The Historical Roots of Christian Zionism, its Theological Basis and Political Agenda

Thank You Dagmar good afternoon everybody thank you again for joining us here today my name is Mohammed Mohammed I'm the executive director here at the Jerusalem fund and Palestine Center it's always a pleasure to have you here and it's a pleasure to have everybody watching online as always please if you could silence your cellphone's so we could avoid any interruptions before we get started before I introduced our distinguished speaker I just wanted to point your attention you might have seen some of these Flyers on your chairs next week on Friday the November 2nd the Jerusalem Jerusalem fund here is hosting a conference for the Holy Land Christian economical Foundation which is co-sponsored with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and it's going to be a great event there's many speakers many great speakers that are going to be attending and there is a 15 dollar registration fee but for everybody here today we're waiving that so if you're interested we would love to have you here it's Friday and Saturday so you'll see the registration forms on your chairs if you're interested we please come out and join us where's if we add back there is Carroll Monica Burnett if you have any questions about that conference she'll be more than happy to help you and then please give the registration forms to her and we would love to have you here and we hope to see you here yep and you can see the program is one of them is the program so you could see the speakers and again it would be great to have you here so of course it's an honor to introduce today our distinguished speaker the Reverend dr. Steven sizer who'll be giving a talk today titled the historical roots of Christian Zionism its theological basis and political agenda today dr. sizer will discuss how the movement of Christian Zionism proceeded Jewish Zionism by at least 50 years and facilitated the establishment of the State of Israel his presentation will explore how Christian Zionism has solidified the neo-colonial political agenda of Jewish Zionism since that time with around 100 million devotees it is he argues both the dominant and most destructive expression of Zionism today so I just wanted to give a little bit of background and information about dr. sizer I think it's impossible to give justice to dr. cisors qualifications and good works without taking up half of the time here today I consider him one of the top faith-based advocates in solidarity with Palestinian rights anywhere in the world he's also a leading expert on Christian Zionism which is the subject of his books numerous articles academic work and speeches dr. sizer is the founder and director of peacemaker trust a registered charity in the UK which is dedicated to peacemaking especially where minorities are persecuted where justice is denied human rights are suppressed or reconciliation is needed dr. sizer was ordained in the Church of England in 1983 he was appointed the vicar of Virginia waters Surrey in 1997 where he served for 20 years until 2017 for over 25 years he was a trustee of biblical Europe International Bible Society and served as a trustee director and committee member of friends of Sabeel UK livingstone also Livingstone's of the Holy Land Trust Christ at the checkpoint conferences and the Balfour project an indication of dr. cisors effectiveness as an advocate for justice is how severely he has been maligned by supporters of and the a Paula gist for Israeli Apartheid and he has paid a price for that so we thank you for all of your work thank you very much and please join me in giving a very warm welcome to dr. sizer it's a real delight to be with you today thank you for coming as Mohamed said we're going to be looking at the historical roots theological basis and political consequences or political agenda of Christian Zionism and I'm going to be major on the political agenda because I think that's what we are going to be most concerned about but I'd like to give you a little bit of an introduction to its origins and the basis of its beliefs the question is why is there such a close relationship between the United States and Israel why is the United States the target of so much criticism has put it mildly in much of the Middle East and the wider world why is is the United States seen as in many ways the enemy of Islam well the arab-israeli conflict has been the longest running dispute in the hands of the United Nations it's been the most frequently debated UN issue about 60% of UN resolutions have had something to do with Israel or its its interests it's the most pervasive religious conflicts in the world it brings Jews Christians Muslims Druze in conflict with each other and has done so for decades it is the most dangerous military conflict we have chemical biological and nuclear weapons loose in Israel Palestine today and it's the most controversial media story you don't need me to convince you that and it's being perpetuated by misguided Christians and that's why we're here give you a definition and and there are a number we could do but this is this is a helpful one from Professor John Wagner in his book anxious for Armageddon he says that Christian Zionism is a movement within Protestant Christianity that views the modern State of Israel as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy that's deserving our unconditional economic moral political and Theological support well where does this movement come from the roots of Zionism lie in in the Puritan and the Puritan movement and the consequences of the Reformation Puritan views of the world included at the conviction that the Jewish people had a place in God's purposes that they would come to faith in Jesus and be returned to the land of Palestine as a Christian nation people at Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield were leading exponents of this belief that the gospel would triumph against evil in the world and that God's blessings of peace and prosperity were related to the conversion of Israel prior to the return of Christ in the beginning of the 19th century the first proto Christian Zionist movement was formed we would call it restoration ISM it was called the London Zoo Society founded in 1808 with the purpose of relieving the suffering of Jewish people particularly in London in East London hence the London Jew society but alongside that was the conviction that it was the destiny of the church to identify the Jewish community around the world and assist their return to the land and so Joseph Wolfe was one of the early missionaries of the London Jew society and he traveled extensively in Asia searching for the Lost Tribes of Israel he was a little eccentric but you may like to explore that further but alongside that we have leading evangelicals in Britain people like Charles Simeon convinced that the Jewish people would be would be restored to the land but in union with the church meaning one people of God made up of Jews and Gentiles this was the dominant view with an evangelicalism in the early 19th century now several things happened that knocked that aspiration and the first was the rise of Napoleon and the the growth of the French Empire right across Europe from from Egypt up to up to Russia blockading the British seaports and calling himself the King of Kings he was seen as an antichrist figure but in 1799 Napoleon was the first world ruler in 2,000 years to promise the Jews a homeland a Napoleon saw the return of the Jews to the land as of strategic significance in his own attempt to control the world and he thought that a compliant Jewish community back in the land would assist his expansionist plans for the world now Napoleon was unable to deliver but his proclamation became the barometer to the extent to which European atmosphere was charged with messianic expectations and where Napoleon failed Britain succeeded and the the the movement really began to take hold through a group of Christian politicians and church leaders called the Aubrey circle they met in Albury in Surrey in the home of of I've had a momentary senior moment Henry Drummond he was a high sheriff of Surrey he was an MP and he called together a group of politicians and senior church leaders to speculate about what was going to happen clearly Napoleon had ruffled the feathers of politicians in Britain and other countries and and this group of church leaders and political leaders were convinced that Britain had a manifest destiny that included controlling the Middle East and returning the Jews to Palestine in the belief that they would assist Britain in its colonial endeavors and out of that group we find some notable individuals John Nelson Darby was the founder of the Brethren and in his particular theological framework he saw the church and Israel as separate peoples he believed that the Jewish people back in the land would become God's earthly people and that the church will be raptured to heaven as God's heavenly people and so he took promises from the Hebrew Scriptures and applied him to the Jews passages that related to the church were seen as separate indeed dobby argued that the church was a parenthesis to God's continuing purposes for Israel now one of the politicians who took these view seriously was Lord Shaftesbury Lord Shaftesbury founded a Palestine exploration fund which was used British army officers to map Palestine in preparation for the return of the Jews to the land he helped to plant a bishop an Anglican bishop in Jerusalem it had to be Jewish in the belief that he would be the bishop of the church among the Jews when they were restored to the land as good Anglicans now Shaftesbury forgive me for my British satire Shastri was a very influential in in furthering this cause in 1839 1840 he was lobbying extensively among other senior British political figures for the return of the Jews to Palestine because it for the expedient reason that it furthered and assisted Britain in its colonial plans for the Middle East and when Lord Palmerston married shaft whose widowed mother in-law he saw this as a providential sign that he had access to Lord Palmerston he said he's been chosen by God to be an instrument for good to his ancient people to do homage to their inheritance and to recognize their rights without believing their destiny certainly Shastri thought he knew what that destiny was and they took out he took out page adverts in the London Times 1840 calling for the restoration of the Jews and calling upon European leaders to assist in this endeavor indeed Theodore Herzl phrase aloud of no people for people without a land was actually coined by Shastri fifty years earlier when he naively said a country without a nation for a nation without a country and at the first World Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897 there were three Christian leaders who were representative of the fledgling Christian Zionist movement and one of them was William Hessler he was the Anglican chaplain at the VA at the Embassy in Vienna clearly a strategic location and he wrote the restoration of the Jews to Palestine two years before Hertz was the Jewish state and in Herzl own diary he concedes the assistance and the influence William Herschel had upon his own ideas in his diary for 1896 10th of March he says the Reverend William Herschel a chaplain of the English Embassy came to see me a sympathetic gentle fellow with a long gray beard of a prophet he's enthusiastic about my solution for the Jewish Question he also can visit my movement a prophetic turning point which he had foretold two years before ashley was convinced the Jews would go back to the land in 1897 based on his eccentric reading of Daniel and other other books of your Testament but this is the key point I want to make Herzl admits that William Harris said we we Christians have prepared the ground for you Ashley said triumphantly I take him as a naive visionary he gives me excellent advice full of unmistakable genuine goodwill he is at once clever and mystical cunning and naive everything you look for in a good anglican priest now Ashley kept his word because hash lefur silat ated are the opportunities for for Herzl and his colleagues to have access to the Grand Duke of Baden a German Kaiser William and British political establishment and it was through that that Herzl was and along with chime Weitzman were introduced to leading British politicians so that when the Balfour Declaration was published in October 1917 the reality was that shot Balfour had actually asked the Zionist movement to prepare the draft and the draft was prepared in July 1917 Balfour was a disciple of this movement he was convinced that it was Britain's destiny to return the Jews to Palestine and you can see the difference between the two versions Britain a Balfour amended the the Jewish draft because he regarded Britain as having the prerogative so the distinctive difference was that Britain was promising the Jewish people a home in Palestine not Palestine as the home and there's a significant difference between the definite article and the absence thereof and you'll see in the the scientists version they felt that it was the responsibility of Britain to achieve what they were expecting well Britain did not deliver on that promise and the reason for that is because Britain had another agenda Britain had agreed with the French even before the end of the first world war that they were going to carve up the Middle East between their two empires and in this is actually one of the most honors statements by a British politician ever but it was in a in a letter so