While I have little confidence this will work, we've got to keep trying for peace in the region. A two-state solution is part of the solution. I agree that the vast majority of evangelicals (at least the ones I know) support this end.

One other comment... Does any else get tripped up every time for forgetting to add an email address? Ugh...

Posted by: Eric | December 10, 2007 10:43 AM

Does Sider have any stats that prove his statement that only a minority of American evangelicals are Christian Zionists? He didn't give any, but seemed pretty sure of it. He needs to have some more evidence for his rather sweeping statements.
However, speaking of hopeful signs, Hamas apparently has sent an open letter to the U.S. begging them to end the siege of Gaza. Let's hope they fold to the demands of the Quartet soon.

Posted by: Ben Wheaton | December 10, 2007 12:38 PM

While I don't disagree with the need to create a two-state solution, I would like to hear a case for why this is the best solution and why the CUFI is wrong. This blog article did not really address the pros and cons of each solution to prove which is best.

Posted by: Ted | December 10, 2007 1:00 PM

The last time they came to terms when Clinton was in office - they agreed on 90+ percent of the issues and Arafat walked away from the agreement as he knew that he could not make it work.

I saw the map of the actual proposal, which consisted of "checkerboard" plots of Palestinian land interspersed with Israeli arteries. No way could Arafat accept that deal, and if he did he would have been assassinated.

Posted by: Rick Nowlin | December 10, 2007 1:55 PM

I think it is accurate to characterize the CUFI as an organization that simply wants the Palestinians to be removed entirely without caring much how or to where, even through genocide, since in their view the entire geography belongs to those who are genetically members of the 12 historic tribes and no one else at all. They believe that the scriptures provided the basis in the past for taking the land through genocide, and that the sin was that the command to kill every man, woman and child and their possessions wasn't completely followed.

It's not like such political views have no precedence - at one time or another they have been practiced everywhere on earth.

And let's not ignore the obvious - "Palestine" is the modern word for the historical "Philistine" - and every child in Sunday School of an age knows how thoroughly evil that entire race was without redemption.

Posted by: Michael Sanger | December 10, 2007 3:00 PM

It's not what you know - but what you think you do, but really don't - that hurts you. I think that happens as we absorb some of what our culture and institutions teach us almost by osmosis.

I don't subscribe to a universal theory of evil for Palestinians, or anyone. Evil doesn't divide so neatly among peoples; rather it divides inside each of us personally.

Posted by: Michael Sanger | December 10, 2007 5:45 PM

Arafat would have been assassinated in any agreement that left Israel intact as an independent Jewish state, and the fact that he decided to launch an intifada doesn't speak well to his motives.

Irrelevant, considering that Israel is still considered the "bully on the block."

What, I wonder, would happen to the CUFI world-view if it turned out to be true (as the late Arthur Koestler argued) that the majority of present-day Jews are descended not from the twelve tribes of Israel but from the Pechenegs or Patzinaks, a Turkic people who converted en masse to Judaism around the 11th century?

I've also heard that many present day Jews are descended from the Khazar tribes, which converted to Judaism in the 8th Century. That said, by the time of Christ Israel was down to two tribes, Judah and Benjamin.

Posted by: Rick Nowlin | December 10, 2007 6:30 PM

Arafat would have been assassinated in any agreement that left Israel intact as an independent Jewish state, and the fact that he decided to launch an intifada doesn't speak well to his motives.

Posted by: Ben Wheaton | December 10, 2007 2:32 PM

I guess, Ben, that Sharon's ignition of the intifada of the past 7 years would be forgiveable in your books if, for no other reason, than that he's Israeli?

Posted by: canucklehead | December 10, 2007 7:22 PM

It's my understanding that CUFI wholeheartedly backs Israel at the expense of the Palestinians because that's what's required to bring on the End Times. That has nothing to do with whether or not it's in Israel's interests. After all, according to CUFI's reading of Revelations, at the End, Jews will be invited to accept Jesus as the Messiah--and if they don't become Christians, tough luck for them (a more polite way of saying they go all the way down into the fires).

I wouldn't look to CUFI for political leadership, despite their very skillful lobbying.

Posted by: bren | December 11, 2007 1:36 AM

Wolverine, I think Sojo needs to engage both, for different reasons. CUFI may not be thoughtful, but the sad truth is they have growing influence. It's like saying since Bush isn't really all that intelligent of a conservative, progressives would do better to engage Dinesh D'Souza than challenge the President.

