Christians press Trump to clear path for Israel to annex West Bank
By Ephrat Livni
The New York Times
Washington – Evangelical Christian leaders who delivered votes to U.S. President Donald Trump are now pressing him to declare that Israel can claim ownership of the West Bank, based on a promise God made to the Jews in the Bible.
They are seeking a way to pave a path toward annexation of territory that is widely viewed internationally as intended for a future Palestinian state. Israel seized the territory as part of a war between it, Jordan, Egypt and Syria in 1967 and has occupied it since. In recent years, the rightwing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been encouraging Jewish settlers to build homes there at an increasing rate.
Prominent evangelical supporters of Trump are mounting a multipronged approach to pressure the president — making appearances in Israel, petitioning the White House, pushing their ideas at a key evangelical conference and building congressional backing.
Some of America’s leading evangelicals, including Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins and Mario Bramnick, visited Jerusalem on Tuesday to publicly back Israel’s sovereignty of the West Bank.
"I literally feel God is giving Israel a blank check,” said Bramnick, president of the Latino Coalition for Israel and pastor of a Florida church whose profile ballooned after he hosted prayer calls in support of claims the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.
These evangelical leaders are part of a movement called Christian Zionism and believe that the land was given to the Jews in the Bible.
They refer to the West Bank with the biblical names of Judea and Samaria. They believe that Christians who assist in fulfilling this biblical pledge are blessed and that the establishment of the state of Israel indicates other biblical prophesies will follow. For some, though not all, that most notably includes an apocalypse that will lead to a second coming of Jesus Christ.
"We Christians are calling on our beloved President Trump and his team to aggressively remove all barriers to Israel’s sovereignty over all the land, including Judea and Samaria,” said Terri Copeland Pearsons, an influential pastor who produced the television program of her father, televangelist Kenneth Copeland, and now serves as the president of his eponymous Bible college in Texas. She made the remarks at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in the state last month.
New York Times |