it was never made public until somewhat later but this is what he said in a letter to Lord Curzon he said for in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting their wishes of the present inhabitants of that country that four great powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism be at right or wrong good or bad is rooted in age long traditions in present needs in future hopes of far profound import than the desires or prejudices of the present inhabitants of that ancient land and then he said this so far as Palestine is concerned the powers have made no statement of fact which has not admittedly wrong and no declaration of policy which at least in the letter they haven't always intended to violate okay duplicity and that's because we'd agreed with the French we were going to split the Middle East between our two empires we needed the Zionists to help us achieve an end to the First World War chime Weitzman was a chemist at Manchester University David Lord George said he was Weitzman's proselyte acetone converted me to Zionism Weitzman was working on synthetic TNT which he gave to Britain to help defeat the Germans and Zionism was the payback for that but when Britain was unable to fulfill the aspirations of the Zionists as well as maintain their promise to the Arabs that their rights would be respected the patent plan was Britain's attempt at an exit strategy giving three parts of Palestine to the Jews and three parts to the Arabs air has been given half of what they already had they rejected it the Jews being offered half of what they didn't have accepted it and as they say the rest was history I'm not going to go into a lot more detail about the history but I want to bring us up to date and acknowledge that in 1976 in the election of Jimmy Carter we have the first born-again president explicitly so convinced that the return of that used to the land was the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy a year later Menachem Begin was elected and you have this coalition emerging between the Christian Right and the Zionist right brokered by Jerry Falwell for 50 years between 1967 and 2017 he becomes the leading advocate within the Christian community on behalf of Israel promising to mobilize 70 million conservative Christians and 200,000 church leaders for Israel when Ronald Reagan was elected when Carter vacillated over the settlement program I think he used the word Armageddon about eight times in his campaign speeches he was convinced the end of the world was coming and that what was happening in his lifetime was the fulfillment of prophecy George Bush jr. had a very similar convictions the guy was telling him what to do and he was convinced that he would be the one to bring about a resolution of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis but each of them consistently have always taken the Zionist line even Barack Obama on his first day in office he attended an AIPAC meeting to reassure the the Israel lobby that Israel security was sacrosanct and to bring it up to date your present a present president seen by evangelicals as their dream president reuniting Israel and America Jerry Falwell last week said to try and and explain his commitment to the president's second service when Christians need to stop electing nice guys they might make great Christian leaders but the US needs street fighters like real Donald Trump at every level of government because the liberal fascist domes are playing for keeps and many Republicans leaders are a bunch of wimps this is a Christian leader talking about rather disrespectfully of your politicians now the pure reformed Pew Forum for religion says that we're dealing with twenty to forty million active members my point is really here that Zionism is predominantly a Christian political movement not a Jewish one I would argue that nine out of ten Zionists today are Christians the unity coalition for Israel I'm still have 40 million active members and John Hagee has access to over 19 million Christian Americans on a weekly basis the Pew Forum for religion found that 25% of American Christians believe it's their responsibility to support Israel and when you look at white evangelicals it's over 60% now there are three different strands there are the Messianic Christian Zionists whose primary objective as as it was for for Charles Simeon and the early restorationist to assist the sharing of the good news of Jesus with Jewish people so hence Jews for Jesus but in their own on their own website they talked about out signing the Zionists and then we have the the problematic ones I would call them the apocalyptic Christian Zionists they're the ones that sell the books and and they have a very apocalyptic and destructive view of the future and then we have them are pragmatic political Zionists Christian Zionists who operate here on the hill among your politicians and seek to lobby on behalf of Israel so there are at least three different strands of this movement it is complex it is volatile and I'm going to be majoring on those I regard as the most influential and we get to their political agenda very briefly their theological basis is based on a very literalistic view of the Bible every reference in the Bible to Israel has a literal fulfillment and if it has not yet been fulfilled then it will be fulfilled hence the promises are relating to the extent of the land and the return of the Jews to the land their exclusive claim to Jerusalem and the temple are applied to today almost as if the coming of Jesus was irrelevant because the promises apply because they have not yet been fulfilled on the basis of that the Jews are regarded as God's chosen people and when either has a subtle dual covenant theology that says God has two chosen peoples Israel in the church and some parts of the Bible or later the Jews some perhaps relate to Church or here in the States dispensationalism argues that the church will disappear will go to heaven and the chair and the Jewish people will be God's chosen people on earth through the through the millennium and on into the future in fact Darby argued that never the twain shall meet in eternity to eternally to eternal peoples with a different destiny Jerusalem their eternal capital the temple convinced it's going to be rebuilt there's a strong antipathy theologically toward Arabs and toward Islam and this conviction that there will be a final battle an apocalyptic war in the future in the imminent future in which God will obviously be on the side of the church in Israel now we're going to unpack that in in in my third part of this morning's presentation which looks at their political agenda and I want to begin by looking at Christian Scientists from a Jewish perspective and here's a good quote from 2012 from Benjamin Netanyahu he said this I don't believe that