Furthermore, whereas the Christian Right believes that America should always support Israel, Bush’s practical support for Israeli policy ebbed and flowed, influenced by a variety of political and strategic factors. In this context it is worth recalling that following his endorsement of a Palestinian state, Bush applied pressure on Prime Minister Sharon, forcing him into a cease-fire and into allowing Arafat to meet Foreign Minister Peres, while refusing to put Hamas and Islamic Jihad on the official U.S. list of terrorist organizations. Against this background, Sharon compared Bush’s policy toward Israel to Chamberlain’s policy at Munich.115
Leaving Bush himself aside, there is still the question of the lobbying of the Christian Zionists during his presidency. This became particularly intense at the height of the second intifada. Gary Bauer and others have claimed that Christian Zionist pressure was responsible for the shift in American policy toward the conflict between late 2001 and the summer of 2002.116 In October 2001, Bush became the first U.S. president to officially endorse a Palestinian state and the administration worked for a ceasefire with the ultimate goal of restarting peace negotiations. However, when Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield in the spring of 2002, the administration allowed Israel time to pursue, what was the largest military operation in the West Bank since 1967. Furthermore, in June 2002 Bush made a speech in which he conditioned restarting the peace process on transformation of the Palestinian leadership. Certainly, in the spring of 2002, there was plenty of Christian Zionist lobbying of the President in favor of giving Israel a free hand to strike a military blow against the terrorist campaign. They organized a demonstration in Washington DC with Jewish organizations attended by an estimated 100 000 people. They also organized a massive email and letter writing campaign. During April and May, the Middle East dominated the weekly telephone conference call between the White House and evangelicals leaders who were very concerned that the Administration not abandon Israel.117 In May, after protracted negotiations with the administration, both Houses of Congress passed pro-Israel resolutions. The House resolution, sponsored by the conservative Christian Republican Tom DeLay, was especially critical of the Palestinians; it was passed by a massive majority.
All of this probably had some effect, but the fact of the matter was that the balance within the administration was strongly in favor of shifting policy in that direction, anyway. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz were never really enamored with the peace process. When it became clear that Arafat had accepted arms from Iran and was directly involved in funding terrorist operations, this greatly strengthened the hand of the hawks against the relatively dovish Powell, and policy shifted accordingly.118 Furthermore, even allowing for the fact that Christian Zionist activities may have helped to encourage that shift by touching the president’s conscience, there is no way they can be said to have pressured the president. For as David Frum, a speechwriter for the Bush administration, has pointed out, Bush would have easily won a trial of strength with Bauer and Robertson over the Republican base.119 Indeed, this is exactly what happened when Bush launched the Road Map in 2003, which was a staged plan designed to lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. The Far Right Israeli politician Benny Elon used his contacts to mobilize Christian Zionists against the Road Map.120 Despite receiving more than fifty thousand postcards from Christian conservatives in the fortnight following the announcement of the Road Map, the Bush administration still pressured the Israeli government to accept the Road Map – which it did, albeit with several reservations.121 Actually, rather than Christian Zionists influencing Bush, Bush actually moderated the stance of Jerry Falwell, who reversed his opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state.122
Again in 2004 and 2005 the Israeli Far Right tried to mobilize Christian Zionists against the disengagement from Gaza that involved removing eight thousand settlers from their homes. Although most Christian Zionist activists opposed the move, they did not lobby against it.123 The key factor, according to the then Israeli ambassador to Washington, Danny Ayalon, was that the initiative came from the Israeli government itself and was not the result of U.S. pressure.124 As Falwell explained, “I personally have a problem with trading land for peace but that’s not our business. If Sharon wanted to say no to a withdrawal, okay, we would have supported him. And if he [Sharon] said yes, well, that’s okay with me, too.”125 Other Christian Zionist leaders such as Robertson, Inhofe, and Hagee also made the exactly the same point,126 and this position has become central to the operational code of leading Christian Zionists in America.127 As Hagee explained in relation to his own lobbying organization:
From our founding … we decided that CUFI would never presume to tell Jerusalem how to conduct its foreign or domestic affairs. We have never, and will never, oppose Israeli efforts to advance peace. Our involvement in the peace process will continue to be restricted to defending Israel’s right to make decisions free of international interference or pressure – including U.S. pressure.128
Thus while various Christian Zionist organizations have favored the Israeli right, what stands out about their lobbying during the Bush era is that it was mainly reactive and defensive. It was less concerned with promoting settlements or preventing Israeli withdrawals, and more focused on blocking U.S. pressure on Israel, especially on allowing Israel to prosecute its war against terrorism as its saw fit. Evangelicals were more energized in April 2002 in support of Israel’s counterterrorism operation than they were by the withdrawal from Gaza. In any case, neither end-times theology nor Christian Zionist lobbying were central factors in the Bush administration’s policy. They had political influence, but it was not decisive.
