Exploring the political role of Christian Zionism
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
The political forces behind the Trump administration’s fervent embrace of Israel include groups like Christians United for Israel and its five million Evangelical members.
Mimi Kirk explores the political power of Christian Zionists who believe the establishment of a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine is a requirement for the fulfilment of end-times prophecies
Tha author is managing director of Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network.
This article was originally published by Merip on Thu 8 Aug 2019. Read the original here.
Countering Christian Zionism in the Age of Trump
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Very thoughtful intelligent and insughtful. A much requured organisation
Apart from the main substance of the article, this is a timely reminder of the nonsense of conflating the terms ‘Judaism’ and ‘Zionism’, which is the key political aim of the IHRA document.
This is a fair statement about the beliefs in evangelical Christianity. I certainly believed as part of a fundamentalist group 40 years ago that Israel had to be established as part of the narrative of the “end of the world” and the return of Jesus as ruling Messiah.
I also was taught to perceive the Jews as the God given inheritors of the land and that they had to throw out the non Jews in order to make the land pure. Ironically this does include Palestinian Christians and that is okay as they are nt “real” Christians ie not evangelical enough.
And there is an inherent ambivalence between the Jews as God’s chosen and the insistence that unless you believe Jesus is the Messiah you are doomed to Hell. These beliefs are still prevalent in evangelical churches.
I had forgotten about the tacit ecumenical Christian pact of silence over Israeli Government treatment of Palestinians as a dispensation for historic Christian abuse of Jews… understandable as a pretty basic psychology of pur easily corruptible humanity, but still makes me feel deeply uncomfortable as a former 12 to 20 year-old Christian turned T’shuvah Shabbat after finally taking my halachic Jewish heritage seriously… I learned this stuff in secondary school and although it made me feel icky, I couldn’t articulate why nor question it overtly…