Sectarian zeal recycled: Branding Christians as Zionists

In recent weeks, criticism of Egyptian Christians intensified under accusations of “Christian Zionism.” The outcry was fueled by a few outspoken individuals expressing admiration for Israel, and anger over the killing of the US right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, whose assassination was condemned by many, who also expressed support for his family.

These attacks did not, as usual, come from Islamist circles, whether Muslim Brotherhood or Salafi. Rather, they were launched by leftist and liberal writers, researchers, and academics on social media in what looked like a targeted campaign against christians. Given its implications for public perception and national cohesion, it deserves to be taken seriously.

Such accusations gain traction because Christians are often treated as Egypt’s “easy target”—the community blamed for the nation’s problems. They are alternately accused of backing a regime that failed to resolve economic and social crises, of lacking empathy for Palestinians, or of aligning with Western conservative ideologies that allegedly enable Zionism.

The takfir playbook

Christians, collectively and individually, are not infallible or above criticism. Yet the latest wave carried whiffs of incitement, that went beyond criticizing those few, limited voices, and fell into several fallacies. This provides an occasion to spotlight them and to revisit our own heritage in confronting Christian Zionism and supporting the Palestinian cause.

The first fallacy is the sprawling, casual use of the label “Zionist.” The term is no longer confined to those who hold a literalist and selective reading of the Bible, who believe Christ’s return is contingent on the Jews returning to the land of Palestine, and who therefore endorse Israel’s claims that Jews are God’s chosen people and that Palestine is the promised land, to which they returned after their diaspora, as God ordained in the Bible.

Many now fling this shameful label at anyone who disagrees with them. Today, people who reject Israel’s policies but criticize Hamas for its governance failures and hold it responsible for a clear and consequential defeat, not only for Palestinians but for the entire region, are branded Zionists. So, too, are some who believe in peace and want the slaughter to stop by any means.

The core problem with this rhetoric is that it reproduces the method of takfiri groups who deem all other Muslims as infidels: a binary lens of right and wrong, us versus them, with nothing in between. The result is a climate of mutual suspicion, social tension, and sectarian incitement. Moreover, the word itself loses its meaning and impact.

From the first fallacy flows a second, insidious one: generalization.

Some speak of a large Christian Zionist current, while others smear diaspora Copts at large as Zionists. This deliberately ignores the fact that Christians, like their Muslim compatriots, are politically, socially, culturally, and economically diverse. They are not a single, monolithic bloc with unified stances on domestic and foreign issues.

A considerable segment of Egyptian Christians is not politicized and identifies with neither the right nor the left. Their main concern is getting by and living with dignity.

There is also a segment with political affiliations tied to interests, be they public or personal. It is neither fair nor objective nor wise to take the few voices, hundreds perhaps, of Christians who believe in Zionism or support Israel and extrapolate from them to the millions of Christians at large, whether at home or abroad. Even if these voices are loud, they remain confined to their own circles and to their political and social causes; they do not represent the majority.

Minorities, by nature, tend towards social conservatism—driven by identity anxieties, reliance on religious institutions, or weak integration in national structures. This conservatism sometimes manifests in electoral behavior. For instance, many diaspora Copts supported the Republican Party and Donald Trump, seeing in his policies an affirmation of values familiar from their own social contexts. Their sympathy for Charlie Kirk followed the same pattern.

Whether we agree or disagree with their political positions in the US, we have no right to police their thoughts or incite against them because of such views. It is their right to hold and express them as they see fit. And, for the record, this support is not exclusive to Christians; many Muslim immigrants in the US share it and voiced support for Trump ahead of last year’s US elections.

I have previously examined reactions to the Gaza war, trying to read the current political context and its effect on the Christian voice. In an earlier article titled “Christians and the stance on Palestine and Resistance,” I argued that most Christians, like most Egyptians, generally support the Palestinian cause and reject Israel’s current crimes. What varies is the stance toward Hamas and the degree of engagement with events.

Some support resistance movements regardless of ideology, rejecting all forms of colonial aggression. Others harbor genuine fears of Islamist resistance groups, aligning their stance with the tone of the ruling regime—whether confrontational or conciliatory.

Christians against Zionism

The third misconception concerns the erasure of Egypt’s own Christian intellectual legacy in countering Zionist claims. Yes, Zionist influence has reached some Christian groups. Yet there is also a rich and consistent body of writing that has firmly rejected the politicization of faith. Just as most Egyptians opposed the Muslim Brotherhood’s religious rule, it is only logical that they would also reject Israel’s manipulation of religion for political ends.

Egyptian Christians were at the forefront of rebutting Christian Zionism and dismantling its arguments. The thinker Samir Morcos, who has long studied this issue, has chronicled in numerous articles the Egyptian Christian intellectual stance—both clerical and lay—which he describes as a “protective wall” dating back to 1966. This movement unfolded in two key phases.

The first phase involved grounding the position towards Israel on a national and theological basis, and refuting claims to its historical and religious right.

Among the most prominent Christian responses were Pope Shenouda III’s famous lecture “Israel in the Eyes of Christianity,” delivered at the Journalists’ Syndicate in 1966, and William Suleiman Qalada’s “The Egyptian Church Confronts Colonialism and Zionism” (1966).

The Middle East Council of Churches also called on all Christians to unequivocally reject Zionism, on the grounds that it is hostile to the existence and testimony of the Christian churches in the East, as it diminishes the Christian faith and insidiously co-opts it.

The second phase began after the 1979 Egypt‑Israel peace treaty, when writings focused on Jerusalem and Christian Zionism. Key works include the Rev. Dr. Ikram Lamai’s “The Zionist Penetration of Christianity” (1993), the Rev. Dr. Makram Naguib’s “Arab Evangelicals and Zionism,” and Samir Morcos’s “Zionism Co-opting Christian Beliefs” (2003). Morcos stressed the need to notice the distance between Zionism, as a politico‑religious or religio‑political current, and Christianity as faith and doctrine. Dr. William Suleiman Qalada, for his part, offered the Egyptian civilizational model as the moral and cultural antithesis of Zionism.

Today may be an opportune moment to revisit this intellectual heritage—to reassert the depth of Egypt’s Christian engagement against Zionism and correct misconceptions that feed hostility toward vulnerable groups in an already polarized and volatile society.