On the Road to Armageddon

"The other key to understanding US-Israeli relations is the role played by so-called Christian Zionists. These are Christian evangelicals who have particular theological beliefs that not only lead them to be very supportive of Israel, but supportive of a territorially expansionist Israel. This is based on a theology known as dispensationalism, which actually has its origins in the United Kingdom, in the 19th century. It suggests that the second coming of Christ can be anticipated through a series of signs. These signs are supposedly spelled out in Old Testament prophecy and in the Book of Revelations, and Christian Zionists think Christ’s return is being foretold by various steps. One of these supposed steps is the return of Jews to the Holy Land, so dispensationalists saw the creation of Israel in 1948 – and in particular the conquest of all of Jerusalem in 1967 – as a critical event foreshadowing the Second Coming. In their view, Israel must retain all of the West Bank and all of Jerusalem in order to eventually bring about Christ’s return. So they have essentially theological reasons for favouring Israeli expansionism, which led to a tactical alliance between hardline groups in Israel, particularly the Likud party, and a whole series of Christian evangelicals, beginning in the 1980s. So part of what cements the ‘special relationship’ is the political activities of predominantly Jewish groups like AIPAC, but that is reinforced by a subset of Christian evangelicals, who have what I would regard as quite wacky views about how to run foreign policy. In my view, Old Testament prophecy is not a very sound basis for foreign policy decision-making. It’s worth noting, by the way, that in their theology, the Jewish population of Israel will ultimately face the choice of converting or not surviving. That’s a part of the story that they tend not to talk a lot about… They are not as important to shaping US-Israeli relations as groups like AIPAC are, which are much more active on Capitol Hill, inside the executive branch, and inside different parts of the government. But I do think that in some parts of the country there are Congressmen – including some fairly influential Congressmen – who are, to some degree, influenced by these ideas, or who have constituents who are. And the key to understanding American politics is to understand that if a small group of people care passionately about some issue, and everybody else in the population doesn’t care one way or the other, the small group of very passionate people will have a disproportionate impact. So far, there have been several groups in the US who are working 24/7 to promote this special relationship between the US and Israel, and to back Israel to the hilt. Most other Americans don’t care very much about this issue, and there is no comparable set of groups, of equal political clout and equal ardour, weighing in on the other side. So American senators and congressmen, and American presidents, look at the array of forces and conclude: ‘If I back Israel I won’t get into trouble: I may even get some help and nobody will criticise me. So that’s what I’ll do.’ Even if doing that is actually not good for the US, and not good for Israel either. Yes, even though 90 per cent of the people voting to reject the Goldstone report have probably never read a word of it. But an AIPAC representative shows up in their office, says: ‘We’d like you to sign this, here’s a list of ten “talking points” explaining why you should…and, of course, if you don’t, people in your district are going to call up and complain. No one’s going to support you more if you oppose us, and a lot of people are going to be annoyed with you, so you decide what you think the smart choice is…’ What’s remarkable about it is that the settlement enterprise has been deeply harmful to Israel as well. It’s cost billions of dollars, it has cost thousands of Israeli lives in the last 20 to 30 years – through terrorism and the intifadas – and it is rapidly creating a situation where Israel will be controlling territory which has upwards of 5.5 million Palestinian Arabs on it. Eventually the Jewish population of greater Israel is going to be smaller than the Arab population. So you could argue that Israel may be in the process of driving itself off a cliff, or at least creating massive problems for itself. And the US, as its closest ally, is doing absolutely nothing to stop it, which is not an act of friendship. The tragic irony in all of this is that some of the groups and individuals that claim to be trying to protect Israel, and which are often the loudest voices defending the ‘special relationship’, have in fact been unintentionally causing it great harm."