CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS: HOLDING THE KILLERS' CLOAKS

CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS: HOLDING THE KILLERS' CLOAKS

By Harmony Grant

Prominent Israeli lawyer Ram Caspi recently called for mass killing of innocent Gazan civilians who already endure a circle of Dante’s inferno, inching through daily miseries toward a hopeless future. Caspi said the moment another rocket is fired at Israel, the Jewish state should cut off Gaza’s million and a half inhabitants from life—from “the essential infrastructure systems of fuel, water, electricity and telephones, and...prevent others from providing these utilities to Gaza.”

Need I comment on the barbarism of punishing innocents this way? International law—let alone basic morality and the law of God!—forbids inhumane treatment of noncombatants. Yet Gideon Levy observes in Haaretz, “Caspi is a successful attorney, who comes and goes in the tabernacles of justice and rule, a man who moves about in the highest reaches of Israeli society. Not a hair on his head has been mussed as a result of his satanic proposal.”

Levy mournfully cites quote after quote from Israeli racists calling for the slaughter of Palestinian Arabs. Caspi breathes this hatred among Israeli elite, while advising them on the law. Israel’s religious shepherds also preach such bloodlust. Former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu recently wrote Ehud Olmert to counsel that all Gazan civilians—men, women, newborn babies—are collectively guilty for rocket attacks on Israel. He said the Jewish state is morally entitled to kill them all.

Eliyahu’s son, also a rabbi, spoke to press about his father’s views. "If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," he said. "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith smears Christians as “anti-Semites” if we believe or say Jewish leaders were responsible for the crucifixion of Christ 2,000 years ago—a fact of history. ADL works aggressively to keep anti-Semitism defined as the gravest social sin. In much of the western world, ADL has also made it a "hate" crime. Truthful examination of Jews, Judaism, or Israel is a ruinous, career-destroying path for any public figure. If you question the 6 million figure of the Jewish Holocaust, you can spend the next half decade behind bars. But actually call for a Palestinian holocaust—for the murder of living people—and you can climb the ranks of Jewish high society. ADL and so-called “progressive” Jewish advocacy groups are largely silent about the bloodthirsty racist words of evil men like Caspi and Eliyahu.

Christian Judeo-Amour

Christians seek to obey Jesus, the “Prince of Peace” who only blessed the merciful. How can that mean supporting a Jewish state where such statements are spoken by mainstream religious and litigious leaders?

Well-meaning evangelicals by the millions genuinely think it’s their Christian duty to “bless God’s chosen people” by refraining from criticism and offering virtually unlimited military, monetary, and moral support.

Such Christians consume an abundant diet of Christian Zionism, glorification of Judaism and villainization of Islamic militants. They have no room left for the possibility that Israel provoked Arab aggression by reducing millions to daily misery and political helplessness. They largely fail to wonder if Christ really smiles on the Chosen People as they continue to reject Him, describing Him with profanity and refusing to allow Christian evangelism. Among mainstream American Christians, there is virtually no meaningful dissent about Israel.

Instead of truth, pro-Jewish zealotry flows like wine. Richard Bartholomew, a blogger for Salon, recently reviewed “the latest crop of apocalyptical Christian Zionist and anti-Islamic titles from Christian publishers” advertised in Christian Retailing magazine. The magazine reports having already pre-sold lots of copies of Mike Evans’ The Final Move Beyond Iraq. Evans paints Iran’s Ahmadinejad as “a radical zealot bent on the destruction of the West and installation of a world Islamic system.”

More new releases include Culture Clash: Islam’s War on America and In Defense of Israel, by John Hagee. Major Christian publishers like Tyndale and Harvest House have made a fortune from Mideast titles that are staunchly pro-Zionist. Tim LaHaye, of Left Behind fame, has a new book set for release in September, Global Warning: Are We on the Brink of World War III? Bartholomew notes wryly that Tyndale is set to release a third edition of Armageddon, Oil and Terror: What the Bible Says About the Future of America, the Middle East, and the End of Western Civilization. Its supposedly solid predictions have already needed to be revised twice, but Tyndale has still sold more than 2 million copies.

Such books are attractive to many with their simplistic celebration of the US and shallow reading of Scripture. They pretend to explain complicated and frightening geopolitical reality with easy-to-follow plans: support Israel, support the war on terror, Muslims are evil, Jews and Christians are good.

This intellectual junk food fills tables across America because real truth about Israel and Judaic supremacism is forbidden in public. Many patriotic Christians will consider 2008 presidential candidates in light of the Islamophobia and devotion to the Jewish state they learn from FOX News and the pulpit. The same as Jews, they will ask: Who supports Israel and Bush’s war? Who is willing to use nukes on Iran?

Doubtful Brethren

The increasing Judaization of the evangelical church is also reflected in the growth of Messianic Judaism. Messianic Jews believe in Christ but also assert a Jewish identity. The Jewish Forward reports, “According to several movement leaders and scholars of religion, messianic Judaism is expanding rapidly in communities across the American South, a growing region of the country that is attracting new Jewish residents more generally.”

Forward quotes Derek Leman, who leads a Messianic synagogue in Atlanta: “In the Bible belt, you have many Christians who love Israel, so we attract more gentiles [to our services], plus there are a lot more intermarried couples down here than there would be in the Northeast.”

“It is a trend alarming to Jewish communal leaders,” says Forward. As more and more Gentile Christians become infatuated with Israel and the idea of Judaism, this cross-pollenization should worry more than Jewish leaders! The New Testament teaches that in Christ, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28) The growing popularity of a Christian/Jewish identity and Zionism should deeply concern any Christian pastor or layman with a working knowledge of the New Testament's warnings against Judaizers in the early church--"Christian Jews" who wanted to bring the church back into bondage to Old Testament and rabbinic observances and traditions.

One Good Man?

Speaking the whole truth about Jewish political power and activism today is personally costly—to reputation, relationships, and certainly to career. A person would have to be motivated either by great hate or by great love. It was great love that compelled St. Paul to rebuke the rabbinic leaders of his time and also Judaizers in the church who exalted manmade religion over redemption through Christ. Paul said love for Jews filled him with “sorrow and unceasing anguish” as he longed for his brothers to know the truth and submit to God.

The greatest compassion is God's intervention in our lives, revealing our depravity and offering escape. Humans can share God’s compassion by speaking the whole truth about evil acts, ideas, systems and even individuals.

Calling evil by its name is an act of love—especially when it carries personal cost. The person who will not speak truth about evil pays no social price. He also has no love. And he becomes complicit with that evil. Only truth offers hope of change, of repentance and salvation.

Christian leaders fear the whole truth about the Judaic agenda and believe their reputations and ministries will be destroyed if they speak this truth. They also believe Jews can’t bear the whole truth about the elite minority of evil leaders directing their Tribe. But the wisest, kindest Being who ever walked the earth—the Son of God—told us that when we know the truth, it will set us free. It is high time America’s Christian leaders acted as if they believed Him.