Posted by: I and I | December 11, 2007 9:24 AM

Rick, my understanding is that God chose Israel not only to be a witness to the nations, but even more importantly, to be the nation from which the Savior of the world would come. In fact, it's clear that the promised blessings you mention are ultimately to be fulfilled through this Messiah, whom we Christians, of course, believe to be Jesus of Nazareth.

God did not choose Israel because they were more righteous, more intelligent, or stronger than other people. In fact, they were one of the smaller, weaker nations among larger, more powerful neighbors. God's choices are not human choices.

Modern Israel has no relationship to the biblical covenants except in name only. Modern Israel is primarily a secularist construction with religious parties involved. From 1948 until the prime ministership of Menachem Begin in the late 1970s, it was basically a European-style socialist, parliamentary democracy. And even today, it's hardly a theocracy.

Does God have a purpose for modern Israel? Certainly, because as Paul told the Athenians (Acts 17), God determines the times and the boundaries of all nations. But the covenantal purposes for Israel were fulfilled on that night in Bethlehem that we're about to celebrate, and the covenant with the Isarelite nation was ended dramatically when Titus and the Roman army sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple (in AD 7, in fulfillment of Jesus' Mount of Olives prophecy--"This generation will not pass away until all these things are fulfilled"). From this time forward, the promises and prophecies regarding Israel are fulfilled to the New Israel--the Church.

This was the belief of most Christians throughout history until the 1830s when an Irishman named John Nelson Darby, who was disillusioned with the Church of England, relied on "prophetic utterances" of his day to construct what we call the dispensational interpretation of the Scriptures. Dispensationalism is rooted in the notion that God has two peoples in the earth--an earthly people (Israel) and a heavenly people (the Church). God's promises to earthly Israel were postponed because they rejected their Messiah. The final fulfillments of these promises and prophecies will begin once again after the Church is removed from the earth (i.e., the 'Rapture').

I wouldn't doubt that CUFI and similar groups are dispensational in their outlook. They think modern Israel is the beginning of the fulfillment of these things--despite the fact that the 'rapture' hasn't happened yet. They tend to brook no criticism of the Israeli government's actions because God's purposes are (to them clearly) being fulfilled through this secular nation. They obviously are entitled to the land because of God's promises, so the Palestinians should just be quiet and forget about it. (I'm simplifying and generalizing, of course, but I'm trying to keep this post from being too long.)

And of course, once again, it's the Palestinian Christians who are being ignored and marginalized in all these discussions and power plays. Sad; truly sad, that a religious ideology that originated in an unorthodox interpretation of Scripture would trump the New Testament command to "do good to all, but especially to those of the household of faith."

Peace,

Posted by: Don | December 11, 2007 12:31 PM

Sider's moral and practical timidity toward a just resolution, and his enthusiasm for meaningless gestures is candy. Appeals to George Bush 's conscience is the weakest avenue of hope. So far absolutely nothing of substance has been put on the table. I do not want my tax dollars going to support Israel, to continue to prop up it's apartheid government. The US has the power to bring a just solution, but lacks the courage.

Stolen land must be returned . 67 borders restored, the wall torn down . 2000 year old dreams in the Desert are no basis for real estate claims. Otherwise Israel should get Jordan, Lebanon, and half of Iraq. Why is america going deep into debt to foster this madness and feed this God of Murder?

Posted by: jonabark | December 11, 2007 12:43 PM

Two states would be great; but security for Israel requires a VIABILE Palestinian state and the facts on the ground in the Holy Land is that the it is in pieces; bantustans.

The CUFI crowd are well organized and politically driven by the neo-con ideology.

This civilian journalist and Christian of the Beatitudes attended a CUFI conference in Miami on November 6, 2007, and was nauseous during the entire event.

The James L. Knight Center was packed to the rafters with John Hagee's tribe of Christian Zionists and south Florida's right wing Jewish community.

Zion's Fire Banners, dancers, singers and a band whipped the crowd into a frenzy of spinning, jumping, clapping, twirling and moved the rotund Hagee to link arms with men in skull caps and dance the Hora-not to Hava Nagila, but to repeated choruses of:

Shout for joy and victory! Bat Yerushalyim

From one end of the stage to the other, the largest American and Israeli flags I have ever seen were draped side by side and by the end of the evening I imagined every star on the red-white-and blue had morphed into the Star of David.

