But, in doing so, it sacrificed religious pride for political gain. Now it has neither.
An evangelical pastor who former presidential candidate Mitt Romney denounced as a ‘religious bigot’ delivered a prayer at the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem on Monday. …
Romney criticized the choice of a man who has said all Jews will go to hell to deliver a blessing in Israel. Jeffress is the leader of a Dallas-area Baptist church and a spiritual adviser to Trump.
(The Guardian, May 14, 2018)
Of course, Pastor Robert Jeffress is the same religious bigot who infamously condemned Romney’s Mormon religion as “a heresy from the pit of hell,” and Islam as “a cult … that promotes pedophilia.”
But it’s one thing for a congenital racist like President Trump to tap Jeffress as his spiritual adviser. It’s quite another for a Zionist like Prime Minister Netanyahu to allow this notorious anti-Semite to even set foot in Israel, let alone deliver a keynote prayer to bless the fulfillment of a Jewish prophecy.
As it happens, though, only biblical prophecy explains this antic accommodation:
I’ll spare you my sermon on the ‘biblical’ alliance between these two polarizing religious sects. Suffice it to consider the condescension/bigotry inherent in these Christians deeming it an article of their faith – not only to protect Jews (whom they hail as ‘God’s chosen people’), but also to convert them to Christianity to ensure they make it into Heaven. Never mind the contradiction inherent in God needing self-professed evangelicals to convert his chosen people for this rapture.
(“Alas, Bush Still Being Misled/Goaded by Cheney,” The iPINIONS Journal, May 4, 2015)
All the same, there’s no denying the religious humiliation Trump forced Jews to swallow so that his religious adviser could bless this political “promise made, promise kept.” After all, an evangelical leader delivering the keynote prayer at the opening of this embassy in Israel is tantamount to a KKK leader delivering the keynote address at the opening of a monument to MLK in South Africa.
Trump should be condemned for sending Jeffress. But Netanyahu should be condemned even more for receiving him.
Meanwhile, it seems a cruel joke for anyone to assert that God had anything to do with this patently fraught occasion. For nothing betrays this quite like a viral picture juxtaposing a smiling Ivanka Trump, Israel’s guest of honor, with dying Palestinian children, which The New York Daily News memorialized with the caption,
Daddy’s Little Ghoul
Not to mention that Israeli soldiers killed these little children as they were protesting not for a (new) national capital but for the national homeland God promised Palestinians back in the Bible days … too.
Monday became the bloodiest day since the campaign of demonstrations began seven weeks ago to protest Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza. …
By late in the evening, 58 Palestinians, including several teenagers, had been killed and more than 1,350 wounded by gun fire, the Health Ministry said. Israeli soldiers and snipers used barrages of tear gas as well as live gunfire to keep protesters from entering Israeli territory.
(The New York Times, May 14, 2018)
This in part is why Israel is becoming even more isolated on the world stage than North Korea. More to the point, it can only take foolish pride in having just the United States, Guatemala, and Paraguay recognize Jerusalem as its capital. Which compels me to reiterate this abiding dynamic:
Netanyahu seems to think Israel can get by with a little help from its friends — even if those friends compose just a small faction of Christian fundamentalists and neo-cons on the lunatic fringe of US Republican Party.
(“Netanyahu’s Call for Jewish Exodus more Sharpton than Moses,” The iPINIONS Journal, February 23, 2015)
Related commentaries:
Bush/Cheney…
recognizing Jerusalem…
more Sharpton than Moses…
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