"Neither." "I am commander of God's army." Joshua 5:13-14a The Message" "I repeat: we cannot change the past... but Christians and Jews can unite and we can control the future." "Fifty million evangelicals with five million Jewish people in North America is a match made in heaven!" "With God on our Side I was definitely around people who romanticized or idealized Jewish culture." "We celebrated Passover." "There was even a year when we celebrated Hanukkah." "At the time I didn't think anything of it." "I'm not sure why we did that." "We're not Jewish." "We're just this normal American midwestern family." "I think a part of it was the evangelical church culture we grew up in." "There were a couple of things that were drained in us that we just didn't question:" "one was that the children of Israel are God's chosen people;" "two was that those who bless Israel will be blessed by God." "Those were kind of unquestioned beliefs." "They were passed down to us in the church circles that we walked in." "I think that was the most available people group to learn about in church." "You heared a lot about them." "There were a lot of sermons about the children of Israel and the Nation of Israel." "And so it was something close at hand to learn about and be more aware of." "Of course it makes sense to support Israel: it's the Holy Land." "It's where every event from the Bible takes place." "And of course we should be thankful to the Jewish people because they gave us our Scripture and our Saviour and our faith. all the violence and the terror." "It seems there are so many people against Israel." "It seems like as Christians we should stand by Israel. silence is not an option." "When it comes to standing with Israel and her fight for survival" "—the survival of the only democracy in the Middle East— all of our differences disappear and we truly become Christians united in behalf of Israel." "founder and chairman of Christains United for Israel:" "a grass-roots movement that has quickly become one of the largest Christian organizations in the United States." "They believe Christians have a biblical obligation to stand by the State if Israel and the Jewish people. 280)}to bless the Jewish people by saying:" "I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you." "the nation that has blessed the Jewish people has been blessed of God." "They also know that the nation that has cursed and tormented and persecuted the Jewish people has been destroyed by the hand of God." "The theology preached by Pastor Hagee and his followers is known as Christian or Biblical Zionism." "Biblical Zionism is... the short answer is:" "the belief that the Abrahamic Covenant has never been abolished. upon which Christians have to build their engagement with Israel. 250)}so you have to unpack that and define what we mean by Zionism." "Zionism is a political system that believes that the Jews have the right to much of the land of the Middle East." "And it gives preference to Jewish people over others who may have been born in that particular piece of land." "So Christian Zionism adds a theological and religious dimension to what was a secular political movement." "The connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel is the cornerstone of Christian Zionism." "You can't separate the land from the people. called Israel." "It is the only country in the world where God actually and gave it that land." "and look at its borders and then all across the eastern side of the river Jordan that includes Jordania. and I don't know if that's what it's going to come back to in our lifetime. there will be a return to those borders." "but evidence of God's faithfulness to His Covenant that He cut with Abraham 4000 years ago." "That is Biblical Zionism." "We work alongside different ministries in Israel that we believe are helping the Jewish people establish themselves in the Land." "One of those groups is the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem. which brings thousands of Christians to Israel from all over the world. to stand alongside her. that this land is the land bequeathed to the Jewish people." "But what about the Palestinians?" "Do they have a right to the land as well?" "People who are geopolitically ignorant say:" "or hundreds of years." "It has not! not ever." "There is no such thing as an autonomous Palestinian society. there is no Palestinian pottery:" "it is all Arab! they lived in other Arab countries." "It's our land." "It worked in 1947 - 48;" "why wouldn't it work now?" "because people are fundamentally ignorant." "The conflict here is not different to what it was in Ezra and Nehemiah's time." "the local inhabitants were up in arms:" "What are these Jews doing back here?" "They are taking our land!" "Look what's going on." "This should never have happened." "We are going to tell the king." "He must stop it." "You read the Bible." "It's clear:" "there is nothing new under the sun." "It seemed pretty clear supporting Israel was what Christians were supposed to do." "I began to see that things weren't quite that simple." "of Genesis 12 about blessing?" "what does it mean to bless Israel?" "250)}At the core of Prophetic Judaism is an ethical vision. the widow." "It's not primarily a religion of land." "It is of covenant." "But what do we mean by covenant?" "What do we mean by blessing?" "What do we mean by prophetic? the ethical is always the highest." "It is at the heart of who God is." "It is the vision of all humanity." "So I don't know if