[ Photo @ http://www.wearewideawake.org/ ]

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe Martinez pointed to the flags and exclaimed: "Isn't that beautiful up there together? I get goose bumps! All nations have been created by an act of man, except Israel was created by an act of God."

Rabbi Freedman delivered the Invocation, "We are all friends of the only democracy in the Middle East."

I immediately recalled what American Israeli, Jeff Halper, the Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions told me during one of my five journeys to Jerusalem:

"Israel is a not a democracy but is an Ethnocracy, meaning a country run and controlled by a national group with some democratic elements but set up with Jews in control and structured to keep them in control.”

Rabbi Freedman continued on, "From Mount Sinai to Mount Zion to Mount Vernon we are all Zionists! Israel is second to America in how many immigrants we have absorbed."

Immigrant absorption in Israel comes with perks and is called Aliyah, ["go up"] and is a fundamental concept of Zionism enshrined in Israel's Law of Return, which permits any Jew from any where in the world the legal right to government assisted immigration and settlement in Israel, automatic Israeli citizenship, unemployment benefits, free medical, and subsidized housing. Young adult immigrants receive free room, utilities, and three meals a day for the first five months and 100 percent of their tuition is paid by the government.

Hagee's mastery of manipulating the fears of his audience garnered him a standing ovation as the shofars blew, "Israel was re-born by an act of God and Israel lives! The Jews have suffered great persecution and survived slavery and the Final Solution! God Jehovah will bury Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran! The flag of Israel will fly over the undivided Jerusalem and be the praise of all the earth! It's 1938 again and the new Hitler is Ahmadinejad! Radical Islamisicts are threatening to develop nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel and then the USA! But we are indivisible and we are both here forever!"

The oft repeated comment ascribed to President Ahmadinejad, that "Israel must be wiped off the map," was addressed by Virginia Tilley, Professor of political science who wrote:

"In his October 2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word "map" or the term "wiped off". According to Farsi-language experts like Juan Cole and even right-wing services like MEMRI, what he actually said was "this regime that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."

"In this speech to an annual anti-Zionist conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad was being prophetic, not threatening. He was citing Imam Khomeini, who said this line in the 1980s (a period when Israel was actually selling arms to Iran, so apparently it was not viewed as so ghastly then). Mr. Ahmadinejad had just reminded his audience that the Shah's regime, the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein had all seemed enormously powerful and immovable, yet the first two had vanished almost beyond recall and the third now languished in prison. So, too, the "occupying regime" in Jerusalem would someday be gone. His message was, in essence, "This too shall pass." http://www.counterpunch.org/tilley08282006.html

Being a Christian of the Beatitudes-sticking to what Jesus actually taught and not worshiping any state or nation, I hope that the zeal of particular Christians for the state of Israel will also pass and because of their love for the Jewish people, I have hope they will have ears to hear the wisdom of the American Jewish progressive political and spiritual community and organization, Tikkun.

Tikkun is Hebrew for mend, repair and transform the world.

Tikkun researched to discover that there are three distinct elements energizing the Christian Zionists:

1. A strong commitment to conservative and ultra-nationalist American politics (so strong, I believe, that if the U.S. were to decide to break with Israel, this part of the Christian Zionist leadership would go along with that and drop its defense of Israeli policies).

2. Dispensationalist religious commitments that lead many of the Christian Zionists to yearn for a cataclysmic “end of history” eschatological war in the Middle East that will precipitate the second coming of Jesus and the Rapture in which all true Christians will go to heaven and all Jews who have not yet converted to Christianity will burn in hell for eternity.

3. A widespread understanding among many Christians that atonement and repentance is needed for 1700 years of murder, rape, and oppression of Jews that was frequently generated by the Church (though, of course, the Evangelicals do not recognize that church as their church). In this category are many Christian Zionists who genuinely feel terrible about what has happened to the Jews and genuinely want to help the Jewish people. Their philo-Semitism is real and sincere. [Rabbi Lerner, Tikkun Magazine page 9, Nov/Dec. 2007]

But in Miami the other night, multitudes of misled and misinformed Christian's celebrated military occupation, violence, power and control and ignored the gospel Jesus preached: "It is the peacemakers who shall be called the children of God." –Matthew 5:9

Hagee repeatedly cited that all worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but neglected to mention that the first mention of Israel is in Genesis 32:22, when Jacob was renamed Israel for having wrestled and struggled with the Divine.

