[Photo by www.sodahead.com/]
By announcing fresh sanctions against Iran the UN Security Council
has once again displayed a kind of motivated obstinacy which makes one
suspect that it is not really serious about establishing peace in the
region. But then the UN rarely exudes neutrality. It has always been
subservient to American interests, particularly the pro-Israel US
foreign policy that has kept West Asia on the boil ever since the
creation of the Zionist state.
On the face of it, it may appear strange that the US-controlled
Security Council should let go of the historic opportunity offered by
the Turkish-Brazilian initiative to amicably resolve the Iran imbroglio.
But West Asia watchers know that US response to Iran’s nuclear program
cannot be seen in isolation because it is dictated by the US-Israeli
relationship which again is not a mere political alliance but a
symbiotic bond firmly secured by Judeo-Christian theology.
An analysis of the U.S. political scene would reveal that it is the
Evangelical Right, also known as the Christian Zionists, led by
extremist televangelists such as John Hagee, Jerry Falwell and Pat
Robertson, who, along with the Jewish lobby, call the shots, in so far
as the U.S. Middle East policy is concerned. It must, however, be said
that mainstream Christianity (including the Catholic Church) does not
identify itself with the fanatical beliefs of Evangelical Right such as
those discussed below.
In a recent article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz titled Why
Christian Zionists really support Israel Hagee wrote; “Our support for
Israel starts with God’s promises in the Hebrew Bible, but it does not
end there. Christian Zionists recognize that we owe an enormous debt of
gratitude to the Jewish people. As I have stressed to my Christian
audiences for years: If you take away the Jewish contribution to
Christianity, there would be no Christianity.” (http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/why-christian-zionists-really-suppor...).
By “God’s promises” Hagee is actually referring to the deliberate
misrepresentations of certain biblical verses. One such verse promises
Prophet Abraham and his descendants the land “from the river of Egypt as
far as the great river, the Euphrates” (Genesis 15:18). In another one
God offers to give Abraham and his “seed” after him the entire land of
Canaan (Palestine) “for an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8). It
may be noted here that according to the Old Testament the Arabs and the
Jews are the descendants of Abraham through Ishmael and Isaac
respectively which, hypothetically speaking, makes them the joint owners
of the “promised land.”
But for obvious reasons the Zionists and their Christian supporters
do not recognise Ishmael as the legitimate son of Abraham as he was born
to a “slave woman” named Hagar, the handmaiden of Sarah, the first wife
of Abraham and the mother of Isaac (Genesis 16:1-6). This divide was
further aggravated by St.Paul who advised the Christians saying, “Now
you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son
born in the ordinary way [Ishmael] persecuted the son born by the power
of the Spirit [Isaac]. It is the same now. But what does the Scripture
say? ‘Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son
will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.’”
(Galatians 4:28-31).
It is therefore the belief of the Christians Zionists that the
occupation of all Arab lands by the Jews (in fulfillment of the prophesy
in Genesis 15:18), after driving out the children of the “slave woman”,
is a prelude to the Second Coming of Christ and Armageddon, the
biblical concept of the last battle between the Good and the Evil before
the day of Judgment (Ezekiel 38-39). It is in this context that the US
attitude to Iran must be seen and understood, and once again John Hagee
personifies this extremist mindset. In his provocative book Jerusalem
Countdown Hagee advocates a war on Iran saying; “The rise of terrorism
in our world and the emerging crisis in the Middle East between Israel
and Iran are part of a much bigger picture – that of God’s plan for the
future of Israel and the entire world. We are going to discover we are
facing a countdown in the Middle East – the Jerusalem Countdown, a
battle such as the world has never seen or will ever see again.”
But what many Israelis are unaware of is that the Zionist Christians
are not exactly honest in their support for their country. They have
their own hidden religious agenda according to which, Jesus in his
second mission will convert all the Jews to Christianity, and therefore,
to hasten this process all must be done to help the Jews take over the
Arab lands between Nile and Euphrates. This belief is based on a
statement in Mathew 23:39 in which Jesus is quoted as saying, “For I
tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord.’” As Jesus was speaking to a Jewish
audience at that time the Zionist Christians interpret this statement as
having one meaning: for Jesus to make a second appearance all Jews must
be converted to Christianity.
No wonder Hagee was forced to clarify in his aforementioned article
that, “I am not at all surprised that many in the Jewish community are
skeptical of Christian support for Israel. Some worry that our efforts
are motivated by a desire to convert Jews. Others posit that our Zionism
is tied to an effort to speed the second coming of Jesus. Both of these
allegations are flat wrong. All we ask of our Jewish friends is that
they get to know us before they judge us harshly on the basis of myths
such as these.”
It is a strange paradox that, on the one hand we have the Christian
Zionists supporting Israel with financial, moral and military aid in the
dogmatic hope of one day converting all the Jews to Christianity, and
on the other, we see the cunning Zionists - who never accepted Jesus as
their Messiah - successfully manipulating the Christian Right using
their own Bible to further their diabolical expansionist agenda. The
ultimate victims of this unholy scheming between two Machiavellian
religious groups are the innocent Palestinians who have been rendered
refugees in their own homeland.
(The author is the Secretary General of Forum for the Promotion of Moderate Thought Among Muslims. He may be reached at faizz@rocketmail.com).
