Copyright holder: Tyndale University, 3377 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2M 3S4 Att.: Library Director, J. William Horsey Library Copyright: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Copyright license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Citation: Crouse, Eric. American Christian Support for Israel: Standing With the Chosen People, 1948-1975. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015. ***** Begin Content ****** TYNDALE UNIVERSITY 3377 Bayview Avenue Toronto, ON M2M 3S4 TEL: 416.226.6620 www.tyndale.ca Note: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Crouse, Eric R. American Christian Support for Israel: Standing With the Chosen People, 1948-1975. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015. [ Citation Page ] American Christian Support for Israel Standing with the Chosen People, 1948-1975 Eric R. Crouse LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London [ Title Page ] Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200. Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A. Whitacre Mews. 26-34 Stannary Street, London SEI 1 4AB. United Kingdom Copyright © 2015 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crouse Eric Robert, 1960- American Christian support for Israel : standing with the Chosen People, 1948-1975 / Eric R. Crouse. pages cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-9718-9 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-7391-9719-6 (electronic) 1. Christian Zionism-United States-History. 2. United States-Relations-Israel. 3. Israel-Relations- -United States. I. Title. DS150.5.C762014 327.7305694—dc23 2014031639 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America [ Title Page Verso ] Contents Preface vii Introduction 1 1 The Road to War and Independence 19 2 The Pan-Arab Invasion 39 3 On to the Second Arab-Israel War 61 4 The Sixties and the Six-Day War 87 5 From Attrition to the Yom Kippur War 115 6 Israel's Best Friend 139 Bibliography 165 Index 175 About the Author 183 [ Table of Contents Page ] v Introduction The dominant political theme of the State of Israel is the perpetual quest for security. Since the rebirth of Israel in 1948, Israeli politicians have understood that guaranteeing Israel's physical existence ultimately over- rides all other concerns. In its first twenty-five years, Israel experienced five wars with Arab states. Consistent with the position of other Israeli leaders, Shimon Peres (future prime minister) wrote in 1970 that the "Arab purpose is all-absorptive—the destruction of Israel and the annihi- lation or banishment of her inhabitants." Many others understood that wars and terrorism have "left their mark on Israel's national conscious- ness." 1 When referring to the Arabs one cannot speak of a political mono- lith, but most Muslims in the Middle East shared a degree of hostility toward the existence of Israel or, at least, found Israeli policy inequitable. As Israel faced war and persistent threats to its security one group of Americans consistently supported it—conservative Christians. This con- servative support for the Jewish community was not new; it stretched back in history many decades before 1948.2 By the mid-1970s, the differ- ence on how liberal and conservative Christians viewed Israel was evi- dent to those who looked carefully. Others outside of church circles missed this development mainly because conservative Christians did not take part in any organized political lobbying for American backing of Israel. Under the radar of most policymakers, the conservative Christian stand for Israel was nonetheless a potent one in grassroots evangelical circles.3 There was one key verse from the Bible behind much of conser- vative Christian support for Israel, but Israel's embodiment of western ideals and its economic development also gave conservative Christians good reasons to favor the Jewish state in a troubled Middle East.4 The Middle East conflict is a "subject of incomprehensible fascina- tion." While the term "Arab-Israeli conflict" is not satisfactory for some, it makes sense with an examination of 1948 to 1975 when the military and political actions of the Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Lebanese, and to a lesser extent the Iraqis and Saudis played a prominent role in the conflict. In fact, for many years after World War II most western literature used the general term "Arabs" when referring to the Palestinians. Before 1948, there were "Palestinian Arabs" and "Palestinian Jews," after 1948 there were "Arabs" and "Israelis" (of course, there were also Arab Israelis). U.S. government documents for the next twenty years made reference to the "Arab refugees" and thus in policymaking circles the Palestinians [ Page ] 1 [ Page ] 2 were missing.5 The virtual nonexistence of the term "Palestinian" in the mid-twentieth century is one more fact adding fuel to a contentious histo- ry. There is no shortage of politics in the competing histories of this re- gion. A fierce debate over the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict contin- ues to rage as "historians elegantly maul each other's version of events."6 Writings of a very pro-Arab nature see the creation of the State of Israel as a terrible mistake and injustice. The historians who dismiss any Jewish historic tie to the land echo the ideas of Arabs, such as mid-twentieth- century lawyer Henry Catton, who defended Arab arguments opposing Jewish nationhood. In a book published years later, Catton wrote that the Jews from the first century to the twentieth century "had almost ceased to exist in Palestine." Even the Jews of biblical times represented only "an episode" in the long history of Palestine. According to Catton, most mod- ern Jews "can hardly claim to be descendants of the ancient Hebrew." And thus for Catton it was the Arabs who, as early as the late nineteenth century, sought "a purely Arab state independent of the Turkish Em- pire."7 The argument goes that due to Zionist control of media operations in many countries, this Arab perspective remained mostly hidden in the West. "The Zionist propaganda machine," Catton declared, represented "a danger to the world."8 One group composed mostly of Israeli Jews calling themselves "new historians" are sympathetic to various Arab interpretations to the point of viewing Israel as primarily the guilty party of the Arab-Israeli conflict.9 They are critical of the so-called "popular-heroic-moralistic" interpreta- tion of the War of Independence that sees the struggle as a Jewish David against an Arab Goliath. For example, Avi Shlaim argues that it was the Jews who enjoyed a numerical superiority of soldiers in the first Arab- Israeli conflict and that in subsequent years Israel was the most "intransi- gent" not the Arab states.10 He claims that Israelis' talk of "security" is a "red herring," a distraction from "real" issues such as Israel's "territorial expansionism."11 These historians, writes one critic, gave "the Palestinian argument its intellectual firepower."12 At odds with the "new historians" is traditional historiography, which is less disparaging of former Israeli leaders and more appreciative of the importance of religion. Even though it is generally sympathetic to the struggle of the Jewish people, this history is closer to the truth, argue scholars such as Michael Oren, who claims that the traditional historians "examine historical events on their own merits, free of contemporary influences."13 One thing is clear. In books supportive of Israel, there is greater attention paid to the security issues that ordinary Israelis face year after year with the Arabs who take Islam seriously. With their focus on modernity many academics are reluctant to pay much attention to religious beliefs, but scholarship on religion offers im- portant insights in understanding the conflict between Arabs and Jews. [ Page ] 3 Bernard Lewis writes of the "discontents of the Middle East not as a conflict between states or nations, but as a clash between civilizations." Islamic leaders became infuriated that capitalism and western democracy offered "an authentic and attractive alternative to traditional ways of thought and life." Many were angry over the subordination of their cul- ture to the West. A "feeling of humiliation" was due to "a growing awareness, among the heirs of an old, proud, and long dominant civiliza- tion, of having been overtaken, overborne, and overwhelmed by those whom they regarded as their inferiors."14 Arabs admired and hated west- ern productivity that supplied their everyday material needs. What mod- ern daily items from telephones to automobiles were of Arab manufac- turing? Even pro-Arab westerners living in the Middle East in the first half of the twentieth century wrote of Arab countries "becoming increas- ingly poisoned with hatred and distrust for the West."15 The focus on Muslim resentment of the West resulted in compelling explanations of Middle East conflict. In the mid-twentieth century, American religious studies scholar Wilfrid Cantrell Smith wrote of the Muslim "spiritual crisis" as followers of Islam struggled with the task of reconciling modernism with traditionalism.16 Since the Six-Day War, American Christian leftists sympathetic to the economic plight of Arabs increasingly took aim at the capitalist success of Israel.17 Political scientist Efrain Inbar argues that Islamic and Marxist interpretations converged. Many Muslims saw Israel as "an alien extension of the West" and "lackey of Western imperialism" and, thus, a corrupting cultural and economic force to the Islamic wav of life.18 But beyond the issues of land, population, and wealth, Israel's main offense to Muslims had to do with theology. Muslims could not accord full equality to the Jews or any others who did not practice Islam. In the eyes of many Arab militants, Jews are "the brothers of apes, the killers of prophets, bloodsuckers, the descendants of treachery and deceit, who spread corruption in the land of Islam."19 Historian Paul Charles Merkley maintains that Muslims refuse to live at peace with Israel because it is the only non-Muslim sovereign state in the Middle East. By turning part of the Muslim world into non-Muslim, Israel achieved something Muslims believe is theologically impossible. In the Quran (Sura II: 61; Sura III: 112) there is a judgment against the Jews for refusing to heed the prophet Muhammad: "The creation of the State of Israel is an ostensible reversal of this judgment, an assault on the credibility of Islam that cannot be permitted to stand."20 In 1948, the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic political-religious group, declared: "Jews are the historic enemies of Muslims and carry the great- est hatred for the nation of Muhammad."21 Months earlier in Egypt, a fatwa (theological decree) warned Muslims against doing business with Jews; an offender "is a sinner and criminal... who will be regarded as an apostate to Islam, he will be separated from his spouse. It is prohibited to [ Page ] 4 be in contact with him." 22 Given that such interpretations were common in the Muslim world, the violent rhetoric and actions of Arabs against Israel were no surprise to conservative Christians. To his credit, Benny Morris of the "new historian" school argues that it is a mistake when historians ignore or dismiss the jihadi rhetoric of the Arab world. Cham- pioning the righteousness of a holy war, Muslims fought to protect and free sacred Islamic territory violated by infidels.23 American evangelicals were aware of the political power of Islam. In the early first century much of Paul's missionary efforts covered the area in what became Turkey. As was the case in Arab nations, churches disappeared in this area and Christianity Today estimated fewer than 150 Protestants in Turkey in 1957. Five years later, American fundamentalist Wilbur M. Smith found it amazing that in the Ankara library, housing 450,000 volumes, there was not one Arabic Bible.24 Some scholars vigorously argued against what they saw as simplistic characterizations of the Arab world. Influential was the work of Palestin- ian Edward Said, professor of English and comparative literature, who analyzed how many westerners accepted "orientalist" stereotypes that viewed Arabs as inferior, violent, and culturally "backward."25 In Orien- talism (1979), Said took aim at westerners who professed to "know" the Arabs, calling out scholars such as Bernard Lewis for their "political propaganda" as they purported to be fair and objective. According to Said, Lewis was guilty of not mentioning "such a thing as a Zionist inva- sion and colonization of Palestine," for seeing Islam as something that "never changes," and for "getting nearly everything wrong."26 Said found the prominence of "unverifiable fictions and vast generalizations" in the West frustrating, but some of his responses were weak: There has been so massive and calculatedly aggressive an attack on the contemporary societies of the Arab and Muslim for their backward- ness, lack of democracy, and abrogation of women's rights that we simply forget that such notions as modernity, enlightenment, and de- mocracy are by no means simple and agreed-upon concepts that one either does or does not find, like Easter eggs in the living room.27 Interestingly, Said faced problems getting his work published in Arabic. Although an Israeli publisher published his book The Question of Palestine in Hebrew, all Arabic publishers showing an interest in the book wanted him "to change or delete those sections that were openly critical of one or another Arab regime (including the PLO)."28 In the end, Said refused to comply. In the mid-1920s, British military officer John Bagot Glubb resigned his commission in the British army to live among the Arabs. His devotion to the Arab people won him the admiration of the Jordanians, who in 1939 asked him to assume command of the Arab Legion (Transjordan's army). He "loved" the Arabs, speaking highly of their charm and gener- [ Page ] 5 ous hospitality, but he also wrote that they were "hot-headed, hasty and volatile .. . [and] proud and touchy, ready to suspect an insult and hasty to avenge it. To hate their enemies is to them not only a natural emotion but a duty. Should any man claim to forgive an enemy, they find