Bibi, Jesus, and Genghis Khan

Benjamin Netanyahu recently sparked controversy by declaring that "history proves that Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan." Critics called the remark cynical, even blasphemous. But the real problem with the statement is not that it's wrong, but incomplete.

In this episode, Robert explores the worldview undergirding Netanyahu's remark, tracing it through Will Durant, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and the founding logic of modern Zionism. Along the way, he examines a deeper question: What really decides history—power or belief?

The answer sheds light not only on Israel and the Jewish people, but on one of the central tensions of the modern world.

"Netanyahu Speech: Transcript," Times of Israel (Mar. 20, 2026)

"No Offense Meant by Jesus Genghis Khan Comparison, Netanyahu Says," Times of Israel (Mar. 20, 2026)

Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky, "The Iron Wall" (1923)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In his first uh English language press conference at the start of this latest round of fighting in Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or Bibi, as he's known, dropped this gem. He said, History proves that unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan. It was quite the statement and uh didn't go over well. Commentators came out of the woodwork, calling the statement cynical. Some called it nihilistic. Christians uh denounced it as borderline blasphemous. Even Iranian officials jumped on board, pointing to it as evidence of Israel's uh moral bankruptcy. Bibi is one of the few personalities on earth who can bring together such a wide array of people who agree on almost nothing else but their dislike of him. People saw the statement as disturbing because it seems to cut against something that we all feel very deeply, which is that fairness matters, truth matters, that in the end, right should prevail over might. It was shocking because BB seemed to be saying the quiet part out loud, that brute strength, not values, is what decides history. I want to thank Bibi for giving me the perfect opportunity to help people understand him as well as the country he leads, because that line and the reaction to it also explain something uncomfortable about us. The problem isn't that what BB said is offensive, it's that it's incomplete. And that incompleteness uh reveals something much deeper. You are listening to Hebraica, a podcast dedicated to exploring the world shaped by Jerusalem. If you like what you hear here, please do me a favor and subscribe. And if you really like it, consider sharing it with someone you know. There is a common misconception about Benjamin Netanyahu, and that misconception is that he is a right-wing ideologue who wants to impose a biblical vision of greater Israel on the Near East. But I can tell you with some authority that nothing could be further from the truth. The first time I met the man, the only time I met the man, I noticed one thing right away, not his religiosity, but the opposite, his extreme pragmatism, pragmatism that comes off almost mathematical. I remember telling him that there was a lot of confusion around the world about Zionism, what it is, what it wants, and so forth. And so I asked him, How do you define Zionism? And he gave an answer that was surprisingly mundane and definitely anticlimactic for anyone who in that moment would have expected him to mention Abraham and the covenant and the Bible and this idea of this huge Israel extended over half the region. To sum it up, he basically said Zionism is about establishing a Jewish state because a Jewish state is the only way to protect the Jewish people. A state has an army, an army has power, and power is the actually the only thing that stops people from trying to kill you. Just textbook realism. Realism being that idea that international politics is governed not by moral claims, but on the ability to physically enforce one's will in the world. It quickly became clear that Bibi's thinking on this front had been deeply shaped by a man that most people have never heard of, a guy named Will Durant, who was a historian writing in the mid-20th century, someone who was widely read at the time and even somewhat famous for producing a massive multi-volume history of civilization. Today, Will Durant is mostly forgotten, and you could find his books in secondhand bookstores. But Netanyahu has not forgotten Will Durant. And the hour I spent with him, he cited Durant no less than three times. And by the way, that line about Jesus and Genghis Khan, that's a direct quote from Durant's book, The Lessons of History, where he summarized what he had learned over the course of a lifetime in writing his big history of the world. And Bibi dropped that quote in the room when I met him. Let me give you the actual quote from the book. Durant writes, Nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad. They define good as that which survives and bad as that which goes under. And the universe has no prejudice in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan. Durant was trying to communicate a simple but sobering message, which is that ideals inspire, but when it comes to history, when it comes to where the rubber meets the road, it's power that wins the day. Now, Netanyahu no doubt embraces this line because it jives with a particular strand of Zionist thought that he follows, a strand best articulated by a man named Zaev Jabotinsky in an essay from 1923 entitled The Iron Wall. I'll put a link to that essay in the description. To paraphrase the essay, Jabotinsky argued that the Jewish people could not expect voluntary acceptance from the Arab population in Palestine. Not then and not in the future. Zionism would not succeed by preaching Jewish rights to their ancient homeland or promoting visions and virtues of peace. It would succeed only, as he put it, behind an iron wall, by which he meant a level of physical strength that was so undeniable that the Arabs would eventually see that resistance was futile. Jabotinsky rejected what he called the childish notion that moral appeals or financial incentives could convince a people to surrender their homeland. To believe that, in his mind, was not idealism, it was condescension. Better to respect your adversary, to assume that he'll resist, that he isn't so fickle as just to give up his whole way of life just because you showed up with the gift of civilization, and instead to marshal the physical power that's needed to defeat and overcome that resistance. It sounds harsh, but in an odd way, Zionists like Jabotinsky respected the Arabs more than the liberal Zionists who came to Palestine expecting to, to quote a line from my favorite novelist, Joseph Conrad, wean those ignorant savages from their horrid ways. And that logic, Jabotinsky's logic, became foundational to what became the state of Israel. And it helps explain how this small country with no strategic depth has managed to survive in one of the most hostile regions in the world. It explains Israel's emphasis on deterrence, on rapid escalation and combat, on overwhelming force. And the record shows that in many ways it's worked. Israel today is stronger than at any point in its history. And its growing ties with neighboring Arab states reflects the dynamic that Jabotinsky anticipated, namely, that strength, once made undeniable, can create conditions for acceptance. Meaning power is not the opposite of peace, which is what most of us think, but actually a precondition for it. That revisionist logic is also the key to understanding Netanyahu's political durability inside Israel. Years ago, I was driving through Jerusalem and I saw a billboard, big giant billboard, a campaign billboard, that showed a picture of Bibi shaking hands with Donald Trump. And above the picture, in Hebrew, were the words Netanyahu, another league. A few days later, I was driving in Tel Aviv and I saw another billboard with the same Hebrew words, but this time over a picture of Netanyahu standing with Vladimir Putin. And the message of those billboards to the Israeli people was unmistakable. Bibi was saying, do you think my political rivals can do this? Now, to be sure, many Israelis distrust Netanyahu, and not a small number of them despise him. But many still vote for him because they believe that whatever his flaws, he is in another league, that he has a unique understanding of power, and that he's more likely than his competitors to use that power in service of the Jewish state. We'll see if that argument pans out for Bibi this time as Israelis go to the polls later this fall. Needless to say, there's been a lot of frustration building in Israel since October 7th, 2023. And uh, especially after the surprising end of this latest round of fighting in Iran, it's getting harder and harder for Bibi to make that argument, but we'll see. But seen from that angle, Bibi's mention of Will Durant makes much more sense. If the founding premise of Zionism is that the Jewish people cannot rely on others for protection, that they have to secure their own survival, then history will inevitably be read through that lens. All the moralizing, the lecturing, the turning of the other cheek. When it comes to the Jewish people's survival, historically, none of that actually mattered. It was power and power alone that determined life and death. And once you accept that premise, Bibi's remark feels less shocking. And to the Israeli ear, it starts to sound more like common sense. The problem isn't that Bibi's perspective is wrong, it's that it's incomplete. The Jesus in Genghis Khan quote reveals what I see to be a massive blind spot, not just for Bibi, but a blind spot in Israeli strategic thinking overall. I once had a conversation not that long ago, in fact, with a senior Israeli national security figure who told me, unironically, there's no such thing as soft power. He said it matter-of-factly. And in the context of the conversation we were having, I understood what he meant. He meant that when you're facing an existential threat, values and ideas won't save you. But in the name of a good conversation, I pushed back and said, May I challenge you with one fact? And he said, Sure. I said, the Jewish people. Think about it. A small nation, a long, long time ago, produces a set of texts, the Bible, that goes on to shape the moral imagination of the whole world. Christianity emerges from within that tradition, spreads across continents. Islam incorporates large parts of that same narrative framework, so that today you have billions of people, billions, organizing their lives, their laws, their politics around ideas that originated in Jerusalem. If that's not power, I don't know what is. The Jews had no state, no army, they launched no crusade to spread these ideas, but they still managed to establish unmatched influence in history in a way that is absolutely tangible and real. The Bible shaped history in ways that Genghis Khan never could. Now, this guy smiled when I said that because, of course, he knew I was right. Power determines what happens today, but belief determines what lasts. Genghis Khan built a huge empire. But who today is thinking of Genghis Khan? Where in 2026 is his legacy shaping world events? And this is maybe the greatest irony of all when it comes to Israel, that this country, which was founded to protect a scattered and oppressed nation, has in large part forgotten the sources of its power, the power that preserved the Jewish people during those many centuries of oppression. Oppression, by the way, often overseen by people proclaiming high moral visions. Let's call a spade a spade. By I say by people, I'm saying by my people, by Christians, by the very followers of Jesus, whose descendants are today so up in arms about Bibi's quote. People who never stop to ask themselves why Israelis like Bibi feel that way. Could it be that Christians bogged down in hypocrisy convinced the Jews that reached morality means much less than action? After centuries of Christian sermons advocating for inquisitions, expulsions, programs, and worse, should anyone be surprised that many Jews trust power more than moral exhortation? In any event, this is the irony of Israel that in trying to rectify a gap in Jewish life, the Jewish people's total inability to protect itself, Israelis like Netanyahu neglect the thing, the being, in fact, that classical Judaism has always seen as the Jewish people's true protector. Maybe the biggest surprise for people who think that Israeli policymakers are working off of some right-wing biblical blueprint is that things like that don't even cross their mind. But before we non-Israelis congratulate ourselves for seeing what many of them don't see, we need to look a bit more closely in the mirror. Because if BB underestimates belief, we, especially we Christians, tend to underestimate power. It's one of the greatest ironies on our side. And so we have this tension. Netanyahu emphasizing power at the expense of belief, his critics emphasizing belief at the expense of power. Both are true and both are partially false. Power is real, it's power is natural, and on its own, it's neutral. It's neither good nor bad. Uh, and power is necessary, but power on its own is not enough. Power that does not align over time with a moral vision is unstable, it's unsustainable. It overreaches, it creates resistance, and in most cases it eventually collapses under its own weight. That's why empires fall. That's why legitimacy matters. It's why Jesus Christ, over the long run, beat out Genghis Khan. See, the choice isn't between power and belief. It's between, on one hand, elevating one at the expense of the other, and on the other hand, understanding how they interact and pairing them carefully, never forgetting that both matter, and always making sure to fight physical threats with physical weapons and spiritual threats or non-physical threats with non-physical weapons. And that, in my view, is true statesmanship. If you're enjoying this podcast, again, please subscribe. Please uh rate the podcast and share it with someone you think might enjoy it. And drop me a line. I would love to hear from you. Send me comments, questions, whatever you like. Robert at robertwnicelson.com. Until next time, many, many blessings, and thank you again for listening.