by Daniel Brouse
July 9, 2025
As a descendant of the Tribe of Judah, a world economist, scholar, and investigative journalist with decades of experience defending truth and human rights, I can state clearly that the claim “Israel owns Gaza, Judea, and Samaria by history, by law, and by moral clarity” is false and deeply misleading. Historical narratives do not grant modern legal ownership of land, especially when countless other peoples, including Palestinians, have lived continuously in these areas for centuries. While ancient Israelites lived in these regions, so did Canaanites, Philistines, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, and Ottomans, among many others, and modern international law, not selective historical interpretation, governs state borders and sovereignty today.
The fact is, there was never a historical “state of Israel” as understood in modern terms. The Tribe of Judah, along with the other eleven tribes, were originally nomadic groups moving throughout the region, never establishing fixed, sovereign borders recognized in the way modern nation-states are today. Over time, these tribes settled in various areas, loosely forming twelve tribal territories, but they always shared these lands with numerous other ethnic groups, including Canaanites, Philistines, Moabites, Edomites, and others who also lived, farmed, traded, and built communities there. Even when tribal confederations or kingdoms emerged, such as the united monarchy under David and Solomon (which itself is debated by historians regarding its size and centralization), these were short-lived and fragmented, and the land remained ethnically and culturally diverse. The narrative of exclusive, continuous Jewish sovereignty over the entire region is a modern nationalist construction that ignores the layered, pluralistic history of the land. Using this constructed narrative to justify the current displacement and oppression of Palestinians is a distortion of both history and morality.
It is deeply ironic and hypocritical that the most famous Jew in history, Jesus, became the foundation of Christianity. By the logic of the modern Israeli state, if heritage alone determined a state’s religious identity, then the ancient territory of Judah would be a Christian state today.
Legally, Israel does not “own” Gaza or the West Bank, which it refers to as Judea and Samaria. Gaza, while Israel removed settlers in 2005, remains under Israel’s effective control over airspace, sea, borders, and population registry, making it occupied territory under international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention. The West Bank is similarly considered occupied, with the UN, International Court of Justice, and numerous legal experts affirming that Israel’s settlements and annexation efforts violate international law. UN Security Council Resolution 242 explicitly calls for Israel’s withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967, and no credible international body recognizes Israeli sovereignty over these areas.
The claim that “moral clarity from survival” justifies these actions is also misleading. Survival does not justify apartheid, ethnic cleansing, occupation, or collective punishment of millions of people. Framing the killing of civilians, the blockade of Gaza, and the systematic displacement of Palestinians as “moral clarity” erases the humanity of Palestinians and distorts the reality of their suffering under siege and occupation. As someone deeply committed to truth and justice, I affirm that Israel does not own Gaza or the West Bank legally, morally, or historically, and using survival as a blanket justification for violence and displacement is not moral clarity—it is moral deflection.
It is also important to highlight that many Jews of European heritage, particularly those from Western countries with no direct hereditary connection to the land, have been especially hypocritical in making these claims of ownership and moral superiority. In fact, Jews arriving from Europe and Western countries forcibly displaced and marginalized indigenous Jews—Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews—who had lived on the land for centuries before the establishment of the state of Israel. The state they created is not a democracy in any meaningful sense, as it fails to recognize equal human rights for all people under its control, enshrining Jewish supremacy over others in law and practice. The current Israeli government has also bombed Christian churches and killed Christian civilians. Shireen Abu Akleh, a prominent Palestinian-American journalist and a Christian, was executed on May 11, 2022, while covering an Israeli raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, illustrating that Israel’s violence extends beyond Palestinians of Muslim faith to Christians and others who stand in the way of its expansionist policies.
Evangelical Christianity and Israel
If you’re curious about the driving force behind US support for Israel, it’s ironically rooted in Evangelical Christianity. Many Evangelical Christians believe they can hasten the “second coming of Christ” by bringing about the apocalypse. According to their interpretation of the Bible, this involves Israel reclaiming Jerusalem, Jesus returning, and ultimately eliminating all Jews. For numerous “Christian Zionists,” especially influential evangelists aligned with the Republican Party, support for Israel is less about political strategy and more about its supposed role in biblical prophecy. In this worldview, war is not something to be avoided but embraced as a divine necessity—an inevitable and even celebratory step toward Jesus’ rule from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The fate of Jews and Palestinians is, to put it mildly, seen as collateral damage.
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