Plenty of Israel partisans deny or explain away the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians c.1948 – but Israeli political leader Bezalel Smotrich openly admits it, and wishes it had gone further.
While the evangelical Christian establishment is firmly in the pro-Israel camp, this may change as increasing numbers of young evangelicals now support Palestinian rights – a position held by many Southern Baptists when they overwhelming opposed Truman’s instant 1948 recognition of Israel…
The common evangelical Christian cry to “support Israel no matter what” has zero basis in Scripture – in fact, that is the opposite of what the Bible says.
“We reject Israel’s apartheid system of laws and legal procedures,” the United Church of Christ (UCC) stated at its general synod, in a resolution approved by 83 percent of members despite an appeal by the American Jewish Committee. (The term ‘apartheid’ for the Israeli system has been used by numerous experts, including South African apartheid leader Bishop Desmond Tutu, a South African report on Israel, and scholars on the region.)
While the words “apartheid” and “sin” caused fear and trembling among some delegates, and were ultimately stricken, the UCC statement in support of justice for Palestinians was met with 83% approval (14% opposed, 3% abstained).
Jewish author Michael Lesher – who blogs for the Times of Israel, among other outlets – muses on many Jewish leaders’ responses to the recent attack on Gaza: “trust in God and believe in Jewish infallibility.” Lesher suggests that instead, they should “devote their efforts toward restraining the Israeli war machine,” and consider the consequences of “[building a] future on a foundation of stolen property and murdered children.”
How Israel and its partisans recruited Christian TV entrepreneur Glenn Plummer, a prominent evangelical pastor, to embrace Israel – and raise money for it from Black Christians – despite Israel’s deep ethnic and religious discrimination against Christians and others…
The Scofield Bible has induced generations of American evangelicals to believe that God demands their uncritical support for the modern State of Israel. Few readers know that behind Scofield appears to have been Zionist attorney Samuel Untermeyer, who used Scofield to inject Zionist ideas into American Protestantism…
Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union for Reform Judaism said the moral issues here are simple, & it’s time for American Jews to show “solidarity and love” with Israel by countering that bad press from its bombardment of Gaza…
The rabbi of New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue expressed worshipful feelings about his Israeli soldier son’s M16 because it represents the “miracle” of Jewish power.