the Jewish states and modern Zionism would have been possible without Christian Zionism we value our friends and we never forget them and we think that you have helped establish here a powerful memorial to our friendship and our common ideals and I think this is the reason why as inés friends are so antagonistic toward those who challenge their agenda because they realize they depend heavily on the Christian Zionist lobby two influential politicians and to pay the bills John Hagee founded Christians United for Israel and he has taken over from Jerry phulwa is the pastor of Cornerstone a church in San Antonio Texas 20,000 members on a weekly basis and as I said access to 90 million or more Christian Americans on a weekly basis for radio and TV he said this recently the sleeping giant of Christian Zionism was awakened there are 50 million Christians standing up in applauding Israel think of our future together 50 million evangelicals joining in common cause with five million Jewish people in America on behalf of Israel it's a match made in heaven what is their political agenda well it follows closely their theology and it begins here in Washington with a strong emphasis on lobbying your senators and congressmen and the White House and in the State Department these are some of the organizations that are active here on the hill Christian Friends of Israel International Christian embassy bridges for peace Jerusalem prayer team Christians United for Israel over 200 different Christian Zionist organizations were founded since 1980 there is a plethora of these organizations and they are zealous and diligent in in in lobbying on behalf of Israel now I know that over the last 20 or 30 years there have been oblivion u.s. president challenged the lobby was George Bush Senior and he came under such attack he said this and remember this is the President of the United States he said there are a thousand lobbyists up on the hill today lobbying Congress for loan guarantees for Israel and I am one lonely little guy down here asking Congress to delay the consideration of loan guarantees for 120 days he just was asking for a freeze for three months but he felt he may be exaggerating but he certainly felt isolated and I suspect every single president you've had will feel the same these are just a couple of examples you're well very familiar with the Washington report but I commend the Israel lobby if you want to know more about their activities here in influencing u.s. foreign policy the second element of their strategy out of the conviction that the Jews are God's chosen people is that international so international Christian organizations are active in assisting Jewish people from Russia and Eastern Europe and other parts of the world Africa to return as they see it will make aliyah to Israel and the International Christian embassy for example has funded over 50,000 Jews from Russia to make alia and to return to Israel and the process they go through is that they'll visit remote regions of the former Soviet Union they'll identify Jewish communities they will show them idyllic videos of life in Israel they will help them identify themselves as Jews help them again they're the documents they need they will then transport them feed them clothe them ship them and help them settle back as they see it in the occupied territories and the settlements and the International Christian embassy is just one of a number of organizations that are active in doing this exabytes founded in 1991 is majoring on work in the Ukraine they work in 13 countries and they are transporting over a thousand Jews on a on a monthly basis back to Israel third element of their strategy is that they are active in supporting the illegal Jewish settlements the entity key organization in this regard Christian friends of Israeli communities this the use of language their Israeli communities was founded in 1996 and they have been active initially in encouraging churches to adopt settlements and although you may think that's a bit eccentric if your church has got 20,000 members and you're adopting a settlement of a hundred members you can see where the power lies on the influence and the money and the prayers and the visits here's another example of a tour you can go on in March if you wish with Christian friends of Israeli communities and and and encounter and meet with the settlers they're also active in raising money for the settlements you're invited to join Gideon's army one of their initiatives for example was providing a bullet proof bus for the Efrat settlement to help ship their settlers in and out of the settlement their race one hundred and fifty thousand pounds for an armor-plated bus it's just one example you can give to this organization and help them plant trees in the settlements why I don't know because there's plenty of trees they uproot from the Palestinian communities and you can buy extra virgin olive oil from the settlements and help defeat BDS another of the organizations involved here in the States is the Messianic Jewish Israel fund raising money to buy properties or to build properties for settlers to take more and more of Palestine probably most controversial the most recent has been their campaign to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem the International Christian embassy was founded in 1980 with the express purpose of of campaigning for the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem and the building that they purchased to achieve that with Edward Said's family home and you can visit the International Christian embassy today and here they are well II and logic for what they do on behalf of the church but the campaign as you know has succeeded and now the US Embassy is in Jerusalem and not in Tel Aviv and the consulates and east and west in effect have been closed that was supported by a number of other countries or very small countries perhaps compliant on US aid but the third category here are the ones that are most vulnerable Canada is considering moving its embassy and and Australia in particular and the fact is that it's probably going to happen and as more countries move their embassies to Jerusalem in effect the pressure is on others to do the same either the carrot or the stick will be used to achieve that and in a sense it ends any notion of there might be a two-state solution more controversial still Christian Zionists are active in supporting the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem Gershon Salomon it's a guest of honor at many churches in the United States his movement is committed to rebuilding the Jewish temple in place of the Dome of the rock and on an annual basis in the in July at the Jewish day of the year when they remember the destruction of the temple Toshiba have I think it is they bring to the temple the