It's not so simple

Submitted by Peter Herz (United States), Oct 16, 2010 at 19:23

Anon says that most Tea-Partyers and other conservatives support Israel for religious reasons. This is far from correct, and reflects the sorts of prejudices that infect the Left, despite its claim to represent scientific rationality.

True, many conservative Christians are Dispensational Premillennialists, who believe that the re-establishment of the state of Israel in its biblical territory is a sign that God will soon bring history to its appointed conclusion. However, not all Christian conservatives, even those calling themselves Evangelical, hold these views.

I am pro-Israel, but I also believe that the New Testament "Israel" is the whole body of believers in the Messiah, whether Jew or Gentile (in the New Testament, "Gentile" and "Christian" are emphatically NOT synonyms, no matter what 1950's terminology held). I further hold that modern Israel is but one more nation in the world, and its conflicts with the Arabs is simply more evidence that "nation will rise against nation", as Jesus warned in his eschatological preaching. Such conflicts are no more sure signs of the impending end that China's conflict with Viet Nam in 1978.

Even a "supercessionist" Christian who wants everyone's conversion can recognize that Jews are neighbors, that stewardship and care of land counts in who gets possession, that the European Jews after 1945 needed a homeland, and that the Mizrahi Jews after 1948 needed one even more badly. And, if I think that the Zionist enterprise was ill-advised, undoing it at this date requires the re-location of roughly six million people (in addition to being no guarantee in the least of a real Middle East peace, despite what Hamas' apologists say).

And, while we're at it, there are plenty of unproven dogmas underlying liberal discourse, too.

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