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Decolonizing Palestine challenges the weaponization of biblical texts to support the current settler-colonial state of Israel. Raheb argues that some of the most important theological concepts –Israel, the land, election, and chosen people – must be decolonized in a paradigm shift in Christian theological thinking about Palestine. Decolonizing Palestine is a timely book that builds on the latest research in settler-colonialism and human rights to place traditional theological themes within the wider socio-political context of settler colonialism as it is practiced by the modern nation-state of Israel. Written by a native Palestinian Christian theologian who continues to live in the region, Decolonizing Palestine provides an insider’s perspective that disrupts hegemonic and imperialist narratives about the region.
Mitri Raheb is founder and president of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, Palestine. Raheb is the most widely published Palestinian theologian to date, including his books Faith in the Face of Empire and, with Suzanne Henderson, The Cross in Contexts: Suffering and Redemption in Palestine. He received the 2017 Tolerance Ring Award from the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, the 2015 Olof Palme Prize, the 2012 German Media Prize, the 2006 International Mohammad Nafi Tschelebi Peace Award, and the 2007 German Peace Award of Aachen. He holds a doctorate in theology from Philipps University, Marburg, Germany, and an honorary doctorate from Concordia University, Chicago.
“As a ‘Christian in the West,’ my biblical understanding of the birthplace of Jesus justifies, reinforces, and contributes to the settler colonialism which oppresses Mitri Raheb, who was born and lives there. The Bethlehem of my religious imagination has nothing to do with Raheb’s daily experiences. Decolonizing Palestine decolonizes my mind by raising my consciousness to show how my understanding of the so-called Holy Land weaponizes the Bible against the people of the land. A must read for all of us Christians in the West who wish to stand in solidarity with the oppressed.”
—Miguel A. De La Torre, professor, Iliff School of Theology; author, Reading the Bible from the Margins
“Decolonizing Palestine powerfully examines the inseparability of the liberation of Palestinians and the decolonizing of theological discourses. Raheb interrogates the interpretations of biblical stories as a warrant to practice violence in all its forms while illuminating decolonial theological pathways. The book scrutinizes obvious manifestations of violent Jewish and Christian theological justifications authorizing the dispossession of Palestinians. It also focuses on liberal forms of Christian Zionism and their likewise harmful insidious legacies. A Palestinian-Christian grappling with the colonial histories of Christian Europe, Raheb underscores the inexcusability of claims to theological innocence and mystified ahistorical and depoliticized biblical hermeneutics. Decolonizing Palestine is a necessary intervention in the study of the interplay between settler colonialism and theology. The decolonial move, for Raheb, is not abstract but embodied and historical. Every student of Palestine/Israel and settler colonialism should read this book.”
—Atalia Omer, professor, University of Notre Dame; author, Days of Awe: Reimagining Jewishness in Solidarity with Palestinians.
