1-800-75-BIBLE. FROM ZIONISM TO PALESTINIANISM: THE GREAT CHRISTIAN BETRAYAL! By Olivier Jack Melnick It was in 1894, when Hungarian Jewish reporter Theodor Herzl followed the Dreyfus Affair in Paris, and it took him no time to realize that anti-Semitism was alive and well. Herzl was shocked to hear "Death to the Jews" on the streets of Paris. Napoleon might have been friendly to the Jews of his time, yet the "Jewish Enlightenment", also known as the Haskalah, was mostly a failure. Convinced that the Jewish people needed a state of their own, Herzl published his booklet Der Judestaat (The Jewish State) in 1896. In that small but visionary piece of work, he envisioned Eretz Yisrael and though he received a lot of criticism for it, was convinced that even though hardships and obstacles populated the journey, "Palestine" was the destination. Theodore Herzl, while not the originator of the concept of Zionism, was definitely the visionary, catalyst, and leader of political Zionism. Ernst Pawel, in The Labyrinth of Exile: A life of Theodor Herzl, explained: "he brought to it leadership, organization and a unique blend of fantasy and practical realism, but his most important contribution by far was the messianic image of himself, his stature in the eyes of the Jews and in the eyes of the world." And so it was, in 1897 and not without struggle that Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress. As President, he convened six more until 1902. It was in Vienna, in 1897, that he said almost prophetically "At Basle I created the Jewish State. In five years, perhaps, and certainly in fifty, everyone will see it." Add 50 to 1897 and you get 1947 - the rest is history! He also quickly realized that Zionism was a purely political movement in search of sustainability. A morphing into a more practical Zionism was becoming necessary. It eventually led to the birth of "Cultural Zionism", appealing to a wider spectrum within the Jewish community of that time. Two key players were Ahad Ha'am (Hebrew for "one of the people") whose vision as the father of cultural Zionism was: "A Jewish state and not merely a State of Jews" and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who had emigrated to Israel in 1881 and dedicated the rest of his life, not without hardship, to the rebirth of Hebrew as a modern tongue. But as political, practical or even cultural as it might have become, it could be argued that Zionism was, before anything else, a biblical concept. In a sense, we can also say that God was the first Zionist. He created the Jewish people to whom He gave the Torah (Exodus 20) and the Land "from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates" (Genesis 15). It was only a matter of time before Bible believing followers of the Messiah would support and pray for Eretz Yisrael, becoming a group within Christianity, known as "Christian Zionists". While the biblical concept of supporting the existence of Israel and the Jewish people goes back much further, it was again, Theodor Herzl who might have used the term "Christian Zionist" for the first time in 1896. It is also believed, according to Edward Flannery amongst others that the re-birth of Israel in 1948 as well as its growth, had quite a bit to do with Christian Zionists. He stated that "without Christian Zionism, it is highly unlikely that the present State of Israel would have come into being so rapidly as it did." Christian Zionists have always varied theologically, yet they all maintain a common ground when it comes to certain essentials about Israel and the Jewish people. They all have a vested interest in Eschatology (the biblical study of the last days). They see a clear biblical distinction between Israel and the Church, they believe in the physical return of the Jewish people to Israel, the rebuilding of the Temple and Israel coming to faith in Messiah, amongst other things. For at least the last 100 years, Christian Zionists have been the one arm of the Evangelical church that maintained a very friendly, positive attitude towards Israel and the Jewish people. Most Israeli Prime Ministers since 1948, have recognized the friends they had within Christian Zionist circles. Unfortunately, the tide is changing. Christian Zionism appears to be dying worldwide. To be sure, Israel hasn't lost all of its friends within the Evangelical ranks. Additionally, Messianic Jewish believers, regardless of their acceptance or lack of by the Jewish community at large, do support Israel unconditionally. I am one of them. This changing tide is known as "Christian Palestinianism" and will turn into a tsunami if nothing gets done. It has already swept a large number of Evangelicals into questioning, disliking AND rejecting any kind of Zionism. Christian Palestinianism is Christian anti-Zionism, and as such it must be confronted. In her book Eurabia: the Euro-Arab Axis released in 2006, Jewish author and activist Bat Ye'or almost prophetically calls it "Palestinian Marcionism": The Christian policy that would eliminate the Jewish source of Christianity by suppressing the link between the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels represents an old and lingering trend, always opposed by the Church. It was first formulated by Marcion, a second-century Byzantine priest of pagan background who was strongly influenced by Gnoticism . Today, Palestinian Marcionism (Palestinianism) paves the way for the Islamization of the Church as it prepares mentalities for an Islamic replacement theology...and encompasses the whole paraphernalia of traditional anti-Semitism". While Bat Ye'or would claim that Christian Palestinianism is quite ancient -and to an extent she is correct-others such as British scholar Paul Wilkinson see the modern movement as being about 20 years old. He would posit that the modern founder of Christian Palestinianism is Naim Ateek who started the movement in 1994 when he founded the Palestinian Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center known as SABEEL. Some of the major proponents of Christian Palestinianism today are leaders such as Naïm Ateek or Elias Chacour. But more importantly, the torch of anti-Zionism is being passed down to people who used to be Zionists or at the very least not anti-Israel. These include British vicar Stephen Sizer who describes Zionism as a "devious heresy", Professor Gary Burge of Wheaton College in Illinois, or even Liz Hybels (wife of Chicago area Willow Creek mega church senior pastor Bill Hybels). There are many more names I could add to this list. A tragic example of this destructive ideology is the movie Little Town of Bethlehem (2010) painting the portrait of three men who wanted peace and reconciliation in the region: an Arab Muslim, an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Christian. They promoted their views of reconciliation against all odds. Really, who would disagree with that? The issue does not lie in the validity of such an aspiration but in how the different sides were being portrayed. Palestinians were being compared to African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement following the leadership