by Naim Ateek

One of the biblical texts that is often used by Christian Zionists is Genesis 12:3. I still recall the first time I heard it mentioned. It was Christmas 1989 when Archbishop Desmond Tutu came to visit us in Jerusalem. The first intifada was at its peak. Yet in spite of the worsening political situation, the restrictions on movement, and the oppressive Israeli army measures, we managed to have the festive Christmas services with overflow crowds at every event.

On the day after Christmas, we went on a courtesy visit to the Israeli minister of religious affairs. Archbishop Tutu spoke "truth to power" and combined courage with candor. He told the minister about the importance of giving the Palestinians justice and freedom. As we were leaving the government building, we were followed by a man who kept repeatedly shouting the words at us, "Genesis twelve three; Genesis 12:3." I could hardly wait to get home in order to look up the text in the Bible. It read, "I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." The message that the man wanted to communicate to us was simple and clear. For him the text meant that God blesses all those who stand with and support Israel and curses those who stand against it. Furthermore, he presumed that if we were critical of Israel's policies we were incurring God's curse and he wanted to invoke that curse on us.

For those who accept the literal historicity of this text, the words reflected the belief that some ancient Israelites held that God would bless their friends and curse their enemies. It was a primitive form of nationalism that looked at one's own tribal interest and brought down a curse on the enemies. Such pronouncements attributed to tribal gods were not uncommon in the ancient world.

In its context, Genesis 12:3 was addressed by God to Abraham before he had any children and long before he came to Canaan. There is no mention of "Israel" or "Jews" by name but the words have been understood as a blessing to Abraham's lineage. Since Ishmael and Isaac were both Abraham's children, the blessing presumably must have included both and their descendents, i.e. the Arabs and Jews. Christian and Jewish Zionists, however, have interpreted the text as an exclusive blessing given to Jews while the curse they allot to the Arabs, thus butchering the text and using it to fit their modern political agenda.

In biblical times, many Jews who believed that they were the "chosen" nation expected God to be partial to them. Understood narrowly, such a theology was not only critiqued by later prophets, but also had dire consequences. Instead of entailing the responsibility of being a blessing to others, it carried within it the possibility of extreme violent actions. Genesis 12:3 could directly lead to passages such as Deuteronomy 7:2 where the Israelites were summoned by God to ethnically cleanse and utterly destroy their enemies, i.e. those who have been cursed, namely, the indigenous people of the land, the Canaanites. Such self-righteousness and arrogance was deeply embedded in the psyche and beliefs of some people and seemed to have surfaced frequently.

As an example, the prophet Amos observed how such arrogance was playing itself out in the way people of power were oppressing the poor of his day. He addressed them with God's word in a sharp and abrasive way. "O children of Israel, are you not the same to me as the Ethiopians?" says the Lord. "Did I not bring Israel out from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir? Surely the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom. I will destroy it from the face of the earth