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Stan Goodenough is an experienced journalist who has written about politics in South Africa and the Middle East for such organizations as The Daily Dispatch of East London, South Africa, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Post, and the Virtual HolyLand website. He has been a South African gentile resident in Israel for 12 years. Stan is editor of and .
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By Stan Goodenough
July 30, 2007
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The issue of where to take a stand concerning the Land and People of Israel continues to divide Christians who choose to reinterpret the scriptures through liberal and socialist lenses from those who insist that the Bible is the unchanging Word of God.
In a letter published in the Sunday edition of the New York Times, 34 self-styled "evangelical leaders" wrote to US President George W. Bush, urging him to forge ahead with his plan to implement a "two state solution" to the "Palestinian"-Israeli conflict.
The document appears to have been drawn up in reaction to the statements of high-profile evangelicals like John Hagee who have recently asserted anew that tens of millions of American evangelicals identify themselves as Christian Zionists and oppose the globally-supported effort to establish an Arab state on the biblical heartland and national cradle of the Jewish people.
Twisting both the meaning of scripture and historic fact to support their position, the signatories to the letter -- who claimed to speak on behalf of "large numbers of evangelicals throughout the US" -- sought to "encourage" Bush with the assertion that not "all American evangelicals are opposed to a two-state solution and creation of a new Palestinian state that includes the vast majority of the West Bank [sic]."
They had written "to thank [Bush] for [his] efforts (including the major address on July 16) to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to achieve a lasting peace in the region.
"We affirm your clear call for a two-state solution. We urge that your administration not grow weary in the time it has left in office to utilize the vast influence of America to demonstrate creative, consistent and determined US leadership to create a new future for Israelis and Palestinians [sic]."
The letter continued:
"We also write to correct a serious misperception among some people including some US policymakers that all American evangelicals are opposed to a two-state solution and creation of a new Palestinian state that includes the vast majority of the West Bank [sic].
"Nothing could be further from the truth."
The writers said they support justice for both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs.
"We hope this support will embolden you and your administration to proceed confidently and forthrightly in negotiations with both sides in the region."
Employing a favorite weapon of those wanting to disguise their anti-Israel sentiments, the co-writers said it was "precisely as evangelical Christians committed to the full teaching of the Scriptures [that] we know that blessing and loving people (including Jews and the present State of Israel) does not mean withholding criticism when it is warranted."
Typically -- this "fairminded" criticism focuses on Israel's alleged "theft" of "Arab" lands, its supposed "abuse" of Arabs' "human rights" and its claimed "rebellion" against international dictates and resolutions condemning the Jewish state.
The letter focused on Israel's need to "to remember, as she deals with her neighbor Palestinians, the profound teaching on justice that the Hebrew prophets proclaimed so forcefully as an inestimably precious gift to the whole world."
There was no mention that the "Palestinians'" need to remember that life is sacred, no call for their barbaric and repeated acts of terrorism against the Jews they hated so much to be acknowledged and repudiated.
The signatories include Bible college chancellors, theological seminary presidents and professors as well as church pastors, leaders of organizations like World Vision, Evangelicals for Social Action, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice, and the editor of Christianity Today.
Appealing to "historical honesty," they said it compelled them to recognize that "both Israelis and Palestinians have legitimate rights stretching back for millennia to the lands of Israel/Palestine."
But observers note that these professing Christians are being historically dishonest.
Records prove that at most, Arabs of any kind can lay claim to a few hundred years of family ties to this land. There has never in history been a nation nor a country called Palestine.
The Jews' claim alone goes back nearly 4,000 years; they became a nation here and they built a country here, not once but three times in history.
The letter attempts to equate the victims of Arab violence with the victims of Israel's response to that violence, and argues that, in order to achieve peace, "both sides must give up some of their competing, incompatible claims [and] accept each other's right to exist."
To achieve that goal, the US "must provide robust leadership within the Quartet to reconstitute the Middle East roadmap, whose full implementation would guarantee the security of the State of Israel and the viability of a Palestinian State."
On which authority they base their conviction is not clear.
What is clear is that these leaders appear unaware that their very alliance with the God-rejecting forces of this world -- the fact that they support a "solution" prescribed by a secular- humanistic 'global village' -- serves as a clear warning to true Christians that they are in error.
Views expressed by the author do not
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