it really is that simple." "I'm a graphic designer. which made me look into things like the separation barrier and" "Israeli policies that are really having effect on Palestinian lives." "So..." "Does supporting Israel mean that we fully support every one of those policies? and I still think there is some truth to supporting Israel. when they do things that violate other biblical principals." "And so I have grown in my thoughts and beliefs towards that. particularly among the Palestinians." "They told me there was a side to the story that most visitors to Israel never get to see." "As a kid I traveled to Israel with my father on a pastor's tour." "and I remember it as a largely positive experience." "Was there something I had missed?" "The tragedy is that that whole tourism economy and to major on the Israeli Script turning a desert into a land flowing of milk and honey. and to the Israeli Museum." "Caesarea." "They'll visit a lot of the biblical sites." "But they will largely avoid the Palestinian areas." "What I have to realize as a Western Christian is that I am on the receiving end which is bringing to me" "250)}what I would call a jaundiced view of Palestinian life." "or Islamic Jihad. —any of these towns in the West Bank— you would see a vibrant and wonderful Palestinian life which would surprise you. that it's just to dangerous to take you to some of these places." "But that is rhetoric that is employed in order to keep you on the tourist trail." "There is an untold story that you need to discover for yourself." "When I arrived in Israel I met with Ben White:" "a British journalist who has covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for several years." "I considered to be... 290)}is telling the stories of ordinary Palestinians that often do not get heard by the church or by the West." "I think one of the problems is the nature of the Israeli occupation. and legal loopholes." "And all these kind of things ruin people's lives. with bullets whizzing over your head. do not get told." "founder of Musalaha;" "an organization that promotes reconciliation between Israeli and Palestinian believers." "The whole idea was like this:" "and now they are coming back." "But coming back to what?" "2000 years is a long time in history." "In reality there were people living here." "But how do you justify that?" "this land was empty; it was deserts and swamps. and dried the swamps and made this area like the Garden of Eden." "Arabs from the neighboring countries came to live here." "As a result of the prosperity that the Jewish people brought here." "and my experience challenge those two premises." "One: my family was living here for generation upon generation." "We trace our history back to the 12th century." "My great-grandfather built the church here." "There is written evidence to that." "My family owned a lot of lands here." "In 1948 they were ordered at gunpoint to leave their home." "Some people refused and got shot." "so out of fear people started running for their lives." "And they were not allowed to take anything with them from their homes." "Wait!" "I had always been told that the Palestinians were the aggressors." "I knew I needed to find out more about what had happened in the past hundred years or so." "The conflict hasn't been going on for ages." "The people haven't been fighting each other eternally." "It's a myth that Jews and Arabs have always been killing each other in this land." "This conflict has a very specific historical root." "The Ottoman Turks conquered Palestine in the 1500's and ruled through World War I and only 5% Jewish." "The World Zionist Organization was formed in 1897 in Switzerland with the intention of creating a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. the Arabs revolted against the Ottomans and defeated them. known as the Balfour Declaration. each taking different regions." "The British occupied Palestine in what was known as the British Mandate. with both the Palestinians and Jews calling for independent states. noting natural resources and population spreads." "Jewish leaders debated on how to deal with the Arab populations. such as war." "During WWII the threat of a Nazi invasion brought a relative calm to Palestine. in 1947 the British announced they were pulling out of Palestine." "They turned the Jewish question over to the United Nations." "The U.N. partition plan was passed in 1947. the plan gave 55% of the land of Palestine to the Jews. and the Jewish military began taking over their portion of the land. 000 Palestinian refugees. but suffered a swift defeat." "Israel controlled over 77% of Mandate Palestine." "000 refugees." "Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip and parts of the Negev. 