The 1970s and 80s were the heydays of evangelical Christian fundamentalists in the United States. Many of us remember famous (or infamous) fiery evangelist preachers such as Jerry Falwell Pat Robertson Jimmy Swaggart and many others. These Bible-thumpers galvanized and mesmerized millions of Americans into adopting extremely fanatical but mostly naïve stands on a host of issues ranging from abortion and women lib to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In 1983 I wrote a Master thesis on the centrality of Israel to the evangelical Protestant religion. A few years earlier Falwell founder and Chairman of the Moral Majority wrote a book titled the Fundamentalist Phenomenon in which he highlighted his absolute total and unlimited support for Israel including her occupation of Palestine invasion of Lebanon and the wars of aggression Israel had been waging against her neighbors in order to gain a Lebensraum!. In one of his televised sermons from Lynchburg Virginia he declared that God dealt with nations in relations to how they dealt with Israel.
“We believe that God in Genesis 12:1-3 very clearly promised a blessing for those who bless Israel and cures for those who curse Israel. I take that as literally as I take john 3:16 in the New Testament. To stand against Israel is to stand against God. We believe that…. history and scripture prove that God deals with nations in relation to how they deal with Israel. My deep conviction is that America will not remain a free nation unless we defend the freedom of Israel. We must proclaim this from our pulpits as ministers. (The Fundamentalist Phenomenon the resurgence of Conservative Christianity p.25)
Clearly for Falwell “freedom of Israel” included unflinching Christian support for Israel’s Nazi-like repression of non-Jews (including Christians living under Israeli occupation calling Jesus “the Hitler of Bethlehem” as many Talmudic Jews shamelessly do and spitting on Christian crucifixes and clergymen a frequent provocation by Yeshiva students of Talmudic colleges like Bet Harav in West Jerusalem.
“Freedom of Israel” according to Falwell’s twisted theology also includes massacring Palestinian children women and men en masse like at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps near Beirut in September 1982 massacring Gazans by way of carpet bombing their homes in 2008-14 and slaughtering Lebanese civilians at Qana in 1996. This is just to mention a few crimes against humanity.
In short Falwell now probably a sort of godfather for many current evangelical leaders believed that Israel was above the laws of men regulating relations among the peoples and nations of the word. Israel he said was the nation-state of God and Jews were the ethnic people of the Lord whereas Falwell and his evangelical followers were the spiritual people of God. Catholics Muslims Buddhists Hindus ET would go straight to hell.
Falwell and fellow evangelists believed that the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine in 1948 was a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and a precedent to the Second Advent of Christ. Hence criticizing Israel amounted to disrupting even impeding the coming of Christ and attainment of salvation. In Other words receiving salvation by the Lord depended solely on enthusiastically embracing Israeli brutality barbarianism and criminality.
Sometimes evangelical infatuation with Israel assumes clearly maniacal tones. For example one preacher from Texas was quoted as saying that the best place under the sun to make witness for Christ was to work at an Israeli munitions factory to make sure that as many Palestinian kids as possible would be killed maimed and mutilated for Jesus! (Italics added).Does Jesus love the incinerated flesh of murdered babies? Let’s ask President Trump and vice President Pence?
This is the sick religion of Trump and Pence who embrace Israeli Nazism against the Palestinians without the slightest compunctions.
Indeed without understanding this background about the ideology of Christian Zionism we would never be able to understand the recent unprecedented moves of the Trump administration against the Palestinians.
I am strongly convinced that the likes of Trump and Pence are a cancer upon the conscience of Christ because they embrace evil injustice inequity oppression hatred and racism all in the name of Jesus. They are the modern-day Pharisees and Sadducees whom Jesus railed against calling them: “Serpents! Offspring of vipers! How shall you escape from the sentence of Gahanna?” (Matthew 23-33)
I don’t know how many crimes have been committed in the name of Jesus. However I do know that Jesus is totally innocent of the Nazi-like policies and crimes against humanity Israel is and the United States of Inequity are carrying out against the Palestinian people.
Now the pseudo-Christians call America’s dark embrace of Israel’s lebensraum and fascism “Jesus’ foreign policy.” This reminds me of the extermination of millions of Native Americans at the hands of Trump’s and Pence’s forefathers. It is the gargantuan genocide Americans love to call “Manifest Destiny!”
– Khalid Amayreh is a veteran Palestinian Journalist living in occupied Palestine
