I would support Israel if I were not a Christian, but given that I am a Christian, I must support Israel. Why? Support for Israel is the most reasonable position and Christianity demands I choose reasonably this side of Paradise. There are no choices here between the Perfect and the Wicked, only choices between the Better and the Worse.
I owe my soul to the Arabic speaking peoples. They have created beauty, culture, and preserved so much that is good in Christianity. I hate when I see them treated unjustly all over the world. I stand in solidarity with them and their quest as Christians to live in peace and yet. . . and yet, I also stand in solidarity with Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu is right: Israel is our friend and all her enemies are the enemies of the survival of the Christian faith in the Middle East. Failure to support Israel is often a cover for hatred of Jews.
How do we know? Israel’s flaws are nothing compared to the flaws of her foes. Just as the USA is better on religious liberty than almost any state on the planet and forgetting this would be folly, even as we mourn a decay in religious liberty here, so Israel is the lone democracy with fundamental guarantees of religious freedom in a region of tyranny regarding religion.
Israel is a faithful ally and my Faith needs allies in an area where Christians are being murdered. Israel is not murdering Christians, isn’t about to murder Christians, and so gets some support just based on that very, very low standard. However, this is not a standard that parts of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, and Libya can meet. Christians appreciate the faith of the martyrs, but we are not eager to make more of them by foolishly supporting the wicked regimes that create them.
Support for Israel is hard because Israel is imperfect. She has acted unjustly toward some Palestinians and her warfare has not always followed the rules of civilized behavior. I have no problem condemning those actions, but the vices of Israel would be virtues in many of her neighbors. Some Israeli governments have taken Christian lands, but most of her foes are bent on our annihilation in the region. Better living with some injustice than dead.
Israel will kill civilians in a raid as “collateral damage,” her opponents kill them as a lifestyle. Israel seizes land that she needs for self-protection, but without major imperial designs in the region. Her enemies would wipe all Jews off the face of the earth and create a Caliphate that would dominate the Middle East. If Israel ceased to fight, she would be destroyed. If her enemies ceased to fight, they might prosper.
Israel is pragmatic and flawed. Her enemies are pure ideologues and it is hard to do business with an ideologue. There are many reasons to support Israel. Here are a few:
Israel allows all her citizens a vote.
Orthodox Christians, secular Arabs, pagans, and atheists all have the right to vote in Israeli elections. All can be citizens in good standing. This is minimal, but in this age in that region it is much.
Israel is an Enlightenment influenced nation but one at peace with religion.
The Enlightenment had two sides: the Christian exemplified by the Christian apologist John Locke and the secularists such as Edward Gibbon. Read Gibbon’s masterwork The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and you will see the hatred of Eastern Christians and Jewish people that permeated the English speaking secular Enlightenment. You will also find a disproportionate praise for Islam as lacking the “effeminate” or “trade” values of Eastern Christianity and Judaism.
Israel is a Jewish child of Locke like the United States: the virtues of the Enlightenment exist in Israel without many of the vices.
Israel allows freedom of worship even to the ultra-Orthodox.
Israel contains very secular Jewish people and very religious Jewish people. All are allowed to practice their faith. This freedom creates tensions and the state negotiates those tensions imperfectly, but the Jewish state does not force even the ultra-Orthodox to practice secularism. The United States could learn from Israel.
Israel is the only Jewish state.
If Israel were to fail, what would happen to the Jewish people? Jordan exists. Lebanon exists. Syria exists. The Palestinian area exists with autonomy. Israel is the only homeland the Jews have and the loss of Israel would be catastrophic for the Jewish people. If Israel exists, Arabs can still find homes in Palestine. If Israel ceases to exist, the Jewish people will soon disappear from the Middle East.
Israel has no imperial designs.
Argue about the borders of Israel all you wish, but even the most fervent Zionist does not wish to see the Star of David flying over Cairo or Baghdad. Persia will never be ruled by Israeli occupiers. Syria, Iran, and Egypt contain parties, some in power, that would conquer Israel and wipe it off the map forever. If some Zionists wish too much of Palestine, almost every Arab government and every terrorist regime wishes to conquer all of Israel.
There is no moral equivalence.
Israel is flawed but her flaws seem almost virtues in the neighborhood where she exists.
We cannot be allied with Heaven because the United States is an unfit ally for Heaven. Heaven has no allies, just those who find themselves on her side! And so we must choose, as subjects of that Kingdom and as citizens of this Republic, between imperfections. I am an American and grateful to be one and in a broken world America must be an ally of Israel . . .the best friend we are going to get.
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