For the first time ever in Israel, a joint Christian-Jewish party will run in the next elections for the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
The new Judeo-Christian list will be called The Bible Bloc Party and has been approved by the party registrar's office.
According to Israeli media reports, the party will seek the support of non-Jewish Russian immigrants from the former Soviet Union and their spouses and from Christian Arabs.
The party's founder Dennis Avi Lipkin, who was born in New York and is a veteran speaker to evangelical Christians in the US and American media outlets including Fox News, said he believes he will also receive support from millions of Western immigrants who he expects will move to Israel in the near future.
Lipkin said: 'Our goal is to promote the Jewish-Christian alliance and togetherness. For 2,000 years, Jews and Christians hated each other. When Israel faces an existential threat of Islamic terrorism, we need a Judeo-Christian love party.'
Lipkin said the party has been 20 years in the making and that he got the idea when he saw that some 30 per cent of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union were not Jewish.
The list will alternate between Jews and Christians, starting with Lipkin who will be followed by a Christian who lives in the Druse village of Usfiya, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The newspaper reported that part of the party's agenda will be to send Jewish and Christian supporters of Israel to speak on the country's behalf around the world and improve its image.
The Biblical Bloc founding document reads: 'The Biblical bloc protects everyone who believes in the Bible and opposes the ethnic cleansing of Jews and Christians from the Land of Israel. The Biblical bloc represents parties all over the world who espouse Judeo-Christian, democratic Western culture.'
Lipkin has written a number of books focused on Islam, including Is Fanatic Islam a Global Threat?; Christian Revival for Israel's Survival; Islam Prophesied In Genesis; Return to Mecca; and Islamic Rivalry.
Lipkin's website says that his wife, Rachel, is 'an Egyptian born Jewess who made Aliyah to Israel in 1969 and worked for Israel's Radio service in Arabic for the last 30 years monitoring Arabic language broadcasts on radio and TV as well as newspapers.' Rachel is now retired, 'even though she monitors the Arabic programs privately,' the website says.
