Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t doing the Trump administration any favors as it tries to convince Americans that President Donald Trump’s war with Iran is just and worth its tremendous costs.
The prime minister prompted a bit of a conniption on social media Thursday with comments he made invoking Jesus and Genghis Khan — comments that garnered hand-wringing from some liberals and outrage from some conservative evangelicals.
Netanyahu’s comments attributed a quote to writer Will Durant about Jesus Christ supposedly having no inherent advantage over Genghis Khan. Netanyahu said:
You know, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, someone that I admire a lot, was the historian Will Durant. Now, he wrote many volumes. I read most of them. He also wrote The Lessons of History, a very brief, 100-page book, in which he said, well, history proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan. Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good. Aggression will overcome moderation. So you have no choice. If you look at the world as it is today, you have to be blind not to see that the democracies led by the United States have to reassert their will to defend themselves. And to oppose their enemies in time, while there’s still time, before the jarring gong of danger wakes them up and wakes them up too late. This is where we are now.
To me, it seems pretty clear that rather than denigrating Jesus, Netanyahu’s comments were largely about framing his and Trump’s deadly war with Iran as a holy war requiring violence and aggression. It was basically propaganda mirroring the disturbing Christian nationalist rhetoric U.S. military officials have deployed about the conflict in recent weeks.
Nonetheless, online, Netanyahu faced a wave of backlash from some American netizens who framed Netanyahu’s comments as a “blasphemous” insult to Jesus. This tweet from Confederacy-defending Pete Hegseth associate Joshua Haymes is a prime example.
Some MAGA influencers veiled their brazen antisemitism with righteous indignation. These responses speak to growing divisions in the MAGA movement over antisemitism and support for Israel.
The backlash was so intense that it apparently prompted Netanyahu to issue a statement on social media Friday.
“More fake news about my attitude towards Christians, who are protected and flourish in Israel,” the prime minister said, according to a quote attributed to him that was posted to his official X account. For the record, stories have surfaced in the past year of Christians facing violence in the West Bank from Israeli settlers, which is to say that some might quibble with the idea that Israel is protecting Christians.
Netanyahu continued his defense in a follow-up tweet. “To the contrary, I cited the great American historian Will Durant. A fervent admirer of Jesus Christ, Durant stated that morality by itself is not enough to ensure survival.” Netanyahu and his administration have tried to make inroads with pro-MAGA influencers in an attempt to stem the rise of anti-Israel rhetoric on the right. Meanwhile, pro-Israel politicians and political groups, such as AIPAC, seem to be increasingly unpopular among Democrats, if recent elections are any indication. The Israeli government clearly wants to garner more American support for its actions in the Middle East, but it’s fair to say that’s a work in progress. And invoking quotes that can be interpreted as throwing shade at Jesus — or suggesting Jesus and Genghis Khan were evenly matched — probably isn’t the best way to achieve that goal.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. 
