Christian Evangelical Support of Israel, Practical Limitations

Christian Evangelists have been some of the strongest supporters of Israel. They see Israel as part of an unfolding end of times story necessary in a scheme of events that must transpire before Jesus returns.

Complicating Christian-Jewish relations are other sects of Christianity that still see Jews as the descendants of the people who chose to kill Christ and a movement within the Evangelical movement now led by anti Israeli Palestinian Christians.

Christian tourists are very common in Israel and find deep connection to Jerusalem, Bethlehem and other sites.

The fact though is both conventional religions interperate the Bible differently.

To start with, as a general rule conventional Christians regard the Old Testament as telling a linteral story which ends in the New Testament an heavily relies on the gospels of Paul and an interpretation of Israel saved by Jesus.

For Jewish people the Old Testament story is NOT read liiterally as it would be by Christians. Christians are more likely to reference the entire Bible as a story about saving humanity. However when Jews wrote the Old Testament they concentrated on Abraham creating a nation that to remain and exist as a collective must worship God via the rules set out in the Old Testament. It was a code of behaviour to repress certain negative primal behaviour and to keep Hebrews united if they were to survive the threat of enemies.

So the Old Testament is written as a collection of parables instructing how one behaves. There is no concept of salvation. Complicating things is that the literal reading of the Old Testament is just the beginning. You must read it at many different levels and constantly find new lessons to learn out of the same words. So its fluid in meaning not static.

Christians are brought up on a fixed literal one size fits all approach whereas there is somel leeway to give a second "spiritual" meaning as well but only by the clergy. Common Christians if they do not read the Bible literally might be accused of apostasy.

Christians place much interpretation on the the writings of Paul and predicts a future salvation after tribulation and battles. The Jewish Bible is meant as one code of behaviour to be read along with many others.

The Hebrew Bible consists of a collection of writings from unknowns written and compiled, soemtime between the eighth and second centuries BCE and reflects of course the biases of that time and so as Judaism has evolved its continued to change and develop the meanings and not expect people to read what is written literally. If we Jews did we would be supposed to stone homosexuals or forbid deaf people from getting married because they were said in the Bible not to understand the vows of marriage.

Christians on the other hand still hold steadfast to their literal interpretation of both Testments and in particular to the belief that is Jesus the Messiah that must come back to save the righteous. Orthodox Jews believe a Messiah will come but the concept of the Messiah is subject to great speculation as to whether it means one person, or the potential in every person born a Jew to be born to heal the world through positive actions (teekam olem).

All that said Judaism is not uniform. It has Ultra Orthodox, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Re-Constructionist ahd Humanist Jews and many Humanist Jews are atheist. The collective identity of being a Jew is not not just following the Torah or Old Testament but many other cultural and ethnic commonly shared connections including expressing that collective identity through nationality, art, literature.

Most of today's Israels are not religious. They have to live in the moment which is about dealing with terrorism, hostile neighbours, and millions of non Israelis who do not believe they have a right to nationality and/or to own land.

Israel does however try foster alliances with Christian griyu and recognizes their land rights.

The touchy topic though is that many Christians still believe they must convert all Jews and/or truly believe there must be an Armageddon where they believe Iran, Russia, Turkey, Libya, Sudan, Syria will attack Israel and then God will intervene to send these invaders to smithereens and usher in the new world of the righteous who survive the final days.

The problem with that brings up a practical one. If people believe that, then they believe war is inevitable. This is why we always have people predicting its the end of times and the Anti Christ has set in motion the final days.

I myself like most modern Israelis and modern people do not read the Bible literally and live in the immediate tense believing the only thing that can achieve peace is we the people being the messiah so to speak and choosing to put down or weapons and primal behaviour in favour of logic, rational discussion and mutual respect.

We are still far off from their because mainstream Islam as professed in the ME still defines Jews as dhimmi, inferiors unable to own land or own a nation and who are considered a people that must be battled with world wide in a religious war. Until moderate interpretations of the Koran gain mainstream acceptance and catch up to say where modern Christian and Jews are, the religious beliefs will interfere and prevent peaceful Muslims from feeling confident to recognize Israel, denounce terrorism, and enter into badly needed exchange projects with Israel regarding water, electricity, managing sewage and waste the most pressing issues of the day put to the -back-burner as terrorists dominate the discourse between Israel and Palestinians preventing such plans from being created. The key to ME peace is access water and it always has been.

Many Ultra Orthodox Jews believe Israel should not exist until the Messiah comes and live in East Jerusalem and Hebron and demand social benefits from the Israeli state while refusing to pay taxes and they consider it a demon state.

