by way of Tapped, here’s an NPR piece on the influx of Evangelical tourism to, and financial support of, Israel. With supporters like this, though, you have to wonder if they’re a blessing or a curse:
Leon Ferguson, an African-American from New York, wears a white skullcap and Jewish prayer shawl to the march, describing himself as a gentile with a Jewish heart. He is close to tears as he contemplates the possibility of an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.
“The true and living God wants his people to be in an undivided Israel, undivided Jerusalem,” he says. “There should be no more give-backs. Every time we give back the land of Israel, something happens in the United States. Katrina followed the give-back of the Gaza.”
Oy.
Not to mention the crux of the issue, which Gershom Gorenberg points out towards the end of the piece: support for Israel isn’t necessarily support for the Jewish religion or the Jewish people. After all,
many evangelical Christians want Jews to convert to Christianity.
“That vision is one in which the Jews eventually disappear,” [Gorenberg] says. “If you say that at the end of days, in a perfect world there aren’t going to be any Jews, what you’re saying, right now, is that you don’t accept the legitimacy of Judaism.”