A Complex Relationship with American Jewry
One factor that facilitated the growing activism of Christian Zionist lobbying was the shift in attitudes toward cooperation within the American Jewish community. Prior to 2000, Christian Zionists’ relationship with most of the organized American Jewish community had been strained. On core domestic issues like church and state and abortion, the Christian Right and the majority of American Jews are on opposite sides. Against this background, in 1994, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a mainstream Jewish organization, produced a two-hundred-page report that warned that the religious Right was a source of intolerance. In addition, there is widespread Jewish opposition to missionary activity. In the early 1990s, Voices United for Israel was established to promote Jewish-Evangelical cooperation regarding support for Israel. At the outset, its executive committee included senior representatives of the Anti-Defamation League and Rabbi Eckstein’s International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Within a couple of years these organizations had pulled out, citing proselytization of Jews and overt support for the Republicans as major reasons. At the same time, the Jewish community’s relations with evangelicals were further strained by the passing of a resolution to focus missionary activities on the Jews by the Southern Baptists.129
Despite the general antipathy toward the Christian Right, some American Jews have long advocated a political alliance in support of Israel, notably the neoconservatives. Indeed, neoconservatives and evangelicals worked together to form the New American Century foundation in 1997.130 Jewish advocates of cooperation pointed to the fact that three-quarters of evangelicals have a positive view of Jews, and less than 10 percent have a negative view. In addition, about 90 percent of evangelicals believe that God hears prayers of all people, not only Christians, and that Jews are basically similar to other Americans. All these figures are almost identical to the national average. Even on the vexed question of whether Jews need to be converted, evangelicals were about evenly split.131
But it was only following the collapse of the peace process in 2000 and the subsequent onslaught on Israel’s legitimacy at the UN sponsored anti-racism conference held at Durban in 2001 that mainstream Jewish organizations began to shift.132 Symbolically, in 2002 the ADL’s leader, Abe Foxman, endorsed working with Christian Zionists on Israel.133 In 2003, Ralph Reed, former h
ead of the Christian Coalition, was a keynote speaker at the ADL’s National Leadership Conference in Washington. Also in 2003, former presidential candidate and evangelical leader Gary Bauer was the keynote speaker at the annual AIPAC conference. Meanwhile, at its annual plenum for 2003, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA), the umbrella organization of Jewish community relations bodies across the country, adopted a resolution in favor of working with evangelicals on issues of common concern – namely Israel – that would have been unfathomable several years earlier.134 Subsequently, in 2006 Hagee was the recipient of the Humanitarian of the Year Award by the mainstream Jewish organization, B’nai B’rith, and in 2007 he addressed the AIPAC annual conference. Yet evangelical-Jewish cooperation over Israel remains controversial. In 2008, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, then head of the Reform movement (the largest Jewish religious denomination in America) came out strongly against cooperation with the evangelicals.135
Conclusion
White evangelicals are more supportive of Israel than any other group in America, except for American Jews. A sense of being biblically commanded to support the Jewish people coupled with a sense that support for Israel is linked to biblical prophecies about the end times undergird that support, along with other more common and prosaic reasons, like a perception that Israel and the U.S. are on the same side in the war against terror. The wider one casts the net, the less knowledgeable evangelicals are about modern-day Israel and the hazier are the political implications of their general sympathy in terms of concrete political issues. In contrast, the most activist core of evangelical supporters, Christian Zionists, hail from the most conservative wing of the evangelical movement and they share a political orientation with, and have ties to, Israel’s religious Right. Nonetheless, the bulk of their donations and lobbying are focused around what most Israelis and American Jews would consider consensual positions, namely giving money to underprivileged Israelis and lobbying against U.S. pressure on Israel.
On the one hand, this would seem to indicate that evangelical support for Israel, in practice, is guided more by the generic biblical command to support Israel than by a messianic ideology tied to territorial maximalism. On the other hand, much of the donations go to causes related to biblical prophecy: immigration and absorption. The key here is to recognize that while Israel’s religious Right and Christian Zionists share a messianic orientation, its details differ, and not only in the obvious theological sense. For most of the Israeli religious Right, settlements and territorial maximalism are the touchstones of their mission; they tend to believe that their actions will eventually lead to the onset of the messianic age. In contrast, for most Christian Zionists, settlements and territorial maximalism are not as central to their worldview; only Jerusalem has such an elevated status. For most, “end times” is something preordained rather than a practical program; it is primarily about being on the right side when Armageddon strikes.
In terms of the political influence of Christian Zionism, there is no doubt that it has grown significantly and that they became an important part of the pro-Israel coalition in the first decade of the new millennium. They have demonstrated the ability to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people to donate money to Israel and tens of thousands of people to write e-mails and letters, and attend demonstrations for Israel. Meanwhile, at the pinnacle of the political pyramid, they had some influence over policy under the Bush Administration (2000–2008), but they did not determine any critical decision. As per the received wisdom on lobbying, their influence was greatest when they adopted positions that had a wide resonance in public opinion – such as taking Israel’s side in the war against terror. Conversely, when they came out against an Israeli government and an American president pursuing the peace process, they became peripheral, allied with small right-wing American Jewish organizations but alienated from the Israeli and the American Jewish mainstream.
In terms of demography, the religious Right and the religious Left are approximately the same size in America.136 However, on the Left, foreign policy toward Israel is not a major priority, and in any case opinion is divided. In contrast, the religious Right is solidly behind Israel and it is able to mobilize tens of thousands of people on the issue, people who tend to vote in disproportionately large numbers.
Still, Christian Zionist influence is limited to the Republican Party. If the Democrats are in power, they have little sway. Moreover, there is the possibility that Christian Zionists’ loud support for Israel could erode bipartisan consensual support for Israel. It may cause liberals with little direct interest in the Middle East to instinctively take the other side, given that liberals are strongly opposed to traditionalist evangelical positions on many other key political issues. There are already some indications of this within the liberal discourse, which has been highly critical of evangelical support for Israel. This is likely to be particularly the case for liberal mainline Protestants, who to a certain degree can be said to define themselves in opposition to conservative evangelicals. It is to the mainline that we now turn.
5 The Mainline Protestant Church and Anti-Zionism: Divesting from Israel?
The occupation is … the root of evil acts committed against innocent people on both sides.
—Presbyterian General Assembly Divestment resolution, 20041
Introduction
In 2004, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America PC(USA) voted to initiate a process of “phased selective divestment” from companies operating in Israel. Israelis and American Jews were shocked. Most Israelis had no idea that significant organized hostility to Israel existed in America. American Jews were taken aback, as many were used to looking on the mainline Protestant churches (here on in – the mainline) as allies in the struggle for civil rights and the preservation of the separation of church and state. Yet the Presbyterian divestment resolution was not an aberration but part of a broader trend in mainline policy.
But what exactly is the nature and extent of mainline hostility to Israel? Does it reflect widespread feelings within the mainline, or is it driven by a small but politically active group of Far Left extremists? Is that hostility primarily a function of changes in the Middle East since 1967, especially changes in Israeli policy? Does it reflect, in fact, an evenhanded approach, in which the moral faults of the policies pursued by both sides in the conflict are criticized? Alternately, is this hostility of a more longstanding and fundamental nature? Does it, in fact, extend beyond criticism of specific Israeli policies into outright hostility to the Jewish state by singling out Israel among all the nations of the world for particular opprobrium?
The chapter begins by surveying the institutional, theological, and ideological makeup of the mainline in general terms. It then looks at the historical roots of approaches to Israel within the mainline. Following this, the discourse and political activity of the mainline regarding Israel and the conflict are outlined. Finally, the sources of the rise of contemporary hostility toward Israel are assessed.
The Mainline
The dominant theology in the mainline has been liberal and modernist. The mainline generally accepts modern critical Bible scholarship, rejecting the literalist position on the Bible characteristic of evangelicals. They also tend to regard Jesus primarily as a moral teacher, whereas evangelicals tend to treat Jesus primarily as the source of personal salvation. In terms of social theology, the mainline emphasizes social justice, and it is active on issues such as economic, racial, and gender equality, in line with a liberal approach that seeks to establish the “kingdom of God” on earth. In contrast, evangelicals are generally associated with a conservative approach that emphasizes personal morality.2
Demography and Politics
From the 1920s until the 1990s mainline Protestants dominated the worldview of the U.S. political class, while also outnumbering evangelicals among the general population. However, since their peak in the mid-1960s, mainline denominations have lost up to a quarter of their membership, during a period in which t
he overall size of the American population has grown substantially.3
Despite their numerical decline, the mainline churches remain important politically. First, mainline Protestants still account for more than 40 million American adults and around a quarter of all voters. They constitute sizable portions of each party’s vote and have become a potential swing constituency in many states.4 Second, the mainline churches retain a significant amount of moral prestige, which grants them influence beyond their membership. This prestige derives from the mainline’s historical legacy. Members of the mainline denominations played a major role in authoring the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as well as in successful reform and protest movements such as the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement. and the antiwar movement. Indeed, according to Lester Kurtz, “Mainline Protestantism provides an institutional infrastructure for dissent that has no rival on the contemporary American political scene.”5 Third, members of mainline churches are generally better educated and wealthier than both the general public and evangelicals.6 Greater wealth and education correlate with greater political involvement and influence. For example, President Obama was a longtime member of the largest United Church of Christ (UCC) congregation.
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