Jerusalem, the Crusaders, and the Zionism

Taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, 1099, by Émile Signol (1847)

Jerusalem

In 70 CE Jerusalem was completely leveled by the Roman Emperor Titus following the seven-month siege of the city that crushed the Jewish revolt lead by the Zealots from Galilee and Golan. The Romans desecrated the Temple, which had been previously rebuilt and re-dedicated by Herod the Great in 9 BCE. The Herodian expansion, including the Temple Mount, was completed only a few years before, in 63 CE, by Herod Agrippa II, only to be destroyed by the Romans in 70.

As result of the Roman capture of Jerusalem, both Judaic Jews and Christian Jews were severely persecuted, forcing them to flee the city.

At the time of Jesus, some forty years earlier, Jerusalem was already a cosmopolitan city with visitors from all over the Mediterranean regions and beyond, including Gaul, Rome, Greece, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Parthia, Syria, Arabia, Egypt, Cyrene, Ethiopia. See Jeremias, 1969: 58-72. No one ethnic or religious group claimed the city as exclusively its own.

Christians (both Jewish and gentiles) were largely persecuted in the Roman Empire until Pax Constantiniana (Peace of Constantine or Edict of Milan) declared in 312.

In 335 Emperor Constantine the Great dedicated the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. In 339 the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, commissioned by Constantine the Great and his mother Helena, was also dedicated. Christian pilgrims began to flog to these holy sites ever since, even after the fall of Jerusalem to Caliph Umar in 637.

Theodosius I

Theodosius I, born i n Gallaecia, Hispanic (modern-day Coca, Spain), was proclaimed Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in Sirmium (modern-day Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia) in 379 and became the sole ruler of both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires in 392, to die three years later in 395 in Mediolanum (modern-day Milan, Italy)—around the time when Theodosius’s harbor was completed in Constantinople. Theodosius entered Constantinople and appointed Gregory of Naziansus as Patriarch in 380. Gregory of Nyssa orated the funeral of Theodosius’ first wife Aelia Flaccilla and the separate funeral of his daughter Pulcheria both in 386. In 388 Theodosius moved his court to Milan, where Bishop Ambrose (previously the governor thereof) worked out a face-saving agreement to deny him of the communion on account of the 390 Thessalonian massacre, for which he took credit despite his remote involvement. Theodosius died in Milan and was buried in Constantinople in 395. He is venerated as a saint by Eastern (Orthodox) and Oriental (Catholic) Churches.

The Crusaders

The first Crusaders arrived in Constantinople in 1096, the second Crusaders in 1147, the third in 1189, and the fourth in 1203. They arrived in Constantinople on the way to Jerusalem through Antioch. The first Crusaders were invited to Constantinople by Eastern-Roman Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. They were the first and the last Crusaders to capture and install Christian rule in Jerusalem that lasted 88 years between 1099 and 1187. The fourth Crusaders never left the city but burnt and ransacked her in order to recoup expenses incurred for building the new Venetian naval fleet that carried the Frankish nobels and their retinues to Constantinople.

There were a total of nine Crusades. Since the capture in 1099 and the subsequent control of Jerusalem that ended in 1187, the Crusaders could never re-take Jerusalem—except for a brief period of 15 years when the second Treaty of Jaffa was negotiated in 1229 with the Ayyubid Saltan of Egypt, al-Kamil, who ceded temporary control of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth to Frederick II (the Sicilian ruler during the sixth Crusaders) in exchange for preserving administration over Temple Mount and other Islamic holy sites.

In 637 Jerusalem surrendered to the Arab armies of Umar bin al-Khattab, the second Rashida Caliph, who allowed Jews, Christians, and Palestinians to continue to live under his rule. He also allowed Christians from the west to continue to visit the holy sites in pilgrimage, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, both in Palestine.

By the “Covenant of Umar,” Caliph Umar bin al-Khattab guaranteed Christians safety and protection for their pilgrimage to the holy sites. During this time the family of Wajeeh Nuseibeh was entrusted with the key to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. To this day, they hold the key to the Church.

In 1099 the first Crusaders captured Jerusalem from the Fatimid governor of Jerusalem, Iftikhar ad-Daula, and massacred the few remaining Jews and the majority Arabs, unless they had converted to Christianity. In the midst of the indiscriminate killings, many eastern (Orthodox) Christians were also slaughtered. And their control over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Church of the Nativity were turned over to the Latins. One of the contemporary eye-witness account describes the Jerusalem massacre (similar to the Roman massacre in 70) as follows:

Our men followed and pursued them, killing and hacking, as far as the temple of Solomon, and there there was such a slaughter that our men were up to their ankles in the enemy’s blood.

From “The Crusaders Capture Jerusalem, 1099.”

The first Crusaders were comprised of two groups: the commoners and the nobles, both from modern France and Germany. The nobles were: Godfrey of Bouillon from the Holy Roman Empire, Raymond IV from Toulouse, the Normans (Behemond of Taranto and Robert Curthose), the brother of the French king, Philip I (Hugh of Vermandois), and Robert II the Flander.

