|
What
Sort Of Christians Become Zionists? The Zionist Dream In A
Nutshell
18 June 2010 By Stuart Littlewood
“We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines
as a false teaching that corrupts the biblical message
of love, justice and reconciliation” – The Jerusalem
Declaration
Not all Jews are Zionists. Many reject the Zionist
project and fight against it.
So why on earth would a non-Jew wish to be one?
Indeed, how could a genuine Christian seriously
consider becoming a Zionist? It has puzzled me for a
long time. The two ideas are incompatible, are they
not?
So consider for a moment Anglican Friends of Israel,
as an example. Their stated aims include:
?To support the people of Israel and to secure
defensible borders for the State of Israel.
?To recall the Church to G-d’s Covenant with the
Jewish people and to call the Church to affirm the
centrality of Israel to the Jewish faith.
?To call Anglicans to repentance for the wrongs – of
both word and deed – inflicted by Christians on the
Jewish people and the nation of Israel.
?To fight all libels against Israel and the Jewish
people and their State.
?To protect the Christian communities threatened by
Islamic extremism in the Middle East.
Are they Zionists? It sounds very much like it. For
them Israel can do no wrong and Christians need to
apologise to the Jewish people… er, what for?
And what makes them think that Muslims are more of a
threat than Israeli extremists to Christian
communities?
You should also see the sort of stuff the Anglican
Friends of Israel post on their website.
AFI Press Release: The Mavi Marmara
Written by Anglican Friends of Israel
Wednesday, 02 June 2010
Anglican Friends of Israel are dismayed at
international condemnation of Israel following attacks
upon Israeli Defence Force personnel [by] a supposedly
peaceful aid convoy… Israeli offers of peaceful means
to deliver the aid into Gaza were refused. Video
footage proves that the violence which tragically
resulted in the deaths of some passengers and injuries
to others including IDF personnel was begun by Aid
convoy members… Terrorists in Gaza continue to fire
rockets into Israel – over 60 this year so far – and
to explode bombs in order to kill and maim Israeli
citizens.
Western spokespersons might bear in mind that the
terror threat to western nations springs from the same
source as that faced daily by Israelis and be more
circumspect in making demands on Israel before all
relevant facts have emerged.
Anyone would be forgiven for thinking it was actually
penned by the crapaganda unit in Tel Aviv. These
Anglicans (if they are Anglicans) swallowed Israel’s
poisonous concoction hook, line and sinker and
re-broadcast it while the abducted flotilla aid
workers – witnesses to the murderous assault and
executions – were incarcerated in Israeli jails and
unable to tell the outside world what really happened.
I don’t know of any danger to us from Hamas, Hezbollah
or Iran, if those are the “terror” sources referred
to. I doubt if groups who wish to see the Israeli
nuclear threat to their region neutralised are also
gunning for us, even though people like Anglican
Friends of Israel and foreign secretary William Hague
are doing their best to provoke them. But Israel of
course wishes to make the British feel threatened and
to draw us for strategic reasons into their schemes
for permanent occupation and domination. There are
always plenty of useful idiots to do their bidding.
A few days earlier the Anglicans issued a press
release stating that the flotilla to Gaza was “a
publicity stunt, not a genuine aid convoy”. The item
was actually a statement by the Israeli embassy
repeated word for word and containing meaningless
information like… “Since last year’s January cease
fire, 133 million liters of fuel entered Gaza from
Israel – That’s more than enough fuel to fill the fuel
tank of every car and truck in Israel!” and “Since the
ceasefire, well over a million tons of humanitarian
supplies entered Gaza from Israel – That’s almost a
ton of aid for every man woman and child in Gaza.”
Meaningless, because the figures lacked context. You
have to go to the UN for that. Whatever Israel lets
in, says the UN, it’s only one-fifth of what’s needed.
Some apparently responsible people, it seems, would
rather accept without question the disinformation fed
them by the Israeli authorities than on-the-spot
assessments and reports by the UN and various
charities.
Actually Israel is letting in only a quarter of what
it let in before Hamas was elected.
Without question there was a publicity angle to the
voyage. The organisers had a political point to make –
the whole ugly US/UK-created mess out there is a
political cesspit. The Israelis couldn’t afford to see
their illegal blockade breached. The evidence points
to a planned execution raid on the Mavi Marmara in the
dead of night with a pre-prepared hit-list.
And in a letter to the BBC these Anglicans insisted
that Operation Cast Lead (Israel’s blitzkrieg on Gaza
after breaking the ceasefire with Hamas, subsequently
killing 1400, maiming heaven knows how many and making
hundreds of thousands homeless) was an act of
“self-defense”.
If you are as bewildered as I am why so-called
Christians are persuaded to sign up to Zionism, a
short paper explaining the phenomenon is available
from Sadaka, The Ireland Palestine Alliance – see
www.sadaka.ie. I found it very helpful.
“The destiny of the Jewish people is to return to the
land of Israel and reclaim their inheritance promised
to Abraham and his descendants forever. This
inheritance extends from the River of Egypt to the
Euphrates. Within their land, Jerusalem is recognised
to be their exclusive, undivided and eternal capital,
and therefore it cannot be shared or divided.
