Christian Zionism If It Speaks – Arab Press

Christian Zionism is a relatively unknown movement in the Arab world. However, the surprising fact is that Zionism is first Christian and then Jewish, since since the mid-19th century, there was a widespread Anglo-Saxon Protestant belief that the “return of the people of Israel to their land” would help to fulfill the prophecy. This belief would contribute to the formulation of the Balfour Declaration, which is considered the first historical achievement of the Zionist movement in 1917, and made support for Israel the main focus of US domestic policy since 1948. First is the growing influence of Christian Zionism, and second is the polarization of Jewish voices.
Anglo-Saxon Protestant evangelicals believed that Palestine was empty, since a “nation” worthy of the name did not exist, “as long as the Jews had not fulfilled their destiny in it, paving the way for the establishment of the State of God.” This religious notion would transform into a political obsession, pushing British authorities to strengthen their support for the Zionist project in Palestine, and subsequently the United States to strengthen its support for the emerging state of Israel. After occupying the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula, this biblical argument could lead the usurped Jewish state to evade international responsibilities, thereby violating international law.
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Christian Zionism has recently been trying to encourage Donald Trump to attack the legitimacy of the Palestinian issue by announcing the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017 within the framework of a “new solution to the conflict between the Israeli and Palestinian sides”. If the Balfour Declaration only recognized “civil and religious rights of non-Jewish Palestinian communities”, then Trump only recognizes the freedom of worship of the Palestinian people in Jerusalem and grants Israel the right to annex the Jordan Valley and settlements in the West Bank under the “Deal of the Century” signed with Netanyahu in 2020.
Anglo-Saxon fundamentalists were not happy with the absence of Arabs in the Palestinian conflict, but they also worked to make the process aimed at depriving the Palestinian people of their homeland an irreversible issue. Thus, Christian Zionism abandoned its interest in the political management of the British Mandate and focused on work within the United States, although it continued to avoid exercising direct authority over Palestine and constantly refused to deploy troops to adjudicate it.
However, the biblical tyranny will gradually lead to the transformation of Christian Zionism into a war machine, crushing all initiatives aimed at peace, including attempts and steps by President Jimmy Carter, who dared to talk about reconciliation between the Arabs and Israel. Yitzhak Rabin acted in the name of Israel’s security and reached a regional reconciliation agreement with the PLO.
It is also surprising that Ben-Gurion ceased to be indifferent to Christian Zionism once President Truman recognized Israel. On the other hand, we see Begin and Netanyahu committed to a multifaceted partnership with the Christian community that expressed absolute support for Zionism, knowing that opportunism drove them to an organic relationship with American evangelicals, a trend similar to the tendencies that propelled Donald Trump to the White House and then his attempt to re-enter the White House and compete for the US presidency.
But what is odd about the gathering of American fundamentalists around Trump is that this president is not known for his religious beliefs or his adherence to family values. Yet they focused heavily on the Republican primaries, where they represented half of all male and female voters, and then in the primary elections in November, where they represented about half of the Republican vote, in order to make Trump’s presidential campaign a success. It seems that Trump’s unconditional support and commitment to moving the embassy to Jerusalem won Trump decisive support from his evangelical base.
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When we talk about President Joe Biden’s overwhelming support for Israel’s genocidal war against Palestine, we find that this position is linked to the president’s Zionist convictions, and he has rejected Pope Francis’ repeated calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, despite his Catholic faith. During his visit to Israel on October 8, Biden saw fit to assure Netanyahu that “you don’t need to be Jewish at all to be a Zionist. I am a Zionist myself.”
There is no doubt that for Biden, supporting Israel militarily, intelligence and diplomatically is most important to please the Christian Zionists who control Congress and threaten to hinder the work of federal agencies by freezing the budget. After three weeks of crisis, the fervent evangelical Mike Johnson was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on October 25, and on the same day, he passed the “Solidarity with Israel” resolution by 412 votes to 10. “Israel is resisting the brutal war of Hamas. “
Johnson, who has a close relationship with Trump, visited Jerusalem in February 2020 and entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which replaced the Dome of the Rock, surrounded by Israeli supporters. On October 3, Johnson led by a majority of 226 votes to 196 to provide $14 billion worth of military aid to Israel and deducted the proposed humanitarian aid to Gaza from the agreement.
Finally, we must mention the evangelist Franklin Graham, who took over the “Evangelical Empire” from his father Billy Graham. On October 20, he assured Netanyahu of his support for “Israel, the people of God” when he received him in Tel Aviv. In this battle “between good and evil”, he called on his followers in the United States to “pray for the Israeli prime minister” after this meeting.
In fact, the Israeli allies of the Christian Zionists, who have no illusions about the fate envisioned by American fundamentalists for the Jews, who are nominated for the extermination of two-thirds on the Day of Resurrection, with the remaining one-third surviving thanks to conversion to Christianity, tolerate the anti-Semitic rhetoric of evangelical preachers as long as they firmly support the colonial settlement of Palestinian territories.

Michel Nofar
Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar
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