arose in the Arabian desert of Paran tasked with assuming stewardship of the Abrahamic covenant, the pattern was already set. The believing remnant among the Receivers of the God's Decree (ahl'l-kitāb) recognised him. Some joined the nascent believing community. But the elite (such as the Ashkenazi today) rejected him, just as they had rejected the prophets before. They feared losing power, questioned his lineage, and accused him of fabricating revelation though they found him prophesied in the Tanakh:

“Those to whom We gave the Scripture know him as they know their own sons. Yet some of them knowingly conceal the truth.” (Qur’an 2:146)

The believing remnant endured. The Israelites who recognised the Abrahamic restoration are the heirs of the covenant: today many of their descendants are the Palestinians. That is why this modern struggle is not merely political. It is a replay of the ancient tension between the disbelieving descendants of the Israelites: those who rejected the Messiah, altered the scriptures, and arrogantly claimed exclusive access to God, and the faithful descendants of righteous Israelites, those who kept faith with Abraham’s Lord and honoured the legacy of the full community (ummah) of messengers.

The modern Zionist project, ungodly in its inception, draws its legitimacy from the legacy of ancient Israelite rejectors: claiming the covenant but rejecting the Lord, claiming the land of prophets while rejecting their message, and invoking Abraham, Moses, and David while disobeying the very Lord those prophets served. They were cursed back then, and that curse continues:

Those Children of Israel who defied [God] were rejected through the words of David and Jesus son of Mary because they disobeyed: they persistently overstepped the limits, they did not forbid each other to do wrong. How vile their deeds were! You see many of them allying themselves with the disbelievers. How terrible is what their souls have stored up for them. God is angry with them and they will remain tormented. If they had faith in God, in the Prophet, and in what was sent down to him, they would never have allied themselves with the disbelievers, but most of them are rebels. You are sure to find that the most hostile to the faithful are the Jews and those who associate others to God’s sovereignty... (Quran 5:78–82)

The modern state of Israel has institutionalised this betrayal, turning heritage into western colonial ideology. Meanwhile, many among the Palestinians are descendants of those who kept the covenant, who honoured Jesus as Messiah, and Muhammad as God's final warner.

“They are not all alike. Among the Receivers of the Decree is a community standing in obedience, reciting the verses of God in the watches of the night, and they prostrate.” (Qur’an 3:113)

The land is promised to the faithful, not to those who manage to gain power through AIPAC’s subversion and deception, alliances with the neoliberal elite, and feeding the American industrial military complex. As God told us, “Some of the Children of Israel had faith and others rejected: We supported the faithful against their enemy….” (Quran 61:14) Those who support the enemy of the believers are on the side against God. They reject El’Lāh the King and discard the Abrahamic covenant.

“Satan has gained control over them and made them forget God. They are on Satan’s side, and Satan’s side will be the losers. Those who oppose God and His Messenger will be among the most humiliated. God has written, ‘I shall most certainly win, I and My messengers.’ God is powerful and almighty. You will not find people who truly have faith in God and the Last Day giving their loyalty to those who oppose God and His Messenger, even though they may be their fathers, sons, brothers, or other relations: these are the people in whose hearts God has inscribed faith, and whom He has strengthened with His spirit. He will let them enter Gardens graced with flowing streams, where they will stay: God is well pleased with them, and they with Him. They are on God’s side, and God’s side will be the one to succeed.” (Qur'an 58:19–22)

Those who side with the Zionist entity and its schemes have chosen Satan's side. They ally with the disbelieving Israelites who have chosen tyranny and bloodshed over the faithful Israelites. So yes, this is a matter of faith in God and allegiance to Him.

As such, may the Lord of Moses, David and Jesus curse Netanyahu and all of his supporters, grant victory to the righteous descendants of the Israelites and Ishmaelites, honour the fallen in the King’s cause, and unify the faithful in productive alliances to overcome the evil of those who seek to ruin the earth. May the Lord seize the genocidal oppressors with a mighty grip, blind their sight and shake the ground beneath their feet.

God, Revealer of the Decree, Swift in reckoning, defeat the confederates of tyranny, count them in number, and destroy them all. Blot them out like Amalek.

God, forgive the faithful and those who obey You. Grant them victory over the evil as you did with the faithful before them who followed the honoured Christ. You alone are their protector.