| by Jonathan Kuttab When the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued its first set of orders in the case South Africa brought against Israel for its genocide in Gaza, the preliminary orders were signed by the overwhelming majority of justices. In fact, two of the orders pertaining to halting genocidal incitement and ordering Israel to permit food supplies into Gaza were even signed by the Israeli Justice as well as 15 of the 16 other judges. The only justice who dissented and refused to issue any orders against Israel was justice Julia Sebutinde of Uganda. I suspected at the time, and it was just recently confirmed, that the reason for her dissent had nothing to do with international law or the merits of the case but in the fact that the judge was a Christian Zionist. As such, she believed it was God’s will and commandment that she support the state of Israel, without reservations and against any human made law or morality or reason. This week, she confirmed indeed that she believed “the Lord was counting on her to support Israel.” She was willing to admit total and complete partisanship, abandon all principles of justice, equity, and international law, violate common sense and basic principles of humanity (such as ordering an end to the use of starvation as a weapon or the use of openly genocidal incitement) in order to support the state of Israel even when its positions were unsupportable. While this may appear to be an extreme example of an influential person using their power and status in a manner totally incompatible with their position and role, in order to advance the political agenda of Zionism and the state of Israel, it is not unique. Others like former Vice President Mike Pence, Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas have all at one time or another made outrageous political statements in support of Israel while attributing them to their religious beliefs. Ted Cruz put it bluntly: “the Bible says ‘I will bless those who bless Israel’ and I want that blessing!!” When challenged on the Tucker Carlson show as to what that verse in Genesis actually said, and whether it applied to the modern day state of Israel, he was flustered and repeated that this is what he believes and has been taught all along. The task of addressing Christian Zionism is a serious task that has definite political consequences, because Christian Zionism has been effectively weaponized to achieve specific political results on behalf of Israel and of Zionism by people who do not share in any way the religious or spiritual values of Christians, but who refer to them to support a specific secular agenda. This is the case whether it involves providing weapons to Israel, using the Security Council veto, shielding Israel from international law and the consequences of its actions, or supporting Jewish settlements and expansion, and even genocidal policies and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land. The curious thing is that Christian Zionists are often antisemitic themselves and do not seek the protection or benefit of Jews. Unlike St. Paul, who cared about the salvation of his fellow Jews to the point of saying he would risk his own eternal salvation (Romans 9:3) if that would help his Jewish siblings accept Christ’s salvation, Christian Zionists do not seek to share the Gospel. They also do not shed any tears over the prospect of mass killings of Jews during their anticipated end-times Armageddon. Their agenda is purely political. Israelis are conflicted about Christian Zionism. Articles often appear in the Hebrew press around the time of the Feast of the Tabernacle (a favorite celebration orchestrated by the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem) with writers either warning of the dangerous anti-Jewish elements in Christian Zionism and denouncing their heretical ideas, or others who say that regardless of their “crazy” eschatology, these are our best friends and we need and can use their political support, even while we mock their theologies and beliefs in private. Deconstructing Christian Zionism therefore becomes an essential task for FOSNA and its supporters. Among evangelicals, this can only be done by other evangelicals who are familiar with the language of and heavy emphasis on scripture by evangelicals in general. For example, the often-cited verse in Genesis, “I will bless those who bless thee, and curse those who curse thee, through your seed shall all the nations of the world be blessed” can best be answered with scriptural references such as Galatians 3:16, which states that seed of Abraham is used in the singular, that is Christ, and that Christians, both Jewish and gentile, are the seed of Abraham and the inheritors of the promises (Galatians 3:28). Other New Testament verses thoroughly undermine and obliterate Christian Zionist claims regarding territoriality, divine land promises, chosen people, and the like. Deconstructing Christian Zionism, though, is not limited to evangelicals. Mainline Protestant churches, Catholics and others, who would not ordinarily identify as Christian Zionists, often fall into similar patterns of automatic identification with the state of Israel and default support for its positions. Much work needs to be done to correct such bad theology both for the sake of the gospel itself and for the real-life Palestinian victims of that bad theology. Palestinians today are suffering starvation, deprivation, destruction and ethnic cleansing, and are forced to live under apartheid and discrimination as a direct result of that bad theology. |
