topic by
Q
8/19/2002 (11:23) |
|
Christian Coalition latches onto Israel
by Bill Berkowitz • Wednesday August 14, 2002 at 09:14 AM
Christian Coalition latches onto Israel Group plans 'Israel, You Are Not Alone' Washington rally for October
Nearly left for dead by a string of controversies and mishaps over the past few years, the Christian Coalition may yet rise again. In its recent history, the organization has experienced a sharp decline in membership, gone through a series of unexplained personnel changes, and had to deal with the resignation of its founder, Pat Robertson. Now it's pinning its comeback hopes on Israel and Ariel Sharon.
According to executive director Roberta Combs, the Christian Coalition is planning a massive pro-Israel rally in Washington on the afternoon of October 11 to 'press for increased support for Israel's fight against terror and oppose the Bush administration's call for the establishment of a Palestinian state,' reports the Jerusalem Post. The rally, titled 'Israel, You Are Not Alone,' will be held on the Ellipse near the White House, and organizers told the Washington Post that they hope to bring out 'a minimum of 100,000 supporters.'
Combs, who was appointed president of the organization after Robertson's surprise resignation late last year, said: 'We, as Christians, should take a stand for Israel and let Israel know we're there for them. We're praying for them.' The rally will call on the Bush Administration to 'allow Israel to fight its war on terrorism the way we fought ours in Afghanistan.' There will also be a call to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as well as a voicing of opposition toward dividing Jerusalem and dismantling settlements in Judea and Samaria, the Jerusalem Post reported. Combs said that the rally participants will also urge the U.S. to halt its support for the establishment of a Palestinian state. 'We feel like the Palestinians are committed to Israel's destruction, that they don't want a state living side by side with Israel. A terrorist is a terrorist, and Arafat is a terrorist,' she said.
The Christian Coalition-planned event is just one of a number of activities that U.S. Christian evangelicals are sponsoring these days in support of Israel. Christian evangelicals, in concert with a number of conservative Jewish groups, are teaming up to hold rallies, raise money and create new organizations in support of Israel. For Jews, Middle Eastern and domestic politics are in play. For North American Christians, the stakes are also high.
In early July, thanks to a $2 million donation by a group called the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, 400 American Jews moved lock, stock and barrel to Israel, according to the Christian news service, AgapePress. 'It was the largest single U.S. group' to move to Israel in 25 years.
One of the churches that helped raise the money is the First Pentecostal Tabernacle in Elkton, Maryland. AgapePress reported that 73-year-old Bishop Huey Harris said: 'What I'm seeing is the Scriptures being fulfilled right before our very eyes.' AgapePress reports: 'He says what he is looking for next is for the Church to be raptured, and then Jews receiving Christ as their Messiah.' A few years back, when the Southern Baptist Convention announced it would actively seek the conversion of Jews, that statement raised an enormous outcry in the U.S. These days statements such as the one made by Bishop Harris don't even cause a ripple of commentary.
AgapePress also reported on a new venture aimed at linking conservative Jews with Christian evangelicals. Headed by Rabbi Daniel Lapin, the president of the conservative Jewish organization Toward Tradition, and Gary Bauer, the failed presidential candidate who is now president of American Values, the new group has taken the name of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians (AAJC). According to a press release from Toward Tradition, the Washington, D.C.-based AAJC will be a 'unique synthesis of Jewish authenticity and Christian grassroots muscle.' Bauer believes the new project will help to ensure the alliance between America and Israel while at the same time build a movement of Jews and Christians for traditional values.
CitizenLink, a news service of Dr. James Dobson's Focus in the Family, recently reported that Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was extremely moved when he received a letter of support from U.S. Christian evangelicals that was hand-delivered by Bauer during a fact-finding mission. Other Christian leaders who signed the letter included: Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship, Christian radio talk show host Janet Parshall, Dr. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University, and Dr. James Dobson, the president of Focus on the Family.
Bauer said that the letter 'had an electrifying impact. The meeting with Sharon was only supposed to be a brief meeting. It turned into an hour meeting. He brought in members of his cabinet into the room to show them the letter,' CitizenLink reported.
These events follow on the heels of the late-May creation of 'Stand for Israel,' a project spearheaded by Rabbi Yehiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), and Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and current Republican Party chairman of Georgia. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that 'Stand for Israel' hopes to become a 'Christian version of the pro-Israel lobby on Capitol Hill, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).' One of the group's primary activities will be to counter what they see as media bias against Israel—a long held belief shared by both Israelis and Christian Right activists.
Many conservative Jewish leaders prefer to look the other way vis à vis the controversial issue of Christian evangelical's 'end-times' beliefs. According to a recent Time magazine cover story titled 'The Bible & the Apocalypse: Why more Americans are reading and talking about The End of The World' (July 1, 2002), 36% of Americans believe 'the Bible is the word of God and is to be taken literally; 59% believe 'the prophecies in the Book of Revelation will come true;' 35% 'say they are paying closer attention to news events and how they relate to the coming end of the world since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11;' and 36% 'support Israel... because they believe in biblical prophecies that Jews must control Israel before Christ will come again.'
To disregard evangelicals beliefs in the 'end-times' would be 'playing with fire,' Harvey Cox, professor of divinity at Harvard, told Time. 'I'd be awfully cautious of this alliance if I were on the Israeli side.' Cox's admonition was echoed by Gershom Gorenberg, a Jewish expert on the Christian end-times. 'In my view,' he said, 'any theology that continues to deny the validity of Judaism and to fantasize about looking forward to the conversion or destruction of the Jews is one that should arouse a great deal of caution among Jews.' For more please see the Bill Berkowitz archive.
Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His WorkingForChange column Conservative Watch documents the strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American Right.
www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=13670&CFID=2395409&CFTOKEN=44143622
|
|