Adding to that is 250,000 of them live in Hebron on the West Bank since ancient days and many also do not recognize Israel unlike the other Jewish Israeli settlers on the West Bank BUT today's Palestinian movements have stated they can not live in Palestine and Palestine will expel them if and when it takes back Israel and Jordan and creates a Muslim Palestinian state.

 

Technically the term in Hebrew is not Messiah is Maschiac and it is not at all like the concept of Jesus. It refers to if you read the few references to it literally, a Jewish political leader who is NOT divine or of God anymore than you or I. The problem too is much of the literature on this character and what happens when he comes is not in the Bible an dbase don the lectures of a Rabbiah. It literally says Jews will be resurrected from the dead using a bone from their bodies.

I mean no disrespect to my religion in regards to the Machiac concept or Christianity with the Jesus as Messiah conceot but I can't rationally delegate my individual responsibility from the choice of decisions to such figures. The Maschiac is such a vague reference it could refer to almost anyone.

Even the time they say they will come is questionable. Orthodox Jews say if you predict the exact time this Machiac comes, it may not come and its only supposed to come when it is greatily needed. Some argue he already came and went and was called Akiba. All depends on who you talk to. Others say the Machiac was and will be again Jesus. Islam claims only Muhammed is the genuine prophet of God to follow.

Well its usually a man with a beard.

I just wish there was some way we could focus people into living right now and with each decision doing something peaceful and positive not delegating it to a God, Satan, saviour. politician.

I say that because I believe we have turned all these interpretations into crutches and scapegoats to avoid taking responsibility for our behaviour as individuals and in collective groups.

This was just my contribution to a religious topic that means no disrespect to Islam. Christianity or Judaism but challenges them all to evolve past definitions and interpretations that justify intolerance, war and delegate our need to take resonsibiliy hear and now and stop using figureheads as excuses for our failures.

 

The whole issue of ME peace in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rife with far too many nuances that most Americans are either ignorant of or just completely turned off by. Far easier to blame a boogeyman or look for a savior.

All I know is that if the brightest of our American thinkers was against the formation of Israel because of the dangers of Zionism, it should give pause to American leaders too. History has shown that they have caved to the religious illogic and fervor.

Einstein Letter Warning Of Zionist Fascism In Israel

 

One thing that I am fairly certain of is that if somebody who had a near death experience
and could meet with Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus in the form that he has of today, June 6, 2021......


if they would ask him if there will be a literal fulfillment of Ezekiel chapters forty to forty eight......

I strongly suspect that they would get a "YES!".......

and.... Ezekiel chapter forty seven sounds to me like win - win - win - win - win - win for the vast, vast majority of Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians?!


"Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken" (Luke 24:25)


https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/ezek/47?lang=eng

 

Are you saying that all citizens of Palestine will have full representation and equality and that all citizens of Israel will have full representation and equality in the governments that they choose as long as they operate within the framework of international law (that is, not violating boarders, etc.)?

If not, then you just have NOTHING to offer as far as I can tell.

 

I do have in mind a way or two or three..... for that to be arranged......
all citizens of the Palestinian Authority could become part of one huge.... .and several smaller film production companies and or cooperatives and or kibbutzes.

All citizens of Israel could become part of one huge and several smaller film production companies and / or cooperatives and / or kibbutzes..... and I could donate my audition for several roles that would be me attempting to the best of my ability to begin a dialogue that would decrease hostilities and increase cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis.

The books by near death experiencer Robert Mendelson could become text books that are used in teaching English as a second language to Palestinian students whose first language may be Arabic... and to Israeli students whose first language may be Hebrew...... .that will get matters started......

Technically... all of this could begin here in Canada!


God's Peace Plan for the Holy Land... this booklet is brilliant!

http://godspeaceplan.org/books-download-page/

There are about a thousand Breslovian Chassidic Jews living in Israel who might be willing to begin some sort of alternative currency unit that could finance this whole project.....and Breslovian Chassidic Jews whose first language is English could become teachers ... Breslovian Chassidic Jews whose first language is Hebrew could teach Hebrew and followers of Rabbi Nachman whose first language is Arabic could teach Arabic.......... and voila this could begin!?

 

Once again you come up with economic ideas, apparantly thinking Palestine's future can be bought on the open market!

But, I see absoltuely NO indication that the issues in the region of Palestine and Israel have anything at all to do with economics.

In fact, your style solution was tried by the Trump administration. A plan was hatched to create more wealth in the region on the Trumpian assumption that Palestinians would be willing to sell everything they have fought for through several generations for the promise of a stronger economy.

