Alison Weir: Christian Evangelicals increasingly support Palestinian human rights

From: If Americans Knew

Christian Evangelicals increasingly support Palestinian human rights

Alison Weir
If Americans Knew
September 26, 2014

An article in Middle East Quarterly, a pro-Israel publication, reports that support for Israel is eroding among American evangelical Christians, with only 30 percent currently stating support for Israel above Palestinians.

This trend is even more pronounced among youth, according to an article by David Brog, Jewish-American executive director of “Christians United For Israel (CUFI), a major pro-Israel organization. Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu has called CUFI “a vital part of Israel’s national security” and columnist Charles Kauthammer has said, “I do not know of an organization in the world more important to Israel than CUFI.”

Brog’s article, “The End of Evangelical Support for Israel?”

[…]

Much of the increased awareness of the situation, Brog reports, comes from evangelical experts on the Middle East who are speaking and writing widely on this issue, producing documentaries, organizing trips to the region, and creating conferences to inform Christians on the facts.

In the last few years three documentaries were made by Christians specifically for Christians to inform them on Palestine: With God on Our Side, Little Town of Bethlehem, and The Stones Cry Out. They were created by, respectively, Porter Speakman, a former Youth with a Mission member, Mart Green, chairman of the board of trustees of Oral Roberts University, and Yasmine Perni, an Italian journalist. Brog also names evangelicals such as Jim Wallis, Stephen Sizer, Tony Campolo, Serge Duss and sons Brian and Matt, and Palestinian Christians such as Sami Awad and Naim Ateek as among those educating Christians on Palestine.

Christian Universities and Palestine

Brog reports that while numerous people are aware of the work on college campuses for justice in Palestine, “many observers do not realize that such efforts are also “being waged on America’s Christian campuses.”

In his article Brog describes activities on four of America’s major Christian colleges:

Wheaton College

Brog reports that Wheaton College in Illinois is “commonly referred to as the “evangelical Harvard,” noting, “Some of the most prominent church leaders in America have graduated from Wheaton, including the Rev. Billy Graham, Sen. Dan Coats (Republican, Indiana), and George W. Bush’s former speechwriter Michael Gerson.”

Today, Wheaton is the home of Professor Gary Burge, an author who speaks widely on Israel-Palestine. “When Christians United for Israel (CUFI) announced plans to hold an event at Wheaton in January 2009, Burge went on the offensive,” Brog reports. “CUFI’s student members came under such intense pressure that they moved their event off-campus: There would be no pro-Israel event at the evangelical Harvard.”

Oral Roberts University

Brog writes that Oral Roberts University “has deep conservative Christian roots.” “Oral Roberts himself was a Pentecostal televangelist and a strong friend of Israel,” a number of major preachers in America graduated from the school, and pro-Israel preacher John Hagee has been on its board of trustees.

Today, however, the chair of the board of trustees chair is the aforementioned Mart Green, whose film is a powerful depiction of the Palestinian nonviolence movement. The university’s current president is Dr. William “Billy” Wilson, who was named as a speaker for what Brog calls “the leading anti-Israel Christian conference,” Christ at the Checkpoint, held at Bethlehem Bible College in March 2014.

Bethel University

Brog writes that Bethel is “representative of the direction that America’s Christian colleges are taking.” He notes, “Like many Christian schools, Bethel emphasizes racial reconciliation and cultural openness and has accordingly developed numerous opportunities for its students to study abroad.”

Entire Article Here

(video) “Life In Occupied Palestine,” Anna Baltzer: A wonderfully moving introduction to the plight of the Palestinians, in simple, everyday terms — Checkpoints, settlements, Israeli activism, 1948 War refugees, censorship, the Wall, ongoing annexation of Palestinian land — “It is five times more likely for an ISRAELI SOLDIER to commit SUICIDE than to be killed in a terrorist attack. So when people talk about this occupation as helping the Jewish people, they don’t realize how many Israelis are actually against it, and how IMPORTANT it is FOR THE JEWISH PEOPLE AS WELL AS the PALESTINIAN people to end this”

(video) Israeli settlers uproot Palestinians’ OLIVE TREES in occupied West Bank — 8,000 trees, some HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLD!

(video – real history) Miko Peled: The General’s Son & Return of the General’s Son — Israel’s war crimes & dehumanization must stop. There is a better solution.

(video) Miko Peled: Israeli General’s Son – Geneva 5/14/14 — “Israeli historians have been validating what Palestinians have said all along. It was not the Palestinians that began an assault. The Zionist militia began a massive campaign against an unarmed civilian population that lasted for twelve months with the CLEAR INTENTION of completing the ETHNIC CLEANSING of Palestine.”

(video) Miko Peled: Myths of 1967 (Israel’s Six Day War)

(video) The Dirty Truth About Israel — Real history that mainstream & ‘Christian’ media won’t tell US

(video) Israeli School Books’ Racist Representation of Palestinians: Israeli General’s Daughter, Nurit Peled-Elhanan — Priming Israeli children for military service

Hamas Was Founded by Mossad — Israeli PM Golda Meir saw this as a an opportunity to counterbalance the rise of Arafat’s PLO

(video) Ron Paul: HAMAS ESTABLISHED BY ISRAEL To Counter Yasser Arafat — “”So through Israel we helped establish Hamas. Then we have elections. Then Hamas becomes dominant. So we have to kill them”

(video) ISRAELIS CHEER AS CIVILIANS ARE MURDERED IN GAZA

(video) Inside Israel’s Pro-War Nationalist Camp — WE’RE HUMANS; THEY’RE ANIMALS” — Israeli soldier • “The most moral thing to do is to FLATTEN GAZA into a parking lot” — fmr. ISRAELI *PARLIAMENT* MEMBER • “A Jew is a soul; an Arab is a…”