Christian right support for Israel, Iraq war increasing

[S.R. Prozak]

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=12629&intcategoryid=3

Some worry about motives as Christians rally for Israel

By Matthew E. Berger

WASHINGTON, April 6 (JTA) — Walking into the Mayflower Hotel here, you
would have thought you were at a meeting of the American Israel Public
Affairs
Committee — if it weren't for the shouts of "Hallelujah" and "amen" that
accompanied the thunderous applause for pro-Israel sentiments. And if it
weren't for some of the hard-line comments coming from the speakers.

Janet Parshall, a Christian radio host, told 600 Christian supporters of
Israel on April 2 that if she were president she would classify the
Palestinians as enemies of the United States, remove all territory and
weapons
from Palestinian control, cancel the peace agreements that created the
Palestinian Authority and dismantle refugee camps.

"If I were made the president for one day, my road map would look a little
bit different," she said, to a huge ovation, referring to the plan for
peace
created by the United States, Russian, United Nations and European Union.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews' first "Stand for
Israel" day brought pro-Israel Christian activists to Washington just a
day
after AIPAC had finished its lobbying on Capitol Hill.

It also brought big-name speakers from the Jewish community — including
Israel's ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon, and Reps. Eric
Cantor
(R-Va.) and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.)

"We share the same belief in God and we share the same destiny," Ayalon
told the audience.

Jewish leaders once feared that evangelical support for Israel was based
on
the idea that the Jews' return to the Holy Land would expedite the second
coming of Jesus, or that by supporting Israel they would have better
access
for proselytizing among Jews.

But in the past two years many Jewish leaders have reached out to
Christians, believing their commitment to helping Israel is genuine. In
the
climate of violence in the region and anti-Semitism around the world, many
Jewish leaders have concluded that Israel must accept friends wherever the
Jewish state can find them.

Yet some Jewish leaders are looking down the road, warning that hard-line
Christian support for Israel during a time of conflict will prove to be an
impediment if an Israeli-Palestinian peace process is renewed in the
months or
years ahead.

Because of their belief that God gave Israel to the Jewish people, and
that
Christians who help the Jews will be rewarded by God, many in the
evangelical
Christian community loathe the idea of Israel giving up land for peace.

"I think Israel is terribly wrong to give up the Golan," Parshall told JTA
on April 2, referring to the plateau in the north of Israel that the
Jewish
state won from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and placed on the bargaining
table before peace negotiations collapsed in 2000. "I don't think it's a
matter of just giving land away."

Comments like these concern Jewish leaders who support plans for President
Bush's "road map" toward renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and an
eventual Palestinian state.

"If you look at the specific positions of these groups on the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, they are across the board in line with the Israel
hard
right," said Lewis Roth, assistant executive director of Americans for
Peace
Now. "They have very little empathy for the Israeli people in the broader
sense who support a two-state solution, a return to negotiations and the
evacuation of some settlements from occupied territory."

Roth argues that the evangelicals' biblical motivation for supporting
Israel make them less willing to support concessions in the name of peace.

"People who are locked in to an 'end of times' theology have a vested
interest in perpetuation of the conflict," he said.

The concern is heightened by the fact that Christian influence, in the
Jewish community and nationally, is growing.

Gary Bauer, the former Republican presidential candidate and current
president of American Values, was a keynote speaker at AIPAC's policy
conference last week. He received several standing ovations, blasting
international participation in any Israeli-Palestinian peace effort and
speaking out against the U.S. State Department.

"Whoever sits in the confines of Washington, and suggests to the people of
Israel that they have to give up more land in exchange for peace, that is
an
obscenity," he said.

In addition, Parshall received a boisterous response for some of the most
hard-line comments made last April in a Washington rally for Israel.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington hosted a National Prayer Breakfast last
year for Christian leaders, and prominent Jewish leaders like Abraham
Foxman,
national director of the Anti-Defamation League, have spoken positively of
Christian support for the Jewish state.

Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, serves
as
co-chairman of the fellowship's Stand for Israel events. He was
influential in
turning the Christian community into a major player in national politics,
and
he now is speaking out on Israel's behalf.  Reed dismisses the concern
that
Christian support for Israel could hurt peacemaking.

"My position has always been that what is in Israel's national security
interest is best determined by Israel," Reed said. "It's not our job as
people
thousands of miles away to come to conclusions they are better equipped to
make."

George Mamo, executive vice president of the fellowship, said Christians'
support for Israel is based solely on their love of Israel and the Jewish
people, and that Christians take a "realpolitik" view toward ending the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Christian leaders point out that the evangelical community did not speak
out against the Oslo peace process, although Roth claims Christian leaders
were "working hard to be an impediment."

For her part, Parshall says she would oppose any deal that includes the
dismantling of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In her
speech to the Christian audience, she spoke glowingly about visiting the
kitchen of an Israeli woman in a "settlement," a term she said she hates
because it doesn't accurately describe the reality.

"The Christian community will be among the groups that say, 'Enough with
this history of giving away land,'" she said.

But she concedes that her view is not the only one among Christian backers
of Israel.

"It's not a universal view, just like it's not a universal view in the
Jewish community," she said.

Jewish leaders say that just as Jews and Christians disagree on some
domestic issues, they may disagree on what Israel should accept in the
name of
peace. "We can disagree with them on that," said Malcolm Hoenlein,
executive
vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations. "What brings us together is a common commitment to Israel."
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