In recent years, a
politicized and right-wing Protestant fundamentalist
movement has emerged as a major factor in US support for
the policies of the rightist Likud government in Israel.
To understand this influence, it is important to
recognize that the rise of the religious right as a
political force in the United States is a relatively
recent phenomenon that emerged as part of a calculated
strategy by leading right-wingers in the Republican Party who
- while not fundamentalist Christians themselves
- recognized the need to enlist the support of this
key segment of the US population in order to achieve
political power.
Traditionally, US
fundamentalist Protestants were not particularly active
in national politics, long seen as worldly and corrupt.
This changed in the late 1970s as part of a calculated
effort by conservative Republican operatives who
recognized that as long as the Republican Party was
primarily identified with militaristic foreign policies
and economic proposals that favored the wealthy, it
would remain a minority party. Over the previous five
decades, Republicans had won only four out of 12
presidential elections and had controlled Congress for
only two of its 24 sessions.
By
mobilizing rightist
religious leaders and adopting conservative positions
on highly charged social issues such as
women's rights, abortion, sex education and
homosexuality, Republican strategists were able to bring
millions of fundamentalist Christians - who as a result
of their lower-than-average income were not otherwise
inclined to vote Republican - into their party. Through
such organizations as the Moral Majority and the
Christian Coalition, the Republicans promoted a
right-wing political agenda through radio and television
broadcasts as well as from the pulpit. Since capturing
this pivotal constituency, Republicans have won four out
of six presidential races, have dominated the Senate for
seven out of 12 sessions, and have controlled the House
of Representatives for the past decade.
As
a result of being politically wooed, those who
identify with the religious right are now more likely than
the average American to vote and to be politically
active. The Christian Right constitutes nearly one out of
seven US voters and determines the agenda of the
Republican Party in about half of the states,
particularly in the South and Midwest. A top Republican
staffer noted: "Christian conservatives have proved to
be the political base for most Republicans. Many of
these guys, especially the leadership, are real
believers in this stuff, and so are their constituents."
The movement takes office The
Reverend Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation
of Church and State recently quipped: "The good news is
that the Christian coalition is fundamentally
collapsing. The bad news is that the people who ran it
are all in the government." He noted, for example, that
when he goes to the Justice Department, he keeps seeing
lawyers formerly employed by prominent right-wing
fundamentalist preacher Pat Robertson.
As the
Washington Post observed, "For the first time since
religious conservatives became a modern political
movement, the president of the United States has become
the movement's de facto leader." Former Christian
Coalition leader Ralph Reed marked the triumph by
chortling, "You're no longer throwing rocks at the
building; you're in the building." He added that God
"knew [President] George [W] Bush had the ability to
lead in this compelling way".
US
liberals have long supported Israel as a refuge for
persecuted Jews and have championed the country's
democratic institutions (for its Jewish citizens).
Historically these liberals, bolstered by the
disproportionate political influence of Zionist Jews within the
party, prompted Democrats to adopt a hard line
toward Palestinians and other Arabs. Though more hawkish
on most foreign-policy issues, Republicans traditionally
took a somewhat more moderate stance partly due to the
party's ties to the oil industry and in part because of
Republican concern that too much support for Israel
could lead Arab nationalists toward a pro-Soviet or - in
more recent years - a pro-Islamist orientation. But this
alignment has shifted, thanks to the influence of the
Christian Right. Though Christian fundamentalist support
for Israel dates back many years, only recently has it
become one of the movement's major issues.
As a
result of renewed fundamentalist interest in Israel and
in recognition of the movement's political influence,
American Jews are less reluctant to team up with the
Christian Right. Fundamentalist leader Gary Bauer, for
example, now receives frequent invitations to address
mainstream Jewish organizations, which would have been
hesitant toward the movement prior to the Bush
presidency. This is partly a phenomenon of demographics:
Jews constitute only 3% of the US population, and barely
half of them support the current Israeli government.
The Israelis also recognize the Christian
Right's political clout. Since 2001, Bauer has met with
several Israeli cabinet members and with Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon. Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu
noted, "We have no greater friends and allies" than
right-wing American Christians.
It used to be that Republican
administrations had the ability to withstand pressure from
Zionist lobbying groups when it was deemed
important for US interests. For example, the administration
of Dwight Eisenhower pressured Israel during the Suez
Crisis of 1956, the administration of
Ronald Reagan sold AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System)-equipped
planes to Saudi Arabia in 1981,
and the administration of George H W Bush
delayed a US$10 billion loan guarantee for Israel to
await the outcome of the pivotal 1992 Israeli election.
