While the recent violence between Israel and Palestine leaves the success of Bush’s proposed “Road Map for Peace” in the Middle East in doubt, some American Christian groups are expressing reservations about the plan because of their unequivocal support for Israel.
President Bush met with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon June 4 in Jordan to jump-start the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. After Palestinian President Yasser Arafat walked away from negotiations in 2000, Palestinian radicals then instituted an armed uprising — the Intifada — against Israel. The Intifada continues and has resulted in more than 2,000 Palestinian deaths and about 700 Israeli deaths — with about half of the latter figure comprised of civilians who died at the hands of Palestinian suicide bombers.
Both sides have accepted, in principle, Bush’s “Road Map.” Although violence between the two sides has escalated recently. At press time President Bush had scheduled a trip to the Middle East to press them to meet their commitments under the Road Map.
Equating Israel and Palestine
Polls show a majority of Americans support the plan. But some conservative evangelical Christians have expressed disdain for the plan’s focus on Israeli concessions and what they see as its tendency to suggest there is a “moral equivalency” between Israel and Palestine.
Christian Coalition founder and religious broadcaster Pat Robertson criticized the Road Map’s goal of returning to Palestinians land currently under Israeli military occupation in recent comments on his “700 Club” television broadcast. According to Robertson’s Web site, www.patrobertson.com, he said, “If the United States takes a role in ripping half of Jerusalem away from Israel and giving it to Yasser Arafat and a group of terrorists, we are going to see the wrath of God fall on this nation [in a way] that will make tornadoes look like a Sunday School picnic.”
Other prominent U.S. evangelicals have offered more nuanced criticism of the plan. Former Family Research Council head and Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer sent Bush a letter May 19 saying that, although he believed the Road Map was “well-
intentioned,” it ran the risk of equating what those leaders saw as a righteous Israel with an inferior Palestine. “Mr. President, it would be morally reprehensible for the United States to be ‘evenhanded’ between democratic Israel, a reliable friend and ally that shares our values, and the terrorist infested Palestinian infrastructure that refuses to accept the right of Israel to exist at all,” Bauer said.
Other U.S. evangelical leaders signing Bauer’s letter include Presbyterian evangelist D. James Kennedy, Christian talk-radio magnate Marlin Maddoux and Southern Baptist leaders Adrian Rogers, Jerry Falwell, Richard Land and Ed McAteer.
They argued that any peace plan should insist that Palestinians and other Arab neighbors of Israel acknowledge the Jewish state’s right to exist, should insist on an end to terrorism before making any concessions to Palestinians and should not exert pressure on Israel to refrain from responding with military force against Palestinian cities and refugee camps after terrorist attacks in Israel.
But other Christian groups and leaders in the United States have shown support for the Road Map — particularly for its requirement that Israel discontinue its practice of creating Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Palestinians view the settlements as particularly inflammatory.
In a phone interview, National Council of Churches General Secretary Bob Edgar called Bush’s new emphasis on a peace settlement “important” and that it was one positive result of the war in Iraq. (ABP)
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