cornerstones to lay for the new Jewish temple he said this recently the mission of the present generation is to liberate the Temple Mount and remove I repeat remove the defiling abomination there the Jewish people will not be stopped at the gates leading to the Temple Mount and in the London Times in an interview he said the Israeli government must do it we must have a war there'll be many nations against us but God will be our general and I am sure this is a test that God is expecting us to remove the dome with no fear from other nations and he said this the Messiah will not come by himself we should bring him by fighting it is the logic of the zealots of the first century and here are the cornerstones to Shahab of the Day of Remembrance and mourning this articulated lorry with the four cornerstones goes through Jerusalem to the Temple Mount and the Israeli Supreme Court has given them permission to lay the stones on the Temple Mount and it's only the the police the the Muslim police who control the the the what have refused to allow them in each year but that is their agenda another colleague of theirs is Yehuda Glick there was a Knesset member and he is committed to ensuring that the Knesset approves equal rights for Jews to pray on the Temple Mount he regularly takes large numbers of Israeli Jews and settlers in particular onto the Temple Mount to assert their right to pray his Temple Mount Heritage Foundation is is a very controversial movement but popular within right-wing circles in Israel this is just a picture to show you how a coup fight the Christians United for Israel perceive the Temple Mount you'll notice a certain building is missing from the middle and and these authors Randall price and Thomas ice have written numerous books about the coming temple that will be rebuilt it's a question of when not whether and the summon book is the absence of if you know your Book of Leviticus at the absence of the red heifer bit because Leviticus insists before you can start to offer animal sacrifices you have to purify the high priest the altar and the utensils and therefore for the last two thousand years they have been looking for a perfect red heifer and they're a group of farmers in Mississippi Clyde lot is one he founded the cane and restoration incorporated with the express purpose of breeding a perfect red heifer and at the moment it is there are there are there is speculation that in the gallery region there is a perfect red heifer but we will wait to see if you see a red heifer on the front of time or Newsweek you'll know what's going to happen next but I bought this picture in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem that is the aspiration as you may know Jewish people Orthodox Jews pray three times a day that the temple will be rebuilt in their lifetime and it's largely being driven by Christians there is a sadly a strong antipathy to Islam and a peace price post peace process within Christian Zionism these are just examples with some of the books that sell very well in in Christian book shops that demonize Islam and Arabs and you may remember in 2008 in 70 newspapers this video was was distributed twenty-eight million copies were distributed in the swing states the states that they were afraid might go to the Democrats to ensure that a Christian Zionist agenda was fulfilled just a couple of quotes from Franklin Graham son of Billy Graham he said this in the Charlotte Observer the Arabs will not be happy until every Jew is dead they hate the State of Israel they all hate the Jews God gave the land to the Jews the Arabs will never accept that and then more recently in the last couple of weeks he said Islam is a threat to our very life and calling for a halt to all immigration of Muslims to this country if they come here from a country that has Islamic fundamentalist terrorist cells hence the campaigning to restrict the the access to the United States by Muslims and then finally they are fermenting and apocalyptic war this is why it gets serious and there are it's a it's a mannequin view of the world the good guys and the bad guys and of course America's on the good side and so you found books by people like Mark Hitchcock and Mike Evans claiming that the destiny of the world is in the hands of the United States because God is blessing America and America is destined to fulfill a role if you go to the Amazon review of the American prophecies you'll find a rather enigmatic review of the book in which it's acknowledged that the number of biblical references are rather sparse in a book a book about the American prophecies in the Bible but not to be outdone he's now written a book called the presidents in prophecy suggesting that your presidents are mentioned in the Bible that's one side the other side is attempts to read into contemporary history the Bible there so for example during the first Gulf War sanim Essene was Saddam Hussein was seen as the Antichrist the the the the successor to Nebuchadnezzar the only Arab leader who'd ever defeated the Jews in history and on the back cover of the book it says they even look the same during the Second Gulf War slight tweak a sudden looks ahead but my Harris but then after his demise the book gets a new cover and if you look very carefully you'll see that's that Osama bin Laden has replaced sedima same and when said him when Osama bin Laden was removed Almudena gen took his role there must be a demonic figure an antichrist figure to scare the children at Halloween and I'm being sorry I'm not being very serious I'm sorry the problem for me is that too many people take this book seriously that's the problem and probably the most influential where's Tim LaHaye is the left behind the left behind movies not just a novel but eight novels not just eight novels but the children's versions PlayStation games you know his PlayStation games were sent to u.s. military in Afghanistan and Iraq the belief that there will be a number of people left behind after the church is raptured they'll become Christians and they will take on the enemy and the enemy as the United Nations the enemy is the United Nations in New York hence the film binding with Nicolas Cage thankfully it was a flock but these are the books that sell in Christian bookstores they are as great health saucers forcing God's hand that's why I use an apple and not Microsoft it's decided to restart for some reason can we getting windows ready don't turn off your computer here we go I've almost finished and I think because this is gonna take a while I'm going to just close with a couple of quotes that were on there that you'll have to take my word or in part on my powerpoint this is a quote from Pat Robertson he said he warned that if the United States wants to interfere with Bible prophecy and wants to move in and rest East Jerusalem away from