How the War on Iran Undermines the Spirit of Christianity, Judaism and Islam

posted on: Mar 11, 2026

By: Ghassan Rubeiz / Arab America Contributing Writer

The war on Iran brings to mind India’s most troubled days. In uniting a fractured subcontinent, Mahatma Gandhi’s most powerful instrument was not military force but an unwavering commitment to religious tolerance and a deep reverence for India’s spiritual diversity. That ecumenical vision — the belief that different faiths can share power, resources, and a common future — once had genuine champions in both Washington and the Middle East. Today, it has been all but abandoned by the leaders prosecuting this war, and its absence is part of what makes the current moment so dangerous.

The war on Iran is being perceived in strategic terms — deterrence, red lines, and national security—but that vocabulary no longer captures the essence of what is unfolding. This conflict has slipped beyond politics and entered the realm of the sacred. For the first time in modern history, Jews, Christians, and Muslims find themselves drawn into a single, expanding confrontation shaped by labeling, fear, memory, and religious prejudice. What began as a geopolitical dispute has become the first modern Abrahamic confrontation among the three monotheistic religions.

Each side now invokes faith not to illuminate moral responsibility but to justify fear, aggression, and exclusion. Israeli leaders frame Iran as a regime bent on killing the Jews everywhere, transforming a political rivalry into a religious existential threat. In the United States, the strongest base of support for confrontation with Iran comes from the “charismatic” Evangelical Christian community, which has long fused foreign policy with a theology of confrontation. The appointment of Christian Zionist Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel reinforces the perception that Washington’s policy is being shaped significantly by religious ideology rather than by the secular demands of regional stability. Meanwhile, across the Muslim world, the war in Gaza and the strikes on Iran are understood as a unified assault on Islam itself—a campaign against Muslim lands and Muslim dignity. When religious authorities become policy makers we are in deep trouble.

But the tragedy is not only between religions. It is also within them. Mainline Christians in the United States oppose the war, while hyper-politicized Evangelicals champion it. Reform and Reconstructionist Jews tend to question the attack on Iran, while Conservative, Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox communities are among the most vocal supporters of maximalist policies against Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran. Within Islam, the conflict has reignited Shiite-Sunni tensions that had been slowly healing. What we are witnessing is not simply an interfaith conflict but something deeper—a distortion of the moral foundations of each religion, a war waged in the name of faith against the very spirit and imperatives of faith.

Religion is meant to bring God closer to humanity. Yet today it is being used like a telescope held from the wrong end: instead of magnifying and bringing nearer the divine image, it shrinks it, distorts it, and pushes it farther away. Judaism’s essence is respect and concern for the neighbor. Christianity’s core values are forgiveness and compassion. Islam’s ethos is “Salam” — peace. The war unfolding before us is inimical to everything Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad taught. It is a regression into fear, tribalism, and sacred entitlement.

This distortion has deep historical roots. When Israel was founded in 1948, it was conceived as a refuge (home) for a Jewish people devastated by the Holocaust. Over time it became a state that displaced non-Jews, then a regional power claiming biblical rights to all the land between the River and the Sea. This pattern awakened Islamic memories of the Crusaders’ occupation of the Levant, when European armies seized majority-Muslim lands in the name of God. For many across the Muslim world, this perception—however contested—has hardened into conviction: that the U.S.–Israel alliance represents a civilizational front against Islam. And that the current war is not a series of isolated battles but a unified assault on Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon. It is precisely this historical memory that makes the present confrontation with Iran so combustible—not merely a military escalation but, in the eyes of millions, the latest chapter in a century-long story of dispossession.

This is why the war is so difficult to resolve. It is not only about laws, borders or deterrence. It is about identity, memory, norms and sacred narratives. When political leaders speak in religious and theological terms, they transform negotiable disputes into cosmic struggles. You cannot negotiate with someone who believes they are defending what God dictates. You cannot compromise with someone who believes the land is divinely promised. And you cannot de-escalate when each side sees itself as the victim of a centuries-old religious injustice.

The path out of this crisis requires more than ceasefires and diplomatic formulas. It requires a return to the true Abrahamic ethic: the dignity of the neighbor, the compassion for the stranger, the sacred covenant not to dominate but to coexist. Leaders and educators across all three faiths have a particular responsibility here—to choose words carefully, speak across dividing lines, to issue joint calls for restraint, to inspire-not provoke and to reclaim their traditions from those who have weaponized them. The prophets did not preach conquest or exclusion. They preached justice, mercy, and coexistence. Peace will come the moment we stop invoking God to justify our fears and start invoking Him to heal them.

Ghassan Rubeiz is the former Middle East Secretary of the World Council of Churches. Earlier, he taught psychology and social work in his country of birth, Lebanon, and later in the United States, where he currently lives. He has contributed to political commentary for the past twenty years and has delivered occasional public talks on peace, justice, and interfaith topics. You can reach him at rubeizg@gmail.com

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab America. The reproduction of this article is permissible with proper credit to Arab America and the author.

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