280)}and half of Palestine's villages were destroyed." "that Salim's family and their Palestinian neighbors were forced out of their homes at gunpoint. and I think the historical evidence proves beyond any doubt the strategy and the policy themselves can only be described as ethnic cleansing." "The UN's definition of ethnic cleansing:" "Ethnic cleansing is rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group." "there was a tremendous misfortune:" "280)}the kind of misfortune you have in war. and both sides could look at the other and claim that they were the victim of the other." "Some of the new Israeli historians have described the events of Israel's independence in 1948 as an ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians." "I think it is too early to say that. there were many examples of displaced peoples." "So I think what happened in 1948 was really what happened in other places in the Middle East earlier as the Ottoman Empire met its demise. and a tremendous influx of Jewish refugees." "—which is actually a British phrase:" "it was used by a proto-Zionist British politician and later adopted by the Zionist movement— is a fable!" "Palestine was not an empty land." "but the land definitely had people on it." "There was a thriving human community in Palestine." "returned to their homeland." "What happened eventually in the War of Independence and Jews who were themselves refugees in the Jerusalem area in particular." "Why wasn't I ever told about this episode of Israel's history while growing up in the church?" "Many times I find myself telling people the story of my family." "And they don't believe me—I'm talking about American Christians mainly." "will they believe it." "But they don't believe us." "If they hear it from a Jew it's true." "you have a question mark. and the relationship between Israel and her neighbors reached a boiling point. the Golan Heights and the West Bank including the old city of Jerusalem." "The events of 1967 sparked rampant talk of the End Times amongst many evangelical Christians in the West as a fulfillment of prophecy. using the Bible as justification. 000 new Palestinian refugees." "The West Bank and Gaza were kept under military occupation. passing U.N. Resolution 242." "180)}U.N. Resolution 242 states that it's inadmissible to acquire territory by war." "bedrock principle of international law." "And so that effectively says to Israel: you conquered the Sinai in the course of a war:" "you have no title to that territory." "unambiguously." "Outrage over Israels occupation of the disputed territories known as the Intifada." "240)}The Intifada was just one reaction amongst many. you can begin to understand that any oppressed people are going to respond." "So you can't have people living without reactions. eventually." "Eventually it will come." "The tinder is there for the fire." "and you get eruption." "That happens in any social context; that's not just a Jewish-Palestinian matter." "That happens in any place in the world where you have what Dickens would call Tales of Two Cities." "I was ten years old during the first Intifada." "It was a very difficult situation." "and school." "but then would be forced to stay home for ten days because the Israeli army would close our schools." "We were not able to get an education." "They would forbid us from going to work or to work or to go shopping for food." "There were curfews." "Many things were forbidden." "but they were huge for us." "They would cut off our electricity and water;" "we were under a lot of pressure." "the middle one." "broke three ribs and we had to take him to the hospital." "The Israeli army occupied our house for over a month." "They cut off the water and we were not allowed to leave the house." "Life was very difficult." "the water was polluted and we could not drink it." "and there was no life in this world." "violence and persecution." "We often wondered if we should pack up and leave this land." "But our ancestors have been here and this is our land." "Therefor we decided to stay and live here." "We are trying to convey to the world that we are people who really want peace. in 1993 Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzak Rabin signed the Oslo Peace Accords. in various phases. would be negotiated during those seven years." "But things didn't quite go as planned." "during the Oslo years. now were controlled by Israel." "There was no decision they actually made." "And everybody agrees that during the Oslo years there was a drastic deterioration in the standard of living of the Palestinians." "B and C." "60)}Area A is under Palestinian civil and military control." "and Israeli military control." "290)}And area C is fully under Israeli civil and military control." "And essentially area C serves as an island connecting areas A and B." "So the fact that some of those roads are restricted in area C means that for Palestinians getting from area B to area A is severely restricted. the failure of the final status agreements at Camp David in the year 2000" "can be blamed on the Palestinians." "There was an offer on the table that was rejected." "even for Israelis." "280)}And for us it was amazing 240)}that they even promised to give up much of East Jerusalem." "And this offer was rejected by Yasser Arafat... in favor of another Intifada!" "270)}The great myth about Camp David is: all the concessions came from the Palestinian side." "Israel did make any concessions!" "Because you can't concede what is not yours to begin with." "They said: "Israel was willing to give the Palestinians 92% of the West Bank." "The figure is not true." "But let's accept the figure as true." "You don't have title to one percent of the West Bank!" "So what does it mean you're willing to concede? is that a concession?" "I think the easier thing to do is to just quote what Israelis have said about the offer." "One of the senior Israeli negotiators at Camp David was a fellow named Shlomo Ben Ami." "He was the foreign minister of the State of Israel under Barak." "A few years after Camp David and we debated the issue." "I would not have accepted what was offered at Camp David. and three in the northern West Bank." "Yet the settler population in the West Bank grew by 5.8% the next year." "Some