palestine

A Nuanced Look at the Israel Palestine Conflict

Since the inception of the latest explosion of violence between Israel and Hamas, American evangelicals have stridently supported Israel. They instinctively and automatically rush to Israel’s defense whenever Israel is attacked.

I condemn in no uncertain terms the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli civilians. It’s beyond me how anyone can justify the rape, murder, mutilation and kidnapping of civilians, including children and babies.

And I accept that Israel has a right, indeed a duty, to respond to this atrocity be seeking to annihilate Hamas.

But Hamas isn’t synonymous with Palestine, Hamas enjoys the support of less than 50 percent of the population in Gaza, and the Palestinians in that enclave are as much victims of Hamas as are Israeli civilians.

Evangelicals see the Israeli Palestinian conflict in black and white terms, good vs evil, democracy vs terrorism. But the truth is more nuanced, Israel is an apartheid state where Israeli Palestinians face discrimination, and Palestinians in the West Bank live under military occupation and are treated like second-class citizens. As for Gaza it’s basically the world’s largest open-air prison.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an indicted corrupt politician who entered into a coalition government with far-right racists in order to cling to power and avoid conviction and incarceration.

The Palestinian Authority that has nominal control of the West Bank under their Israeli overlords is politically corrupt and has never unequivocally denounced terrorism. If the Palestinian Authority wasn’t so corrupt, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups wouldn’t enjoy so much support.

America must advocate for the rights of the Palestinians to their own homeland as much as we condemn terrorist attacks against Israel. We must be concerned about the innocent Palestinians in Gaza who are being killed by the Israeli war machine as much as we mourn the death of Israeli civilian at the hands of the Hamas monsters.

White Evangelicals Rejoice Whenever Violence Breaks Out Between Israelis and Palestinians

A few weeks ago, when the Middle East tinderbox predictably once again exploded into open warfare between Israel and Hamas, people of all faiths around the world were horrified by the tribal and religious violence.

But not everybody was shocked by the thousands of rockets fired by Hamas militants into civilian population centers or by the disproportionate Israeli air strikes that devastated the impoverished Gaza Strip.

Millions of people in the United States rejoiced at the obscene display of violence, and it wasn’t anarchists or Satanists who welcomed the bloodshed.

White evangelicals who ostensibly are followers of Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace welcomed the violence.

Evangelical pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, basked in orgiastic glee at the violence in the Middle East. “The rapture of the church is imminent” he thundered “If you’re not ready, get ready, because we’re getting ready to leave this world.”

Evangelicals are unmoved and unconcerned by the cyclical explosions of violence in the Middle East, every time Israel and the Palestinians go to war they pray and hope that it will usher the Rapture of the Church.

Violence in the Holy Land is no reason to rejoice, and it doesn’t mean that Jesus Is going to rapture racist white evangelicals out of this world and meet them in the heavens.

Proof that the evangelical eschatology is misguided and unbiblical is that it leads them to rejoice every time war breaks out between Palestinians and Israelis.

Palestinians Ill Served by Hamas and Israeli Regime!

“Responding to calls by evangelical leaders to designate this Sunday as a Global Day of Prayer for Peace and Security in the Middle East, many churches across the United States are praying for peace in Israel as a week of violence in the region is being described as the worst since 2014.

Christian Post

Israel looms large in the eschatology of evangelicals, they believe that the final battle between the forces of good and evil will take place in Megiddo, pitting God’s anointed Israel against Egypt, Russia, Iran, Turkey and most of the Arab nations.

Every evangelical worth his salt swears that Jehovah hates gays and lesbians, religious minorities and that He will bless those who bless Israel, and curse those who curse Israel.

The evangelicals Israel-centric theology gives the Prime Minister of Israel carte blanche to subjugate Palestinians, steal their land and treat them like 3rd class citizens without losing the support of American evangelicals.

The current Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, is an indicted tyrant who presides over an apartheid regime, but that’s kosher with evangelicals because they unequivocally support the Zionist state.

The Rev. Johnnie Moore, president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, called upon evangelicals and others around the world, to pray for Israelis & Palestinians victimized by Hamas terrorists.

Hamas is a terrorist organization that uses Palestinian civilians as a shield, and they indiscriminately fire rockets at Israel, but Israel provoked this latest cycle of bloodshed by trying to evict Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem and by lobbing tear gas at Muslims praying at the Al-Aqsa mosque.

How about praying for the Israeli and Palestinians victims of violence in the land of Palestine? How about not supporting the terrorist Hamas organization and the apartheid regime of Israel?

There won’t be peace in Israel until the Israeli government realizes that Palestinians and Israelis are the children of God, and both tribes deserve to live in peace and equality in the Holy Land.