The undisciplined gangs of commoners (farmers, blacksmith, bakers, cablers, carpenters, etc.) lead by Count Emicho of Flonheim (from modern Germany) ransacked the Jewish villages and massacred the civilians along the Rhineland in the spring and summer of 1096 as they were traveling down the Danube on the way to Constantinople. See Jewish Chronicle of the Crusades.

Pillaging, raping, and killing were the norms of wars. They still are.

In 1187 Jerusalem was recaptured by Saladin (Salah ad-Din Yusuf bin Ayyub), a Sunni Muslim of Kurdish descent. Unlike the first Crusaders, Saladin tolerated the minority Jews living there and the majority Christians population. Upon the request from Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos in Constantinople, Saladin restored the administration of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher back to the Orthodox Christians (the Greeks, the Armenians, and the Coptic, who still to this day hold their respective vigils and liturgies there).

Nakba

After the first Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099, the subsequent Crusaders—a total of nine—were never able to re-capture the city. The city remain cosmopolitan with the majority of Arab population living there, as it was prior to 1099.

Since Saladin’s recapture of Jerusalem in 1187 (except for a brief period from 1229 to 1244 when governorship was handed over to a Christian king by treaty) Jerusalem remained under the Arab control until 1948, when the UN gave Jordon the control of East Jerusalem and the newly created modern Israel the control of West Jerusalem. In 1967 Israeli forces took over the remaining East Jerusalem.

On November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour wrote to Lionel Walter Rothschild—the second Lord Rothschild, a wealthy banker, financier, and the President of the English Zionist Federation at the time—to express the British cabinet’s support of “Jewish Zionist aspirations” to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, provided that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-jewish communities in Palestine.”

Thus, Balfour sought funding from the Zionist Federation lead by Rothschild for the Zionists project. While the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 was grounded on this one-page letter, no Palestinian “civil and religious rights” have been protected to this day. Download the 1917 Balfour letter.

Until the 1948 Nakba, “Palestine [according to a UN report] was a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society. However, the conflict between Arabs and Jews intensified in the 1930s with the increase of Jewish immigration, driven by persecution in Europe, and with the Zionist movement aiming to establish a Jewish state in Palestine” (The Question of Palestine).

“In November 1947 [the US report continues], the UN General Assembly passed a resolution partitioning Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with Jerusalem under a UN administration. The Arab world rejected the plan, arguing that it was unfair and violated the UN Charter. Jewish militias launched attacks against Palestinian villages, forcing thousands to flee. The situation escalated into a full-blown war in 1948, with the end of the British Mandate and the departure of British forces, the declaration of independence of the State of Israel and the entry of neighbouring Arab armies. The newly established Israeli forces launched a major offensive. The result of the war was the permanent displacement of more than half of the Palestinian population” (The Question of Palestine).

Since October 2013, Israel—funded and equipped by United States, Britain, Germany, France and other EU nations—massacred Palestinians in Gaza, killing more than 72,938 (more than half children) and wounding more than 172,919 as of May 2026.

By the Report of Judgments, Advisory Opinions and Orders” issued on January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found probable cause of genocide and ordered the following provisional measures, among 4 other measures:

The State of Israel shall…. take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention [on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide], in particular:
(a) killing members of the [Palestinian] group;
(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and
(d) imposing measures intended to prevent briths within the group.
[…]
The State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

On November 21, 2024 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the former Defense Minister Yoav Gallent for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Any UN-member countries can arrest and extradite them to The Hague.

To date, Israel has no constitution, no permanent boarders. The so called the Greater Israel project seeks to turn West Asia European and white—racially, ethnically, and culturally—by force.

The Zionism is powaqqatsi—from the Hopi language (powaq, ‘sorcerer;’ qatsi, ‘life’), n., “an entity, a way of life, that consumes the life forces of other beings in order to further its own life.” The modern Zionism is a powaqqatsi based on race, color, ethnicity, and religion. It is a criminal enterprise of discrimination.

Prior to the 1948 Nakba Jerusalem was populated largely by Arabs and Christians. The minority group of Jews lived peacefully among the other indigenous peoples most of the time—ever since King David conquered the Jebusite city of Jebus in around 1,000 BCE and named it the City of David or Zion (2 Sam 5.6-10; I Chron 11.4-9).

According to the British Mandate government estimate, there were 30,630 Muslims and 29,350 Christians living in Jerusalem at the end of 1944. As reported by the 1949 Israeli delegates to the UN, 50,000 Arabs lived in Jerusalem in 1949. See Population Data for Jerusalem (1944 & 1947).

Many Israelis nowadays are Ashkenazi Jews, a major Jewish ethnic group who is defined by ancestry in Central and Eastern Europe. Another large Israeli group came relatively recent time from the United States for subsidized housing, education, and healthcare in the illegal settlements in near Jerusalem and West Bank.

Benjamin Netanyahu was born in Poland, grew up in Philadelphia, went to MIT before entering Israeli politics. Bezalel Smotrich was born in Smotrych, Ukraine. Itamar Ben-Gvir’s mother was born in a Mizrahi Jewish family in Kurdistan before she immigrated to Palestine under the British mandate of 1919. Yoav Gallant’s mother, Holocaust survivor Fruma Gallant, was born in Poland.

