Politics & Power Quote by Tony Campolo

Campolo is doing a careful piece of theological judo: he starts where many American Christians already stand - a covenantal affection for Israel - and then flips the landing so that the same premise obligates moral concern for Palestinians. The first clause is familiar, almost reassuring: God loves Israel, will not forsake Israel, therefore security, nationhood, borders. That’s the language of reassurance to a constituency trained to hear “Israel” as a sacred commitment and “secure borders” as a political shibboleth.

Then comes the pivot, and it’s the whole point. “Also loves the Palestinians” is deliberately plain, almost understated, because Campolo isn’t trying to win an argument with cleverness; he’s trying to make dissent feel like disobedience. If your theology underwrites Israel’s safety, he implies, you can’t use that same theology to anesthetize yourself to Palestinian suffering. The subtext is a rebuke to selective compassion: a critique of Christian Zionism when it becomes a permission structure for ignoring occupation, displacement, or civilian death.

Context matters: Campolo is an evangelical-leaning public preacher who often speaks to audiences where pro-Israel sentiment is assumed and pro-Palestinian empathy is treated as suspect. So he builds a bridge from inside the tradition, not from the outside with geopolitical abstractions. He’s not denying Israel’s legitimacy; he’s denying the comfort of a one-sided moral ledger. The line compresses a bigger demand: if God’s love is your argument, it can’t stop at the checkpoint.