it difficult to believe in his sincerity and suspect a trap."29 Although Glubb's stereotyping does not do justice to the diversity of the Arab people, his observation was not uncommon. Glubb also acknowledged the bitterness between different Arab groups in the region. In the mid-1940s, a number of Arabs loyal to the Mufti (Muslim judge) of Jerusalem declared that the Arab Legion was a greater danger than the Jews. Neither Egyptian nor Saudi leaders were happy that the Arab Legion won more glory than any other Arab army in 1948.30 More discouraging was Glubb's conclusion concerning Arab de- mocracy. Accustomed to autocratic rule over the centuries, the Arabs were prone to "anarchy and mob rule, scarcely even pausing at the inter- mediate stage of democracy."31 Walter Livingston Wright, Jr., historian of the Near East, told a study group in 1948 that "Islam is not a religion, as religion is conceived in the West. It is a totalitarian religion; it tells its followers what to believe, how to think, what to do. It is a complete way of life, a complete culture."32 The contrast of the Islamic world and Israel was stark on a number of important issues. In the 1950s there was considerable discussion on why slavery was legal in Saudi Arabia. The slave trade was especially vibrant in Islam's holy city of Mecca, where public slave markets existed and where "unfortunates" on their pilgrimage found themselves forcibly en- slaved. With slave girls selling for $560 to $1,120, the business was lucra- tive for some.33 Arab leaders found Israel a convenient topic to divert their people from problems within Arab communities. Militant Arab rhetoric put Is- rael on guard and the perceived inevitability of war led Israeli leaders to speak of conflicts as "no choice wars."34 In contrast to the rhetoric of Arab political and religious leaders, Israeli prime ministers or foreign ministers had no wish (and Israel had no capability) to destroy its Arab enemies, who numbered in the tens of millions.35 But with the reality of wars, terrorism, and other acts of violence, Israel acted forcefully, actions that generated worldwide criticism. Finding loyal friends in the Arab world in general was almost impos- sible, but after 1967 Israel also experienced difficulty in gaining reliable support from European leaders. For decades, various European leaders argued that Israel was a mistake. In his memoirs of his life among the Arabs, published in 1957, John Glubb pondered the future of the "Zion- ists." Will the Israelis "be able, twenty, fifty or a hundred years hence, to maintain themselves as a foreign element on a beach-head on the shores of Asia?" Glubb acknowledged there were those who saw the Jews' re- turn to Palestine as a fulfillment of prophecy, but they were wrong. There [ Page ] 6 was "evil" behind the creation of Israel: "To drive a million Arabs from their homes and country cannot be justified by any consideration."36 Given such strong anti-Israel interpretations, the State of Israel needed American friends. Passionate were the differences expressed in the Unit- ed States between Christians supportive of Israel (more recently iden- tified as Christian Zionists) and other Christians critical of Israel's treat- ment of Arab Israelis and its relations with Arab nations. Various Chris- tian groups presented contrasting interpretations of the Arab-Israeli wars. There are always exceptions and nuances, but in the broad catego- ries of conservative Christians and liberal Christians (nonevangelical) there were distinct visions on what Israel means in history and the world.37 Each group adopted peculiar language to clarify its own narra- tive of what was and was not important. Embracing both spiritual and ideological themes, conservatives ob- serving the Arab-Israeli conflict saw oppositional spiritual forces in play and, also, viewed Israel as representing western values of personal and economic freedom.38 For them, the existence of the State of Israel in the Middle East gave compelling evidence of the "Sovereignty of the Lord of History." Was not God's promise to Abraham of a "great nation," written in the Old Testament, realized?39 Liberals said little about conflicting spiritual forces and showed, at best, modest enthusiasm for Israel as a vanguard of western ideals. With their rejection of a literal interpretation of the Bible, liberals were more open to the idea of seeing the State of Israel as a mistake. A number of liberals took an additional step toward the ideas of the secular Left and pointed to a flawed western civilization (democracy and capitalism) rather than Islamic teaching as the root of problems in the Middle East.40 Conservative Christians were champions of the "blessings of liberty" evident in the West and especially so in the United States.41 In a theologi- cal sense, conservative Christians generally included fundamentalists, Pentecostals, and other Christian groups adhering to orthodox doctrine. However, the majority of conservative Christians are evangelicals. Recent historians define evangelicalism as a movement with four major defining features: the Bible understood as the ultimate religious authority, the importance of a born-again experience, "an energetic, individualistic ap- proach to religious duties and social involvement," and "a focus on Christ's redeeming work as the heart of essential Christianity."42 As a subset of evangelicalism, Protestant fundamentalism upholds these char- acteristics, but it also has an intense focus on evangelism, the "fresh infill- ing of the Holy Spirit after conversion," "the imminent, premillennial second coming of Christ," and tends to be more reactionary and separat- ist than evangelicalism. The term fundamentalism took root in 1920, coined from The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, a collection of essays written by conservative Christian scholars defending the funda- mentals of orthodox doctrine shortly before World War I.43 In 1970, histo- [ Page ] 7 rian Ernest R. Sandeen wrote that the "Fundamentalist movement . . . calling itself Evangelicalism" showed "an expected vitality and appeal" over the previous twenty years.44 Pentecostalism shares much with evangelicalism and fundamental- ism, but is normally set apart as a result of its charismatic displays of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, and faith healings. These groups do share the belief that the Bible told of things yet to come—the literal fulfillment of biblical prophecies.45 In this study, conservative Christians within Roman Catholic circles receive less attention mainly because of their weaker or ambiguous ties to Christian Zionism. While this book relies heavily on the broader term "conservative Christian," it also uses evangelical, fundamentalist or another term whenever addi- tional information allows more precise labelling of an individual or group embracing Christian Zionism. The understanding of the end times of the world accepted by a signifi- cant number of conservative Christians was that the millennium, or 1,000 years of peace and righteousness, would only begin with the physical second return of Christ. This premillennialism was the