the Jews and give it to Yasser Arafat this was in 2002 having helped this nation of ours if the United States takes East Jerusalem back and makes it the capital the Palestinian state we are asking for the wrath of God and this is a quote from John Hagee he said the United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West a biblically prophesied endtime confrontation with Iran which will lead to the rapture tribulation the second coming of Christ they are pathological about believing in the end of the world because they're going to be raptured to heaven and all hell will break loose for the rest of us who are left the danger of this theology in my view is that it is not just fatalistic but it's just like the chicken little story it's contagious thank you very much for your patience thank you dr. sizer thank you so much for a great presentation we're gonna take questions now please if you could keep it to an actual question and brief into the point anybody that's online you could tweet your questions to at Palestine Center thank you so much I'm Mimi Kirk I'm with the organization of Palestinian think-tank all - Ibaka I wanted to ask you about young evangelicals and what I've read lately is that there is some movement in terms of questioning these kinds of documents in book rhetoric ideology do you have that sense as well and what are some ways in which that's happening and that we can encourage that too thank you I think the social media is the key you know until maybe 10 20 years ago we were heavily dependent on the Maine's mainstream media and TV programs that were largely controlled by significant individuals who use their their money and their influence to shape opinion public opinion younger generation are much more savvy with Twitter with Facebook with other social media and therefore that they have friends in Palestine they have friends in Israel other countries there they're receiving daily updates on you know what's happening on the on the ground on in the street and therefore they're much more savvy and much more skeptical of what they're fed by by leading politicians and these so-called Christian leaders so I'm hopeful that a change is occurring and I think the best way to achieve that is to encourage folks to go and see for themselves get out there and meet the people and and have their opinion formed by first-hand experience and personal encounters so there is a change and I think that's why some of our Christian Zionist leaders are becoming more desperate in their rhetoric and more and what antagonistic and more more apocalyptic they realize time's running out the sojourner blog site is covering this issue with statistics and good good insight into the people they work with I'm Tom gettin a former soldier and a board member thank you I thanks for a great presentation I'm wondering how these Christian Zionists how do they actually view the Christian Palestinians how do they do they just ignore them or pretend they don't exist or just pretend that because they are Palestinian that they're I mean yeah how do they deal with their existence basically thank you it depends if they are aware that they exist they see themselves as God's chosen people and therefore they look to the Palestinians with deep mistrust they assume all Palestinians are Muslim that's that's a typical response but to be charitable I see the comparison with the way that church ministry went hand in hand with colonialism here in the States as it did in South Africa and they're quite comfortable with sharing the Christian message with the Native Americans or with blacks or with whoever the Chinese however as long as it didn't interfere with their political agenda and so they may acknowledge a Palestinian church but it's subservient to what they believe is God's destiny for the Jewish people in the land so they are they would be regarded as as subservient people to God's chosen people they're not seen as equal they're not seen as having the same rights thank you very much my question is about the tension between rhetoric and political reality and national interest you mentioned that early on in the 19th century and going into the twentieth century the British thrust before that Napoleon but the British thrust and support of British trust for Zionism was based on their colonial enterprise and to advance it and so on similarly that would see to apply to the United States and we could take as an example Jimmy Carter a born-again evangelical Christian and so on you put up the quote from him but when he became president he took into consideration the national interest and actually succeeded in advancing some kind of reconciliation between the Arabs and the Jews and since has been called anti-semitic and so on you know because of his disorder similarly with George Bush now let's take Donald Trump he says many things at different times but ultimately he's trying to seek the national interest whether it's America first or whatever in some way so if he were at some point to turn somewhat and say that there has to be a two-state solution put pressure on Israel it seems to me that a lot of his evangelical followers would follow him in this regard because in the end and this is an important fact that you saw cite large numbers but the question is in terms of their priorities where does the Zionism thing stand is it more important than Church state issues in the United States abortion rights judge Kavanagh and so on and so forth and the fact that Trump is a charismatic leader for these people and they will figure out a way to support him whatever he does I don't think that will happen I am NOT as optimistic perhaps as you on that I think that the Zionist lobby is more permanent than your US presidents and the influence they can have and therefore I think if if they detected a minuscule shift in in Trump's agenda they will be putting pressure on him in the same whether they put pressure on clinton and george w jr. and some and barack obama they would be putting pressure on them through people like john hagee as they did with jerry falwell when netanyahu fell out with clinton Netanyahu came to the states and met with Jerry Falwell first who then Lobby the President to twist his arm to to comply with what Netanyahu wanted so I don't have a great optimism that your president will be able to do anything constructively but in the national interest it must surely be to uphold international law and to work with multilaterally with other nations to bring about a just and lasting settlement that respects the rights of Palestinians my reading is that the lobby has been trying to draw the United States into a war first in Syria and now likely with Iran too it will fulfill an agenda that may comply with what Saudi Arabia wants or Israel wants but it certainly is not in the national interest