Who Lives in Tel Aviv?

One of the most fundamental dictums of today's Evangelicalism is that because the Jews have returned to Israel, the end of this age on earth is at hand. This conviction is at the center of American Christians' ongoing, and often blind, support of everything that has transpired in that nation since its inception in 1948.

There is no question that the United States needs an ally in the Middle East, or that Israel has some historic right to inhabit the territory it now occupies, but whether the return has reversed the Diaspora of the Old Book is debatable.

Part of the fall-out of Hitler's eradication of six million European Jews was a secularization of the Jews that survived. Returning to the homeland after the war was more Zionism than the fulfillment of prophecy. The Jews that returned sought refuge from a world that had rejected them. As hostile as the Arab world was to them, Palestine became a port of entry to modern statehood and a beacon to the rest of Judaica.

Much of the controversy in Israel since its establishment has been the relationship of the pragmatic Jews that initially settled the land and the religious ones who followed. Current disputes about the Golan Heights and the West Bank are not just about defense, but also concern the physical boundaries God gave Abraham when He promised him a nation and innumerable descendants. As much as Israeli leaders now wish to accommodate Arab leaders and bring some modicum of peace to the region, fundamentalist Jews want to settle parts of the West Bank they feel they are entitled to under the Abrahamic Covenant.

Christian leaders want Israel to be the fulfillment of past prophecies. They want the ongoing survival of the nation to be a sign of God's providence and cite the 7 day war as an indication of God's protection. This might be true, but the returning Jews recognized in prophecy are messianic Jews, which means modern Israel can not be considered the answer to past promises from God about the return of a Jewish nation to this land.

This doesn't mean that Christians should advocate the rejection of Israel, especially in light of our mutual concern about Arab hyper-nationalism, but it does mean that we judge Israel's treatment of Palestinians according to the standard we hold with other friendly nations, allies and states we are antagonistic towards. A blank check to Israel, regardless of its sometimes oppressive policies isn't right. As little or as much as Christians are involved in decision making in American politics, we must be consistent in our stands, not fearing the economic leverage of China or the antagonism of Israel.

If Christians are to operate in a new relationship with politics and power, we need to be even handed, honest and just. Unafraid of the truth or of the response generated by our commitment to it.