CUFI Kills. And We Are Complicit.

Photo: Christine Caton

by David Ensign, PPF Palestine Solidarity Working Group

On June 30, Interfaith Action for Palestine disrupted the annual meeting of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) at the Gaylord Conference Center near Washington, DC. As members of PPF’s Palestine Solidarity Working Group, Christian Caton and I joined the action alongside hundreds of others, including more than half a dozen Presbyterians. Dozens more risked arrest the following day in House and Senate buildings on Capitol Hill.

As we stood in the street—singing, chanting, praying, and blocking the entrance—I thought about the Crusades. The very people who would have led those campaigns would be welcomed into the conference center that sent police to keep us out. Founded by John Hagee in 2006, CUFI is the leading voice of Christian Zionism in the U.S., with an outsized influence in the MAGA political world. Like the Crusaders of the Middle Ages, CUFI seeks to claim Jerusalem “for Jesus.” Today’s Christian Zionists believe Jesus will return once the world’s Jewish population gathers in Jerusalem and converts to Christianity. The Crusades aimed to overthrow Arab Muslim rule and install European Christian dominance. Now, Christian Zionists want Jerusalem to serve as the stage for End Times prophecy.

As in the Crusades, today’s Christian Zionism is deeply antisemitic. It distorts theology, abuses history, and contributes to the deaths of thousands of innocents in the Holy Land.

We may not be responsible for the Crusades, but we are complicit in the violence CUFI supports today. Our tax dollars fund the weapons used to enforce occupation and sustain apartheid. They fund bombs dropped on Iran to distract from the genocide in Gaza.

We went to the Gaylord to say: CUFI kills. In the atrium, a crew of bold Presbyterians unfurled a two-story banner with those words, next to another that read: NO GOD BOMBS CHILDREN. We went to say, simply, we will not look away. Palestine will be free.