opposite of post- millennialism, which predicted the return of Christ after 1,000 years of peace on earth. It is important to note that no respectable Christian claims to know the date of this return. Followers of Christ on earth are to be caught up to meet the Lord Jesus in the sky, an event referred to as the Rapture. Next is a seven-year period called the Tribulation followed by a 1,000 year Kingdom of God on earth and final victory over Satan.46 For premillennialists, a key prerequisite for this unfolding of world history was the Jews' return and reestablishment of a Jewish state in the Holy Land identified in the Bible.47 Many Christians marveled at how God used Israel to make "known His plans for the world." Paul Erb writes: "Almost all of the writers of the Bible were Jews. Three-fourths of the Bible is Old Testament, and 95 percent of the Old Testament is about Israel. The Messiah was God incar- nate in Jewish flesh. Israel is the instrument through whom God has revealed and carried out His saving purpose." As conservative Christians understood it, Israel would continue to play a vital role in God's plans: "He has not told us that He has no further use for that instrument"48 A small minority of evangelicals believe in premillennial dispensa- tionalism, a doctrine dividing human history in dispensations (or eras). Not peculiar to a specific denomination, dispensationalists commit to a literal interpretation of the Bible and reject "replacement theory in which Israel has been done away with in God's plan for history and thus super- seded by the Church."49 They have an admirable record of supporting evangelism and missionary work throughout the world. In the first half of the twentieth century, dispensationalism was popular in various fun- damentalist circles, evident from the success of the Scofield Reference Bible published by Oxford University Press. With almost 3 million copies [ Page ] 8 sold since 1909, the Scofield Bible provided readers with detailed inter- pretation of the prophetic Scriptures —a feature vigorously defended by a number of conservative Bible scholars.50 Some connection to Bible prophecy is a key feature of Christian Zion- ism. The better known secular notion of Zionism gained significant atten- tion in Jewish and other circles at the turn of the twentieth century. Its founder was Theodore Herzl (1860-1904), a secular Jew born in Budapest and educated as a lawyer. In The Jewish State (1896), he argued that a separate Jewish national state was the answer for Jews seeking security in a hostile anti-Semitic world. The general idea of Christian Zionism had existed for centuries with roots in sixteenth century Protestant theology (Christian Restorationism). Herzl used the term "Christian Zionist" when he referred to Christians supportive of the idea of the Promised Land. However, the term Christian Zionism only received wider usage in the late twentieth century.51 Since Herzl's day almost all the major political players in Palestine who advanced the idea of a Jewish state in the Mid- dle East were secular Jews. In the second half of the twentieth century, conservative Christian supporters of Israel received considerable criticism from a small but vocal group of Christian leaders repulsed by the biblical claims of Christian Zionists. In recent years, this criticism became intense among anti-Zionist Christians. Seeing Christian Zionism as a serious threat to Middle East peace, critics such as the Rev. Naim Ateek characterizes Christian Zion- ists as those Christians who falsely interpret the Bible as supporting "the ingathering of all Jews to Israel" and the denying of Palestinian rights. Ateek argues that Christian Zionism is a Christian heresy that promotes "a violent theology of the End of History," particularly the "massacre of millions." A full-time director of the Sabeel Liberation Theology Centre, Jerusalem, Ateek warns of those not "living Christ's love and justice to- day."52 Simply put, he and other Christian leftists equate Christian Zion- ism "with the ideology of empire, colonialism, and militarism."53 Opponents of Christian Zionism typically concentrate their attacks on dispensationalism and the issue of Bible prophecy. The Rev. Donald Wagner defines Christian Zionism as "a movement within Protestant fundamentalism that understands the modern state of Israel as the fulfill- ment of Biblical prophecy and thus deserving of political, financial, and religious support." This in turn means support for "Israel's sovereignty over the entirety of historic Palestine including Jerusalem."54 However, such a definition of Christian Zionism leaves out a much larger number of Israel supporters who do not fit the fundamentalist label. In his recent book Evangelicals and Israel, Stephen Spector finds the dispensationalism focus of most Christian anti-Zionist leaders too nar- row since many Christian allies of Israel are not fundamentalists. In fact, many evangelical supporters of Israel do not necessarily base their con- victions on a comprehensive study of biblical prophecy.55 Often lost in [ Page ] 9 many discussions of Christian Zionism is that there are many Christian Zionists who do not adopt a premillennial approach or pay much atten- tion to the end-times interpretative framework of dispensational-premil- lennialim. Actually, the details of dispensationalism are unknown to most Christian Zionists.56 And as for genuine dispensationalists, there is little evidence of them having a great interest in politics.57 Christian anti-Zionists are guilty of sloppy analysis when they discuss some of the finer points of dispensationalism. Despite the claims of Chris- tian anti-Zionists, for example, many Christian Zionists pay no attention to the idea of rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem where Israel's two temples once stood and, indeed, there are key dispensationalist leaders who believe the rebuilding will happen after Christ returns.58 Christian Zionists are not counting down the hours or, in other words, attempting to hasten Armageddon.59 Anti-Zionist Christians often reveal their faulty understanding of dispensationalism and its acceptance of a "pre-tribula- tional rapture of the Church." Dispensationalist Michael Stallard makes two important points: "war is not a necessary pre-condition for the rap- ture of the Church to take place" and "to say one is expecting war is not the same thing as affirming that one wants war." Affirming the truth of Bible passages predicting war "does not turn the interpreter into a war- monger." It is more accurate to view dispensationalists as promoting Israel's security rather than desiring war.60 So why do Christian Zionists who are not dispensationalists favor Israel? Virtually all conservative Christians affirm the link between the Israelites of the Bible and modern Jews and their support is actually quite straightforward. Most conservative Christians simply support Israel be- cause "God promised to bless those who bless the Jews (Genesis 12:3)."61 Although this is Bible prophecy, a major focus on only one verse is dis- tinct from the far-reaching Bible prophecy approach of dispensationalists. In keeping with Spector's observations, helpful is a broader definition of Christian Zionism as representing "Christians whose faith, often in con- cert with other convictions, emotions, and experiences, leads them to support the modern state of Israel as the Jewish homeland."62 That Israel supported western values only added to its attractiveness for conserva- tive Christians in the United States.63 Conservative Christians generally did not sidestep the issue of Arab hostility toward Israelis as was often the case with liberal Protestants who often upheld ethical imperatives above all else. The focus of many liberals was on the social misfortunes of Palestinian Muslims and Chris- tians. Taking an opposing position, many conservative Christians recog- nized that Israel embodied freedoms rooted in western civilization; they expected economic and other freedoms in Israel would lead to prosperity beneficial to both Jews and Arabs. Conservatives rejected a zero-sum interpretation embraced by those liberals who saw Israel's advance com- ing at the expense of the Arabs.64 Well-represented by the magazine [ Page ] 10 Christian Century, mainline Protestant leaders focused on their liberal understanding of justice that often lacked appreciation of Israel's genuine national security concerns. If Christian Zionists were guilty of not fully comprehending the suffering of Palestinian Arabs or not reaching out adequately to Palestinian Christians experiencing grim economic condi- tions, liberal Christians were often naive on issues relating to Israel's life and death struggle to survive as a nation.65 The socialist spell of "Third World Theologies" captivated those favoring the Palestinian struggle against the "neo-imperialism" of Zionists.66 Others argued that Christian Zionists spoke too critically of secular Palestinian leaders and Islamic teaching, even to the point of demonizing Islam. There is the suggestion in liberal circles that Arab leaders such as Yasser Arafat deserved more credit than they received.67 Conservative Christians believed that their arguments shared some common ground with those Jews who argued for the righteousness of their cause. In the early twentieth century, a notable Jewish nationalist was Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky (1880-1940) who founded Revisionist Zionism, representing the right wing of Zionism. Having impressive writing skills, Jabotinsky wrote two important articles in 1923 outlining "The Iron Wall" theory of Revisionism. One historian identifies the fol- lowing as Jabotinsky's policy in a nutshell: We cannot promise any reward either to the Arabs of Palestine or to the Arabs outside of Palestine. A voluntary agreement is unattainable. And so those who regard an accord with the Arabs as an indispensable condition of Zionism must admit to themselves today that this condi- tion cannot be attained and hence that we must give up Zionism. We must either suspend our settlement efforts or continue them without paying attention to the mood of the natives. Settlement can thus devel- op under the protection of a force that is not dependent on the local population, behind an iron wall which they will be powerless to break down.68 Jabotinsky saw no chance of the Arabs agreeing to Jewish statehood, thus Jews had to rely on military force to establish Jewish settlement in Pales- tine. Critics viewed this as immoral, but Jabotinsky countered: "A sacred truth, whose realization requires the use of force, does not cease thereby to be a sacred truth. This is the basis of our stand toward Arab resistance; and we shall talk of settlement only when they are ready to discuss it." 69 Jabotinsky's notion of Jewish military power as key to Jewish success in the Middle East was influential on the "Zionist movement as a whole." 70 Religion for Jabotinsky was a private matter, but his understanding of Jewish territory made sense to dispensationalists.71 After the rebirth of Israel, Christian Zionists persisted to see Jewish statehood by way of military power as moral, even in the face of the hostility of Arabs angered over Israel's "iron wall." [ Page ] 11 With the creation of the State of Israel, a number of conservative Christians wrote enthusiastically on biblical prophecy and the Middle East. The literalist teachings of fundamentalism contrasted sharply with the language of liberal Protestants and Washington policymakers. But for many Christian Zionists what mattered most was God's promise of bless- ing those who supported Israel. Fundamentalists and other conservative Christians imposed biblical meaning on Middle East events in a manner that promoted a distinct pro-Israel position. In light of the revelations of the horror of the Holocaust and the deaths of 6 million Jews (70 percent of European Jews), liberal Protestant leaders in the United States had voiced their sympathy for Jewish people in the immediate post-World War peri- od. But these leaders had reservations about Zionist political goals that they viewed as oppressive. Believing that Israeli policies were the prob- lem, some liberals argued that once the economic conditions of the Pales- tinians improved, Arabs would be more welcoming of the Jews. Protes- tant and secular liberals believed the best chance for peace was when the Arabs received their fair share of the rewards from a type of "global New Deal." 72 Conservative Christians gave Israeli leaders the benefit of the doubt on many issues relating to Israel's national security. One historian of Christian Zionism notes three important realities that Christian Zionists recognize. First, Arab leaders in November 1947 gave potential peace with the Jews a pass when they rejected the United Nations' two-state solution for Jews and Arabs. Second, Israel's Arab neighbors did not stop their hostility toward Israel, opting for wars and sponsoring ongoing terrorist activities against the Israelis. Third, Arab leaders continued to deny the legality of Israel's existence. All parties paid a high price when the Arabs refused "to try to live at peace with Israel." In the Middle East, the Arab treatment of Jews was no secret to Christian Zionists. Whereas Israeli citizenship is open to Arabs and the Knesset includes elected Arab Israeli members, Jews since 1948 experienced significant persecution and banishment from areas that had been part of the Palestine Mandate. Even in the "moderate" Kingdom of Jordan, the law does not permit Jews to have "the right of permanent residency."73 Christian Zionists asked if it was reasonable tor Christian anti-Zion- ists to place most of the blame for Arab-Israeli conflict at the feet of the Israelis. Conservative Christians were aware of wrongdoing on both sides of the conflict, that both the Israelis and Arabs committed grievous errors that caused great suffering. In 1970, one who was not a Christian Zionist brought it back to "original sin." Zwi Werblowsky, professor of comparative religion at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, explained: "Since the Fall, no activity is perfectly righteous and just. In whatever one does, there is an element of injustice, an element of sin." It was simplistic for Arab leaders