Israel finds more to like about Christian Zionists
When Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee wrapped up a recent visit to
Israel with 40 pastors in tow, he sought out the places where Jesus
walked, preached and prayed some 2,000 years ago.
But there was
another meeting on the itinerary that was a must-not-miss event for
Hagee and his host: a sit-down with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The
fact that Netanyahu—knee-deep in contentious talks with Palestinians
over a freeze on Israeli settlement construction—found time to meet
Hagee's contingent on November 15 speaks volumes about the ties between
Israeli officials and evangelical Christians.
Christian Zionist
support for Israel is at an all-time high, observers say, and Israelis,
American Jews and Palestinians are all taking notice—some favorable,
some not.
While Israel has long courted financial and political
support from evangelicals, many Jewish American leaders have viewed the
alliance with suspicion, leery about potential proselytizing and
uncomfortable with evangelicals' domestic agenda at home.
Read our latest issue or browse back issues.
Lately,
however, the U.S. Jewish community has found a new appreciation for
evangelical support at a time of mounting international criticism of
Israeli policy and financial hardships for many prominent Jewish groups.
Hit
hard by the economic downturn and the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme that
decimated Jewish charities, American Jewish groups are sending less
money to Israel. Dozens of evangelical groups "have definitely stepped
in to fill some of the void," said Dan Brown, creator of the website
e-jewishphilanthropy.com.
One of those groups is the
International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), a Chicago-based
group that has donated as much as $70 million to Israel in 2009 alone
and another $30 million to Jewish causes in the former Soviet Union and
elsewhere.
Five years ago, Hadassah, the magazine of the
Jewish women's organization of the same name, rejected an ad from the
IFCJ, which was founded by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein. But this year, after a
large donation to a Hadassah-affiliated hospital in Jerusalem, Hadassah
honored Eckstein's group at its annual gala.
"We still haven't
been embraced by the establishment Jewish organizations, but I do think
there's a growing admiration because we've been able to grow by leaps
and bounds over the past three years while the Jewish federation system
and other sources of Jewish philanthropy have suffered declines," said
Eckstein.
Evangelical leaders say their reliance on thousands of
small donors—rather than a few mega-givers—has helped them weather the
recession and actually increase their funding to Israel. No one knows
how much Christian Zionists give Israel in total, but the amount is
substantial.
The organizations, including many based in the U.S.,
support Israeli hospitals, schools and social welfare programs. A few
pay for bomb shelters and ambulances and assist elderly Holocaust
survivors and victims of terror attacks. Hagee's San Antonio-based group
has donated more than $50 million since 2006, including $8.5 million
this year.
Monetary support, however, is just part of the
equation. For the past four years, another Hagee group, Christians
United for Israel, has held an annual Washington summit to push Israeli
concerns on U.S. lawmakers. Christian Zionist groups sponsor
letter-writing campaigns and are active on college campuses.
Joshua
Reinstein, director of the seven-year-old Knesset Christian Allies
Caucus in the Israeli parliament, said there has been "an explosion of
support" from evangelical political leaders. The group now has
pro-Israel "legislators of faith" caucuses in 18 countries, including
the U.S.
Palestinian Christians, who have successfully cultivated
their own powerful and wealthy allies in the Roman Catholic and mainline
Protestant churches, are vocally opposed to Christian Zionism. Many of
their church allies are active in the so-called global BDS
movement—boycotts, divestment and sanctions of Israeli goods and
citizens.
Christian Zionism is "a heretical and false
interpretation of Christian theology" that "justifies violence and
oppression in the name of God," said Jonathan Kuttab, chairman of the
West Bank's Bethlehem Bible College.
Ari Morgenstern, a spokesman for Christian United for Israel, reads the Bible differently.
"The
biblical mandate for Christian Zionism is Genesis 12:3," he said,
referring to a verse in which God promises to bless those who bless
Israel and curse its foes. "As Pastor Hagee has said, Christians should
support Israel because it is simply the right thing to do."
Ironically,
just as American Jewish groups have warmed to Christian Zionist
partners, several prominent ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbis have forbidden
their followers to accept funds or services from organizations
funded—even in part—by evangelicals.
David Parsons, spokesman for
the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, said hard-line rabbis
pressured Israeli dignitaries not to attend the recent opening of a home
for Holocaust victims that was partially funded by Parson's group.
"It's a real shame they tried to spoil the event," Parsons said. "We
don't missionize, and the focus should have been on the needs of
destitute Holocaust survivors." —RNS