believe this apparent concessions might actually be part of a new Israeli strategy to solidify control of other areas in the West Bank. in order to have a better control" "And this is why the Israeli governments basically encouraged the settlement of Jews in the areas." "According to the latest statistics 000 settlers. the way they grow." "You start off on the top of a hill people slowly start moving in. and before you know you have a whole hillside covered with a small city." "this activity is been deemed illegal by international law." "But there is actually a number of churches in the West that support these kind of activities financially and theologically." "This is Kimberly Troup." "She works for an organization called Christian Friends of Israeli Communities." "An organization that links Jewish settlements in Israel with Christian churches and individuals throughout the world." "as a direct response 250)} to the Oslo Peace Agreements that happened in 1993." "This was a Christian answer to giving up land for peace." "What we saw as Christians was that this was biblical Israel. or the occupied territories." "We support the Jewish communities that are there." "the term Palestinian has come to mean the Arabs living in Israel." "They are supposedly without a homeland and without a place." "If they annex the land what do they do with all the Arabs?" "Because they do not want all the Arabs that live there to become Israeli citizens." "Many of the human right violations that are taking place in the West Bank flow from the government's interest in protecting and perpetuating the settlement enterprise. are going for the use of settlers and taken from Palestinians who are living in villages in the West Bank." "It's important to understand that the Jews have gone through thousands of years of suffering." "That has to be acknowledged." "That has to be understood." "But from that two paths can be taken:" "the path of deeper compassion and mercy and justice and peace." "and exclude people who are not of us." "One place where Palestinians feel the effects of the Jewish settlements most acutely is the city of Hebron." "There are approximately 500 Jewish settlers living in six Jewish settlements in the old city of Hebron." "000 Palestinians." "in that they are very ideologically based." "Probably the most ideological of all the settlements." "Israel has created a system of policies for protection of these 500 settlers that have made life essentially impossible and untenable for the Palestinians." "Hebron used to be a busseling marketplace." "Israelis would go to shop there as well as Palestinians. and it is lined on either side by Jewish settlements." "And as we've been walking through the market and telling us stories of how the settlers on each side of the marketplace have been throwing stones and trash and in some cases acidic liquid that burns people down below." "We put this fence to protect ourselves and the visitors the stones and the bottles." "sometimes bleach." "They are trying to put big pressure on us to leave from here." "not as long as we live." "We are determined to stay here." "We won't give up." "This is our homeland." "they're showing us these bricks" "And you can actually see the bricks that are in the fence." "It's just absolutely crazy." "And this is all happening in the shadow of an Israeli outpost. towers with soldiers." "They can see what they are doing." "and they don't do against them." "What would happen if you threw a stone at an Israeli settler?" "They would shoot us!" "Straight away he picks his machine gun and shoots you." "Many to the soldiers that we speak to express being afraid of the settlers themselves. you can only imagine how afraid the Palestinian residents are." "Each year a group of radical Jewish settlers converge on the Arab section of the old city of Jerusalem to celebrate Israel's capture of East Jerusalem in 1967." "Death to Arabs!" "Death to Arabs!" "There was a group of Israelis that had pointed out an Arab journalist." "They just were yelling at him and flipping him the bird and screaming at him so much that the police had to circle around them to keep them from mauling him." "They were banging on the door of Arab shop owners." "Anytime they would spot an Arab on the streets Groups would rally around them to sing and yell and chant at them." "I felt ashamed to be there." "The settlements are illegal." "That's not complicated under international law." "It is prohibited by the Geneva Convention for an occupying power to transfer its population to occupied territory." "is occupied territory." "It's illegal for Israel to transfer its population to the occupied territory." "Absolute nonsense!" "God in the book of Genesis takes Abraham out and says:" "I'm going to give you this land to your seed forever. have no more control of it than you control the moon." "That property was given to them by a mandate from God Himself." "And it belongs to them." "The Palestinians have absolutely no claim to it; not ever!" "It is the greatest historical fraud in the history of humanity." "Within Christian Zionist circles trumps human law or human rights." "This is a very dangerous logic and rationalization." "The language of Human Rights was birthed from the terrible religious wars of the 17th and 18th century." "And it attempted to articulate" "Christian tribalism." "Each person interpreted the Bible as they saw fit. can you really use it to justify what Israel is currently doing in Palestinian areas?" "Occupation implies a temporary presence. in the sense that Israel has integrated the occupied territories with the exception that there is a two-tier system." "a military law for them." "And there is another rule of law for the Jewish Israelis or who live there in the illegal settlement blocks." "Is it similar to apartheid? the fact is there are two systems of just about everything in the West Bank. 240)}and another system that's been created for the Palestinian population." "The word apartheid means separateness." "And... this is separateness. 