of the United States I think I'm not in charge thank you my name is hey Derek ed I'm a Palestinian journalist I have a very quick question yeah you talked about the rise of Christian Zionism here in America and you know how omnipresent it is what about other European countries let's say in England in France and Germany in another places how is that taking place now thank you thank you the Christian Zionist movement is very influential in other European countries South Africa and Sweden and in Germany particularly and and in the UK but clearly not as influential as it is over here in the States but I think that's because you have a preponderance of independent churches television evangelists you have people who have significant influence through the media within church circles and you have a much higher proportion of people that a church on a weekly basis than we do in Europe or somewhat we're a much more secular society and so they the lobby has worked at probably working much more closely with political groups than it is with churches but they've certainly neutralized the mainstream denominations from expressing much in a way of criticism of Israeli policy they're very very few clergy that I'm aware of in Europe who speak out on this subject I've been have survived speaking out on this subject but it that way I had I had well two very brief questions well all right when you mentioned that Zionism was predominantly Christian can you tell me can you go over what the context was that statement I was making the statement simply purely based on on the democratic figures demographic figures that are asserted by Christian Zionist leaders and and one has to ask why on almost any issue you'll find leading u.s. politicians take different viewpoints but on the issue of Israel there is a deafening silence from congressmen or senators who were willing to speak out on Israel Palestine so that to me suggests that the lobby is very influential and we can't blame it on the Jewish minority in this country it's predominantly the Christian community who who have shaped this movement historically and in its contemporary format thank you another question yes I can multitask yes yes uh my name is Ronald Wilson with Harvard University my question is do you uh what do you see as the ultimate resolution and the Palestinian issues that that that are currently being it being negotiated on all that Palestine is embroiled in right now can you just repeat that place yes how do you see the as the ultimate outcome of the Palestinian problem thank you i I used the simple analogy which I use with with children in schools when we talk about this imagine you've gone to see your grandmother you're a child you gone to the grandmother she spoiled you rotten and she gives you the sweet jar and she set a cookie jar if that's what you call it and she says have a sweet dear and you stick your hand in that jar you're a greedy little kid and you take three sweets and the problem is you can't get your hand out of the jar you've got your hand in the jar and you've got three sweets and what are you going to do about it you've got your hand stuck you've got three sweets you can't eat them you can't enjoy them what are the three sweets Israel's got his hand in the cookie jar and he wants three things it wants to be a democracy a Jewish state and have the land the West Bank the Golan Gaza wants to be a democracy Jewish state and have the land and it can only have two of the three okay only two of the three I'll come back to this quote it once two of the three and it can only have two to get his hand out and enjoy them it can be a Jewish state and a democracy by giving up the West Bank two-state solution international law in 1967 borders sovereign contiguous independent Palestinian state but it would have to give up the settlements have to reverse the annexation of East Jerusalem annexed settlements so will Israel give up the settlements no way so the two-state solution is dead what's the alternative give up being a Jewish state equal rights Palestinians Israelis one state or a federation equal rights full Democratic civil legal social rights the one state solution would mean giving up being a Jewish state is they're willing to give up being a Jewish state not at the moment so what's the alternative well it's not a democracy it's in all the land and it wants to be a Jewish state giving preference to Jewish people so it's not a democracy and that's why BDS is so important because it's a non-violent civil rights way individuals and groups can exert pressure on Israel to choose one of the other two one state or two so obviously got to be shared it's obviously got to be by agreement with the Palestinians but that's the dilemma it's got its hand in the jar and it won't choose in the hope that the choice we made by other people but your funding that keeps the enterprise going and in the hope that the Palestinians will give up and leave let me just give you a couple of more quotes because I wanted to bring it to a crescendo this is a quote from John Hagee he said this recently it is 1938 Iran is Germany Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler we must stand we must stop Iran's nuclear threat and samberly with Israel Iran is a clear and present danger of the United States of America and Israel it is time for our country to consider a military preemptive strike against Iran if they were not yield to diplomacy so these Christian leaders are pushing your your president and your your government into an apocalyptic war with Iran and now notwithstanding that you may or may not have an Kota on your fan list but she is a New York Times best seller writer and she's very influential she she said this after 9/11 we should invade their country's killer leaders and convert them to Christianity we weren't punctilious about locating and punishing any Hitler we carpet-bomb German cities we kill civilians that's war and this is war I wanted to end with that because that to me epitomizes where Christian Zionism is leading your country and mine and and that I believe is the if you like the political agenda of this movement it began in Britain and is now being perpetuated here largely in the United States more questions that was just my way of ending had had the Machine not I I write a gent imposed it's a form of literary peace through justice activism do you have you posted on the net or written handy synopsis of what you presented here that I could disseminate with a poor word yes of course everything I've ever written is on on the web and and the lobby doesn't tend to challenge or tackle what I say if you don't like the message you shoot the messenger and so you'll find some very nasty things that about me on the internet that are not true but they very rarely challenge what I've actually written and what I