to see Israel as "the very incarnation of brutal injustice." For Jews, it was "an existentially tragic struggle between two kinds of [ Page ] 12 justice," attempting to realize "which we think to be the maximum of justifiable justice and combining with it a minimum of unavoidable injus- tice." Pointing out how Christians saw this balancing much differently than Muslims, Werblowsky stated: "The Christian community carries with it a sense of God's saving acts in history. The Moslem does not possess this tradition."74 Attentive that there were tradeoffs with all important political deci- sions, conservatives understood that Israeli leaders were far from fault- less with their relations with Arabs.75 However, God's promises to the Jews in the Bible and the reality of Israel's existence gave conservative Christians confidence that their overall support for Israel was the correct position. In 1948, Lewis Sperry Chafer wrote that "Jehovah may chasten His people and even use the nations to that end, but invariably judgment falls on those who afflict Israel."76 Put another way, it was "a require- ment of faith to prefer the blessing of Israel above all passing things." As Christian Zionists saw it, favoring Israel was compatible "with the will of God."77 In addition, the creation and success of the Jewish state reassured many Christians that God continued to act in history. When the leadership of Yishuv (Jewish community) proclaimed the State of Israel, most conservative Christians were clear on how they should respond to the intense hostility that broke out between the new- born Israelis and neighboring Arabs. Over the span of Israel's first twen- ty-five years, when the Israelis fought five wars, conservative Christian notions of Israeli statehood and national security and its understanding and explanation of Arab anger hardly varied. Although their character- ization of Arab people was often simplistic, they recognized violence and they knew what side to support. For those paying attention it was clear that conservative Christians were serious and genuine supporters of Is- rael when other Christians in the United States became more critical. NOTES 1. Shimon Peres, David's Sling (New York: Random House, 1970), 9. Martin Sicker, Israel’s Quest for Security (New York: Praeger, 1989), 1. Bernard Reich, "Israeli National Security Policy: Issues and Actors," in Israeli National Security Policy: Political Actors and Perspectives, eds. Bernard Reich and Gershon R. Kieval (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), 1. Also, Bernard Reich, "Themes in the History of the State of Israel," American Historical Review 96, no. 5 (December 1991), 1472, 1476. Nadav Safran, Israel: The Embat- tled Ally (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 165, 222. From an early age, Israelis learned from school textbooks of the possible destruction of Israel at the hands of the Arabs. See Elie Podeh, "History and Memory in the Israeli Educational System," History and Memory 12, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2000), 75. 2. In 2003, Daniel Pipes notes that the media appeared to view Christian Right support for Israel as "something new." See Daniel Pipes, "(Christian Zionism:] Israel's Best Weapon?" New York Post, July 15, 2003. http://danielpipes.org/pf.php?id=1148 (accessed 9/8/2007). Perhaps one other part of the equation was that for centuries Christians viewed Islam as a major competitor since both were "aggressively evangelis- [ Page ] 13 tic." See Thomas S. Kidd, American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), xii. 3. On fundamentalists' lack of political lobbying, see Caitlin Carenen, The Fervent Embrace: Liberal Protestants, Evangelicals, and Israel (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 83, 120. 4. One statement in an advertisement in an evangelical magazine explains it well: "The Abrahamic covenant is still valid, and God will bless him who brings blessing to the Jews." See "Did You Ever Weep Over Jerusalem?" Christianity Today, December 21, 1959, 33. "I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee" was a verse commonly heard in evangelical circles. See "Protesting Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union," Christianity Today, October 8, 1965, 35. 5. "Palestinians" had no distinctive name; in documents, they were "Arab refu- gees." Kathleen Christison, "Bound by a Frame of Reference, Part II: U.S. Policy and the Palestinians, 1948—88." Journal of Palestine Studies 27. no. 3 (Spring 1998), 21. 6. Colin Shindler, A History of Modern Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 9. The designation "Palestinian-Israeli conflict" is only appropriate when the focus is solely on the confrontations between the Israeli government and Palestin- ian Arabs living inside Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. For additional dis- cussion, see Ian J. Bickerson and Carla L. Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 6th ed. (New York: Prentice Hall, 2010), 2. 7. Henry Catton, Palestine, the Arabs and Israel: The Search for Justice (London: Long- man Group Limited. 1969), 6, 9, 11. 8. Catton, Palestine, the Arabs and Israel, 136. 9. Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (New York: Presido Press, 2003), 333. Oren writes of the new historians' "distinct- ly leftist or Marxist orientation." For an early list of new historians, see Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (London: The Penguin Press, 2000), ix, and Jerome Slater, "Lost Opportunities for Peace in the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Israel and Syria, 1948-2001," International Security 27, no. 1 (Summer 2002), 81n3. Also, Benny Morris, ed., Making Israel (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2007), 3-7. How- ever, the "new historians" are not critical enough of Israel for some like Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky. See Norman Finkelstein, "Myths, Old and New," Journal of Palestine Studies 21, no. 1 (Autumn 1991): 66-89. 10. Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 34-35, 49. 11. "Interview: Israeli New Historian Avi Shlaim," Middle East Policy XVI, no. 3 (Fall 2009), 97. Also, see Avi Shlaim, "The War of the Israeli Historians," Annales 59, no. 1 (January—February 2004): 161-67. 12. See Efriam Karsh, "Rewriting Israel's History," The Middle East Quarterly (June 1996): 19-29. http://meforum.org/302/rewriting-israels-history (accessed 11/20/2013). 13. Oren, Six Days of War, 333. 14. Bernard Lewis, The Middle East and the West (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964), 135; Bernard Lewis, "The Roots of Muslim Rage," The Atlantic Monthly (September 1990), 56, 59-60. See Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 212-14. Also, Benny Morris, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 394. For a critique of the clash of civilizations framework, see Ervand Abrahamian, "The US Media, Huntington and September 11," Third World Quarterly 24. no. 3 (June 2003): 529-44. 15. John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1957). 6. 