270)}I definitely see parallels between and apartheid here. that is would resolve the conflict." "But the practicality of it is it never does." "like apartheid on steroids. as a white South African." "But certainly there weren't big wall like this that separated us." "Nothing seems to make a bolder statement about the division between Israelis and Palestinians than the Separation Barrier:" "a network of fences and high concrete walls that cut through the West Bank for hundreds of miles." "These security checks and stuff went up to stop suicide bommings." "The wall went up; and the barrier as they call it went up." "And it brought down terrorism by over 98% overnight." "So it's a security measure." "And I think every country in the world has a right to secure the safety of its citizens." "you don't want attacks on Haifa. and should have the right to... —if it wants to exercise that right— to build a wall." "But you don't build a wall on other people's property." "It's not a complicated legal question." "Of course a barrier is also going to help with stopping militants wanting to cross." "But where does the barrier lie?" "That's the key point." "the Green Line:" "the internationally recognized border between Israel and the occupied territories in the West Bank. into ghettos and annexing the illegal settlement blocks and valuable agricultural land onto what will be the Israeli side." "the barrier was constructed to help combat terrorism." "The barrier is separating between Palestinians and Palestinians;" "not between Palestinians and Israelis." "It's incorporating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians onto the Israeli side of the barrier." "It's far from hermetically sealing off Israel." "In the view of many Israelis every Palestinian is a potential terrorist." "To have a situation where the barrier is incorporating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians onto the Israeli side of the barrier negates the security justification that's given by the state and the military." "they didn't get along with their neighbors;" "on the other side the Golds." "280)}They didn't get along with them." "OK?" "So what did they do?" "They decided to build a fence around our property." "The law in New York is very strict." "I don't know how it is elsewhere." "you have to hire a surveyor. so property is expensive— they have the right to tear down the fence." "So you have to build that fence right on the borderline of your property. and then they decide to build a fence now you begin to wonder: are they building the fence because they're not getting along with their neighbors?" "Or are they using the pretext of not getting along with their neighbors garage and living room?" "For me" "I envisioned this separating wall in the middle of the wilderness dividing these open territories" "You don't imagine something that is actually cutting through neighborhoods." "like it's this very kind of innate thing that's not really a big deal." "But it really is!" "Everyday we pass by the wall and it's in front of us." "It represents a hundred slaps." "Whether there is an Israeli standing before us or not. and we have no self-respect." "the wall is." "I see it everyday when when I come and go to the office." "The soldiers no longer need to just stand there and watch us to receive their salaries." "they are clever." "Job well done. access to jobs and schools; family members accessing each other. or four hours." "is he's going to able to go home?" "240)}The more dire situation obviously is 240)}not being able to access medical treatment." "240)}We have documented some cases of Palestinians or gates in the barrier were closed that were meant to be open 24 hours a day. because of delays at the check points themselves." "I don't like hospitals." "I was afraid of going through the checkpoint and of the ambulance." "I didn't want to see the soldiers." "Adam was born within 1½ hours and it was an easy birth." "They were not going to allow me to go through the checkpoints unless I could prove I was pregnant." "The soldier couldn't tell if I was pregnant and he had to call for a female soldier to check me." "She saw I was pregnant and let me go through." "My permission to travel through the checkpoint only became valid the day before I gave birth." "they should let her go through!" "I heard that someone gave birth at the checkpoint and lost her baby." "Died." "I don't like to think of our youth." "It's hard to talk about all of our problems." "Most of my work used to be in Jerusalem." "All the seminars that I gave were in Jerusalem." "Not one day passed without me traveling to Jerusalem." "that I would not be able to go have a medical exam in Jerusalem or before I gave birth." "you have to accept anyone that works here." "you have nothing." "What?" "There is no mind that can comprehend what is happening here." "it is terrible." "But then there's the contextual answer that examines the background to all of this." "there's been to much suffering on all sides. some type of solution has to be found here." "That's the answer to this crisis!" "Not sort of... immotive... clips of people struggling through a check point." "it is a hassle." "But what can you do?" "if there is a will." "Bat Israel wants to keep the territory; that's the problem!" "240)}The Bible is very clear in Joel 3:2 about not dividing the land." "320)}It says not to do it." "we just obey it." "This is one of those areas where we're standing on firm biblical soil." "so what?" "280)}They don't understand those implications... 