It's actually a complete lie that the bible says: "those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed." https://x.com/TCNetwork/status/1935362461843992720/video/1…
Which is pretty insane given that Ted Cruz tells Carlson this specific bible passage is the primary reason why he supports Israel.
Here is the actual passage in the modern English translation, the Bible’s so-called NIV (New International Version), in Genesis 12:2-3:
“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” . God is literally telling Abraham “I will make you into a great goy”.
Of course, at the time it was written, that Hebrew word didn't mean “a non-Jewish person” for the very reason that the Jewish identity didn't exist yet - Abraham himself vastly predates the giving of the Torah, the establishment of Jewish law, and the entire framework that would later define who is and isn't Jewish.
Which is why Abraham is seen as the father of all Abrahamic religions (again, by definition): he wasn't Jewish, or Christian, or Muslim. He was simply a man called by God to monotheism, whose descendants would later diverge into the three major monotheistic religions that each claim his legacy.
So what did “גוֹי” (goy) mean in the context of the time this passage of the Bible was written? In biblical Hebrew, “goy” was the standard neutral term for any nation or people group, similar to how we might say “a people” today. The word appears 560 times in the Torah referring to both Israelites and non-Israelites alike. The negative connotations and religious exclusivity attached to the word didn't develop until the Hellenistic period (300-30 BCE), over a millennium after Genesis was written.
Which means that when God was telling Abraham personally “I will make you into a great goy”, he was speaking to Abraham both as an individual and as a patriarch, the representative head of a future collective, and telling him that his future collective would be a great people.
Now, does that refer to Jews as a people specifically, or to all those who claim to be descendants of Abraham, meaning all believers of Abrahamic religions, or to yet something else entirely? It’s of course up to interpretation.
What we know for sure is that Abraham himself wasn't Jewish and vastly predates the distinctions between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Moses, generally considered the real father of the Jewish people, lived approximately 400-600 years after Abraham. So one logical reading would be that God's promise encompasses all of Abraham's spiritual descendants.
You could also have a bloodline interpretation, where God meant Abraham’s actual blood descent. In which case Abraham’s “goy” would then be both Jews AND Muslims given that both trace their lineage directly back to Abraham through different sons. Jews through Isaac (Abraham's son with Sarah), who became the father of Jacob/Israel, and Muslims through Ishmael (Abraham's son with Hagar).
Under this biological reading, the “great goy” that God promised Abraham would encompass the entire family of Semitic peoples - both Jewish and Arab populations who share Abraham as their common patriarch.
Or you could have yet another interpretation entirely.
What is pretty certain though is that “גוֹי” (goy) didn’t refer to a modern nation-state with defined borders and government, which would be a ridiculous interpretation given that the concept of nation-states didn't emerge until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 - over 3,000 years after Abraham lived.
The idea of belonging to a nation because you hold a passport or live within certain lines on a map would have been completely foreign to Abraham's worldview.
As a reminder, Abraham is described in the very same text as a nomadic herder wandering between Mesopotamia and Canaan with no fixed territory, constitution, or governing institutions. And the text shows no awareness of modern political concepts like sovereignty, democracy, or bureaucratic administration - it's purely about people, lineage, and divine covenant.
On top of that, contrary to what Cruz asserts, God didn’t even command people to bless that “גוֹי” (goy), no matter the interpretation you make of it. He told Abraham: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse” so the entire blessing and cursing promise is directed at Abraham personally. The “you” here refers to Abraham the man, not to whatever people would spring from him.
Sure, you could make the somewhat convoluted interpretation that the “you” pronoun changes meaning mid-conversation - starting as Abraham personally (“I will make you into a great nation”) but then shifting to refer to that future nation itself (“I will bless those who bless you”). But this would require the same pronoun to simultaneously refer to both the founder and the founded, which is quite a stretch.
And again, even if you do make that convoluted interpretation and believe that God told Abraham that he will bless those who bless the great “גוֹי” (goy) that would spring from him, it’s unequivocal that it couldn’t possibly refer to the modern nation-state of Israel.
Palestinian Arabs (as descendants of Ishmael) have for instance just as big a claim to being Abraham's “great nation” as any Jewish population.
In fact, fascinatingly, in the same Genesis (passage 17:20) God made the exact same “great nation” promise with regards to Ishmael, the ancestor of the Arabs, telling Abraham: “And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.”
Which really goes to show that the biblical text itself refutes any interpretation that limits “great nation” to Jewish people alone, and even less to a future state of Israel. God is telling both Abraham - the Patriarch of all monotheistic religions - that he’ll make him into a “great goy” and he uses the exact same language, in the original biblical Hebrew, to says that he will make his son Ishmael - the ancestor of Arab peoples - into an equally “great goy.”
This proves that Abraham cannot be uniquely claimed by Jewish people, since he is literally the father of both Jewish and Arab lineages with identical divine promises: why would God refer to a future state of Israel when promising to make Abraham into a “great goy” if the identical promise to his son Ishmael obviously couldn't also be about Israel? It makes no sense.
What is infinitely more logical is to understand 'גוֹי' (goy) in its original biblical context: as a people group or collective bound by shared ancestry, covenant, and faith. In which case it makes sense that both a father and his son could be made a “great goy” by God, as it's akin to saying that both a patriarch and his son can each become the head of distinct but related family clans - Abraham founding the broader Abrahamic tradition and Ishmael establishing his own branch within that tradition, each leading their respective peoples while sharing the same ancestral covenant.
So no matter how you see it, using this biblical passage to justify unconditional support for modern Israel requires completely ignoring what the text actually says, mistranslating key Hebrew terms, and cherry-picking promises while discarding inconvenient parallel promises.
More importantly, Cruz's interpretation completely violates the very spirit of the Bible in all Abrahamic religions, which consistently calls believers to pursue justice, show mercy to the oppressed, and treat all of Abraham's children - whether through Isaac or Ishmael - with equal dignity.
Using God’s covenant to Abraham to justify policies that cause immense human suffering among Abraham's descendants - the very contrary of what the covenant actually says - is cynicism of the worst kind.