16. Matthew F. Jacobs, "The Perils and Promise of Islam: The United States and the Muslim Middle East in the Early Cold War," Diplomatic History 30, no. 4 (September 2006), 714. 17. The rise of Christian Left magazines such as Sojourners provides evidence of this as early as the 1970s. [ Page ] 14 18. Efraim Inbar, Israel’s National Security: Issues and Challenges Since the Yom Kippur War (New York: Routledge 2008), 131. 19. Inbar, Israel's National Security, 130. These words are from a Hamas leaflet, put- ting on paper for distribution what had been delared over the years. 20. Paul Charles Merkley, Those That Bless You, I Will Bless: Christian Zionism in Historical Perspective (Brantford, ON: Mantua Books, 2011), 221. 21. Quoted in Morris, 1948, 393. 22. Quoted in Morris, 1948 ,394. 23. Morris, 1948, 394-95. 24. Christianity Today, November 11, 1957, 22. Also, see Ben J. Marais, "Cross or Crescent in Africa?" Christianity Today, May 26, 1958, 8-9. Concerning the city of Ankara (700,000), Wilbur Smith wrote: "I found in 1962 not a single Christian church of any type or persuasion." Wilbur M. Smith, Before I Forget (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), 270. 25. Edward W. Said, Orientalism, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 2004). On the pervasiveness of orientalist views in American popular culture, see Little, American Orientalism. Viewing Arabs as decadent, alien, and inferior jus- tified British imperialist ventures. The British could improve the people. Little sug- gests Americans did the same in a later period (10). Also, Jacobs, "The Perils and Promise of Islam." 705-39. 26. Said. Orientalism. 307. 316-19. 342. 27. He wrote these words in 2003. See Said. Orientalism, xix-xx. 28. Said. Orientalism. 338. 29. Glubb. A Soldier with the Arabs. 5. 37 30. Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs, 49, 147. 31. Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs. 401. 32. Quoted in Matthew F. Jacobs, "The Perils and Promise of Islam," 711. 33. Christian Century, August 22, 1956, 964. 34. Inbar, Israel's National Security, 57. 35. Sicker writes: "Israel doe not pretend to make its survival dependent on the destraction of the Arab states." Sicker, Israel's Quest for Security, 3-4. 36. John Babot Glubb wrote: "I believe that the creation and maintenance of the State of Israel by armed force was a mistake." See Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs, 7, 31-32. 37. History can be messy. There were liberal Christians supportive of Israel, at least in the earlier period of Israel's statehood. And there were a small number of conserva- tive Christians critical of Israel. Carenen, The Fervent Embrace, 59, 120. 38. Numerous commentators inside and outside church circles wrote of Israel's modern accomplishments. For example, Peres wrote of Israel establishing "a scientific, technological and industrial foundation to speed her advance towards self-sufficien- cy." See Peres, David's Sling, 18. 39. For further discussion, see Merkley, Those That Bless You, I Will Bless, 235. 40. However, there was significant disagreement among leftists on the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the early 1970s, leftist Noam Chomsky argued that there was "no identifiable 'New Left doctrine' on the Middle East." See Noam Chomsky, Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 153. 41. For a specific discussion of American exceptionalism, see Frank Costigliola and Thomas G. Paterson, "Defining and Doing the History of the United States Foreign Relations: A Primer" in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, 2nd ed, eds. Michael J. Hogan and Tomas G. Paterson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 11-13. 42. Mark Noll et al, eds. Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond 1700-1900 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 6. [ Page ] 15 43. For an excellent discussion on defining fundamentalism, see Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1997): 4-11. Also, see Robert D. Woodberry and Christian S. Smith, "Fundamentalism et al: Conservative Protestants in America," Annual Review of Sociol- ogy 24 (1998), 25-27; George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shap- ing of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press 1980, 4; and David Harrington Watt, "The Private Hopes of American Fundamental- ists and Evangelical, 1925-1975," Religion and American Culture 1, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 1.55-75. 44. Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarian- ism 1800-1930 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970), ix. 45. For example, see Paul Erb, Bible Prophecy: Questions and Answers (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1978), 33-34. 46. Wilbur M. Smith, The Greatest Prophetic Discourse of Our Lord, His: Student Magazine of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship 8, no. 5 (May 1948), 16. Also, see Arthur B. Whiting, "The Rapture of the Church," Bibliotheca Sacra 102, no. 408 (July-September, 1945): 490-99; John F. Walvoord, "Premillennialism and the Tribula- tion," Bibliotheca Sacra, 113, no. 451 (July, 1956): 193-99; Kenneth S. Wuest, "The Rap- ture-Precisely When?" Bibliotheca Sacra, 114, no. 453 (January, 1957): 60-69. A better known premillennialist is Billy Graham. See Graham, World Aflame (Montreal: Pocket Books, 1966). Dispensationalist premillennialists especially focus on Israel. Dispensa- tionalist theology divides history into a number of dispensations or periods of time that point "toward a final golden age, when a messianic kingdom would come to earth." Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 248-49. For a discussion on dispensational escha- tology, see Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today (Chicago: Moody Press, 1965), 156-76. Dean of Dallas Theological Seminary, Ryrie earned his PhD at Edin- burgh. On Ryrie, see "Israel: Things to Come," Christianity Today, December 22, 1967, 35. 47. Timothy P. Weber, On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel's Best Friend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 13. As Weber put it, "every- thing was riding on the Jews." Premillenialist John F. Walvoord wrote that "Israel as the chosen people is destined to a prominent place in future world affairs, but not before enduring much hardship and persecution." See John F. Walvoord, The Nations in Prophecy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1967), 17. 48. Erb. Bible Provhecu. 126. 49. Michael Stallard, "Is Dispensationalism Hurting American Political Policies in the Middle East?" in Dispensationalism Tomorrow and Beyond: A Theological Collection in Honor of Charles C. Ryrie, ed. Christopher Cone (Fort Worth, TX: Tyndale Seminary Press, 2008), 463. One dispensationalist scholar wrote: "The theological liberal quite naturally opposes dispensationalism, for he finds completely unpalatable its plain interpretation. . . . Whatever else dispensationalists are, they are conservative in their view of the fundamental doctrines of the Bible, an approach unsavory to the liberal." See Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, 10. Also, John F. Walvoord, Blessed Hope: The Auto- biography of John F. Walvoord (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2001), 79. 