280)}of those kinds of policies. in terms of our media coverage of the conflict." "But also there isn't anywhere near an adequate level of understanding amongst local Middle East people." "in Muslim-Christian relations in Palestine and in the wider Middle East." "Arab Muslims here see that in the U.S. there is a very vocal and active Christian lobby in favor of Israel." "And so this can create a climate of mistrust and suspicion even with the indigenous church in the Middle East." "Palestinian Christians lived for centuries in this land." "240)}They struggled to stay in this land as a minority mission and calling." "sometimes not so well." "You are Palestinian Christians are an obstacle to the second coming of Jesus!" "You need to move out in order to make room for the Jews from the diaspora to come here." "I am an obstacle to the salvation of the world!" "?" "I'm an obstacle to the second coming of Jesus!" "?" "What's going on?" "Does God not love us?" "Does God love another people more than He loves us!" "?" "What about all the time we lived here?" "Quite often I meet Christian Zionists who do not understand the implication of Christian Zionism. is to commit suicide as a people group." "We run into trouble when we take general promises 250)}and apply them very specifically to historic events." "240)}This form of futurism became popular in the 19th century." "It was popularized by Scofield and his Reference Bible and to some extent by Tim LaHaye in the Left Behind series books." "Christian Zionism basically started in the 19th century in England the father of Dispensationalism." "He believed that God has two peoples: the church and Israel." "In order for Jesus to come back" "The Jewish people need to come back to the Promised Land and that would ignite what they call the government of apocalyptic war. would rule the earth for 1000 years." "240)}This is not a new development in our generation." "200)}This has happened for probably 1500 years." "as a religion." "That means that we have always anticipated the end of the world in our time frame." "Most historians would agree that the average crusader thought that he was living in the End Times." "entered what was Christian domain." "There was a lot of writing in the period that speculated that the Turks were Gog and Magog because of the geographical area they came from. because last years prophetic conclusions are easily forgotten when they fail." "So..." "Gorbachev was the anti-Christ because he had the mark of the beast on his forehead." "that must be Saddam Hussein." "So Saddam Hussein becomes the anti-Christ." "Dave Hunt had a book where he said Saddam Hussein even looks like Nebuchadnezzar." "So he must be the anti-Christ." "And obviously Saddam Hussein fails." "Then it becomes Ahmadinejhad." "We need a demon figure to fulfill our view of the anti-Christ." "It becomes addictive." "210)}I think most evangelical Christians would be surprised to know than there are Christians in Israel." "There has been a Christian community among Arabs and Palestinians for centuries." "In fact all the way back to time of the Book of Acts when we see at Pentecost there were Arabs on the day of Pentecost who heard the Gospel and responded." "So there has been a church." "Unfortunately it's a dying church." "The Christian Palestinians have little support from America." "And the Christian Palestinians have no support from radical Islam." "They are targets." "They are caught in a cross-fire." "It is a very dreadful situation for them." "we are a minority here." "there were more Christians." "But Christians began emigrating because of Jewish immigration and because the Muslims came into this region." "and Europe." "and a lot of pressure." "so that they could live in freedom." "and you're a minority and in relationship with Christians from other places." "I remember visiting a church in Dallas." "we have a brother from Israel." "I spoke for a few minutes." "After that people came to shake my hand." "And I remember very vividly and distinctly one man came to me saying:" "I longed so much to shake the hand of somebody from Israel." "I love the Jewish people." "I'm a Palestinian." "turned around and left. what's wrong with me?" "What's wrong with my Christianity?" "What's wrong with these people?" "Then you come to the conclusion that there is something wrong with their theology." "Their theology is causing them to reject a brother who doesn't fit their End Times theology." "And that is a sin." "What has happened is that we as evangelicals have endorsed an Israeli domestic policy that has placed and has created the largest refugee population in the entire world. why is this defended by the Christian church? who are made in the image of God? the thing that is so easily overlooked by me" "is just the tremendous amount of pain and suffering that Palestinians still endure there." "The refugee situation has never been resolved and there is