What is… ?

Allah – Arabic word for God. Arabic-speaking Christians use the same term for God.

An Arab Christian – An Arab who believes in Jesus the Messiah. Many Arab Christians consider themselves descendants of the early church.

An Arab - An Arab is a person whose native tongue is Arabic, generally one who comes from the Middle East or North Africa. Arabs are not a religious group but a linguistic and cultural group.

Palestine – The Romans first applied the name Palestine to the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Generally, Palestine refers to the 27,090 km political unit designated by the British Mandate that took possession of the region from the Ottoman Empire during the first World War. Since 1988 Palestine started to refer to the West Bank and Gaza. West Bank is the territory west of the Jordan River.

Palestinian - A person born in Palestine or whose ancestors were born in Palestine.

Occupation/Occupied Territory – Occupation refers to the invasion, conquest, and control of territory by military force. In Palestine, occupation means that Israel, a foreign power, exercises complete control over every aspect of Palestinian lives.

Settlement/Settler – Settlements are Jewish-only housing units built in strategic areas of the Palestinian Territories occupied by Israel in 1967 in order to colonize the land, secure control over it, and prevent the emergence of a Palestinian State. Settlers carry out significant violence against Palestinians and their property, often with protection from and even with the assistance of the Israeli military. All settlement is illegal under international law, “The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” (Article 49, paragraph 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention)

Anti-Semitism – Generally used to describe negative attitudes towards Jews. *Note: In 2008 A letter was written to the General Secretary of the United Methodist Church by 114 Israelis. In the letter was the following paragraph, “We assure the Methodist Church that it is no more anti-Semitic to criticize and oppose Israeli Government policies than it is anti-American to oppose the Vietnam war [or current policies]. It is never anti-Semitic to oppose injustice, destruction, gross inequity, and inequality.”

Zionism - Contemporary political Zionism stems from a nationalistic Jewish movement in the 1800s in Europe seeking to establish a Jewish Homeland. In 1975 the UN passed resolution 3379 declaring Zionism a form of racism. Contemporary Zionists are those who have associated themselves with the goals of the modern state of Israel.

Anti-Zionism – Because Zionism is a political ideology/practice and Judiasm/Jewishness is a religion/ethnicity, the term anti-Zionism is used to distinguish between opposition to a political movement and opposition to the people a political movement purports to represent.

Christian Zionism – Christian Zionism merges theology and politics. It teaches that the secular state of Israel is a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. Christian Zionism believes that this fulfillment of Biblical prophecy began when European Jews started moving to Palestine in the 1800s and continued as Israel became a nation in 1948. www.christianzionism.org