As Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Easter Sunday, we go to Palestine to speak to Reverend Munther Isaac, pastor of the Lutheran Church in Ramallah and director of the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice, located in the city of Jesus Christ's birth. This year's Easter preparations come against the backdrop of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, which many Christian nationalists in the U.S., including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, are framing in extremist religious terms. Reverend Isaac calls the Christian Zionism espoused by Hegseth and others "a theology of war, of violence" and highlights the efforts of Pope Leo XIV, the U.S.-born head of the Catholic Church who has come out stridently against both the war and Hegseth's rhetoric, to promote peace in the region.
Isaac also comments on Israeli authorities' recent attempt to prevent the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday due to Israel's ban on gatherings at religious sites during the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly granted access to the church following global backlash. But, "do we really need permission from an occupying authority?" asks Isaac. "Israel does not have sovereignty over, should not have sovereignty over Jerusalem. … We have been worshiping here for centuries, uninterrupted."
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