And
Evangelicals are the strongest supporters of Israel, so it is particularly disturbing when a group from within their
midst aligns with the Palestinians – even going so far as to support acts of violence against Jews while accusing Israel of violent crimes. Yesterday, while the conference was at its peak, five terror attacks were perpetrated against Israelis.
This was precisely what happened this week at the fourth biennial Christ at the Checkpoint Conference in
Bethlehem, in which over 300 attendees gathered from all over the world in an Evangelical-led hate-fest against Israel and the Jews.
The organization’s website states the purpose of the four-day gathering is to “challenge Evangelicals to take responsibility to help resolve the conflicts in Israel/Palestine by engaging with the teaching of Jesus on the Kingdom of God”. This claim is deceptive since there were no representatives of Israel to engage in dialogue. Israeli Messianic leaders were also notably absent. However, the conference
was attended by Palestinian Authority (
PA) leaders, who were free to make spurious charges against Israel unopposed.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (
CAMERA) reported some of the more ridiculous claims made at the conference. Hanna Amira, chairman of the Higher Presidential Committee for Christian Affairs for the PA, accused the IDF and settlers of killing Palestinians, “in particular, the children and the young and the women,” while at the same time the Palestinians are “giving a historic example of coexistence and the rejection of violence and hatred.”
And Christian groups support the abolishment of Jewish Israel is deeply troubling. The modern Zionist movement emerged in response to 19th-century anti-Semitic pogroms often caused by the anti-Jewish incitement of Christian clergy. Israel was subsequently established in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, the road to which was pave by centuries of anti-Semitic Christian teachings.
Following the Holocaust, a number of the world’s leading Christian theologians began a comprehensive reconsideration of Christianity’s attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. They undertook a process of renouncing and reformulating centuries of Christian teachings that led to anti-Jewish violence over the centuries.
Yet in the last two decades, some churches have partnered with anti-Israel activists to reverse these theological reforms, by introducing a “Palestinian liberation theology”—a fusion of Palestinian nationalism and Christian theology. This ideology seeks to undermine Jewish claims, religious or historical, to sovereignty in any and all parts of the Land of Israel.
These are very sick people calling themselves Christians.