of Martin Luther King and fighting the National Guard for their freedom, while Israelis were being painted as the oppressors and invaders of "Palestine". It is a shame to see that many Evangelicals are buying into the lies of Christian Palestinianism. The same can be said for a more vocally Christian project known as With God on Our Side, directed by Porter Speakman Jr. and endorsed by Tony Campolo and Vice President of World Vision, Steve Haas. It has also received rave reviews from Christianity Today Christian Palestinianism is Replacement Theology on steroids! With any vestige of the Jewish roots of Christianity eradicated, Israel and the Jewish people will become irrelevant and this is a risk we cannot afford to take! Evangelicals who moved from Christian Zionism to Christian Palestinianism are putting Israel and the Jewish people at risk. Are they no longer reading their Bibles to believe in such lies as Yeshua being the first Palestinian? How can they biblically validate Palestine? Christian Palestinianism is Christian anti-Zionism which is Christian anti-Semitism in disguise. This shift from Israel to Palestine in the Christian psyche really is a slap in God's face and a grave altering of His Word. This is indeed the "Great Christian Betrayal" and I tremble at the idea that these people will one day answer to God and have absolutely no logical explanation for how they treated the "Apple of His Eye". What we can and must do, is support Israel's right to exist and right to the land. Israel is the only ray of hope in the Middle East as the only true democracy. The number of Israel's true friends within Evangelical circles is dwindling down. We are becoming a minority, yet one of our members is God Himself, and that, I can live with! Being pro-Israel doesn't mean that one is anti-Palestinian, sadly, the opposite is seldom true! THE ARAB SPRING THE REAL ENEMY OF ISRAEL By Abdulateef Al-Mulhim (The writer is a former Saudi Arabian naval admiral.) On Oct. 6, 1973, the third major war between the Arabs and Israel broke out. The war lasted only 20 days. The two sides were engaged in two other major wars, in 1948 and 1967. The 1967 War lasted only six days. But, these three wars were not the only Arab-Israel confrontations. From the period of 1948 and to this day many confrontations have taken place. Some of them were small clashes and many of them were full-scale battles, but there were no major wars apart from the ones mentioned above. The Arab-Israeli conflict is the most complicated conflict the world has ever experienced. On the anniversary of the 1973 War between the Arab and the Israelis, many people in the Arab world are beginning to ask many questions about the past, present and the future with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The questions now are: What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people. And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is: What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn't the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars? But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people. I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya. The photos and the reports were shown on the Al Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East. The common thing among all what I saw is that the destruction and the atrocities are not done by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries are done by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard the people of these countries. So, the question now is that who is the real enemy of the Arab world? The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The Arab world wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of innocent lives fighting Israel, which they considered is their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they never recognized. The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people. These dictators' atrocities against their own people are far worse than all the full-scale Arab-Israeli wars. In the past, we have talked about why some Israeli soldiers attack and mistreat Palestinians. Also, we saw Israeli planes and tanks attack various Arab countries. But, do these attacks match the current atrocities being committed by some Arab states against their own people? In Syria, the atrocities are beyond anybody's imaginations. And, aren't the Iraqis the ones who are destroying their own country? Wasn't it Tunisia's dictator who was able to steal 13 billion dollars from the poor Tunisians? And how can a child starve in Yemen if their land is the most fertile land in the world? Why would Iraqi brains leave Iraq in a country that makes 110 billion dollars from oil exports? Why do the Lebanese fail to govern one of the tiniest countries in the world? And what made the Arab states start sinking into chaos? On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was declared. And just one day after that, on May 15, 1948 the Arabs declared war on Israel to get back Palestine. The war ended on March 10, 1949. It lasted for nine months, three weeks and two days. The Arabs lost the war and called this war Nakba (catastrophic war). The Arabs gained nothing and thousands of Palestinians became refugees. And in 1967, the Arabs led by Egypt under the rule of Gamal Abdul Nasser, went to war with Israel and lost more Palestinian land and made more Palestinian refugees who are now on the mercy of the countries that host them. The Arabs called this war Naksah (upset). The Arabs never admitted defeat in both wars and the Palestinian cause got more complicated. And now, with the never ending Arab Spring, the Arab world has no time for the Palestinians refugees or Palestinian cause, because many Arabs are refugees themselves and under constant attacks from their own forces. Syrians are leaving their own country, not because of the Israeli planes dropping bombs on them. It is the Syrian Air Force which is dropping the bombs. And now, Iraqi Arab Muslims, most intelligent brains, are leaving Iraq for the east. In Yemen, the world's saddest human tragedy play is being written by the Yemenis. In Egypt, the people in Sinai are forgotten. Finally, if many of the Arab states are in such disarray, then what happened to the Arabs' sworn enemy (Israel)? Israel now has the most advanced research facilities, top universities and advanced infrastructure. Many Arabs don't know that the life expectancy of the Palestinians living in Israel is far longer than many Arab states and they enjoy far better political and social freedom than many of their Arab brothers. Even the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoy more political and social rights than some places in the Arab World. Wasn't one of the judges who sent a former Israeli President to jail an Israeli-Palestinian? The Arab Spring showed the world that the Palestinians are happier and in better situation than their Arab brothers who fought to liberate them from the Israelis. Now, it is time to stop the hatred and wars and start to create better living conditions for the future Arab generations. David Hocking HFT Connect