Dehai News -- Religion encourages wars, even while it preaches peace.

https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/religion-encourages-wars-even-while

https://theduran.com/religion-encourages-wars-even-while-it-preaches-peace/

Religion encourages wars, even while it preaches peace.

20 March 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

This is especially important now because wars are increasing under Trump even more than they’ve been increasing ever since the Soviet Union ended in 1991 and the profits of America’s armaments companies have soared since then, even more than other stocks have been increasing since that time — America has become a country that is effectively controlled by its armaments contractors, who profit from wars, and whose main markets are the U.S. Government and its colonies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, which also buy their weapons. And Christianity’s Scripture the Bible is often cited pro-and-con about war, and is especially cited about America’s wars for Israel and against the Palestinians. Iran has been the main supporter of the Palestinians, and so America joins with Israel in trying to conquer it.

On March 6th, two retired CIA analysts who now are anti-imperialists and therefore endorse the rights of the Palestinians and oppose Israel and the U.S. Government, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern, alleged, on the retired U.S. judge Andrew Napolitano’s podcast, that Christians who support Trump’s and Netanyahu’s invasion against Iran are thereby being unChristian and antithetical to the Bible. However, that’s false; the truth is the exact opposite; and to prove this, here will be both what the Bible says relating to this matter, and what both Johnson and McGovern said about what the Bible says about it, so that you can see, on your own, whether what both Johnson and McGovern said about this there was true or instead false. (This is a very important question; and, so, in the following report, I shall be both showing and linking to the evidences, in order to make as easy as possible for the reader to authenticate and decide whether or not what Johnson and McGovern were saying about this very important biblical matter — war — is true.)

But first, the relevant historical background will be necessary here, in order to enable the reader to know what the relevant biblical passages were historically referring to: The Palestinians in ancient times were the Arab tribes that lived in the land which later came to be called “Israel,” and these ancient tribes were not called “Palestinians” nor as any unifying collective political or national entity (which didn’t exist yet there, except that it was a province of the imperial city of Babylon, which city is located near the center of today’s Iraq) but only as ten tribes, which were the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amoriotes, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. They were specifically mentioned in the Bible, in its first five books, which constitute Judaism’s canonized holy Scripture or “word of God,” and which Scripture — the Scripture of Judaism (which they call the “Torah”) — is the holiest thing and therefore the centerpiece in every synagogue. Though no nation existed there at the time, and it had no unifying language, Jews started calling the entire land “Canaan”, and its territory encompassed all of the territory that today’s Israel has conquered or is still trying to conquer. And those ten tribes were the people living in this land — they were the ancestors of today’s Palestinians; they were the natives in that land, and they were mentioned in the Bible.

The foundational claim in Judaism to have a right to conquer all of that land is Genesis 15:18-28 in their Scripture (the Torah), but other passages in the Torah also say that exterminating the natives there is required by ‘God’:

Genesis 15:18-21

“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt [the Nile] to the great river, the Euphrates, including the lands of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amoriotes, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.’”

Deuteronomy 7:1-2

“You must not let any living thing survive among the cities of these people the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance: the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. You must put them all to death.”

Deuteronomy 7:16

“Destroy every nation that the Lord your God places in your power, and do not show them any mercy.” [That means: exterminate all ten tribes.]

Deuteronomy 20:16-18

“When you capture cities in the land he Lord your God is giving you, kill everyone. Completely destroy all the people: the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as the Lord has ordered you to do. Kill them so that they will not make you sin against the Lord by teaching you to do all the disgusting things they do in the worship of their gods.”

Exodus 34:11

I will destroy from before you the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites.

Exodus 34:24

I will destroy the nations from before you and will enlarge your borders.

However, it also includes the Ten Commandments, which include:

Exodus 20:13 & Deuteronomy 5:17: You shall not kill.

Exodus 20:15 & Deuteronomy 5:19: You shall not steal.

Exodus 20:17 & Deuteronomy 5:21: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.

So: the Torah requires all Jews to exterminate the Palestinians (Perizzites, etc.) but once they have done so, not to kill each other or their “neighbors”; but, still, somehow, to “enlarge your borders” (which tends to require some killing, or at least expulsion (though this god had ordered extermination), of some — if not all — of THOSE “neighbors”). So: the only “neighbors” that they are ordered by God NOT to kill (or rob, etc.) is each other, other Jews. They are commanded, by their God (which is also the Christian God, and the Muslim God), to kill and rob the residents in adjoining lands so as to “expand their borders.” In other words, Judaism’s holy Scripture ordered Jews to exterminate Palestinians. Christians accept this Scripture as holy; so does Islam. (They all say they worship the same God.)

