The Rise of Christian Zionism and Vice President Mike Pence

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Vice President Mike Pence is in the Middle East this weekend for meetings with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Israel.

The White House originally presented Pence’s trip as focused on supporting Christian communities in the Middle East.

However, following POTUS Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the Palestinians declared that Pence, the ‘guiding light’ that changed decades of USA policy is “not welcome” in Palestine.

By Eileen Fleming

Pence will not meet any Palestinians during his visit and there are no meetings planned with Christian leaders.

A number of Christian leaders in the Middle East, including in Egypt, declared that they will refuse to meet with Pence because of the Trump administration’s “hostility” towards the Palestinians.

White House “hostility” towards the Palestinians was birthed during the Lyndon Baines Johnson’s administration as was the cover-up of Israel’s attack on the USS LIBERTY.

The following is excerpted from THIS BOOK, regarding the Rise of Christian Zionism in the Lyndon Baines Johnson White House.

The “5 Towns Jewish Times” is a website by an Orthodox Jewish community “committed to address all matters of note from a position of intelligence, integrity, and accuracy; and to report difficult social, political, and religious issues from all viewpoints without bias, whitewashing, or journalistic oversimplification.”

The following is excerpted from a 2013, 5 Towns Jewish Times article titled, “Our First Jewish President Lyndon Johnson? –an update!” by Morrsi Smith:

The Associated Press reported that newly released tapes from US president Lyndon Johnson’s White House office showed LBJ’s “personal and often emotional connection to Israel.” The news agency pointed out that during the Johnson presidency (1963-1969), “the United States became Israel’s chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier.”

Research into Johnson’s personal history indicates that he inherited his concern for the Jewish people from his family. His aunt Jessie Johnson Hatcher, a major influence on LBJ, was a member of the Zionist Organization of America.

ON JUNE 4, 1945, Johnson visited Dachau…Lady Bird later recalled that when her husband returned home, “he was still shaken, stunned, terrorized, and bursting with an overpowering revulsion and incredulous horror at what he had seen.”

A decade later while serving in the Senate, Johnson blocked the Eisenhower administration’s attempts to apply sanctions against Israel following the 1956 Sinai Campaign.

As Senate majority leader, Johnson consistently blocked the anti-Israel initiatives of his fellow Democrat, William Fulbright, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“The indefatigable Johnson had never ceased pressure on the administration,” wrote I.L. “Si” Kenen, the head of AIPAC at the time.

Johnson’s concern for the Jewish people continued through his presidency. Soon after taking office in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Johnson told an Israeli diplomat, “You have lost a very great friend, but you have found a better one.”

Kennedy was the first president to approve the sale of defensive US weapons to Israel, specifically Hawk anti-aircraft missiles. But Johnson approved tanks and fighter jets, all vital after the 1967 war when France imposed a freeze on sales to Israel…

“I sure as hell want to be careful and not run out on little Israel,” Johnson said in a March 1968 conversation with his ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg, according to White House tapes recently released…

Robert David Johnson, a professor of history at Brooklyn College, recently wrote in The New York Sun, Johnson’s policies stemmed more from personal concerns – “his friendship with leading Zionists, his belief that America had a moral obligation to bolster Israeli security and his conception of Israel as a frontier land much like his home state of Texas. His personal concerns led him to intervene when he felt that the State or Defense departments had insufficiently appreciated Israel’s diplomatic or military needs.”

President Johnson firmly pointed American policy in a pro-Israel direction.

In a historical context, the American emergency airlift to Israel in 1973, the constant diplomatic support, the economic and military assistance and the strategic bonds between the two countries can all be credited to the seeds planted by LBJ.

Lyndon Johnson’s maternal ancestors, the Huffmans, apparently migrated to Frederick, Maryland from Germany sometime in the mid-eighteenth century. Later they moved to Bourbon, Kentucky and eventually settled in Texas in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.

According to Jewish law, if a person’s mother is Jewish, then that person is automatically Jewish, regardless of the father’s ethnicity or religion.

The facts indicate that both of Lyndon Johnson’s great-grandparents, on the maternal side, were Jewish. These were the grandparents of Lyndon’s mother, Rebecca Baines. Their names were John S. Huffman and Mary Elizabeth Perrin. John Huffman’s mother was Suzanne Ament, a common Jewish name. Perrin is also a common Jewish name. Huffman and Perrin had a daughter, Ruth Ament Huffman, who married Joseph Baines and together they had a daughter, Rebekah Baines, Lyndon Johnson’s mother. The line of Jewish mothers can be traced back three generations in Lyndon Johnson’s family tree. There is little doubt that he was Jewish.” [12]

President Johnson was a member of the “Christian Church,” also called the “Disciples of Christ.”

Judaism is defined as the “monotheistic religion of the Jews, having its ethical, ceremonial, and legal foundation in the precepts of the Old Testament and in the teachings and commentaries of the rabbis as found chiefly in the Talmud.”

According to The Jewish Virtual Library:

The term “Zionism” was coined in 1890… Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism has come to include the movement for the development of the State of Israel through support for the Israel Defense Forces.

From inception Zionism advocated tangible as well as spiritual aims. Jews of all persuasions – left, right, religious and secular – formed the Zionist movement and worked together toward its goals.

Disagreements in philosophy has led to rifts in the Zionist movement of the years and a number of separate forms have emerged, notably: Political, Religious, Socialist and Territorial Zionism. [13]

Christian Zionism is an extremist Christian movement, which supports the claims of those who believe that the State of Israel should take control of all of the land currently disputed between Palestinians and Israelis:

Christian Zionists view the creation and expansion of the modern state of Israel as a fulfillment of biblical prophesies toward the second coming of Jesus.

Christian Zionism is a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel.

The Christian Zionist program provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it laces an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ’s love and justice today.

Believing that God fights on the side of the state of Israel, Christian Zionists call for the unqualified support for the most extreme political positions related to the Holy Land.

Christian Zionists consistently oppose moves towards a solution to the Israel Palestinian conflict that would validate the political aspirations of both Palestinians and Israelis.

Christian Zionism has significant support within American Protestant fundamentalists, who number between 10 and 20 million. Its reach is broad, by virtue of its favorite themes related to the “End Times” and an Israel-fixated Christian media.

Christian Zionism is both a political movement and a way of interpreting current events. Its focus is on Israel and the Middle East, as much an ideology as a “movement.” Its promoters share many beliefs but are not organized through any one institution.

Throughout history Christians have at times twisted scripture to justify violence: for the Crusades, for Anti-Semitism, and for slavery.

Christian Zionists particularly those with dispensationalist leanings couch their motives in terms of compassion towards the Jewish people based on a literal reading of scripture.

The political agenda of territorial expansion advocated by Christian Zionists has given rise to injustice against Palestinians that adds fuel to the fire of conflict in the Middle East.

Many evangelicals interpreted the establishment of Israel to be the fulfillment of -how they understood and interpreted- certain prophetic scriptures.

Christian Zionists interpreted the Israeli victory in the 1967 War and the capture of Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights to be an act of God.

Christian Zionists do NOT know the simple truths about Israel’s June 8 attack on the USS LIBERTY and the USA Government’s 50-year cover-up that continues to impact American foreign policies of today in the worst of ways!

On 8 May 1993, Ariel Sharon was quoted in “Yedioth Ahronoth” [Israel’s top newspaper by way of circulation] explaining:

The terms ‘democracy’ or ‘democratic’ are totally absent from [Israel’s] Declaration of Independence. This is not an accident. The intention of Zionism was not to bring democracy, needless to say. It was solely motivated by the creation in Eretz-Isrel of a Jewish state belonging to all the Jewish people and to the Jewish people alone. This is why any Jew of the Diaspora has the right to immigrate to Israel and to become a citizen of Israel.

Following the War of 1967, Israel gained an increased portion of USA foreign aid and military budgets, becoming the ‘western pillar’ of the USA strategic alliance against Soviet incursion into the Middle East.

During this period AIPAC and other pro-Israeli lobby agencies began their ascent to power in shaping USA foreign policy.

The Roman Catholic Church and mainline Protestant denominations began to develop a more balanced approach to the Middle East, bringing them closer to the international consensus on the Palestinian question.

Zionist organizations interpreted this shift as being Anti-Israel and in turn began to court fundamental and conservative Christians.

In 1977, when President Carter stated “The Palestinians deserve a right to their homeland,” Christian Zionists responded with full page ads stating:

“The time has come for evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in biblical prophecy and Israel’s divine right to the land…and affirm our belief in the Promised Land to the Jewish people.”

The Reagan White House hosted a series of seminars from the Israeli lobby and Christian right. This was when Hal Lindsay, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and the Moral majority infiltrated the West Wing. Falwell received a Lear Jet from the Israeli government for his personal travel.

When Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear plant in 1981, Prime Minister Begin called Jerry Falwell -before he called Reagan- to ask him “to explain to the Christian public the reasons” for the bombings

In 1996, Netanyahu and Likud ideology dominated Israeli policy and 17 evangelical USA pastors pledged their support of the illegal colonies in the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and full support for a Jerusalem under sovereignty of Israel.

The Christian Zionists launched a PR campaign under the banner: “Christians Call for a United Jerusalem.”

They ignored the simple fact that they were in conflict with American policy, the Oslo process as well as in direct attack on Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant unity with all the Churches for Middle East Peace who call for a Shared Jerusalem.

In September 2016, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met separately and privately with presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Afterwards Bibi noted, “It doesn’t matter which of them will be elected, US support of Israel will remain strong, our pact will remain strong and will even get stronger in the coming years.”

Today’s current events are influenced by misunderstood ancient history…

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