Evangelical Christian Zionism was under the spotlight today after the former chief rabbi of the UK, Jonathan Sacks, defended his role in preparing a major speech delivered by the US Vice President Mike Pence to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
Pence's three-day trip to the Middle Eastern region earlier this week was dismissed by Palestinians – including Christians – as embodying the Donald Trump administration's perceived bias towards Israel, demonstrated by the controversial December 6 announcement by Trump that he was unilaterally recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The Palestinian president snubbed Pence's visit and Palestinian Christians lamented his 'sick ideology' of evangelical Christian support for Israel, with some evangelicals believing that the return of Jews to Israel is a prerequisite for the second coming of Christ. Pence did not travel to Bethlehem or anywhere else in the West Bank.
Now it has emerged that Lord Sacks, who was chief rabbi for 22 years until 2013, helped with Pence's landmark speech to the Knesset which was hailed by the Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but boycotted by Arab members of the Knesset. In it Pence announced that the US embassy in Israel would be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – whose staus is at the heart of any resolution to the conflict – by the end of next year.
Lord Sacks said that he considered it 'a great tribute to the Jewish people' that Pence had sought his guidance for sections of his speech dwelling on the historic connection between Jews and Israel, according to a report in the Jewish Chronicle.
The Vice President's speech featured many religious and biblical references and highlighted the Jewish people's connection to Israel, with Pence saying that 'fierce advocates of the Jewish people's aspiration to return to the land of your forefathers to claim your own new birth of freedom in your beloved homeland'.
He added: 'The people of the United States have always held a special affection and admiration for the people of the Book.'
Lord Sack's spokesperson, Dan Sacker, has confirmed that the former chief rabbi and Pence met in New York for 90 minutes to discuss the speech.
Sacker told the Jewish Chronicle that the meeting 'centred around how best to frame elements of the speech – in particular the biblical and historical connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, and the American and Jewish stories'.
He added: 'It was these, and only these, elements of the speech that Rabbi Sacks assisted with. He considered it a great tribute to the Jewish people that someone like Vice-President Pence would turn to a Jewish source for guidance on such matters.'
According to a White House official quoted by the Times of Israel, Pence had sought out Sacks's input and regarded him as a 'hugely critical element in crafting the speech'.
The official said: 'Rabbi Sacks has advised prime ministers and presidents for years. The vice president thought it was critical to have his counsel for a speech of this magnitude.'
Sacks, who holds the title 'emeritus chief rabbi', was made a life peer in 2009 and has taught at British and American universities since his retirement.
On Monday, Ayman Odeh, the chairman of the Joint Arab List, a grouping of four Arab-dominated parties that hold 13 of the Knesset's 120 seats, said: '[Pence] is a dangerous man with a messianic vision that includes the destruction of the entire region.'
He described Trump as 'a political pyromaniac, a racist misogynist'.
Abbas left for talks with EU leaders on Monday, and was reported in the Middle Eastern media as being set to appeal to the EU formally to recognise the state of Palestine.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Christians were reported by the news outlet Israel Hayom as rejecting Pence's brand of evangelical Christianity.
'For me, it's a sick ideology,' said Munib Younan, the recently retired bishop of the small Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and former president of the Lutheran World Federation, an umbrella group for churches with millions of believers.
'When I say Jesus is love, they want my Jesus to be a political Jesus,' said Younan, 67, a Jerusalem-born Palestinian, said in an interview at his West Bank church.
In Bethlehem, the city's Catholic Mayor Anton Salman said Pence's comments contradict his declared aim of helping Christians in the Middle East.
'He would need to change his thoughts and behaviour...and recognise the rights of Arab Palestinian Christians who are the people of this land, to support their rights to have their independence, their freedom and east Jerusalem as our capital,' said Salman.
Back in the US, Daniel Seidemann, a prominent Israeli attorney who founded the NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem, hit out at Pence on Twitter for allegedly representing an 'end of days evangelical cult' which is influential in the US and Israel but alien to the true Jerusalem.
'The pageant Jerusalem [that] the world witnessed during the Pence visit was a meeting between a prominent leader of the "end-of-days" evangelical cult and its Israeli sister settler cult – cults that now dominate the governance of their respective countries,' Seidemann wrote. 'That's not Jerusalem.'
The website Salon, which described Pence's visit to the region as 'hyper-partisan' said: 'This theological belief is behind many far-right American Christians' political position on Jerusalem. Some conservative Evangelicals believe the "rapture" will happen before the retaking of Jerusalem, but share a focus on the event as central part of their apocalyptic narrative.'
