Are Evangelical Christians anti-Palestinian? (my new column for The Jerusalem Post)

February 4, 2018 By in Epicenter

Column-AreEvangelicalsAntiPalestinian

Here’s my new column in The Jerusalem Post.

ARE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS ANTI-PALESTINIAN? To the contrary, Scripture teaches us to love both Arabs and Jews

Palestinian leaders are not simply infuriated by President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

They are also incensed by what they perceive as an anti-Palestinian theology held by Evangelical Christians generally, and specifically by Evangelicals close to Mr. Trump, including Vice President Mike Pence.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refused to meet with Mr. Pence during his recent visit, and gave a blistering speech denying Jews have any biblical or historical claim to the land.

“Israel is a colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism, but rather used by the Jews as a tool under the slogan of the ‘Promised Land,’” said Mr. Abbas.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, blasted Mr. Pence’s “messianic discourse” in the Knesset as a “gift to the extremists.”

Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian legislator, also excoriated Mr. Pence, saying that in his Knesset speech he “brought to bear his ideological, fundamentalist, literalist interpretation of the Bible in order to punish the Palestinians and reward the aggressors, the Israeli occupiers.”

As an Evangelical, a dual US-Israeli citizen and an author who has spent the past several decades building friendships with Muslim and Christian Arabs from Morocco to Iraq, I would like to respectfully correct some misconceptions.

First, Evangelicals who take the Bible literally….

[To read the full column, please click here]

Note: I wrote this column as one of the founders of a new organization, Alliance For the Peace of Jerusalem.

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