Former US President Jimmy Carter, who doesn’t seem to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend herself against Jihadis, has identified a much more potent enemy of the Jews: Zionist Christians (or should that be Zionist Christians of DeathTM?) .
Former President Carter reportedly said Jews should not align themselves with Zionist Christians. Tikkun magazine editor Michael Lerner said Carter made the May 2 remarks at an interfaith gathering, according to The New York Jewish Week.”He said it was a terrible error for Jews to become allied with Christian Zionists who actually desire our conversion or burning in hell,” Rabbi Lerner related in an interview Tuesday with The Jewish Week. “He pointed out that the Christian Zionist view is part of that general theology that essentially views the Jews as an obstacle, not as friends, but temporarily views the Jews as friends in the process of bringing back Jesus and at that point having all of us convert.”
You see, Carter would rather we burn in hell right now. Why wait for the End of Days?
So thanks for the concern, Peanut Boy, but I’ll take their support over yours any day. And I’m not alone:
The State of Israel is not doing enough to utilize the growing Evangelical support for Israel at a time when a Christian-Jewish alliance is vital in the battle against Islamic extremism, according to Likud MK Gilad Erdan.”The strengthening and development of our relations with the Evangelical world is a national interest which must be furthered,” said Erdan, the deputy head of the Knesset’s Christian Allies Caucus, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.
“There is no clear-cut policy of the government of Israel that says we need to cooperate on all levels with Christian supporters of Israel,” he said, faulting the Foreign Ministry for a continuing failure to appreciate the potential such a partnership offers in the battle for public opinion.
Erdan, 36, a rising figure in the Likud, has been active in the cross-party parliamentary caucus, which works with Christian friends of Israel around the world, since its establishment three and a half years ago.
The lobby’s formation was seen as a watershed after decades when Israel shied away from contacts with the Christian world due to concerns over proselytizing.
The increasingly influential parliamentary lobby, which is made up of 12 Knesset members from seven political parties across the political spectrum, has come to epitomize Israel’s newfound interest in garnering the support of the Christian world, especially the largely pro-Israel Evangelicals.
Erdan said an alliance between Jews and Christians was absolutely critical in the war against Islamic extremism.
“If there is a chance to overcome the forces of Islamic extremism, it is by making them see that they have no chance of success, through an increasingly flourishing relationship between Christians and Jews,” he said.
While the caucus works to promote contacts with all Christian supporters of Israel, Erdan said he believes it won’t be possible to expand relations with the nonevangelical Christian world beyond governmental contacts.
“With the Evangelicals, we have common, shared Bible-based beliefs, and there is no need to convince them at the core,” he said, pulling out caucus chairman MK Benny Elon’s book, God’s Covenant with Israel, which Erdan keeps in his Knesset office.
The book addresses the strong connection between the people of Israel and the land of Israel.
Erdan, who will represent the Christian Allies Caucus at the 2007 Jerusalem Prayer Banquet – an Evangelical gathering in Beverly Hills next week organized by the New York-based Eagles’ Wings Ministries – said Evangelicals carry major political weight in the US, and that had Israel’s relations with them taken off sooner, the US Embassy might have been moved to Jerusalem. Former deputy prime minister Natan Sharansky is also set to attend the event.
Even as he distanced himself from long-term theological debate that lingers in the background of the Jewish-Evangelical relationship (“When the Messiah comes, we will argue about it” he said, quoting late prime minister Menachem Begin), Erdan, who was raised in a religious family, is extremely cognizant of the major shift in opinion within Israel over the last several years on the importance of contacts with the Christian world.
