Earlier I pointed out the article by Harold Meyerson about how support for Israel is declining in the Jewish community. Well, it seems to be catching. From the Jerusalem Post article “Israel is losing the PR war so badly that even evangelical support is eroding“:
EVEN EVANGELICAL SUPPORT is eroding. A vocal minority remain effusive on Israel’s behalf. But the broader community is not monolithic. Many of its members are hungry for change, not unlike the political appetite that won Barack Hussein Obama the presidency. Among evangelicals the religious equivalent is a movement led by people like Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christian; Stephen Sizer, a pastor who has gained popularity by condemning “Christian Zionism”; and, of course, Jimmy Carter, who accuses Israel of committing a “holocaust.” How widespread is the erosion of evangelical support for Israel? Google this: “Letter to President Bush from Evangelical Leaders.” Look at those who signed it – and the organizations they represent. Their claim to “represent large numbers of evangelicals” is true.
I believe the evangelicals want to tell everyone the Good News! Spirituality is very cyclical in America. Hopefully the God's wrathfully righteous phase is waning.
Unfortunately the operation was dubbed, "Cast Lead." Yah, right. Re-brand the white phosphorous and everyone will be happy campers. And behind it all? A resurgence of replacement theology, an ideology that, for almost 1700 years, has been used to ignite atrocities against Jewish communities. If you don't like the fact that now your friends are a bunch of racists perhaps you should have thought more carefully about it when you first decided to sleep with them. Where did that idea come from? Look at Article 20 of Hamas's 1988 charter and see who is winning the PR war. I'm pretty sure that the Palestinians have not won anything – including the PR war. How many times have a representative of the Palestinian people been quoted in a news report – compared to a representative of Jewish Israel? Rather it looks to me like Israel has lost the PR war. As has been stated in several places, US support for Israel is a mile wide and an inch deep. Well it looks like we are being generous when we say an inch these days. Israel bet the farm – so to speak – on bribery and kickbacks in the cosy back scratching with congress, racists and religious fanatics, and war crimes. (http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Document-3227.phtml). It's beginning to look like that bet wasn't so bright. And to think that all of this could have been avoided if only Israel had selected the correct brand name.
It's all good and well. But I want answers to Christian silence in America for the past 60 plus years. Why the silence for so long? How do you justify this kind of silence with Christ's teachings? Supposedly the Christian and espeically the Christian West is better than Islamists and their values are much better than the rest of the world's.
RE: "even the evangelicals are starting to jump ship on Israel" MY COMMENT: Yes, I can vouch for that.
Too busy working on their inner guilt and for their landlord?
The evangelicals needed joooos lots of joooos in the Holy Land for their doomsday prophesy to be fulfilled. Because they have to be right! So they paid and cheered on these imported killers to commit murder and mayhem for them and inevitably we would all face nuclear annihilation. There's the doomsday prophesy come true. Doesn't seem to click with them that it isn't the same if you force it to happen! But anyhow, the heathen Mooslems worship a false God, they incurred God's wrath, that's how the Christians will explain their silence.
MY COMMENT: Yes, I can vouch for that. oh goodie, then you can explain to Saleema and the rest of us how you justified the Arab holocaust in the Holy land?
Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party is behind support for John Hagee's Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Former US Ambassador to US and Yisrael Beiteinu party member Danny Ayalon, under the aegis of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), wrote CUFI's letter promoting the DVD Obsession, the virulently anti-Muslim movie distributed as a freebie to 100s of 1000s of NYT and WaPo readers during the election. The RJC installed one of their own to head and run CUFI under Hagee's banner. [All backup for this available at jewsonfirst.org.] This PR approach is a natural extension of Menachem Begin's decision in the late 70s to hit up the religious right in this country with a campaign that right-wing Jews and right-wing Christians were united because they both despised homosexuality. That's how Begin first formed his alliance with Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms, etc. He used hatred of homosexuality as the bridge between the religious sects. Begin and Yitzak Shamir reached Reagan that way. In fact, they would only talk to Falwell first so that Reagan realized the power of the Christian Right vote. That's how this shit started here. Now it appears hatred of homosexuality isn't going to work anymore as the glue that binds. JPost says it's time to haul out the old canards, the 1700 year persecution against the Jews unless, of course, you read Israel Shahak and find out what Jews were actually doing during those 1700 years, or you read the history of Spain and the Moors when Muslims and assimilated Jews lived in harmony and prosperity until the Catholics wanted supreme power in the late 1400s. Will the circle repeat itself? Who knows. But I think we're in an entirely different age. So different that all the old molds are broken. The shards we discuss we do thinking we're discussing the whole, or at least a good portion of it so we rely on historical references to prove our points-of-view. But the consciousness has changed and this world is manifesting it.
Even the WORD 'israel" makes conscientious people barf. Get rid of Israel. Get rid of Israelis. They have zero right to exist.
Speaking as a former Episcopalian, most mainline Christian churches in the US have replaced serious concern with God and Christian morality with a kind of fuzzy liberalism. This is the sort of thing that infuriates Ed so much. His image of Christianity (which is based on historical reality) would not be concerned with ideological correctness (i.e. "progressive except for Palestine") and would be strong enough to confidently take on Zionists on Christian moral grounds. There are certainly real Christians everywhere who have not looked the other way from Palestine, but they never had the organizational strength to oppose the well-organized Zionists effectively.
I have relatives who are fundamentalist evangelicals, and they are not only silent about Israel's crimes, they appear to actively support them. To some extent, they are not aware of what's really happening, because they've been brainwashed about the Middle East by their pastors, and/or by the books they read about the end times (and also the complicit US media), but if I try to tell them, they don't want to believe me (or they just block it out), because their belief is that the Jews are God's chosen people, that Christians have an obligation to protect Israel, and I suspect (although they have not said this) that they also believe that Muslims are doing the work of the devil. The reason I say that is because, although I'm not Muslim, I'm also not Christian, and they think I'm doing the work of the devil. I find that Christians of the more fundamentalist mindset don't have much compassion for people whom they believe are doing the work of the devil.
I noticed that Blumenthal's 'fear in jerusalem' video on youtube has been pulled. Coincidentally, the ADL teamed up with youtube last year, to 'fight abuse': http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=J...
One would think that if nothing else, Christians in the US would at least feel some sort of relationship with Christian Palestinians.
Christians everywhere abhor palestinian christians who side with Hamas.
Many Israelis like to pretend such a group doesn't exist.
As if you have the right to speak for "Christians everywhere" This Christian sides with Palestinian Christians as well as Hamas. Chew on that. PM
Many non-Arab Christians think that group doesn't exist.
Jim West often challenges Christian Zionism from an evangelical perspective. The preceding hyperlink target includes a link to a relevant Max Blumenthal videoclip.
" justified the Arab holocaust in the Holy land?' Maybe they can justify it because it never happened, nitwit. Will you Zionists please stop lying.
I heard they asked the Iranian government for advsie on how it to censor social networking sites. Because it's not "freedom" if it makes us look bad.
I know. I'm married to one of those "non-existent" Arab Christians.
It depends on whether they are killing IDF cowards.
I've been trying to bring the plight of the Palestinian Christians to the attention of my fundamentalist Christian relatives (and other fundamentalist Christians of my acquaintance), and they don't ever acknowledge what I've said. They just ignore it.
"This is the sort of thing that infuriates Ed so much. His image of Christianity (which is based on historical reality" Ed's "image of Christianity" is based on sentimental media trash and his own fevered imaginings. When has he ever presented us with a place, time and denomination name which represents his "moderate Christian ethic" he prates about? And does it include the Catholics? If it does, how will that go down with the others. Ed is completely full of it. His evocations of a "moderate Christian ethic" which once ruled in conjunction with Constitutional purity is a fantasy, and an old and tired one.