- The alliance between US Christian Zionists, Israel and
its US supporters has had very negative consequences for the Palestinians.
-
- Just as President Bush is trying to push the American-backed
"road map" peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians, Christian
Zionists are voicing their strong opposition to any peaceful settlement
involving Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.
-
- Earlier this year, when Bush sought to press Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to accept the "road map" and relax
Israel's harsh treatment of the Palestinians, Christian Zionist leaders
in the US protested, warning the President against pressuring Israel to
do anything against her will.
-
- One of the main American evangelical lobbyists for Israel
is Rev Jerry Falwell, a popular televangelist who in the late 1970s founded
the Christian fundamentalist group, known as the Moral Majority, which
played a key role in getting Ronald Reagan elected for two terms.
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- In his book, the Fundamentalist Phenomenon, published
in 1981, Falwell spelled out the evangelical attitudes toward Israel:
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- "To stand against Israel is to stand against God.
We believe that history and scripture prove that God deals with nations
in relation to how they deal with Israel."
-
- Theologically driven
-
- Falwell's unconditional embrace of Israel, which is characteristic
of all Christian Zionists, stems from the so-called dispensationalistic
theology which teaches that the creation of Israel in Palestine in 1948
was a fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy and, therefore, precedence to the
second advent of Christ.
-
- This theology, popularised by the 19th century American
Cyrus Scofield, espouses the doctrine that Christ can not return to earth
until certain events occur: The Jews must gain control of Palestine and
Jerusalem, destroy Islamic holy places in the city and "rebuild"
a temple.
-
- Then the great battle of Armageddon will follow during
which millions of people would be killed. Afterwards, the conversion of
the Jews to Christ would take place.
-
-
- According to Hal Lindsey, a prominent American Christian
Zionist, the valley from Galilee to Eilat (a town in southern Israel) will
flow with blood and 144,000 Jews would bow down before Jesus and be saved.
-
-
- The rest of Jewry, millions of them, and presumably all
non-Christians, would perish in "the mother of all holocausts".
-
- Occasionally, fundamentalist support for Israel takes
on an ugly tone.
-
- In 1970, Dr Roy Eckhardt, an American Methodist minister
and professor of Religion, told a group of clergy gathering in Houston,
Texas, that "the proper place to give Christian witness today is in
an Israeli munitions factory."
-
- "Never mind what Israel does," say the Christian
Zionists. "God wants this to happen."
-
- This includes, inter alia, the invasion of Lebanon of
1982, which killed and injured more than 100,000, mostly Lebanese and Palestinian
civilians and Israel's methodical brutalizing of the Palestinian people,
including shooting children and demolishing homes.
-
- But why would some "Christians" fervently support
actions such as, for example, the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Beirut
in 1982 that are decidedly incompatible with the teachings of Christ?
-
- The answer lies in the belief system of Christian Zionists:
that what Israel wants is what God wants. Therefore, it is perfectly acceptable
to support whatever Israel wants.
-
- Israeli exploitation
-
- While Jews are not great fans of the evangelical theology,
successive Israeli governments, none the less, sought aggressively to translate
evangelical obsession with Israel into concrete political gains.
-
- In 1980, the Israel government, then headed by Menachem
Begin, helped the evangelicals establish the so-called "International
Christian Embassy in Jerusalem."
-
- The main function of the embassy is to enlist worldwide
Christian support for Israel and defend Israeli actions and policies, including
Israel's harsh treatment of the Palestinians.
-
- In recent years, the embassy raised millions of dollars
to help in the financing of the airlifting of close to a million Jewish
and (ostensibly Jewish) immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
-
- More recently, the embassy in co-ordination with Christian
Zionist groups in Europe and North America have been planning with militant
Jewish groups in the West Bank to take over Arab homes and property, especially
in the vicinity of the Aqsa Mosque.
-
- Undermining peace
-
- Now, Christian Zionists are devoting more time and resources
in support of Jewish settlers in the occupied territories.
-
- An American evangelical organization, known as the Jerusalem
Prayer Team, launched a campaign in July aimed at financially helping Jewish
settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
-
- "The goal is to raise enough to give a gift of $55
apiece to 14,000 settlers," said the campaigns' chairman, Michael
Evans, a pastor and author of the recent book "Beyond Iraq: The Next
Move."
-
- "We don't support the road map. The Bible is our
road map."
-
- Earlier this year, the Israeli Minister of Tourism, Beny
Elon, met with the group's leaders in Texas, urging them to form a united
front against Islam.
-
- Among the statements Elon made, which was not widely
reported by the American media, was his call for the creation of a "world-wide
Jewish-Christian Coalition against Islam for the purpose of eliminating
it from the face of earth."
-
- Christian Zionism, though powerful and influential, represents
only a small numerical minority within Christendom.
-
- Christian opposition
-
- Indeed, not all evangelical Christians advocate uncritical
support of Israel.
-
- In July of 2002, nearly 60 prominent evangelical theologians
and heads of organisations wrote to President Bush, voicing an even-handed
policy toward Israelis and Palestinians that affirms two states.
-
- They asked that the President "vigorously oppose
injustice, including the continued unlawful and degrading Israeli settlement
movement," which they characterized as "the theft of Palestinian
land."
-
- Some of the most uncompromising Christian critics of
Christian Zionism come from the Palestinian Christian community.
-
- Indeed, some Palestinian Christian leaders, such Archimandrite
Ata Allah Hanna, Spokesman of the Orthodox Patriarchy of Jerusalem, believe
that Christian Zionists are actually pseudo Christians.
-
- "They have nothing to do with Christianity; they
have a Christian face, but a Zionist heart. What they say and do is completely
incompatible with the ideals of Christ," said Hanna, during a recent
Television interview.
-
- "We, the Christians of the East, condemn and reject
this heretic theology of those Zionists who defile the good name of Christ
and Christianity."
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- © 2003 Aljazeera.Net
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- http://english.aljazeera.net/Articles/News/ArabWorld/Features/Israel+and+Christian+Zionists.htm
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