the continued hardships of living under occupation." "Because of my upbringing and my biblical orientation it's easy sometimes to overlook that." "The problem today is people are mixing up the political State of Israel with the Jewish people." "It's very important to differentiate between them." "love and care for the Jewish people has to be differentiated from the state." "This is the question we are not raising as Christians today—especially in America:" "Is modern Israel the same as that collection of people who are descended from Abraham?" "it almost makes the equation incomprehensible. around temple life." "Today modern Israel is a secular state." "280)}So when you get Zionists using the Hebrew canon it's a total misuse" "of the Bible which is itself idolatry." "But what about Genesis 12?" "Isn't it clear that we are to bless Israel? He also said: 210)}"and those who do not bless you and your descendants will be cursed." "280)}This is a remarkable statement." "280)}People have translated Genesis 12 into a kind of mandate for how we ought to view the modern State of Israel. drawing from a very reductionistic view of the prophetic" "that you have to de facto support the State of Israel: and to differ with them is to differ with God." "So therefore as a nation America needs to bless the modern State of Israel. then we will be in jeopardy as a nation." "I think we need to raise some very hard questions about such an interpretation of Genesis 12. and how should it be applied?" "The New Testament teaches us to interpret God's blessing of Abraham in the context of Jesus." "Abraham rejoiced to see My day." "And Paul's teaching that we are all children of Abraham by faith." "So you must understand promises such as this through the grid of the New Testament; almost as if the New Testament was never written." "It certainly doesn't have any political implications or consequences. because God made that promise to Abraham 4000 years ago. and therefore we have privileges." "Who are you?" "How can you make a claim on us?" "And Jesus says:" "I can put a question mark over whether or not you are descendants of Abraham." "the New Testament raises the question that not all those who claim to be but it is a spiritual disposition. you see the development of what we call dispensationalism:" "the idea that God has two chosen peoples." "And Darby pioneered the idea that certain passages in the Bible not to the church;" "and not to Israel. but which is rarely raised in the evangelical church is this:" "do we have a One-covenant Theology or a Two-covenant Theology? today continues to operate in the world." "And then what happened is that in Christ another covenant was launched that was for Christians. you will have difficulty finding a New Testament theologian today that would understand these two covenants running in parallel in quite this manner." "the covenant which was established with Abraham through Moses in Christ." "Christ becomes the one in whom all of those covenant promises are realized are invited to embrace that covenant." "There is a divide in the church." "There are those who subscribe to replacement or fulfillment theology." "replacement theologians see no special value in Israel's modern day restoration." "The emergence of the State of Israel on the map of the world is just a political coincidence." "of political activity. the country of Mauritius or some other nation in the world." "that's the first place where we have to make a designation." "We don't agree with the replacement theological position." "they often call it a replacement theology; which is a misnomer." "Because there is no way that the New Testament teaches that perhaps a gentile Christian covenant replaces the Jews." "On the contrary! and then was joined with Christians." "So it isn't as if Jews have been kicked out and gentiles have taken over." "On the contrary. the dividing wall which separates us." "What a Two-covenant Theology does is neglect the centrality of Jesus Christ." "as the event by which all history is judged. there is a second alternative track that doesn't require Christ. chosen people equals the Jewish people"." "have you read the New Testament?" "Because the New Testament exclusively uses the phrase "chosen people for those who have recognized Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour." "It never uses the phrase "chosen" or "chosen people" for a racial group." "The problem for those who still use it theologically to mean the Jewish people its treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories." "because they're God's chosen people. to stop putting pressure on Israel to make concessions that would lead to her destruction." "I don't credit the Jewish Lobby with being the primary mover in this shaping of U.S. foreign policy." "Politicians depend on the electorate." "The electorate is largely Christian in America. 