At the heart of Jerusalem will be the rebuilt Jewish
temple, to which all the nations will come to worship
God. Just prior to the return of Jesus, there will be
seven years of calamities and war known as the
tribulation, which will culminate in a great battle
called Armageddon, during which the godless forces
opposed to both God and Israel will be defeated.
Jesus will then return as the Jewish Messiah and king
to reign in Jerusalem for a thousand years, and the
Jewish people will enjoy a privileged status and role
in the world.”
That’s the Zionist dream in a nutshell.
As I understand it, the Jews were expelled by the
Roman occupation in 70AD, when the second temple in
Jerusalem was destroyed, and again in 135AD.
These days the right of return is regarded as an
inalienable right. But it should be exercised as soon
as the reason for expulsion (e.g. foreign occupation)
ceases. In the Jews’ case an opportunity would have
occurred in the 4th century AD as the Roman Empire
collapsed. But they didn’t take it. They can hardly
expect to change their mind 16 centuries later. Their
right expired a very long time ago.
By comparison the Palestinians’ right of return after
being ethnically cleansed in 1948 and ever since is
much stronger because the enemy occupation has not yet
ended and the UN has endorsed their right.
Nevertheless Zionists claim Jerusalem is theirs by
heavenly decree. However, this holiest of cities was
already 2000 years old when King David captured it. It
dates back 5000 years and was named after the
Canaanite God of Dusk.
Historians say that Jerusalem, in its ‘City of David’
form, lasted a mere 73 years. In 928BC the kingdom
divided into Israel and Judah, and in 597BC the
Babylonians conquered the city and destroyed Solomon’s
temple. The Jews recaptured it in 164BC but finally
lost it to the Roman Empire in 63BC. Before the
present-day conflict the Jews, in total, controlled
Jerusalem for some 500 years, whereas it was
subsequently ruled by Muslims for 1,277 years. Before
the Jews it belonged to the Canaanites. And for nearly
90 years it was also a Christian kingdom. A lot of
competing claims, then, which is probably why the UN
declared it should be independently administered as an
international city.
In 1187 Saladin restored the city to Islam while
allowing Jews and Christians to remain. Today Jewish
religious groups want control of the city for their
spiritual centre and for a third temple to be built in
accordance with ancient prophecies. The plan to make
the Israeli occupation permanent threatens especially
the Muslim but also the Christian holy places and
serves to keep political tension boiling.
It is no surprise, given Israel’s reliance on ‘black’
propaganda, that when the Iranian president quoted the
late Ayatollah Khomeini as saying the unfriendly
regime occupying Jerusalem “must vanish from the page
of time”, he was immediately reported as wanting to
wipe Israel off the map.
Sadaka puts the genuine Christian position by quoting
The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism, a
statement by the Latin Patriarch and Local Heads of
Churches in Jerusalem issued in 2006…
We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as
a false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of
love, justice and reconciliation.
We further reject the contemporary alliance of
Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with
elements in the governments of Israel and the United
States that are presently imposing their unilateral
pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine.
This inevitably leads to unending cycles of violence
that undermine the security of all peoples of the
Middle East and the rest of world.
We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that
facilitate and support these policies as they advance
racial exclusivity and perpetual war rather than the
gospel of universal love, redemption and
reconciliation taught by Jesus Christ. Rather than
condemn the world to the doom of Armageddon we call
upon everyone to liberate themselves from ideologies
of militarism and occupation. Instead, let them pursue
the healing of the nations!
The Declaration, explains Sadaka, asserts that
“Christian Zionists have aggressively imposed an
aberrant expression of the Christian faith and an
erroneous interpretation of the Bible, which is
subservient to the political agenda of the modern
State of Israel… Christian Zionism thrives on a
literal and futurist hermeneutic in which Old
Testament promises made to the ancient Jewish people
are transferred to the contemporary State of Israel in
anticipation of a final future fulfillment.”
I haven’t yet seen credible response from the
Christian Zionists.
Alarmingly, the US-based Unity Coalition for Israel
brings together over 200 organisations and is the
largest pro-Israel network in the world. They claim to
have 40 million active members and lobby on behalf of
Israel through 1,700 religious radio stations, 245
Christian TV stations and 120 Christian newspapers.
The question I’d like answered is this. Are we to
believe that an all-powerful supernatural Being has
chosen and elevated one group of humans to a position
of supremacy above all others, and has approved the
use any means including murder and brutal eviction to
achieve their goal, and now mobilizes millions of
lesser mortals from around the globe, like those who
regard themselves as upstanding Christians, to serve
as tools and sing the praises of this ‘Grand Design’?
In the meantime I’m with the Churches of Jerusalem on
this one.
It took an 89-year old woman, the formidable White
House correspondent Helen Thomas, to prick the
Zionists’ over-inflated balloon when she said last
week that the Israelis should “get the hell out of
Palestine” and “go home… to Germany, Poland, America
and everywhere else.”
The hatchet squad roaming America’s den of iniquity
promptly fell on her. They may have silenced her, and
may even have destroyed this frail lady, but the power
of her words will live on…
Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free
Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians
under occupation. For further information please visit
www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk
EsinIslam.Com Add Comments | |