Christian universal neighbor-love abolishes the geographic distinctions that once separated holy from political war.

Evidence

Christianity is the embodiment of, is quite precisely true to, this lack of discrimination ( Unterscheidung) between one neighbor and the next. For it, there are no boundaries, no limits, and there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither close nor far. This is why Christianity cannot maintain a basic distinction that the Jews used to make between distant peoples and those who are geographically closer. Biblical Judaism had upheld the distinction between “a very distant people” and the seven nations of Canaan, whereas “the peoples of the Christian Era can no longer maintain this distinction” (331/G367). This new state of affairs relates directly to war and makes explicit the rapport of the love of neighbor with war. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 471

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the conceptual distinction Rosenzweig draws between biblical Judaism’s holy/political war split and Christianity’s blending of them.
• XREF: Connects to Anidjar’s broader argument about enemy constructions, and to Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption as read throughout this chapter.