We KNOW what the answer is for these economic ideas of yours. That direction even got tried!

 

It’s puzzling to me how so many Christians insist on reading the scriptures literally,
when literally, Jesus said he was using figurative speech, as the following two verses attest.
.
John 16:25;
“Though I have been speaking figuratively,
a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language
but will tell you plainly about [G-d].”
.
Matthew 13:34;
Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables;
he did not say anything to them without using a parable.”
.
So, if you are right about Jews reading much of the scriptures as allegory,
then according to Jesus, they’re right to do so (although that doesn’t guarantee
they will understand the underlying message correctly).
.
Another New Testament passage states,
John 5:19;
Jesus gave them this answer:
“Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself;
he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
.
A bit of simple logic for Christians who insist on reading everything in scripture literally:
Since Jesus does only what G-d, does, and since Jesus uses allegory, ergo,
G-d uses allegory, too.
So, any literalist Christian is literally denying their messiah and God at the same time.

 

Dear Will,
I don't know whether you're a Palestinian or a Jew or something else, but I do know this:
The Abrahamic Accords requires both Jews and Muslims to violate important parts of their
respective sacred books. Economic features can make things more palatable, but if they
require people to violate the messages Creator gave to their people, the end result will
not be good.

 

Yes............ a relatively small amount of money has been given to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority to convince them to continue a policy put forward by Yury Andropov in 1972 ...... so yes..... I believe that money could easily be used to buy the favour of the rest of the Palestinians who DID NOT earn much more than a pittance from those among their political leadership who liked Mr. Andropov's policy, (or at least liked the amount of money they got paid to convince them to like Mr. Andropov's policy).



http://www.politicalforum.com/index...nd-its-influence-on-mideast-terrorism.505610/

.....

https://www.tldm.org/news9/russianinfluenceonmideast.htm

 

Well, before making unequivocal demands that war is the only option, I would suggest at least a few other steps.

Also, I seriously doubt that ethnic cleansing, denying representation of ANY kind, etc., are legitimate religions requirements.

 

None of this had any affect on what a solution has to look like.

Palestinians are not going to accept being ethnically cleansed, being denied representation in the regions ruled by Israel's foreign military law, being held in an open air prison, or any of the other things they endure today that NO human beings will ever accept, regardless of how much you want to pay them.

It's absolutely preposterous to think there is a price that Palestinians would accept for being subjected to that.

 

How much would England have had to pay George Washington to surrender and for the colonies to tear up our declaration of independence, deciding that after all, those principles we claimed to stand for as absolutes were after all just the babblings of old philosophers and religious heretics?

If you admit that Palestinians are humans, too, you need to consider this.

I'm not a Palestinian, a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, or an Israeli. I AM a human, though.

And, if someone came to deny the rights laid out for us in our founding documents, you would not be able to buy me off. And, I'm sure that is NOT unique to me in any way.

Would YOU sell out America? I don't think so.

 

Actually, war isn't the only option, nor is it the best option. IMHO, the best option is one in which
people from both sides are treated with equal justice. The issues in the Holy Land stretch back
further than 1947. And whether or not people want to keep religion out of the equation, the fact is
that any solution that doesn't take this into account will not bring peace, even if Trump and
other people think bribes can bring peace.

I respectfully invite you to take a look at the peace plan Dennis cited. I know that will require
additional reading, but your pen name is Will Read More, after all.

 

Would I sell out America? No. Do I think Palestinians should sell out? Absolutely not.
Should Jews sell out? No, again. I believe all humans and human rights should be respected.
However, history has a way of making things so convoluted there doesn't seem to be a
way out that is fair to everyone. Some people say the best solution is to just forget about the
whole mess, let them kill each other, and "let God sort it out".
I agree with the last part--let God sort it out. If we do that, there won't be any war.

There will be one nation with two sub-states based on the '67 borders. Jerusalem the shared
national capital. Equal rights for all in the entire nation. And a bit more. And when it's done,
religious extremists won't have a leg to stand on if they want more violence.

 

Dennis has posted more than one idea and I have read them.

I certainly was not saying that I think war is an option.

What I'm saying that what is happening now and for the last 70 years has been continuous war. Over the last 20-odd years, Israel has waged war on Gaza without cessation and with fully and total refusal to negotiate. In West Bank, Israel continues its policy of ethnic cleansing and conquest - a total and continuing act of war.

Peace is not something that is going to be purchased with economic gifts. It does not matter what Dennis thinks the purchase price might be, it is NOT denominated in dollars or economic concessions.

Peace comes when humans are secure, when they have equality, when they have freedom of religion, and when they have representation.

