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I’ve been asked a hundred times how Christians – specifically white evangelicals – can support a corrupt, racist, lying President who doesn’t appear to be even close to qualified for the office, a man who is cozying up to our enemies while destroying the characteristics that made America great in the first place. It’s a tough and complex question, but the behaviors described above just aren’t important when it comes to the Christians’ political agenda. They want Roe v Wade overturned, religious liberty (that borders on license) in all areas of life, and support for Israel expanded. In Trump the President, they’re getting exactly what they want.
While the country and the American press focus on the President’s misdeeds, fake news claims, morality, and especially his relationship with Russia, Israel’s far right wing radical Zionists – headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – have taken a giant step forward in seizing title to the entirety of the Holy Land. This includes rapid settlement development not only in the West Bank but also East Jerusalem, the home of Trump’s new American embassy. Moreover, the President’s tweet threatening the nuclear annihilation of Iran is directed more at boosting Israel than protecting any of America’s interests in the region. All of this sits amazingly well with Trump’s base support – the white evangelical Christians – who care nothing about the legality or morality of Israel’s behavior, only that it’s all a prelude to what they believe is the imminent return of Jesus Christ and what they believe is his thousand year reign of peace.
Tourism is absolutely booming in Israel with Trump supporters wanting to see the sacred Biblical sites but also activity in the West Bank and especially Jerusalem, where in their view Armageddon will begin. Israel’s economy is also booming, especially in the technology sector where Tel Aviv ranks fourth globally. It’s great to be an Israeli zealot in the era of Donald Trump. It’s also great time to be a fundamentalist end-times Christian, because (with a little help from them) an alliance between Gog and Magog (Russia), Gomer and Togarmah (Turkey), and Persia (Iran) is forming. These people believe this alliance will come against Israel, and that will usher in the return of Jesus. I’m serious. Support of Donald Trump is support of this foolishness, but it’s not without consequence.
Life for Palestinian Arabs in the area just keeps getting worse and worse, and this, too, escapes the view of the American press, because they’ve got seemingly bigger issues to watch at home. Israel commits horrible atrocities regularly and with impunity, because that’s the nature of U.S. support under the Trump administration. At least the State Department under Barack Obama would loudly object each time settlement extremists reached further into territory that doesn’t belong to them. These acts are illegal under international law, but that is irrelevant absent enforcement, and Netanyahu knows this. The settlements in the West Bank are especially troublesome, because the latest are splitting the land still occupied by Arabs into two pieces, which will make it easier to take it all. Building in Jerusalem is squeezing out land that used to belong to Palestinians. The resulting squalor and isolation the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank are left to live in is worse than anyone in the West can imagine.
While Israel points to the incompetence of Hamas in Gaza, it is Israel that provides the real government there. Utilities are provided by Israel, which means cutting electricity and water is easy. In the West Bank, water goes to the settlements, not the Arabs who legally live there. Israel rations water and electricity supplies to Gaza, including electricity than powers sewage treatment. The whole idea is to make life so miserable for Arabs that they will flee or bow to so-called “negotiations” wherein they will be subjugated as a permanent minority.
The U.S. gives $10 million each and every day to support Israel’s “democracy,” while President Trump is cutting aid to Palestinians that goes to fund, among other things, medical clinics in Gaza. As Mondoweiss reports, these clinics are beginning to close:
Since January, US financing for humanitarian programmes serving the Palestinians has been suspended, with Washington saying it is being reviewed. President Donald Trump has threatened to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to force the Palestinians back to the negotiating table with Israel.
When Arab groups of especially young people object to not only the occupation but also to the living conditions they are required to endure, Israeli Defense Force snipers shoot to kill, celebrating when a protester falls with a bullet to the chest or head from long range. Israeli claims of being forced to defend itself become the automatic operating narrative, which provides appropriate justification for any atrocity while the world sits by and watches. This narrative positions all threats as existential, because the country is surrounded by nations who mostly object to their presence in the region. This would be believable, if it were true, but Israel has the military capability to absolutely overwhelm any enemy that might come against it, which makes Israel’s power the only existential threat in the entire Middle East. To the rest of the world, however, Israel presents itself as a helpless and isolated potential victim of rampant anti-semitism it faces each and every day. Bearing the banner of the Holocaust and a standard that says “Never Again,” Israel gets a pass no matter what crime it commits against humanity. This demands our truthful examination.
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Even something as seemingly innocent as the construction of a museum in Jerusalem carries the stench of manipulation and expansion purpose. Simon Wiesenthal’s Museum of Tolerance is being built in East Jerusalem to open next year. It is incredibly controversial, however, as described in the Architecture publication Inexhibit:
The … problem is the presence of a highly regarded Muslim historic cemetery (known as Mamilla Cemetery) within the building site; therefore the construction of a relatively large building in a sacred burial site – with all which it implies, including excavations and removal of tombs, has been considered offensive and an “act of colonialism” by many Palestinians and by the Muslim religious authorities, who consider the museum actually just a part of a larger strategy aimed to physically and culturally remove Palestine from Jerusalem.
When Christians look at Israel – even through their own tours – they see the land of milk and honey promised by God to the Jews, a lush oasis of plenty on the desert seacoast where American-style avarice demands protection from envious neighbors. They see this as God in action in modern times, a narrative that impacts each of them individually through its links to Bible prophecy and the absolute surety with which they view their version of the faith.
I often wander down the path of the God of my understanding to ponder what He must be thinking as all of this unfolds. This whole business pits regional politics against Life, and, as Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurassic World says, “Life always finds a way.”
My admonition to the white evangelicals – many of whom are my brothers and sisters in the Lord – is this: Make sure that your own house is in order before you throw stones at others, especially in the Middle East, for all is definitely not as it seems.
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