And that is precisely what Zionists — not only the Jewish ones, but also the Christian ones, because Christians likewise believe that the first five books in THEIR “holy Scripture” come from God — are doing (and therefore, for examples, America donates to Israel 70% of the weapons that Israel imports to kill and rob Palestinians, and Germany donates the other 30% of them).

Christianity (like every religion) likewise has its self-contradictions, such as:

On the side of the rich, are these biblical passages:

            In Matthew 10:24, “Jesus” says: “A student is never superior to the teacher, just as a slave is never superior to the slave-master. It is sufficient for the student to aspire to become a teacher, and for the slave to aspire to become a slave-master.” This “Jesus” accepts slavery, and also accepts the rights of slave-masters. He even advises each slave to ASPIRE to become a slave-master. This belief is Christian; it is part of Christian ethics.
            In Matthew 13:12, “Jesus” directly instructs his disciples, that, in the Kingdom of Heaven, “The person who has something will be given still more, until he possesses more than enough; but the person who has nothing will find even that taken away from him.”
            In Matthew 25:29-30, “Jesus” tells a parable of the Kingdom of Heaven, a realm where: “To every person who has something, even more will be given, until he possesses more than enough; but the person who has nothing will find even that taken away from him. And unproductive slaves will be thrown outside into the darkness, where there is want and weeping.” This “Jesus” condemns “unproductive slaves.” He goes on to say that everyone in his Kingdom who resists him will go to hell. This is part of Christian ethics.
            In 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “Paul” says: “Whoever refuses to work must not be permitted to eat.”

Such passages are foundational to what’s called “prosperity theology”, and Trump adheres to a variant of this which sets as the ideal successful investors instead of wealth per se.

On the side of the poor, are these passages:

            In Matthew 6:24, “Jesus” says: “No one can serve ... both God and wealth.”
            In Matthew 19:21, “Jesus” says: “If you wish to be perfect, sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor.”
            In Matthew 19:24, “Jesus” says: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” That too is part of Christian ethics.
            In Luke 6:20, “Jesus” says: “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is God’s Kingdom.”
            In Luke 6:24, “Jesus” says: “Woe to you rich, for you have already received your comfort.” It is warning the rich that if they won’t “sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor,” they’ll go to hell. That too is Christian ethics (though even when Christian billionaires create a ‘charity’, they’re not donating their money to the poor; so, what kind of Christian are they? Generally, it is some variant of prosperity theology.).

Such passages are as attractive to leftists as the prosperity theology is attractive to rightists. Christianity appeals to both political wings, and each wing of it despises the opposite wing of it. There actually is no Christian ethic, because there is nothing that can reconcile opposites in the realm of values, and Christianity includes both opposites (which might be one of the reasons why it has broad appeal). For each individual, it’s only “pick-and-choose,” no ethic. Other religions are the same (though perhaps less so). However, Judaism is the only religion that has a ‘divine’ Commandment to perpetrate a genocide. So, it’s extreme and produced the Nakba (which continues today). On the other hand, Christianity’s anti-Semitism (such as its John 8:44, Matthew 23:31-38, Luke 19:27; and 1 Thes. 2:15-16) is likewise extreme, and produced the pogroms which culminated ultimately in the Holocaust.

Furthermore, because every religion believes that it is better than (superior to) every OTHER religion (because that is its raison d’etre and justification), Christianity doesn’t merely accept as true the Jews’ holy Scripture (the first five books of the Bible) but it also condemns the Jews in such biblical statements as, from ‘Jesus,’ John 8:44, Matthew 23:31-38, and Luke 19:27; and from Paul, 1 Thes. 2:15-16. And this is especially remarkable because even in 3 of the 4 canonized Biblical Gospel accounts of Jesus, he was alleged to have been referred to by his disciples specifically as being a rabbi, using the term that applied then ONLY to rabbis, in Matthew 23:7, 23:8, 26:25, 26:49; Mark 9:5, 11:21, 14:45; and John 1:38, 1:49, 3:2, 3:26, 4:31, 6:25, 9:2, and 11:8. In those passages, the writer referred to Jesus as being specifically a "rabbi." So, how could the rabbi Jesus NOT have been a Jew himself? How could he NOT have been, in fact, a teacher of Judaism — which is what that term (rhabbi) MEANT? Yet, none the less, the followers of the first Christian (who was their actual teacher about Jesus), who was Paul (who even admitted that he had never met the living Jesus, and his student who wrote Acts expanded on Paul’s tale there) wrote into their ‘historical’ accounts of what Jesus had said, that Jesus taught Judaism, NOT Christianity. And how likely is it that a rabbi would have preached hatred of Jews as the ‘Christian’ (actually Pauline) Scripture, the New Testament, alleges?

Here, then, is what Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern said about these matters:

https://www.youtube.com/live/-ldDdDJO4pw?t=1465s

“INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap for 6-March”

6 March 2026, Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom