By GIOVANNA DELL’ORTO, Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) — More than 1,400 evangelical Christians gathered this week in Jerusalem to show their support for Israel on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, a joyous festival marking the fall harvest and commemorating the journey of the Jews in the Exodus.
They also found themselves celebrating the news of an agreement to pause fighting and free the hostages, just days after the second anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
“We’ve been praying for this, and we know God is in control,” said Litiana Trout of Fiji, wearing small Fijian and U.S. flags on her hat.
She joined hundreds of others on Thursday afternoon in a city park for a march, one of several events organized annually by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. The organization and other Christian Zionists around the world say they consider support for Israel a moral and theological obligation, particularly as the country finds itself increasingly isolated.
“It’s still prophetic and a moral debt to the Jewish people — and spiritual, too, because we owe our Messiah to them,” said ICEJ spokesperson David Parsons.
Around the world, several governments recently recognized a Palestinian state, and public opinion has surged against Israeli actions in Gaza, with pro-Palestinian protests held on Oct. 7, the anniversary of the attacks, in many cities.
“It hurts my heart that my government is ignorant of the Bible — that those who stand with Israel are blessed,” said Sara Maskiewicz, waving a flag of her native Canada, which recognized a Palestinian state last month.
“I love Israel and the Jewish people, and I want to let them know my government doesn’t speak for everybody in Canada,” she added.
Maskiewicz and more than a thousand others packed Jerusalem’s convention center on Wednesday night for another ICEJ event. The largest groups came from the United States and Finland, but there were representatives from more than five dozen countries ranging from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe.
Support for Israel rooted in biblical prophecy
Evangelical Christians’ support for Israel and its current government is a powerful religious and political movement. Grounded in the belief that the country and its Jewish people fulfill biblical prophecy, it has grown in recent decades, especially among the U.S. evangelical Republican base.
Christians also came from Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan; the flag-bearer for Iran got a standing ovation at Wednesday night’s event.
So did Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, when he praised the crowd from the stage for standing with Israel as true “lovers of Zion.”
“Your caring reached so many and did so much good,” Herzog said. “May God bless you for blessing Israel.”
For years, the ICEJ has provided bomb shelters as well as housing for Holocaust survivors in Israel; other evangelical organizations have also provided aid. Samaritan’s Purse — run by evangelical leader Franklin Graham, who prayed at both of Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential inaugurations — has brought food and other supplies to Israel and Gaza, surging deliveries in the latter since the summer.
Herzog cited a passage from the prophet Zechariah about non-Jewish people coming to Jerusalem to observe the Feast of Tabernacles — the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which started earlier this week.
He then praised Trump for his signature Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and four Arab nations, and the current negotiations to end the war in Gaza.
Among Christians, support for the Israeli government is far from universal — just as it isn’t among Jews or Israelis, many of whom are ambivalent about Christian Zionism. And some Christian organizations have pointedly criticized Israel’s military operations, including the Catholic Church, whose faithful in the Holy Land are mostly Palestinian.
While Christian Zionists range in theological and political approaches, they share some basic premises, said Daniel Hummel, author of “Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and U.S.-Israeli Relations.”
They believe God will bless those who bless Israel — which represents a prophecy fulfilled — because God uses Israel for the redemption of the world, Hummel said.
Politically, they see Israel as holding the front line in a clash of cultures where radical Islam is the “enemy” of the West, Hummel said.
“We believe God raised up these two men, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, to be leaders of the free world,” said Cathy Helms, who came to Jerusalem from North Carolina and is part of group praying daily for peace in Jerusalem.
Christian Zionists and the 2-state solution
After the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, Christian Zionists and many Israelis united in their opposition to a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 war and Palestinians see as central to future independence.
“At this point, the two-state solution idea is pretty dead in Christian Zionist circles,” Hummel said.
The ICEJ’s Parsons said it’s up to the Israeli government to decide on territorial and political issues. The organization, however, would “support the right of Jews to live anywhere in the historical land of Israel” — seeing that land as part of God’s enduring covenant with the Jewish people.
Many Christian Zionists pray for Palestinians too, and feel that reconciliation will be crucial for lasting peace. But they also believe much of the public opinion against Israel is a sign of deep prejudice against Jews.
“It illustrates even more why Christians need to stand with Israel and the Jewish people against antisemitism,” said Laurie Cardoza-Moore, a pro-Israel evangelical leader who spoke to The Associated Press from the U.S. “We have a Biblical duty to protect what God loves.”
However, support for Israel has started to erode among young evangelicals, Hummel said, especially in the wake of the devastating toll of the war in Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed.
Still, enthusiasm was undimmed among the younger members of the Jerusalem crowd.
“When we come, we know we’re doing what God speaks to us to do for Israel,” said Eder do Nascimento, who is now in his early 30s but has visited since his teens, despite the steep travel costs from his native Brazil. “We work hard all year to make it work.”
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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