The Evangelical-Jewish Alliance

by Donald Wagner

Yielding to increasing pressure to show the Arab and Islamic worlds (and much of Europe) that he is sensitive to the plight of the Palestinian people, President George W. Bush recently declared his commitment to implement a "road map" to an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Meanwhile, a powerful domestic countermovement capable of undermining the U.S. initiative is well under way.

Rising opposition from the conservative Ariel Sharon -- led Israeli government and its powerful U.S. lobby, the America-Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was to be expected. But the most numerically significant opposition is coming from the Christian right, an important constituency for the president if he is to be reelected in 2004.

Republican election advisers undoubtedly are watching the Christian right carefully. An early April rally in Washington, D.C., organized by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews drew key Christian right leaders like Gary Bauer, president of America Values. Bauer told the crowd that "whoever sits in Washington and suggests to the people of Israel that they have to give up more land in exchange for peace, that is an obscenity." Other key players convening the rally included the Christian Coalition and AIPAC. Major speakers such as the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Daniel Ayalon, and pro-Israel Congressmen Eric Cantor (R., Va.) and Tom Lantos (D., Calif.) encouraged the predominantly evangelical Christian participants to campaign against any plan that would force Israel to abandon its settlements or relinquish land now under its control. Key provisions of the road map call for Israel to make concessions on both issues.

For the president, pushing for the implementation of the road map will require a careful balancing act. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, he has solidified political support from three important constituencies: neoconservative intellectuals, American Jews (including members of the influential pro-Israel lobby) and fundamentalist Christians, constituencies that find common ground in their vigorous support for Israel.

A decisive moment in the forging of this alliance occurred in April 2002, while the Israeli army was demolishing several cities and refugee camps in the West Bank following the dreadful Passover terrorist bombings. Under increasing international pressure, Bush repeatedly appealed to Sharon to withdraw from the West Bank city of Jenin. The pro-Israel lobby, in coordination with the Christian right, mobilized over 100,000 e-mail messages, calls and visits urging the president to avoid restraining Israel. The tactic worked. The president uttered not another word of criticism or caution, and Sharon continued the offensive. As Christian televangelist Jerry Falwell commented during an October interview on 60 Minutes: "I think now we can count on President Bush to do the right thing for Israel every time.

Falwell spoke for a large number of Christian Zionists in the U.S., Christians who believe that the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy and so deserves unconditional political, financial and religious support. Christian Zionists work closely with religious and secular Jewish Zionist organizations and the Israeli government, particularly during periods when the more conservative Likud Party is in control of the Israeli Knesset (parliament). Though Falwell claims to be speaking for over 100 million Americans, the number is actually closer to 25 million.

Mainstream evangelicals number between 75 and 100 million; fundamentalist and dispensationalist evangelicals, whom Falwell represents, between 20 and 25 million.

Christian Zionism grows out of a particular theological system called premillennial dispensationalism, which originated in early 19th-century England. The preaching and writings of a renegade Irish clergyman, John Nelson Darby, and a Scottish evangelist, Edward Irving, emphasized the literal and future fulfillment of such teachings as the Rapture, the rise of the Antichrist, the Battle of Armageddon, and the central role that a revived state of Israel would play during the end days. Darby and Irving argued that portions of the books of Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah and Revelation predict when Jesus will return and how the final battle of history will take place.

Darby brought these doctrines to the U.S. during eight missionary journeys. They captured the hearts and minds of those who attended Bible and prophecy conferences in the years after the Civil War. Darby's teachings were featured in the sermons of some of the great preachers of the 1880-1920 period: the evangelists Dwight L. Moody and Billy Sunday; major Presbyterian preachers such as James Brooks; Philadelphia radio preacher Harry B. Ironsides; and Cyrus I. Scofield. Scofield applied Darby's eschatology to his version of the scriptures and provided an outline of premillennial dispensationalist notations on the text. The Scofield Bible (1909) gave dispensationalist teachings much of their prominence and popularity. It became the Bible version used by most evangelical and fundamentalist Christians for the next 60 years.

Christian Zionists insist that all of historic Palestine -- including all the land west of the Jordan which was occupied by Israel after the 1967 war -- must be under the control of the Jewish people, for they see that as one of the necessary stages prior to the second coming of Jesus. Among their other basis tenets: