Palin's Pilgrimage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Another Republican is visiting Israel.\u00a0 This time it\u2019s Sarah Palin who\u2019s running around the country and wearing a star of David.\u00a0 Like Huckabee and others\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/03\/palins-pilgrimage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Palin's Pilgrimage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Another Republican is visiting Israel.\u00a0 This time it\u2019s Sarah Palin who\u2019s running around the country and wearing a star of David.\u00a0 Like Huckabee and others\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/03\/palins-pilgrimage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-22T01:02:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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{"id":508,"date":"2011-03-22T01:02:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-22T01:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/03\/palins-pilgrimage.html"},"modified":"2011-03-22T01:02:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-22T01:02:00","slug":"palins-pilgrimage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/03\/palins-pilgrimage.html","title":{"rendered":"Palin’s Pilgrimage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Another Republican is visiting Israel.\u00a0 This time it\u2019s Sarah Palin<\/a> who\u2019s running around the country and wearing a star of David.\u00a0 Like Huckabee and others before her, she\u2019s ingratiating herself with Israel\u2019s right wing coalition and making damaging policy statements about expanding settlements in the territories.\u00a0 She does this with no regard or concern for the welfare of the Jewish people.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because she doesn\u2019t give a damn about the welfare of the Jewish people.\u00a0 Nor has she made the trip in order to get Jewish votes.\u00a0 American Jews are not going to vote for her in any significant numbers.<\/p>\n

No, Palin is in Israel for two reasons.\u00a0 It\u2019s good for fundraising among the Republican Jewish minority that consists of heavy hitters like Sheldon Adelson.\u00a0 And it\u2019s good for appeasing her fundamentalist Christian base of so-called \u201cChristian Zionists\u201d with whom she identifies.<\/p>\n

These Christian Zionists, who have recently become the sweethearts of some Jewish Zionists, do not have much regard or concern for the future or well-being of the Jewish people.\u00a0 At least not in any way that should matter to any actual Jews.<\/p>\n

No, they support Israel \u2013 chiefly its current right wing policies \u2013 for their own reasons.\u00a0 The establishment of the Jewish State reinforces the fundamentalist Christian belief in the truth of ancient prophecy.\u00a0 (I\u2019m not going to get into its relationship to their eschatology because there\u2019s no common ground among the various wacky fairy tales that Christians have made up about that.)<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that Sister Sarah is in Israel for her own gain, unrelated to the best interests of Jews, Palestinians or anyone else in the region.<\/p>\n

And I, for one, wish she would take off that damned star.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"