Hagee threw out the names of all the Hebrew prophets, but not the fact that God raised up prophets to speak truth to power and arrogance and to remind people of what God desires:

"What does God require? He has told you o'man!
Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord." -Micah 6:8

God also raised up prophets to remind them they cannot know the mind of the Mystery of the Universe, for "His thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord."- Isaiah 55:8

God raised up prophets to admonish the "stiff necked people" [Exodus 34:9, Proverbs 29:1] and that "My people are fools, they do not know me! They are skilled in doing evil, they know not how to do good."-Jeremiah 4:22

Hagee invoked the "Torah Way" but neglected what the Torah commands:

"From Moses to Jeremiah and Isaiah, the Prophets taught...that the Jewish claim on the land of Israel was totally contingent on the moral and spiritual life of the Jews who lived there, and that the land would, as the Torah tells us, 'vomit you out' if people did not live according to the highest moral vision of Torah. Over and over again, the Torah repeated its most frequently stated mitzvah [command]:

"When you enter your land, do not oppress the stranger; the other, the one who is an outsider of your society, the powerless one and then not only 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself' but also 'you shall love the other.'" [Rabbi Lerner, TIKKUN Magazine, page 35, Sept./Oct. 2007 ]

Posted by: eileen fleming | December 11, 2007 2:47 PM

Geoff:

Sorry for taking a while to respond to your query, but I've been away from my monitor for a while.

I don't know that there's any single source I could recommend. My knowledge of dispensationalism comes from several sources, not all of which are published. Complicating any recommendation advice is the fact that dispensationalism, like all theological systems, has many variants, so not all dispensationalists believe exactly what I outlined above. And it keeps changing, at least in academic circles (e.g., "progressive dispensationalism"), though I'm sure Hagee's. LaHaye's, or Hal Lindsey's understandings haven't changed much.

Nevertheless, I know of a few publications that could perhaps help you. Probably the "classic" critique of dispensationalism is Oswald T Allis' Prophecy and the Church. It was written, I believe, in the 1940s, and is therefore dated, but the exegetical sections are still valid. I don't know if it's still in print, but you should be able to find a copy in a library.

Another book I might cautiously recommend is Barbara R Rossing's The Rapture Exposed. The reason I'm more hesitant about it is that it is highly polemic in tone. Rossing wrote it as a response to the Left Behind series.

On the other end of the argumentative spectrum is Vern Poythress' Understanding Dispensationalists. It's less a critique or anlysis of the belief system itself than a discussion of the dispensational believer's psyche. It has a very respectful tone.

Finally, for a book that deals with the specific issue at hand, the Middle East crisis, I might recommend Colin Chapman's Whose Promised Land. I "might" recommend it because I haven't actually read it (yet). But it appears to be a thorough treatment of the subject of biblical interpretation and how it fits into the Israel-Palestine question, both from a historical and an exegetical perspective. Chapman, I believe, is an Anglican who lives and teaches theology in Beirut, Lebanon.

I'm sure other treatments of this subject are out there (maybe even an updated treatment of the material Allis covers). Perhaps other readers can recommend some further publications.

Peace,

Posted by: Don | December 11, 2007 7:22 PM

For those of you criticize Palestinians, and they do deserve some, you should try to understand their daily exsistance, and determine how YOU would react.

From an isreali newspaper - msm would NEVER let you read!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14799.htm

Gaza's Darkness

By Gideon Levy

09/03/;06 "Haaretz" -- -- Gaza has been reoccupied. The world must know this and Israelis must know it, too. It is in its worst condition, ever. Since the abduction of Gilad Shalit, and more so since the outbreak of the Lebanon war, the Israel Defense Forces has been rampaging through Gaza - there's no other word to describe it - killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately.

Nobody thinks about setting up a commission of inquiry; the issue isn't even on the agenda. Nobody asks why it is being done and who decided to do it. But under the cover of the darkness of the Lebanon war, the IDF returned to its old practices in Gaza as if there had been no disengagement. So it must be said forthrightly, the disengagement is dead. Aside from the settlements that remain piles of rubble, nothing is left of the disengagement and its promises. How contemptible all the sublime and nonsensical talk about 'the end of the occupation' and 'partitioning the land? now appears. Gaza is occupied, and with greater brutality than before. The fact that it is more convenient for the occupier to control it from outside has nothing to do with the intolerable living conditions of the occupied.

