The American Christian right may support the state of Israel, but only because it fulfils Biblical prophecy. Nuala Haughey reports
The God of the Old Testament was a vengeful deity, regularly ordering the smiting and slaying of those who incurred his wrath or who threatened the ancient nation of Israel.
As the leader of the modern Israeli state lay clinging to life this week after suffering a massive stroke and brain haemorrhage, the US televangelist Pat Robertson suggested Ariel Sharon's ill health was divine comeuppance, the Lord's punishment for his recent withdrawal of troops and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip.
"God considers this land to be his," said the hugely influential Robertson on his 700 Club television programme on Thursday. "You read the Bible and he says, 'This is my land', and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, 'No, this is mine.'" Robertson's remarks were met by Israelis with a mixture of disbelief and indignation, not least because the controversial Christian right political activist is a close friend and supporter of Israel, and Sharon himself.
The American Christian right - including television preachers such as Robertson and Jerry Falwell - may be among Israel's most fervent fans, but their devotion to the Jewish state has never been an easy or straightforward one, predicated as it is on a bizarre mixture of ancient prophecies and modern-day policies.
Their uncritical devotion to right-wing Israeli leaders seeking to expand "Greater Israel" on illegally occupied Palestinian territory including Gaza is firmly rooted in their belief that the creation of the modern Jewish state is a crucial fulfilment of Biblical prophecy, preceding the second coming of Christ and the end of days in the final battle of Armageddon when the Antichrist will be defeated.
This apocalyptic vision translates into support for Israel's claims against those of the Palestinians and resistance to anything that might undercut the security and expansion of the Jewish state.
These self-styled "Christian Zionists" have in the past two decades poured millions of dollars of donations into Israel and even bankrolled Jewish immigrants here, regarding the return of Jews to the Holy Land as part of Biblical prophecy. These fundamentalists are a sub-set of the Christian Evangelical movement, and form an important part of US president George Bush's electoral base.
THEIR BELIEFS - INCLUDING the conviction that at the end of time the Jews will either convert to Christianity or die - have understandably made some Jews leery of their enthusiastic benefactors.
"The irony of their attitude is that on the one hand they express intense love of the Jews and Israel but on the other hand they represent an old-fashioned unreconstructed theological attitude that the Jews live in sin and error and are guilty of rejecting Jesus," says Gershom Gorenberg, author of The End of Days, which examines fundamental Christianity's peculiar relationship with modern day Israel.
"In this respect their pro-right-wing Israeli attitudes are accompanied by a complete unwillingness to view Judaism as a legitimate religion on its own . . . They see the Jews as unwitting actors in a mythic drama, and some are also eager to see Jews converted to Christianity which is deeply offensive to Jews."
Israel's Tourism Ministry, apparently immune to such sinister theological spats, has for decades been courting fundamentalist pastors for Holy Land tours.
It is currently working on a fresh way to channel more of these adherents of apocalyptic doom into a cash cow by leasing land to a consortium of Christian evangelical groups, including Robertson, who want to build a Holy Land centre and Biblical park.
UNDER A DEAL being finalised, the state will turn over an attractive site in northern Israel overlooking the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is said to have walked on water for a $60 million (€49.5 million) Holy Land Christian centre, Biblical park and information centre. The development, located close to the Mount of Beatitudes, is expected to attract up to one million extra tourists a year.
"We would like more Christian tourists," says Jonathan Pulik, an Israeli ministry of tourism spokesman. "This development will also benefit Israelis living in the Galilee area as a source of employment." Uri Dagul, a tourism ministry consultant who inspired the Galilee plan, said the attractions would be aimed at all Christians and would not promote fundamentalist theology.
"The general attitude of Israeli officials toward the Christian evangelicals is that we are interested in their support, not their theology," says Gorenberg. However, he cautioned that on the wider issue of promoting an alliance between such groups and Israel, one should follow the old Hebrew proverb of "respect them and suspect them".
"I'm not suggesting refusing speaking to these people because of their theology but it's worthwhile understanding it because it involves certain risks for Israel. They are not interested in Israel living in peace and security, but in fulfilling their vision of the Bible which involves great violence in the region."
Curiously, the modern roots of this fundamentalist Christian theology dates back to a 19th-century Anglo-Irish Protestant curate from Co Wicklow, John Nelson Darby. London-born Darby, who graduated from Trinity, championed a theology called premillennial dispen- sationalism, which taught that the second coming of Christ was imminent.