All of them are non-semite, because “semite” is defined as “a member of any of the people descended from Shem, the eldest son of Noah.” Palestinians are semite; while modern Israeli are anti-semite; because most of Israelis hate Palestinians and want to ethnically cleanse them from their land of Palestine.

Fascism starts with language distortion.

Zionism

Zionism was preached by Spurgeon as early as 1864, 32 years prior to publication of Theodor Herzl's Der Judenstadt (1896, The Jewish State), the first book to promote political Zionism. Zionism was/is a Christian doctrine that some say heretical.

Herzel was a journalist and an atheist, like Benjamin Netanyahu, who does not believe in God but nonetheless believes in God’s promise of land made to Abraham around 2,000 BCE.

Spurgeon said in his 1864 sermon delivered in London:

The meaning of our text, as opened up by the context, is most evidently, if words mean anything, first, that there shall be a political restoration of the Jews to their own land and to their own nationality.

Zionism has a long history in Britain. Expectations of a national return of the Jews to their homeland, often called Restorationism, were widely held amongst the Puritans. The early Methodists, Congregationalists like John Owen, Baptists like John Gill, John Rippon, and C. H. Spurgeon. Presbyterians like Samuel Rutherford, Horatius, and Andrew Bonar, and Robert Murray M'Chyene, and many Anglicans including Bishop J C Ryle and Charles Simeon held similar views. Simeon wrote in 1820, “the Jews at large, and the generality of Christians also, believe that the dispersed of Israel will one day be restored to their own land.” See “Ch ri stian Zion ism i n the Uni ted Ki ngdo m.”

In America, the Scofield Bible is largely responsible for Christian Zionism. Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843-1921) had a checkered early life (a soldier, lawyer, and politician who served time for forgery). He experienced a dramatic conversion in 1879. He came under the wing of James H. Brookes, a prominent St. Louis pastor and leading American dispensationalist. For years, Scofield studied with Brookes. Scofield became pastor of the First Congregational Church in Dallas, Texas (1882-1895), where he began teaching the dispensational system through detailed Bible lessons. By the early 1900s, Scofield saw a need for a single volume that would allow an average reader to study the Bible through the dispensationalist lens without needing a library of commentaries. He wanted to create a Bible with cross-references, subject chain notes, and brief explanatory comments printed right on the same page as the scripture, all guiding the reader to the dispensationalist conclusions. Miss Henrietta E. C. Moon provided the financial support that freed Scofield from his pastoral duties for nearly a decade to focus solely on writing. Scofield moved among wealthy, conservative businessmen (like those at New York's Lotus Club) who supported evangelical causes. John T. Pirie (of the Carson Pirie Scott department store) was a key backer. Their support was theological and institutional, not political. Scofield did not work in isolation. He relied on a committee of like-minded scholars and pastors for review and feedback, most notably Arno C. Gaebelein, a converted Jewish evangelist and editor who was a passionate Zionist. Gaebelein's influence is evident in the notes' emphasis on prophetic significance of the Jewish people, but this reflected shared theological belief, not covert political funding. The project gained legitimacy by being accepted by the prestigious Oxford University Press in 1908, which published the first edition in 1909.

In 1979 Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, a conservative Christian political action group in reaction to the school and housing desegregation laws promulgated in the US. By the advice of Paul Weyrich, a non-Christian, Falwell made abortion the central issue, which helped to enlarge the Republic base and gave Ronald Reagan the presidential victory in 1981. In less than 10 years thereafter, the Moral Majority dissolved.

In 1983 James Dobson created Family Research Council to fight against abortion. In 1989 Jerry Cox founded a similar conservative Christian action group called Family Council. These political organizations eventually became the backbone of the ideology of Christian nationalism.

Shortly after Donald Trump’s 2016 Republican primary win, televangelist Paula White, Franklin Graham, and other conservative (fundamentalist) Evangelicals began to declare that Trump was God’s anointed or God’s chosen. They continued to do so to this day, despite Israel’s genocide in Gaza that began in October 2023.

In 2017 speech delivered at Christian United For Israel (founded in 2006 by Rev. John Hagee and claiming to be the largest pro-Israel organization in the US), Benjamin Netanyahu declared the Evangelical Christians to be “one of Israel’s greatest allies.” In 2024 United Methodist Church bishops, however, declared Christian Nationalism as a heresy.

The Zionists are the modern-day Crusaders, largely rooted in racism, islamophobia, and ignorance to Arabic history and cultures, fueled by the evangelical, fundamentalistic Christian Nationalism, and supported and empowered by the corporate greed of the global top 1%. The whole West is united in this criminal and colonial enterprise that feeds on its own delusion as thick and deep as the Crusaders.’

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.

[…]

Come, Lord Jesus.

Rev 22.17, 20.

The global forces of military-industrial-financial-AI complex must be dismantled, if genuine Zionism is to be realized at all.