say the I'll just give you the website where you can access this material it's basically Stephen sizer calm and there we are Stephen sizer calm my PhD thesis you can access on Amazon or you can access most of the text from my website on the books Christian Zionism was my PhD thesis if you're interested more in the theology of how to deconstruct Christian Zionism then my book science Christian soldiers is what I would recommend and it's available on Amazon in Kindle format because they put pressure on my publisher who decided not to publish my books now but you can access at my Kindle and again you can access it entirely from my website for free anyway and if you are interested in a summary I was speaking at some Mark's Church last night and there is a very short summary of the theological distinctives of Christian Zionism which is available too so you can access what I've written on the internet ok my name is Mary knows Nick and I have a question maybe for the audience it to what extent is what Hagee's doing actually theology versus actually being a voice those feel like the Israeli playlist to me what he's saying and to what extent is he functioning not as a preacher but as a voice of a foreign entity and to what extent is there even a Mike Evans who writes these books are these real people or are they part of a psyops because they really feel that real people there's real there really isn't Mike Adams oh yeah no I've met some of them and I wouldn't necessarily want to meet them again we put this film together with God on our side calm and it's a brilliant film in which some of these individuals are interviewed and they tell you what they think you know John Hagee talks about the wall and he says sure it's a pain to get through if you're a Palestinian like you know you really empathize don't you so I'd recommend the film with god on our site you can get that on YouTube I assume people believe what they say I assume people that Hagee believe what they're saying I assume they have a measure of integrity my understanding their theology is that it has come out of a misunderstanding of the promises God made to Abraham that are applied to the Jewish people today I'll bless those who bless you curse those who curse you all nations on earth will be blessed through you they take promises like that and say God is blessing America because we look after the Jewish people so don't knock it and they believe that their prosperity and their health and their their destiny their future is written not in the stars but in the Bible and therefore they believe that is their worldview so that they're in that bubble if you like they are they are secure they never have to engage with Iran they never have to visit Palestine they can make pronouncements that they believe are biblical and and are obviously popular pardon they deliver votes yes they do my name is Tom Lou and I have a political question if that's okay several of the quotes from early Christian Zionists mentioned Protestants as if Catholics don't matter equation or Eastern Orthodox for that matter and Jerry Falwell even go to the goes to the extent of implying that only Republicans matter that Democrats are a lost cause yes is a recognition within the Christian Zionist movement that Christian Republicans are a minority in the US and in the world and is there some effort within the movement to establish a broader tent to reach out to more groups you mean Christian Zionists yes yes definitely they are working hard with the black churches they are working with Catholics with other with other denominations to convince them that Israel has as a right to what it's doing where they use different different methods different strategies with with the Catholic Church it has a lot to do with guilt with with the denial the Jews exist this was the view before the Reformation the church has replaced Israel even within the Church of England in the after the Reformation on Good Friday they would read the story of the crucifixion of Jesus then and go out and beat up the Jews you know there was a strong element of anti-semitism within British society during the Middle Ages and and in the centuries after but within Catholicism in my view in terms of Italy Germany and so on it was guilt for the Holocaust it was either guilt or fear or you know guilts a negative motivation for not criticizing Israel and so the Israeli leadership has worked hard to to influence the Catholic leadership the Pope was very controversial recently when he visited Bethlehem and he insisted on giving his presentation next to the wall the Israelis tried to move him you know find another venue but it became a very high-profile event but it's easily forgotten you know it's individual statements or acts often get get forgotten so they so that the Zionist lobby is influential in other denominations it's simply as you've observed that their main support comes from the white evangelical right have time for one more question this is basically just a follow-up on that when we've been in the Middle East in Jerusalem we've seen a lot of Asian Christians the Chinese Church is growing and Latin American and do you think the same is true there that they tend to be principally Zionists and and African you know South Africa we talked about but you work a lot in African churches tell us about that I think that the Zionist lobby is recognizing that as as our friend here observed a younger generation of Americans are much more savvy and critical and and streetwise when it comes to what's happening a Middle East and they are turning their their efforts abroad and so it's true in China there is a whole Zionist movement among the churches returned to Jerusalem movement is called there that they're playing one off against the other so for example in Malaysia where you have a strong Muslim community they're working with the church to to bond with the church so it's us against the Muslims so a lot of the rhetoric I've explained that you find in in in in bookstores here in the States those books they will be the kind of books translated and used in in the Far East and in Africa so they are working working to maintain their power base through other denominations and other nations yes and of course our fundamentalist telly evangelists have international ministries so they themselves have worked in other countries International Christian embassy was working in in Central America and South America for example their work in 40 or 50 countries doctor sizer thank you so much for a great presentation on a very important topic thank [Applause]

Channel: The Jerusalem Fund & Palestine Center

Views: 92,250

Keywords: Christian Zionism, Israel, Palestine, Jewish Zionism, occupation, Nakba

Id: FPGlgz1zC-4

Length: 68min 23sec (4103 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 07 2018