Outcry grows over Israeli soldier smashing Jesus statue in Lebanon
Source: Al Jazeera
A photo of an Israeli soldier smashing a statue of Jesus Christ in Lebanon has sparked outrage in the United States, adding to the anger Israel is facing, including from parts of US President Donald Trumps base.
Although the incident is only one among a broad range of atrocities that Israel is accused of committing in the region in recent years, it garnered condemnations across the world and prompted a response from Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the US, where support for Israel was once unchallenged especially in right-wing circles that purport to espouse Christian values the desecration of the Christian religious symbol added fuel to the criticism that the Israeli government is facing from some Republicans.
You would never know it by consuming American corporate media, but this kind of incident is not rare, said right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson, a former Trump ally.
Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/20/outcry-grows-over-israeli-soldier-smashing-jesus-statue-in-lebanon
Truly disgusting.
no_hypocrisy
(55,099 posts)1. This "mentality" of the Israeli soldier is akin to the "mentality" of the "settlors" on the West Bank. IOW, if it isn't fundamentalist Judaism, it's invalid and shouldn't exist.
2. It also shows the Hand of the Israeli government. It intends to take over (at least) the southern part of Lebanon and is using the same tactics it's used to take over and incorporate Gaza and the West Bank. You invade. You destroy a culture. You send the inhabitants into exile. You keep the land.
3. Israel is running out of water, even the salted variety. It has to conquer land outside its borders to keep surviving.
4. I've harbored a theory that Israel expanding its borders would go beyond what Britain and the UN proposed in 1948. It would eventually swallow all the land including Palestinian land and then take more outside its borders using the Six Day War model where you have a military crisis, win the "war" and keep the land.
Before anyone jumps on me, I'm from a Jewish heritage and my grandfather was Orthodox. He told me in 1978 that Israel "had to grab all the land that it could". This concept has been around for a long while.
FakeNoose
(41,973 posts)... certain factions in Israel, including the followers of Netanyahu, have been lusting after surrounding territories for a long time. I feel bad for Lebanon, but it is only the newest victim of Israel's greed. Busting up a wood carving in the shape of Jesus - well, that's just a symbol of their refusal to look for peaceful solutions.
Goonch
(5,326 posts)
ninjanurse
(132 posts)I was at a talk on Gaza at my church, saw video of a soldier in uniform and another man who was dressed like a video game hero, with his face covered and shirtless, firing a rifle at a crowd. You can replace statues, not people.
forgotmylogin
(7,962 posts)than for bombing a school full of students.
AloeVera
(4,325 posts)A hundred years of colonialist, supremacist mentality and successful demonization of the natives, the "other"... and here we are.
What we allowed to be done to Palestinians has shocked me to my core. I will never be the same.
multigraincracker
(37,830 posts)The stories they told about the IDF and Settlers would make you cry.
Lonestarblue
(13,525 posts)Netanyahu keeps digging the hole deeper for Israel. At some point, he will not have Trump to prop him up and American taxpayers are getting tired of sending billions of dollars to Israel when we cannot afford childcare or access to affordable healthcare. Now that Hungary's Orban is out of the picture, the EU may be able to sanction Israel for their genocide and other war crimes.
Dr. T
(666 posts)something like that were to happen in this country? Froth-mouthed spewing of all the undignified, uncouth, vile, and disgustingly grotesque verbal vomit directed at Democrats we've grown to expect from such "good conservative Christians". That's what would happen.
Prairie Gates
(8,318 posts)The IDF has murdered 70,000 human beings in Gaza, men, women, and children, by bomb, by bullet, by blockade and starvation. They've flattened cites, raped their captives, displaced hundreds of thousands, sending people qua e la to avoid the slaughter.
In Lebanon, they've displaced a million, condemning them to tent cities, penury, and starvation. They've destroyed homes and whole villages, annexing the country to the Litani River, smashing infrastructure as they go, and aiming for more. They've bombed a civilian area of Beirut in broad daylight, killing hundreds of undisputed civilians while posting Top Gunesque pictures of their crime for their fans to cheer about.
In the West Bank, they arm and support paramilitary death squads who conduct frequent pogroms, menacing, robbing, beating, torturing, and killing with impunity.
They've started a global war that has spread slaughter and shortages from Shiraz to Manila, from Dublin to Dubai.
And now Benjamin Netanyahu, the Butcher of Gaza, will chide this one soldier for this one act, an expiation of sins via an expiator of sins.
multigraincracker
(37,830 posts)goes in alone. Escorted by IDF.
Farmer-Rick
(12,726 posts)And even I find that disturbing. The symbolism is clear. You have to wonder how much of Israel thinks the same way as that soldier smashing up a Jesus statue.
Is Israel really the ally of the White Christian Nationalists ruining this country?
Orrex
(67,236 posts)Scrivener7
(59,822 posts)How about the actual people who are being killed? Yet this seems to be getting all the press.
I'm glad to see it making its way into the mainstream media, but I find it odd that this seems to have gone viral while the actual atrocities are less so.
ChicagoTeamster
(1,084 posts)The occupied West Bank Christian village of Taybeh, known as the entirely Christian Palestinian town, has faced repeated attacks by illegal Israeli settlers targeting nearby religious and historical sites.
The historic Saint Porphyrius Church in Gaza has been attacked by the Israeli military.
On July 2025, an Israeli strike hit the Holy Family Church compound, Gazas only Catholic church.
There are also Baptist churches and other denominations in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank that have been attacked and also the visits of Christian tourists have been obstructed and interfered with by extremist settlers.
In Israel's attacks on southern Lebanon, damage has been done to St. George Church in Yaroun, a there were reports of a fatal strike on St. George Melkite Catholic Church in Derdghaya.
In short, certain elements of Israeli society along with the Netanyahu government itself are hostile towards non-Jews in Israel and in the surrounding territories. Their goal of expanding greater Israel into surrounding countries is not only in violation of the Hague and Geneva convention prohibitions against aggressive war, it's based on Zionist beliefs that God granted them almost all of the middle east because Abraham came out of Sumeria (Iraq), the Israelites wandered in the Sinai after being freed from Egypt so they get all of that too. Their logic borders on racism. If the descendants of the Vikings in Europe and the various tribes that became Germany and the Italian descendants of the Romans all did that Europe would have been blown up a long time ago.
Martin68
(27,933 posts)maxsolomon
(38,929 posts)America's Christian Persecution complex is ridiculous.
czarjak
(13,667 posts)The next time, will be the first time!