Read our founding documents. This is what America stands for.

We do not stand for this idea that peace can be purchased with dollars while ignoring human rights, representation, equality, etc.

Have YOU bothered to read what we stand for, what we believe is true for ALL humans:

This applies to Palestinians EVERY MUCH as it does to us.

You could also read the UN charter on these issues. This charter came from the USA more than anyone, and Israel signed on to these precepts. It clearly states that the increase of a country's size may not be achieved by war.

Where the HELL does Israel get the right to ethnically cleanse Palestine, to rule them with their military law in which Palestinians have no representation, to increase the size of Israel by a war of conquest?

 

You could not possibly be more wrong about this crazy idea that there is no resolution.

The obvious legal resolution is TRIVIALLY EASY. Palestine is a state. And, all those living there should have representation in the sovereign state of Palestine, regardless of their religion, ethnicity, etc.

Israel needs to stop ethnically cleansing West Bank, it needs to release the people held in the open air prison of Gaza, and Palestine gets to govern Palestine.

There can be a special arrangement for Jerusalem. It's been proposed that there be an internationally administered zone there, allowing access to religious sites, etc.



Your choice of promoting continued slaughter is SERIOUSLY disgusting and absolutely against all that America holds as fundamental. Plus, your proposed outcome from that is nonsensical.

I don't believe you've studied this problem much. Israel can't allow a one state solution, because if they did it won't be very many years before Jews would be in the minority, and Israel would no longer be a Jewish state.

Today, Israel rules a LOT of Palestinians in Palestine with their military law. They could diffuse that situation to some extent by allowing Palestinians to participate in the government - to allow representation. BUT, there is no possibility of Israel doing that, because it would be like Republicans allowing the District of Columbia to be represented.

 

Up till now I've replied in a kindly manner, avoiding pejoratives. Asking if I've "bothered" to read the bill of rights and such heads into argument territory, which I choose to leave to whoever wishes to be there. You said you've read all the things Dennis writes, but if you choose not to read the peace plan that is your business. You said any plan that doesn't provide equal human rights is unacceptable. The peace plan does exactly that. If you aren't willing to read more, perhaps you could change your pen name.

 

If your idea was truly "TRIVIALLY EASY", why hasn't it happened? Saying that I'm promoting continued slaughter isn't true. You've now gone beyond polite discourse. Enjoy your close-minded monologue. Change your tone and quit the outrageous assumptions and we can talk. Otherwise, I'll spend my time where it's worthwhile. Peace, Love, and Light.

 

You stated:

That went well beyond your claim of "some people" as it IS what would happen with your passive stance and you provide no opposition to that OR alternative to that. It STILL looks to me like you are NOT objecting to US supported Israeli war on Palestine, regardless of casualty count.

Is that true? If not, what do you REALLY think??

For further illumination of why Israel is not going to allow there to be a single democratic government:

I believe there are 6.2 million Jews in Israel and West Bank.

Also, there are nearly 2 million Arabs in Israel (essentially 20% of Israel) living under apartheid there. And, there are 2.2 million in West Bank plus 1.8 million in Gaza.

In other words, the population of Arabs in the combined region is very close to the population of Jews. And, the growth rate of the Arab population is higher than that of Jews. Netanyahu has tried to fix that by significant attempts to lure foreign Jews to Israel while creating apartheid policy preventing others from coming. But, that is not working. Plus, there isn't an endless supply of Jews in other countries who are willing to come to Israel.


It does irritate me when people come along and suggest there will be one country as soon as Israel unifies the region under its own government.

It just shows that these people are not paying attention. Israel's intention is to ethnically cleanse the West Bank. And, the government policy is apartheid, not equal representation.

 

All Dennis's responses to my posts have focused on economic bonuses solving the problem - ideas such as turning deserts green with desalinization and other types of economic benefit. Some of what he proposes is the Trump economic plan that was so soundly rejected.

I have consistently pointed out that economics isn't going to solve anything, that there has to be a political solution that leaves Palestinians with the rights that our own founders considered an absolute requirement.

As far as I know, that is all I've gotten from him.

If you think there is something else, please help me out with that.

 

Will, read the peace plan and then get back to me. If you don't want to check it out, that's fine, too. Peace, Love, and Light

 

Again, please cite the peace plan to which you refer.

I absolutely will read it if I have not already done so.

 

www.godspeaceplan.org

 

Those who now call themselves "jews" are impostors = evil antichrist Edomites, enemies of Israelites.

Isaiah 65:15, Malachi 1:1-4, Luke 19:27, Romans 9:13, Rev 2:9, Rev 3:7-9

.