In mid-March 2025, President Trump pontificated what is the title of this op-ed. Not only is he confused between what is a religion and what is an ethno-nationalism; but he is also suggesting that to question Israel is to nullify your religion if you are Jewish. Our president exemplifies why the “Hundred Years War—Israel/Palestine Impasse” may continue for many more years.

During the Greek and Roman colonizing of what we call the ‘Middle East’ today,** they called the coastal area ‘Palestine’ from he ancient ‘Philistines’ who arrived as “sea people” about the same time as Moses freed the Hebrew slaves from Egypt and came to Canaan by the desert route. The Canaanites had already established city-states which remained in conflict with the kingdoms of Judah and Israel as they developed. Recent comments about Jesus being a “ Palestinian Jew” have stirred passionate disagreements in the western press. Most will agree that Jesus was Jewish but don’t understand that the Romans who occupied Canaan at the time named much of the costal area Palestine.

Most recently (Christmas, 2024) the press had photos of baby Jesus wrapped in a kufiyah (Palestinian Arab head-covering today). Protests were successful for obvious reasons. One US commentator noted that the USA has long given(metaphorically) our “middle finger” to Middle East politics in general; but have favored Israel as though it was our 51st state. The creation of Israel in 1948 was controversial then; but in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust/***genocide of Jews in Europe, the creation of Israel by the United Nations was understandable and for many necessary.

What is urgently needed at this time is a serious United Nations Genva Peace Conference that will cover both the Palestinian/Israeli impasse and the Ukraine/Russia crisis. There are similarities and they need to be addressed by real diplomats who are knowledgeable about ethno-religious political issues, and serious about avoiding a nuclear conflict in the near future. The conference could deliberate on many other related issues that could lead to conflict. 

*Democrat Senate Majority Leader

**US and British military leaders coined the term “Middle East” because it was between the West and the far East. Had Spain won in the contest for the USA, Kansas and its neighbors would be the “Middle East” in Spanish today since our west coast would be what our east coast is today.

***Under Greek colonization, seventy-two Jewish scholars translated their Hebrew scripture into Greek. “Holocaust” is Greek for the “whole burnt offering”—the most sacred of offerings, as described in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament).