Isn't this a religious war?

Dr. Omar Suleiman said in this video:

By insisting on facts. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for as long as Islam has existed in the Muslim world. Anti-Semitism is the crime of the West. You have historic Jewish communities in the Muslim world; show me that counterpart in the West; it doesn't exist. Zionism is an inherently racist project and in and of itself has a layer of anti-semitism to it because the idea was to dispose, in many ways, of the Jewish people from Europe and the West. Palestinians did not just wake up one day and start hating Jews. Islam was not the problem. Occupation is the problem. If Muslims came and kicked Palestinians out of their land established an illegal state on their territory and mistreated them the way that Israel is mistreating them then we we would resist that Muslim state. This has nothing to do with religion. This is based in, not just a lack of facts, but based entirely in fear. Religion cannot be scapegoated nor should religion be used to continue the war on the Palestinians.

Senator Lindsey Graham said that Israel is in a religious war and I stand with Israel unapologetically. It's clearly not us who have the problem of religious fanaticism. It is the speaker of the house. It is multiple members of Congress. It's the president of the United States who stands unapologetically as a Zionist and who speaks with such disregard for Palestinian Humanity and the children who are being slaughtered in his own country and abroad. We have a president whose Legacy will be genocide. We call him Genocide Joe for a reason. You can't fight that evil if you can't name it properly and it is important for us to no longer allow the Democratic party or a Democratic president to say well I am the lesser of the two evils. How much more evil can you get than an average of 10,000 civilians being killed a month you don't get much more evil than that so we're not going to fall for it anymore we will hold him accountable and we look forward to holding every single politician that has stood for this genocide accountable come November 24.

Short: This situation actually has almost nothing to do with religion. It’s also not just a fight about land. Before the establishment of Israel, Palestinian Christians, Jews, and Muslims coexisted peacefully. The oldest Christian community in the world is Palestinian. Both Palestinian Christians and Jews, face oppression by Israel. Framing the suffering of Palestinians as a religious conflict is also factually inaccurate and perpetuates Islamophobia, which then contributes to the dehumanisation of Arabs around the world. The Zionist narrative also benefits from presenting this as a 'religious conflict,' by allowing Israel to spread misinformation about its colonial past and present, and evade accountability for its actions since 1948 - including the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian cities and villages, the displacement of millions, and the denial of their right to return. Saying it's a 'religious conflict' also ultimately denies Palestinians their right to liberation, freedom, and justice because this framing makes the entire thing seem trivial and primes you to look away when it's anything but and you definitely shouldn’t!

Long: This situation has almost nothing to do with religion. It’s also not just a fight about land. Before the creation of 'Israel' only 75 years ago, Palestinian Christians, Jews and Muslims all peacefully co-existed in Palestine. The Palestinian Christian community is the oldest Christian community in the world. There are Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Jews, and both are oppressed by Israel. So making the suffering of Palestinians seem like it’s a result of their religion is just factually incorrect. Also implying this is just another religious conflict in the Middle East perpetuated by Muslims, also furthers an Islamophobic narrative that is consistently used to dehumanise Arabs, and has real-world implications for their safety.

It also benefits the Zionist narrative to have you believe this is simply a conflict, and it's about religion. Israel consistently spreads misinformation about its own colonial existence in order to conceal the true extent of their harm to Palestinians, and over-inflates its ties to religion in order to justify it. They also know it is a lot easier for the majority of us to disassociate ourselves from a situation that has been wrongfully minimised to a 'religious conflict that’s happened since the beginning of time.’ Israel also hides behind this religious narrative to give weight to their ‘promises’ (and therefore right to claim) Palestinian land that stems from the Hebrew bible. Viewing Israel as a Jewish homeland also helps to distract from the fact that the state of Israel didn't even exist before 1948. In reality, the state of Israel only exists because of Zionists (who are not necessarily always Jewish, in fact, many aren't) who ethnically cleansed, massacred and destroyed over 540+ Palestinian towns and villages and made 7.2 million Palestinian refugees. In fact, the only reason Jews were even given a homeland was completely political and was a result of the UK looking to rid itself of the ‘Jewish problem’ it was left with after the holocaust.

Saying it's a 'religious conflict' also ultimately denies Palestinians their right to liberation, freedom, and justice because this framing makes the entire thing seem trivial and primes you to look away, when it's anything but and you definitely shouldn’t!

Sources:

@nouraerakat

This answer is taken from the document Palestine: in Conversation Document.