In large parts of Gaza nowadays, there is no electricity. Israel bombed the only power station in Gaza, and more than half the electricity supply will be cut off for at least another year. There's hardly any water. Since there is no electricity, supplying homes with water is nearly impossible. Gaza is filthier and smellier than ever: Because of the embargo Israel and the world have imposed on the elected authority, no salaries are being paid and the street cleaners have been on strike for the past few weeks. Piles of garbage and obnoxious clouds of stink strangle the coastal strip, turning it into Calcutta.

More than ever, Gaza is also like a prison. The Erez crossing is empty, the Karni crossing has been open only a few days over the last two months, and the same is true for the Rafah crossing. Some 15,000 people waited for two months to enter Egypt, some are still waiting, including many ailing and wounded people. Another 5,000 waited on the other side to return to their homes. Some died during the wait. One must see the scenes at Rafah to understand how profound a human tragedy is taking place. A crossing that was not supposed to have an Israeli presence continues to be Israel?s means to pressure 1.5 million inhabitants. This is disgraceful and shocking collective punishment. The U.S. and Europe, whose police are at the Rafah crossing, also bear responsibility for the situation.

Gaza is also poorer and hungrier than ever before. There is nearly no merchandise moving in and out, fishing is banned, the tens of thousands of PA workers receive no salaries, and the possibility of working in Israel is out of the question.

And we still haven?t mentioned the death, destruction and horror. In the last two months, Israel killed 224 Palestinians, 62 of them children and 25 of them women. It bombed and assassinated, destroyed and shelled, and no one stopped it. No Qassam cell or smuggling tunnel justifies such wide-scale killing. A day doesn?t go by without deaths, most of them innocent civilians.

Where are the days when there was still a debate inside Israel about the assassinations? Today, Israel drops innumerable missiles, shells and bombs on houses and kills entire families on its way to another assassination. Hospitals are collapsing with more than 900 people undergoing treatment. At Shifa Hospital, the only such facility in Gaza that might be worthy of being called a hospital, I saw heartrending scenes last week. Children who lost limbs, on respirators, paralyzed, crippled for the rest of their lives.

Families have been killed in their sleep, while riding on donkeys or working in fields. Frightened children, traumatized by what they have seen, huddle in their homes with a horror in their eyes that is difficult to describe in words. A journalist from Spain who spent time in Gaza recently, a veteran of war and disaster zones around the world, said he had never been exposed to scenes as horrific as the ones he saw and documented over the last two months.

It is difficult to determine who decided on all this. It is doubtful the ministers are aware of the reality in Gaza. They are responsible for it, starting with the bad decision on the embargo, through the bombing of Gaza?s bridges and power station and the mass assassinations. Israel is responsible now once again for all that happens in Gaza.

The events in Gaza expose the great fraud of Kadima: It came to power on the coattails of the virtual success of the disengagement, which is now going up in flames, and it promised convergence, a promise that the prime minister has already rescinded. Those who think Kadima is a centrist party should now know it is nothing other than another rightist occupation party. The same is true of Labor. Defense Minister Amir Peretz is responsible for what is happening in Gaza no less than the prime minister, and Peretz?s hands are as blood-soaked as Olmert's. He can never present himself as a 'man of peace' again. The ground invasions every week, each time somewhere else, the kill and destroy operations from the sea, air and land are all dubbed with names to whitewash the reality, like 'Summer Rains' or 'Locked Kindergarten.' No security excuse can explain the cycle of madness, and no civic argument can excuse the outrageous silence of us all. Gilad Shalit will not be released and the Qassams will not cease. On the contrary, there is a horror taking place in Gaza, and while it might prevent a few terror attacks in the short run, it is bound to give birth to much more murderous terror. Israel will then say with its self-righteousness: 'But we returned Gaza to them.

Posted by: bibi | December 12, 2007 9:09 AM

Two excellent, "must read" books by evangelicals on the whole subject of the promises about the Israel and the land are "Whose Promised Land?" by English evangelical writer Rev. Colin Chapman (Baker Books) and "Whose Land, Whose Promise?" by Dr. Gary Burge, professor of New Testament at Wheaton College in Illinois. From there, check out Stephen Sizer's book published by Inter-Varsity Press.

Posted by: John Berg | December 13, 2007 7:48 PM