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Zion’s Christian Soldiers: An Uncomfortable Alliance?
This is from a report last night on "60 Minutes" as reported by Bob Simon and is quite timely given the forced evacuation of the Israeli settlements.

Any comments/rebuttals on Simon's report? Not being a fundamentalist or evangelical, I can't analyze the reporting properly. Was it accurate or was it an example of a journalist interviewing the fringe element and then painting a broader picture? You can't help but notice the segments tendency to tie in the Bush administration.

Selected excerpts below, but read the whole dang thing.


What's the number one item on the agenda of the Christian Right? Abortion? School Prayer? No and No. Believe it or not, what's most important to a lot of conservative Christians is the Jewish State. Israel: Its size, its strength, and its survival. Why?

There is the alliance between America and Israel in the war on Islamic terror. But it goes deeper. For Christians who interpret the bible in a literal fashion, Israel has a crucial role to play in bringing on the Second Coming of Christ.

What propels them? Why do they love Israel so much? The return of the Jews to their ancient homeland is seen by Evengelicals as a precondition for the Second Coming of Christ. Therefore, when the Jewish state was created in 1948 they saw it as a sign.

Israel’s conquest of Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967 also deepened their excitement and heightened their anticipation. And today’s war between Jews and Arabs was also prophesied, they say. They’ve seen it all before – in the pages of the Bible.

Ed McAteer believes that the current situation is the beginning of the final battle. “I believe that we are seeing prophecy unfold so rapidly and dramatically and wonderfully and, without exaggerating, makes me breathless.”

According to the Book of Revelations, the final battle in the history of the future will be fought on an ancient battlefield in northern Israel called Armageddon. It will follow seven years of tribulation during which the earth will be shaken by such disasters that previous human history will seem like a day in the country.

And the Jews? Well, two-thirds of them will have been wiped out by now. But the survivors will accept Jesus at last.

“The Jews die or convert. As a Jew, I can’t feel very comfortable with the affections of somebody who looks forward to that scenario,” says Gershom Gorenberg, who knows that scenario well.

Gorenberg is the author of the “End of Days,” a book about those Christian evangelicals who choose to read the Bible literally. “They don’t love real Jewish people. They love us as characters in their story, in their play, and that’s not who we are, and we never auditioned for that part, and the play is not one that ends up good for us.”
“If you listen to the drama they’re describing, essentially it’s a five-act play in which the Jews disappear in the fourth act.”

But if that makes Gershom Gorenberg feel uncomfortable, these Christians say it’s only because he doesn’t understand how deeply they love him.

“The Jews need conversion,” says Kay Arthur. “They need to know that the Messiah is coming. And the Bible tells us what’s going to happen.”

The Christian fundamentalists believe the only Israelis who are really listening to God are the hard line Jewish settlers who live on the West Bank and Gaza and refuse to move. The Christians trudge up to these settlements as if they were making pilgrimages to holy shrines. That’s because they and the settlers share a core conviction.

But many American Jewish leaders who used to shun support from the Christian Right have changed their minds. Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, accepts their support.

“On this specific issue on this day we come together. And what is the issue? The issue is fighting terrorism,” Foxman says.

That is precisely what the Bush Administration and the Israeli Government have been saying since September 11, that they are allies in the war on terror. But the Christian Fundamentalists go further. They say it is not just an alliance between nations but between religions.

What frightens Alfer is that he hears much of Falwell’s world view reflected in the words of the Bush Administration.

“When we hear expressions like “the evil ones,” this kind of black and white view of good guys, the bad guys,” says Alfer.


But as long as Jews are the good guys in this representation, this is good for the Jews, isn’t it?

“It’s not good for the Jews. It’s not good for the Jews," says Alfer. We have to get God out of this conflict if we’re going to have any chance to survive as a healthy, secure Jewish state."




Posted by: ColoradoConservative 2003-06-09
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=15258