Doesn’t it seem kind of odd that the people you most expect to wish Israel not exist (barring Muslims/Palestinians) to be in support of Israel?
Why would the Christian Right advocate the existance of Israel?
A lot of it has to do with Rapture theology (a bunch of bullshit, and mostly a fringe belief), that in order for Jesus to return, Israel has to exist as a state once again.
It’s not out of love or respect for Jews-in fact most of them want to see the Jews converted to Christianity. Or else they’re just using them to further their aims. If I were Jewish, I’d be highly insulted. Aw hell, I’m not Jewish and I’m STILL insulted!
Well, having had more than my fair share of exposure to Christian Rightists (a few years in a Fund’ist Baptist school) I’ll hazard this one sans cites.
The official reasons would be that The Jews are God’s Chosen People and
the gathering of the Jews to their historical homeland is the fullfillment of Biblical Prophecy, signalling the Beginning of the End Times.
The unofficial reason is that they actually don’t like the Jews all that much, being as how they think they’re God’s Chosen People, they run all the business and financial institutions, don’t believe in Jesus as the Messiah, and have big noses. They would rather that the Jews live elsewhere. Basically, Zionism is a cover for anti-Semitism. If they all go live in their historical homeland (Israel), then we won’t have to have them as neighbors.
I’m sure someone will come along and say it better than I did, with cites and everything, but this is about the best I can do based on my own contact with Right-leaning Christian types.
Oh, and Guin, you’re right. The Irish Dopers are not after ye Frosted Lucky Charms.
It’s the Byzantine Catholic Dopers who are after ye Frosted Lucky Charms. Now, hand the Frosted Lucky Charms over, and nobody gets hurt…
To expand upon Guin’s elegantly put “Rapture bullshit”… 
In their interpretation of the Biblical predictions concerning Christ’s Second Coming (mostly in Revelations and Daniel, but bits and pieces from other books, too), they see that throughout the proceedings, Israel is referred to as an intact political entity, a “nation”. Therefore, before Jesus can come back again, Israel must be an intact political entity. Therefore, the Statehood of Israel must be supported, so that Jesus can come back, because unless and until Israel is a nation, He can’t come back.
Notice that technically this does not preclude a Palestinian Nation, as long as the Palestinian Nation is not publicly devoted to wiping out the Israeli Nation. Most Fundies I know don’t particularly care one way or another whether the Palestinians get a country or not, as long as Israel is ticking along comfortably.
That reminds me, Asbestos, how’s the reading of the Left Behind series coming?
I think that’s a little much…
Also, the Neoconservatives and the Fudamentalists have formed a political alliance in the US that works out to their mutual benefit even though, in their heart of hearts they loathe eachother.
Well, I’ve read all but the last book, The Glorious Appearing. I’m not really inclined to inclined to spend any more of my hard-earned cash on this drek, and when I try to find it at the library, it’s always out. I did sneak a peak at a friend’s copy, and from what I can tell, it’s more of same. Oh, and did you know that when Jesus quotes from Revelation, people he doesn’t like suddenly develop gushing throat wounds?
Maybe I’ll bite the bullet and pick up a used copy somewhere.
Now that’s cool.
Really? Damn, that’s pretty cool.
Excuse me, are you my Sock Puppet, or is this a transporter accident thing?
Firstly I have a bit of assholish nitpicking to do. Israel could be a nation without Israel being a state. If we’re going to follow the definitions developed by political scientists (and we should) a nation is just a homogenous cultural group. The Kurds are a nation, the Cherokee are a nation, the Walloons are a nation. None of these nations are states, however.
Russia is a state because it controls territory, and is sovereign over that territory. These are some of the necessities for statehood. So there is no Palestinian nation to be created, there either is one or there isn’t one (and I’d say the Palestinians are unified enough culturally to say they are a nation.) What there truly is not (in many respects), right now, is a Palestinian State. For one a state really requires a good chunk of the world’s great powers to recognize it as a state, it needs external and internal legitimacy, and of course it needs sovereignty.
It can be argued that the Palestinians already have a state. They do have fairly autonomous leaders, they have recognition from a lot of the world’s great powers. Their sovereignty isn’t as clear cut as say, the United States, but I’d say they have enough sovereignty to call themselves a state without eliciting the snickers say, the Cherokee would get if they made the same claim.
What the Palestinians are really arguing for is a “complete nationstate” or a state that truly controls most of the connecting lands of the Palestinian nation.
The United States isn’t a nation or ar a nationstate at all, it is far too diverse to be a nation. That’s why the sunshine statements of “One Nation” are more like a goal as opposed to a true political fact. But the U.S. is obviously a State, a State that has within it many different nations.
A lot of the European powers can still lay claim to being nationstates to a large degree. Despite recent influxes of immigration and certain inter-nation subgroups Denmark is typically a Danish nationsate, France is a French nationstate, and Germany is a German nationstate.
:rolleyes:
OP, the reason is because the Bible says that the Jews are God’s chosen people and we (Christians) should bless them. Period. There’s also prophecies about Israel being reinstated as a nation, the Jewish people never fading away, etc. Since Christianity exists because of the Jews, we consider the Jewish people to be a Good Thing. Yes, we believe that Jesus fulfilled the law and so the rituals of Judaism aren’t necessary for salvation anymore, but God promised to make them His people, forever. The NT talks about how we are grafted into the tree, we are God’s adopted children. In short, the Jews are our brethren, although they don’t agree.
Israel existing won’t make Jesus come back any faster: if it did, we would have been out of here in 1948. There are specific things set forth in the Bible that talk about what has to happen before he returns. Israel being a nation again was just one of them.
Well, it’s right there in Genesis: “I will bless those who bless ye, and curse those who curse ye.” Sucking up to God’s chosen people is just another way of sucking up to the Big Guy himself.
That was to Cain, not Abraham or Jacob, etc…
Well, I admit I’m not up on all this wacky monotheism stuff. But I’m pretty sure you’re wrong. A quick googling turns up:
Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country from your kindred and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those that bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”’ Genesis 12.1-3
Egg on my face ~sighs~
I don’t really have an excuse. You are correct. I had somehow conflated the mark of Cain with Abraham’s blessing.
With all due respect, this is the only response in this thread that answers the question from the perspective of today, rather than a century ago (which makes no sense anyway, because Israel didn’t exist then).
There are two main reasons for supporting Israel in the U.S. Israel was primarily created out of guilt for the holocaust, and to prevent it from happening again, and secondly because Israel ended up being the last stronghold and ally of the West in the Middle-East. Israel has needed an ally a lot in the past and the U.S. has obliged - as a prime player in WW2, it was aware of the injustice to the jews and that alone has been a good reason for many states to support Israel.
Many people simply don’t care enough about what goes on in the world to realise that the bitter struggles for survival has turned Israel into a doubly-traumatised, polarised nation with a cancer that is eating away at its conscience in favor of pragmatic morals that say all is fair in love and war, not dissimilar to the way large parts of the U.S. looked at the world in the Cold War, and after 9/11. With that in mind, it’s not surprising that the Christian Right sees Israel as a close relative in ballroom full of strangers. Christian Right has been able to ignore the plight of the Palestines longer than most, partly because they readily allowed the unattractive and undemocratic Arafat to block their view.
Anyway, that’s what I think.
From The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004), p. 215: