In May 2025, a widely circulated video captured rescue workers pulling a badly burned Palestinian girl from the charred remains of her home in northern Gaza. The child, no older than 10, was one of the few survivors of an airstrike that killed her family and flattened the surrounding residential block. The image of her soot-covered face, clutching onto a melted bookbag, became symbolic of the cost borne by Gaza’s children.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the military assault on Gaza as a “divinely ordained mission to protect the eternal capital,” reflecting his consistent use of religious framing to justify military action. Far from isolated rhetoric, this statement reflects a growing pattern among senior Israeli officials who invoke religious justifications to legitimise military campaigns.
The 2023–2025 conflict has resulted in over 50,000 Palestinian deaths, according to Gaza's Health Ministry and United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). While framed as "self-defense," international legal experts, including the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, have warned of potential war crimes and violations of humanitarian law.
This theological framing signals a shift away from security-based narratives and toward a religious-nationalist ideology. It stands in sharp contrast to the Palestinian leadership’s legalistic framing rooted in international conventions and human rights.
Although Israel presents itself as a liberal democracy, its governing coalition includes ultranationalists who openly embrace religious entitlement. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has declared: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people. This land is ours, all of it.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has endorsed policies tantamount to forced displacement, described by some scholars as resembling ethnic cleansing.
These figures shape core state policies: budget allocations, settlement planning and demolition orders. In their view, occupation is not a political issue but a divine imperative. Scriptural references are not merely symbolic; they are operationalized in governance.
Palestinian liberation efforts, led by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), emphasize international legal rights such as: United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3236 (UNGA, 1974), affirming the right to self-determination; UNGA Resolution 194 (UNGA, 1948), supporting the right of return; and the Fourth Geneva Convention (ICRC, 1949), prohibiting collective punishment.
Even groups like Hamas increasingly use anti-colonial legal rhetoric rather than religious prophecy. They cite Article 51 of the U.N. Charter (U.N., 1945), the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) mandate, and the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2004 advisory opinion against the separation wall. This reveals a stark asymmetry: while Israel frames war as a divine obligation, Palestinians pursue international legitimacy.
This contrast is critical. One side weaponizes religious entitlement to entrench occupation, while the other turns to human rights mechanisms to challenge it. Legal appeals by Palestinian groups are often ignored or delayed in global institutions, despite consistent engagement with the frameworks the international community claims to uphold.
In March 2024, U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese called Israel’s conduct a “textbook case of genocide.” The Rome Statute defines genocide to include not just killings, but also creating conditions designed to destroy a group in whole or in part. Gaza’s infrastructure, hospitals, water supply and refugee camps have been repeatedly targeted.
Entire neighbourhoods have been levelled. Hospitals have been bombed while still operational. Ambulances have been struck en route to rescue missions. These are not isolated events; they reflect deliberate targeting patterns. Despite this, Israel’s leadership continues to justify its actions as moral and necessary.
Zionist ideology, particularly in its revisionist and religious forms, has long invoked theological claims to justify territorial expansion. The notion of "Eretz Yisrael," or Greater Israel, envisions a homeland stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates; a vision based not on international consensus but selective interpretations of Biblical scripture.
According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, this ideological narrative supports what he terms “memoricide,” the deliberate erasure of Palestinian history and cultural memory to construct a myth of divine entitlement. From destroyed villages to rewritten historical records, these efforts are foundational, not incidental to the state’s ideological project.
This mirrors the “manifest destiny” rhetoric once employed by colonial powers to legitimize genocide and dispossession. When faith is politicized and scripture becomes state policy, history is weaponized.
Criticism of Israeli state policy must not be confused with anti-Semitism. Judaism is a tradition rooted in ethical conduct and justice. Many Jewish individuals and organizations, including B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, and Jewish Voice for Peace, actively oppose the occupation and its religious justifications.
The issue lies in political Zionism as theology, not Judaism itself. This fusion of state power with divine narrative criminalizes dissent and blurs the boundary between belief and militarism.
The U.S. continues to provide over $3.8 billion annually in military aid to Israel, with few conditions. While issuing public concerns, the EU has failed to enact meaningful sanctions or suspend cooperative agreements.
In contrast to rapid support for Ukraine, international responses to Israeli actions have been inconsistent. In 2021, the ICC launched a formal investigation into alleged war crimes by both Israeli forces and Palestinian groups. Progress has been slow, in part due to political obstruction.
This disparity reveals a more profound crisis: when global norms are selectively enforced, international law is weakened. Law loses its legitimacy when it is bent to serve geopolitical alliances.
The battle over Palestine is also a battle over language. The Israeli state uses terms like “terrorist” or “human shield” to delegitimize Palestinian claims, while Western media often reproduces these narratives. In contrast, Israeli operations are described as “security measures,” regardless of their humanitarian impact.
Such rhetorical asymmetry shapes global perception and erases accountability. Who is viewed as a victim and who is labelled an aggressor is not always determined by facts but by framing. If Palestine is the spiritual front line, then silence is surrender.
This is not merely a territorial conflict. It is a struggle over legitimacy, law and historical narrative. One side invokes scripture to justify occupation; the other turns to international law to assert existence.
When religion is mobilized to perpetuate state violence, and democratic allies remain silent, justice becomes negotiable. Upholding human rights requires more than moral outrage; it requires confronting the ideologies that legitimize atrocity.
The spiritualization of state violence is not a regional anomaly; it is a global warning. History will remember who spoke and who stayed silent.