50. For example, see E. Schuyler English, "'Blessed Is He That Readeth . . .': A Defense of the Scofield Reference Bible," Moody Monthly, November 1951, 153-55. For Wilbur M. Smith's defense of dispensationalism, see "Books in Review," Christianity Today, June 20, 1960, 34. 51. Eitan Bar-Yosef, "Christian Zionism and Victorian Culture, Israel Studies 8, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 18-44. Shalom Goldman, Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, and the Idea of The Promised Land (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 2. Various scholars refer to the Christian Restorationism of the sixteenth century and later years, when Protestants wrote of the eventual restoration of Jews to their land. Merkley, Those That Bless You, I Will Bless, 131-32, 159. [ Page ] 16 52. Naim Ateek, "Introduction: Challenging Christian Zionism," in Challenging Christian Zionism: Theology, Politics and the Israel-Palestine Conflict, eds. Naime Ateek et al. (London: Melisende 2005), 13, 18. 53. Merkley, Those That Bless You, I Will Bless, 190. 54. Donald Wagner, "A Zionist Primer (Part 11) Defining Christian Zionism, Cor- nerstone 31 (Winter 2003), 12. 55. Stephen Spector, Evangelicals and Israel: The Story of American Christian Zionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 2-3. Also, see Ronald R. Stockton, "Christian Zionism: Prophecy and Public Opinion," Middle East Journal 41, no. 2 (Spring 1987), 251. Stockton writes: "While Christian Zionism is disproportionately associated with the evangelical Christian base from which it historically sprang, the survey data indi- cate that it transcends these origins and has support in all religious, ideological, and political strata." 56. Paul Merkley writes that "it is nowhere near the truth, to portray Christian Zionism as the fruit of Dispensationalism." See Merkley, Those That Bless You, I Will Bless, 230. For additional discussion on dispensationalism, see George Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerd- mans, 1991), 39-41, 77. One recent study argues that evangelicals over a period of time put less emphasis "on end-of-times eschatology to focus more on the command to bless Israel in order to gamer blessings for the United States." See Carenen, The Fervent Embrace, 210-11. Of course, it is also plausible that most evangelicals had always put greater emphasis on "blessings" than on complex end times eschatology. 57. In a 1963 letter to Yona Malachy, John Walvoord wrote: I do not know that dispensationalists are actively engaged in support of the Zionist. ... I have not ob- served in the United States of America any clear relationship between dispensational- ism and political Zionism as such." Yona Malachy, American Fundamentalism and Israel: The Relation of Fundamentalist Churches to Zionism and the State of Israel (Jerusalem: Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1978), 159. 58. Many Bible-believing Christians took the position that the building of the Third Temple would only occur after Israel's repentance and Christ's return. For example, see "In the Wake of War," Christianity Today, August 18, 1967, 24. 59. For more on the claims by Christian anti-Zionists, see Stephen Sizer, Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon (Leicester, UK: Inter-Varsity Press, 2004), 21, 183. Similar arguments are made by non-Christian liberals such as Victoria Clark, a self- proclaimed "secular humanist relativist liberal." Victoria Clark, Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 3, 21. A good number of dispensationalist writers believe that only God can settle the matter of the Arabs. For example, see Arthur E. Bloomfield, Before the Last Battle Armageddon (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Fellowship, Inc., 1971), 64. 60. Stallard, "Is Dispensationalism Hurting American Political Policies in the Mid- dle East?" 473-75. A rare example of a Christian Zionist using the term "hasten" when speaking of the future kingdom is Louis S. Bauman, "Israel Lives Again!" The King's Business, September 1950, 7. But it was not any human political activity that would hasten the day. Bauman desired that the "Lord God of hosts, [would] hasten that day!" 61. Spector, Evangelicals and Israel, 3. Similarly, fundamentalists believed that sup- porting Israel represented an act of faithfulness to God's plan in history. People and nations would be judged by God on how they treated Israel. See Carenen, The Fervent Embrace, 80-1, 119. 62. Spector, Evangelicals and Israel, 3. 63. The theme of Israel representing the front line of western values got more atten- tion in the twenty-first century. In 2005, one Christian Zionist spoke of Islamic extrem- ism and the diminishing of Western values in Europe. See Spector, Evangelicals and Israel, 2. [ Page ] 17 64. On Israel's prosperity, see Walvoord, The Nations in Prophecy, 111—12. On the zero-sum game of Christian anti-Zionists, see Merkley, Those That Bless You, I Will Bless, 235-36. 65. Critics claim that Christian Zionists have forgotten Christian Palestinians. For example, Stephen Sizer makes his point by writing of his meeting "a real-life Palestin- ian." He also links Christian Zionism and the threatened "extinction" of Palestinians. Like many other Christian critics of Israel, Sizer's writing on Christian Zionism pro- vides no information about or analysis of Israel's security problems. See Sizer, Chris- tian Zionism, 10, 13. 66. Malachy, American Fundamentalism and Israel, vii. 67. Sizer. Christian Zionism. 240. 247. 68. Quoted in Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 13. 69. Quoted in Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 15. 70. Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 16. 71. Colm Shindler, Likud and the Christian Dispensationalists: A Symbiotic Rela- tionship." Israel Studies 5. no. 1 (Spring 2000). 161. 72. The designation "global New Deal" is from David Schoenbaum, The United States and the State of Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 80. Interesting- ly, Eleanor Roosevelt linked Israeli development with New Deal liberalism, arguing that the "democratic socialism of the labor-Zionists might indeed become the model state that would promote an international New Deal." Quoted in Michelle Mart, "El- eanor Roosevelt. Liberalism, and Israel." Shofar 24. no. 3 (Spring 2006). 78. 73. Merkley, Those That Bless You, I Will Bless, 206-207. 74. F. Dean Lueking, "Hopeful Voices from Israel," Christian Century, February 1970, 140. 75. Conservative Christians also wrote of corruption in Israel's government. One example is Wilbur M. Smith, Egypt and Israel: Coming Together? (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1957), vii. 76. Quoted in Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern nerican Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 216. 77. Merkley, Those That Bless You, I Will Bless, 234. ***** This is the end of the e-text. This e-text was brought to you by Tyndale University, J. William Horsey Library - Tyndale Digital Collections *****