What they don't seem to agree on is who should be born and live on the land today.
Dataw Island resident David Harb has devoted more than three decades to the question.
Harb, a retiree, first visited Israel in 1972. The visit was during a time in his life, he said, when he converted from an atheist to a "baby Christian," unaware of much more than tourist attractions and much less the complexities of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Since then, Harb has returned to Israel more than 15 times on his own accord.
"To me, it really is the Holy Land," Harb said. "My faith brings me back."
During Harb's most recent trip to Israel, he managed to squeeze in a stop at the Sea of Galilee, but his main focus was more righteous.
Last month, Harb spent 12 days in Jerusalem for the sixth International Sabeel Conference, sponsored by a grassroots Palestinian liberation movement founded by Palestinian Anglican Naim Ateek. According to Sabeel's Web site, more than 500 Christians attended this year's conference from more than 29 countries.
Harb said the central theme was basic: Israel must give the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem back to Palestine.
"This is a very controversial subject, and it disturbs the sensibilities of many people," Harb said. "But at some point, if cries don't start coming out, it will be too late; history will read that Israel exiled a people."
Beginning in the late 1800s, oppression of Jews in Eastern Europe prompted their emigration to Palestine.
Since then, more than 200 years of struggle and territorial wars between Jews and Arabs have transpired to no end.
In 2003, the "quartet," represented by the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, created the "road map," a plan to lead the region to an independent Palestinian state next to Israel by the end of 2005.
The region has not reached this goal.
To do so, Harb said the U.S. government must end its support for Israel, which accounted for roughly 63 percent of U.S. foreign aid last year.
"We need to stop funding Israel until they stop building settlements," Harb said, referencing the Israeli government's breach of international laws prohibiting it from creating new settlements.
Harb compared the conflict with South Africa's apartheid.
"It's genocide," Harb said of Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
The discrimination, Harb said, comes in the form of Israeli checkpoints and the segregation of Palestinians in the West Bank through the ongoing construction of the "Iron Wall," a 25-foot-tall wall that zig-zags through the encampment and separates Palestinian children from their schools and workers from their jobs.
The wall is being constructed to protect Israelis from so-called terrorist attacks, Harb said.
But Harb's liberal views don't mesh well with many conservative Christians in the U.S. who believe that President Bush's support of Israel fulfills a biblical order to protect the Jewish state, which some believe will play a pivotal role in the second coming of Christ.
For more than a decade, the Israeli government has been building its alliance with evangelicals such as the Rev. John Hagee, founder of the Christians United for Israel movement, and televangelist Pat Robertson, who last month was filming commercial spots geared toward attracting Christian tourists to Israel.
And the Jerusalem Post, an English-language newspaper, recently started an edition for American Christians.
Harb worries that conservative U.S. Christians will influence decisions the Bush administration makes toward Israel and the Middle East.
But Thomas E. Creely, religious studies professor at the University of South Carolina Beaufort, doesn't think that point has arrived yet.
"Hagee is pushing the Christian Zionist movement with other notable Christian leaders, but when it comes down to the voters, if (the Israel-Palestine conflict) doesn't touch U.S. borders, then it's not a big concern," Creely said.
And the division among U.S. Christians on this topic is insignificant, Creely said, because fundamentally they share the same core neoconservative ideologies of democracy.
Creely added that comparing the Israel-Palestine conflict to apartheid is slightly hyperbolic because both Israel and Palestine refuse to find a peaceful resolution through actions such as Israel's attack on Lebanon's Hezbollah in July and, more recently, Hamas' refusal to extend themselves to the Jews.
"This isn't going to be resolved for another generation or two , at best," Creely said.
But Harb sees the Israel-Palestine conflict as something that could be solved in his lifetime -- if only the world would band together to police Israel.
"We need the global community to get behind this," Harb said.
Harb said the biggest problem is that the average U.S. citizen doesn't know what is happening between Israel and Palestine and that if they "knew the truth," they probably would support efforts to create an independent Palestinian state.
He hopes former President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid," which mirrors Harb's views on the Israel-Palestine conflict, will shed light on the issue and galvanize the U.S. Christian population into supporting Palestine.
"The problem with Christians isn't that they don't care -- it's that they don't know," Harb said. "Maybe if they hear what Israel is doing from a past U.S. president, people will start to listen."
