On Thursday, Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, eager to distract from the furor over the anti-Semitic comments of Rep. Ilhan Omar, posited that the real anti-Semites Jews should be worried about were Evangelical Christians. He tweeted, “You know what’s REAL anti-semitism? Right-wing Evangelical Christians supporting Israel because they think it will bring about the End Times where all of the Jews die. Worst anti-Semitism in the world!”
He has a point. How many times has the world witnessed Evangelical Christians running a theocratic state sworn to destroy the state of Israel? How many times have Evangelical Christians murdered Jews sleeping in their beds in Israel? How many Evangelical Christian suicide bombers have targeted innocent Jews over the decades? How many times have Evangelical Christians launched rockets from the east, north, or south of Israel intended to slaughter Jews in Israel? How many times have Evangelical Christians built camps of death all over a continent and gassed and murdered millions of Jews, including one million children? How many Evangelical Christians have had Russian Jews shot or sent to Siberia?
As Uygur would say, you can Google it.
The truth of the matter is that the Jewish people have no better friends than the Evangelical community; there is no stronger ally of the state of Israel outside the Jewish community than the Evangelical Christian community. A 2013 poll from the Pew Research Center found that 82% of white evangelicals believed that Israel was given to the Jews by God, which is a central tenet of the Jewish faith.
As Darrell Bock, a Bible scholar and professor at the Dallas Theological Seminary, stated, Evangelical support for Israel comes from the belief that God fulfills his promises. He said, “It looks back to the idea that God has made certain commitments to his people — to the people through whom the gospel originally came — and he’s not abandoning them, ultimately. And so there’s a hope that drives this belief that Israel deserves to be supported.”
Richard Land, president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary in North Carolina, believes, “God gave the land of Israel to the Jews, forever. And that God blesses those who bless the Jews, and God curses those who curse the Jews. And if we want God to bless us and God wants us to bless America, we’ve got to bless the Jews.”
Christian Broadcasting network chairman Pat Robertson once stated, “You must realize that the God who spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai is our God. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are our spiritual Patriarchs. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are our prophets. King David, a man after God’s own heart, is our hero. The Holy City of Jerusalem is our spiritual capital. And the continuation of Jewish sovereignty over the Holy Land is a further bulwark to us that the God of the Bible exists and that His Word is true. And we should clearly take note that evangelical Christians serve a Jew that we believe was the divine Messiah of Israel, spoken of by the ancient prophets, to whom He entrusted the worldwide dissemination of His message to 12 Jewish apostles.”
Reaction to Uygur’s tweet came apace: