Since Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, Israel’s military has responded in force, killing an estimated 40,000 Palestinians and injuring nearly 100,000 more in Gaza while ramping up attacks on enemies elsewhere in what has become a “seven-front war.”
The conflict has led to a dramatic increase in antisemitic incidents worldwide and left American public opinion divided along partisan lines: “Half of Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party think Israel has gone too far, while only 13% of Republicans and GOP leaners agree,” said an Oct. 1 report from Pew Research Center.
Conservative evangelical leaders are honoring the one-year anniversary of the attacks with events, pronouncements, calls for “unequivocal” support for Israel and criticisms of the Biden-Harris administration, which has unsuccessfully sought to pressure Israel to limit civilian deaths and injuries. Pew says 52% of Americans say they have little or no confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Michele Bachmann
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Michele Bachmann, who works with James Dobson Family Institute and serves as dean of Pat Robertson’s Regent University, have spearheaded the effort to create a new organization to influence public opinion and political leaders on behalf of Israel.
Invitations went out to “the top 100 presidents of Christian organizations and influential Christian leaders” to attend a September event designed to launch a new group called the Conference of Presidents of Christian Organizations in Support of Israel. The new council would be patterned after the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, a group that represents 50 Jewish organizations and was founded in 1956.
But Perkins and Bachman won’t say who was invited and who accepted, later acknowledging their proposed council might not happen at all.
“Why would a Christian version of the Conference be necessary when an excellent pro-Israel umbrella organization already exists?” asked one attendee. Another warned the new evangelical council would be just as acrimonious as the existing Jewish council.
One sympathetic report claims only “dozens” of people participated in their event. The most prominent no-show was Texas pastor John Hagee, leader of Christians United For Israel, which claims 10 million members.
One unnamed evangelical leader who attended the Perkins-Bachman event criticized Hagee for not showing support for the effort to create a new council, saying, “They seem strangely quiet in the greatest fight of Israel’s modern existence.”
One person attending the event was David Friedman, who was Trump’s U.S. ambassador to Israel and is a representative of the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute think tank.
A different Texas group called America for Israel sponsored a Monday summit in Dallas featuring GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, his pastor-father Rafael Cruz, GOP Rep. Chip Roy, and VOZ Media, a conservative Spanish-language broadcaster that seeks to rival networks Univision and Telemundo.
“Like you, I am committed to standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel and to ensuring that the United States will support our Israeli allies in their mission for as long as it takes,” Cruz said in press release from America for Israel, which promotes “the biblical beauty, democracy, and free markets of the land of Israel.”
Israel is “our greatest ally, not only geopolitically, but also biblically,” says the group’s co-founder, Shanda Hasse.
None of the pro-Israel evangelical leaders expressed support for cease-fires or negotiations, and none expressed concern for the suffering of the innocent, whether they be Palestinians — including Palestinian Christians — in Gaza, or for Maronite Christians caught up in Israel’s growing attacks on Lebanon.
One speaker who briefly mentioned the suffering of Palestinians at September’s Fourth Lausanne Congress in South Korea got a swift rebuke for doing so, according to Sojourners.
Ruth Padilla DeBorst
Ruth Padilla DeBorst included these two sentences on her 12-page speech: “There is no room for indifference toward all who are suffering the scourge of war and violence the world round, the uprooted and beleaguered people of Gaza, the hostages held by both Israel and Hamas and their families, the threatened Palestinians in their own territories, all who are mourning the loss of loved ones.”
The Lausanne Congress director quickly issued an apology for Padilla DeBorst’s speech, an apology that a Palestinian Christian leader compared to “a nail to a coffin.”
Conservative evangelicals have not wavered in their support for Netanyahu, who claims there are seven fronts in Israel’s war against its enemies:
- Hamas militants in Gaza
- Hezbollah in Lebanon
- Houthis in Yemen
- Iran, which has attacked Israel
- Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria
- Iran’s efforts to arm Palestinians in Israel’s West Bank
Israel has succeeded in significantly degrading Hamas and Hezbollah, but it’s not clear what its remaining military objectives are or whether it will be able to completely eradicate both groups.
Bachmann also announced the launch of Regent’s Institute of Israel Studies.
“Our whole purpose is really to be an antidote to Columbia University and all these elite universities where you’ve had all the (anti-Israel) protests,” she said.
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