30% of U.S. Christians who believe it's their destiny and their mandate and their responsibility to support Israel." "The prophet Isaiah says in the 62nd chapter in the first verse:" "and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet." "That is a Bible mandate to stand up and speak up for the State of Israel and the Jewish people." "stand by Israel" is a phrase that appears today in a lot of evangelical churches." "In my mind it's been imposed on the evangelical church by evangelical point of view." "We are presented with a formula:" "I also ought to be a political activist on behalf of Israel." "I think that thoughtful Christians today need to be careful about such syntheses." "And here's why:" "throughout Christian history and the church has always lived to regret it. what you have here is this notion of creating a Christian empire." "Today I see the same sort of mythologies that the crusaders had with regard to Jerusalem and the Holy Land:" "the idea that... and that all of our moral obligations to love and care for people are somehow abrogated by this belief that the Kingdom will be coming. when Jesus comes everything is going to be better for them anyway." "240)}We have to be careful not to be triangled to the conflict." "240)}We as Israeli Palestinians are very smart. we triangle power from outside." "And we have triangled the church from outside to our conflict. and you'll find Christians who are more pro-Palestinian than the Palestinians." "And as a result we lose our distinct calling and vocation to be a bridge between the people." "So instead of helping those two distinctive groups of people we are adding oil to the fire." "I think this conflict could move a lot closer to a resolution." "the Lord dealt with me in an extraordinary way." "I was surprised that the Lord dealt with me in that way." "I mean forgiveness." "He taught me the meaning of forgiveness and how I should forgive; how I should love." "it was difficult for me to forgive someone who treated me in that manner." "But God's grace is very rich; because as a Christian I should forgive." "And as a Christian I should love." "and forgave the Israelis for all the things that they have done in my land. we never met with local believers." "200)}I mean it's moving to go and to see the places where the Bible took place." "240)}But how much more meaningful is it to meet our brothers and sisters who are living their faith right there at this time in the Middle East?" "could be an ideal place probably in Jerusalem." "And of course this has a detrimental effect on the Bethlehem economy." "But it also means that Palestinian Christians feel quite rejected." "visit Palestine." "because they are hemorrhaging." "and we do not want to see the land of Israel-Palestine devoid of an indigenous Christian presence." "Because they are best placed to be the peacemakers between the Jews and the Muslims." "extremely kind. they would give me the last meal on their table. and you begin to lose the understanding that these are people just like myself." "And so just getting an understanding seemed for myself how God sees them. it was more understood that Israel was for the Jews. and surrounded myself with friend that were very taken with Jewish culture." "I started to have a perspective of the Arabs as being the ones who were keeping Israel from their rightful homeland. it's OK to have a political opinion about something.{\i0" "But the minute that political opinion you lose the heart of God." "And..." "I remember being really struck by that." "It really pierced to my heart." "That whole thought line that because I had chosen to not educate myself further. and an extreme love your enemy." "The Arabs are sometimes considered the enemy." "So I am promoting and saying theology of reconciliation is a theology and the hope the Jews are looking for will be met. and look at it through the lens of justice?" "through the diaspora have been terribly mistreated. which at some levels has been abysmal." "Abysmal." "So there should be an asking of forgiveness to the Jewish people for Christian attitudes over 2000 years. and the fact that here we can't just sit on our hands while the Middle East burns." "There are things that we can be doing and the Jewish people who live here." "They deserve peace." "They're desperate for peace." "We need to say to the Israelis and Palestinians:" "destruction is not a solution." "We need to speak to these people and say:" "your neighbor; how you treat him reflects who you are." "What you truly are." "you have a problem." "It reflects your faith in God." "Which type of God you believe in." "For me the key approach to the Middle East is humanity. so that he could approach us on a human level." "He never allowed any sense of being in the end-times or some kind of prophetic timetable to affect how He treated other people. all exactly in the same way." "The parable of the Good Samaritan is brilliant." "Jesus put a conundrum in the middle of it." "And it's like that grain of dirt inside the oyster that nags and creates the pearl." "Who is my neighbor?" "He wanted Jesus to limit his responsibility;" "and who can I ignore?" "Jesus told a story." "and that is; that created the dilemma for everyone who came along that road. from his dress or from his accent." "He was unconscious and naked." "So Jesus created the perfect answer to the issue of human rights." "The guy in the road was a human being." "not one of them: he's a human being." "Are you going to stop?" "Are you going to help him or not?" "And who is it that stops?" "the Samaritan." "He stopped." "And so when He throws the story back to the religious leader He says:" "Which of the three was a good neighbor?" "And the religious leader can't bring himself to say "the Samaritan"." "The one who showed mercy on him." "Go and do the same"." "That's our human responsibility." "I should every person I meet as if they were Jesus." "I should treat them the same way I would if I was meeting Jesus." "Hope." "There is hope." "Because we have lived here for a long time." "We have seen things much worse than the wall." "and our hope is in God."