Reading this thread, Israel, what’s the story? and it got me thinking. One of the main reasons the US administration is pro-Israel is that many of them are Evangelicals and also listen to the pro-Israel Christian Right lobby. I don’t believe that their stance is in any way to do with winning Jewish votes, or just to establish a pro-US state. Anyway, to get to the question, where in the Bible does it say that Israel must remain one state? How come the Bush administration (and Evangelicals) don’t want a seperate Palestine?
I’m not sure, but I think it has to do with Christians believing Jews are God’s “chosen people.” Which brings up something that has been puzzling me: why don’t Christians that believe Jews are God’s chosen people convert to Judaism?
One unspoken reason is that a revived Israeli state (strictly for the Jews) and more specifically, a reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem are a few of the main conditions for The Second Coming to occur according to Revelations. No one would politically admit to this, of course.
It’s not easy to convert to Judaism. They aren’t banging down any doors looking for converts either.
Jesus is supposed to sit on the Throne of David in the temple in Jerusalem. The space where the temple was is currently occupied by the third-most-holy shrine in Islam. That’s going to have to go, of course, before Jesus can come back. The maps in the back of everybody’s King James Version bible show the state of Isreal as stretching from the Jordan river to the sea, as it presumably did during the reigns of Kings Saul, David, and Soloman. The West Bank of the Jordan is currently home to several million Palestinians. Of course, they’re going to have to go, too. The battle of Armageddeon, which will be the cataylst for the return of Jesus, will supposedlly take place a few miles northwest of Tel Aviv. But that means there will have to be a big war in the Middle East that ends with “all of the armies of the world arrayed against Isreal.” A full third of the population of the earth will be killed during this war before Jesus decides to intervene. During or after the big battle (it’s kind of disputed), all the jews except for 144,000 will be killed. The remaining jews will convert to Christianity and begin fervantly preaching–to whom they will be preaching is not clear to this reporter.
Yes, there are people who seriously believe this stuff and are serious enough to lobby for and support policies that they believe will result in billions of deaths. But hey, whatever it takes to get that Messiah back, huh?
Chosen just mean Jews were chosen to receive the Torah; it doesn’t mean “better” or “receives preferential treatment”.
And they tend to be conservative, and conservatives often see support for a free, democratic Israeli state a moral duty.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s546326.htm
-
Evangelicals skew conservative. Conservatives from Reagan on have grasped the mantle of opposition to “terror” (how effectively may be open to debate). Palestinians=terrorists in the mainstream U.S. view (obviously opinions vary on this a great deal and propaganda from both sides is overwhelmingly vocal; but while the PLO has enjoyed intermittent support or quasi-legitimacy in parts of the world, most middle Americans factually seem to have bought the view that the Arabs are the instigators).
-
Not sure most political observers would agree that the evangelical support alone could account for the uniform congressional/presidential support for a strongly pro-Israel policy. If nothing else, while hardcore evangelicals may hold these beliefs, support for Zion in order to make way for the Biblically-promised Millenium is unlikely to be the top political/emotional issue for many if any conservative Christians (whose top priorities would more likely be related to “family values” or other social issues on the homefront). On the other hand, for AIPAC boosters, Israel policy is the issue they care about most, and they funnel correspondingly more of whatever attention/influence they have toward it. Conventional wisdom among the pundits seems to indicate that politicos certainly would be as leery (if not more so) of ignoring AIPAC as they would of slighting the NRA, so I’m assuming that the evangelical and non-evangelical pro-Israel crowds both play their meaningful part in U.S. policy.
my interpretation of the support of israel is the interpretation that God has already given Jerusalem/Israel back to the Jews and is recalling them to Israel in fulfillment of prophecy. A prophecy of Jesus is that “Jerusalem shall be trod under the feet of the Gentiles till…” something along the lines of the ‘last days’; and looking at the 6 day war, it seems as if this prophecy has been fulfilled, which indicates rather than facilitates the second coming of Jesus. additionally, there are several verses in the OT which say things to the effect “I (God) have given you this land forever”, ‘you shall return to Zion’, etc… In other words, it belongs to the Jews and all others were squatters/caretakers, something along those lines.