Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 1998, page 120

Christianity and the Middle East

An Open Letter to “Christians for Israel”

By Kathleen Banks

David Sudlow, Spokesman
Christians for Israel, USA
P.O. Box 388; Woodstock, VA 22664

Dear Mr. Sudlow:

I wept when I read your brochure, “Who can hear the Shofar blowing for the Church?” and the various articles in the Spring issue of Christians for Israel. In my teens I was so devastated by the suffering of the Jews and others under the Nazis that I lost my faith for a few years. I could not understand how a just, all-powerful and loving God could create a world in which people could do such horrible things to other people. Now I weep again. This time the pain is worse in some ways because this time some of the people for whom I wept before are doing to others what had been done to them. And worse still, my own Christian brothers and sisters are helping them. The Jews who are brought to Israel do not come to occupy unoccupied lands and homes. Four hundred and eighteen Palestinian Christian and Muslim villages were demolished in order to make room for them. The process continues as each new settlement is built and occupied. The methods used to force the Palestinians to flee their homes and lands are as follows: imprisonment and torture without trial (5,000 per year according to an Israeli human rights organization) and 80 percent of these detainees are never indicted for any crime; homes are demolished or sealed so that large families have no shelter; taxes are so high that people lose their homes or businesses because they cannot pay them; and penalties for crimes committed against Christians and Muslims are so light (even for murder) as to imply that the injured or dead Christian or Muslim was no more important than an insect.

In James 3:17 and 18 Christ gave us a means by which to judge whom we should support and whom we should not support: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.” Mr. Netanyahu constantly talks peace while building settlements on land that has been occupied by force and terror, behavior which can only wreck the peace process and lead to more war. Surely, Mr. Netanyahu is not one who makes peace. If he is not governed by “the wisdom that is from above,” then by whom is he governed?

In Acts 1:7 when the disciples asked Christ when He would restore the kingdom to Israel, He answered, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.”

Can a man and his family live in a home or on land that has been taken by force and terror from another family without a gradual corruption of their spirit occurring? Sir Immanuel Jakobovits, former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, writes, “The moral conscience of the Jewish people has been all but despiritualized, transferred from its traditional custodians, and virtually monopolized by the secularist masses and their spokesmen...ideals such as peace, conciliation, tolerance, sympathy for the sufferings even of one’s enemies, and simple faith in the eventual triumph of human understanding—all so deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition—were virtually obliterated from the religious vocabulary of virtues. This religious insensitivity to Jewish moral values continues to baffle and trouble me to no end” (See May/June 1998 Washington Report, p. 52). Rabbi Michael Lerner has written, “If you judge ‘who is a people’s God’ by what they hold sacred, then you have to conclude that for much of the past 50 years the real object of worship of much of the Jewish people has been Israel and Zionism. Unfortunately, like all false gods, this one has failed to satisfy the spiritual hunger of the Jewish people. If many Jews turn away from Judaism today, Israel has played no small part in that process. Judaism may be one of Israel’s most important casualties.” (Tikkun, March/April 1998)

I have no doubt of your love of Christ and your sincere desire to serve Him. This is why your way of trying to do so pains me. In light of these verses of scripture from The New Testament; in light of the numerous differing interpretations by sincere and devout Christians of Verses 1-6 from Revelation Chapter 20 (the Dispensational Premillennial, the Amillennial, and the Postmillennial); in light of these laments by rabbis of the Jewish faith, and in light of verses 15-22 of Matt. 24 which describe the horror of the end times for most who will be in Israel at that time (and many of those who are escaping the economic collapse of Russia to go to Israel with your help may not be sincere or long-lasting converts), do you not think it would be better to serve Christ by doing what he commanded in Mark 16:15: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel (the good news) to every creature”? Many of those “facts on the ground” which Revelation describes as the preconditions for the second coming of Christ are not only ugly but evil. God has not commanded us to make them happen.

May you walk in His peace and in His wisdom.

P.S. If you wish to verify any quotes that I have used you may do so at the following address: Washington Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009; World Wide Web: http//www.washington-report.org