With the growing influence of the Christian
Right, however, such detachment is no longer as easily
achieved. For the first time, the Republican Party has a
significant pro-Israel constituency of its own that it
cannot ignore. Top White House officials, including
Elliott Abrams, director of the National Security
Council on Near East and North African Affairs, have
regular and often lengthy meetings with representatives
of the Christian Right. As one leading Republican put
it: "They are very vocal and have shifted the center of
gravity toward Israel and against concessions. It colors
the environment in which decisions are being made."
Indeed, the degree of the Bush administration's support
for Sharon has surprised even the most hardline Zionist
Jews.
Rising power of Christian Zionists
It appears, then, that right-wing Christian
Zionists are, at this point, more significant in the
formulation of US policy toward Israel than are Jewish
Zionists, as illustrated by three recent incidents.
After the Bush administration's initial
condemnation of the attempted assassination of militant
Palestinian Islamist Abdel Aziz Rantisi in June 2003,
the Christian Right mobilized its constituents to send
thousands of e-mails to the White House protesting the
criticism. A key element in these e-mails was the threat
that if such pressure continued to be placed on Israel,
the Christian Right would stay home on election day.
Within 24 hours, there was a notable change in tone by
the president. Indeed, when Rantisi fell victim to a
successful Israeli assassination in April this year, the
administration - as it did with the assassination of
Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin the previous month -
largely defended the Israeli action.
When the
Bush administration insisted that Israel stop its April
2002 military offensive in the West Bank, the White
House received more than 100,000 e-mails from Christian
conservatives in protest of its criticism. Almost
immediately, Bush came to Israel's defense. Over the
objections of the State Department, the Republican-led
Congress adopted resolutions supporting Israel's actions
and blaming the violence exclusively on the
Palestinians.
When Bush announced
his support for the roadmap for Middle East peace, the White
House received more than 50,000 postcards over the next
two weeks from Christian conservatives opposing any
plan that called for the establishment of a
Palestinian state. The administration quickly backpedaled, and
the once-highly touted roadmap in essence died.
Good versus evil Messianic theology
is centered on the belief in a hegemonic Israel as a
necessary precursor to the second coming of Christ.
Although this doctrine is certainly an important part of
the Christian Right's support of a militaristic and
expansionist Jewish state, fundamentalist Christian
Zionism in the United States ascribes to an even more dangerous
dogma: that of Manichaeism, the belief that reality is
divided into absolute good and absolute evil.
The
day after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,
Bush declared, "This will be a monumental struggle of
good versus evil, but good will prevail." The United States was
targeted - according to Bush - not on account of its
support for Arab dictatorships, the large US military presence
in the Middle East, US backing of the Israeli occupation,
or the humanitarian consequences of US policy
toward Iraq, but simply because they "hate our freedom". Despite
the Gospels' insistence that the line separating good
and evil does not run between nations but rather
within each person, Bush cited Christological texts to
support his war aims in the Middle East, declaring,
"And the light [the US] has shown in
the darkness [the enemies of the US], and the darkness
will not overcome it [the US shall conquer
its enemies]."
Even more disturbing, Bush has stated
repeatedly that he was "called" by God to run for president.
Veteran journalist Bob Woodward noted, "The president
was casting his mission and that of the country
in the grand vision of God's master plan," wherein
he promised, in his own words, "to export death and
violence to the four corners of the Earth in defense of
this great country and rid the world of evil". In short,
Bush believes that he has accepted the responsibility
of leading the free world as part of God's
plan. He even told then-Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud
Abbas that "God told me to strike al-Qaeda and I struck
them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam
[Hussein], which I did." Iraq has become the new Babylon,
and the "war on terrorism" has succeeded the Cold War
with the Soviet Union as the quintessential battle
between good and evil.
Cultural affinities
The esprit that many Americans have with Israel
is rooted in a common historical mission. Each country
was settled in part by victims fleeing religious
persecution who fashioned a new nation rooted in high
ideals with a political system based on relatively
progressive and democratic institutions. And both
peoples established their new nations through the
oppression, massacre and dislocation of indigenous
populations. Like many Israelis, Americans often confuse
genuine religious faith with nationalist ideology.
John Winthrop, the
influential 17th-century Puritan theologian, saw America as the "City
on the Hill" (Zion) and "a light upon nations".
In effect, there is a kind of American Zionism assuming
a divinely inspired singularity that excuses what
would otherwise be considered unacceptable behavior. Just
as Winthrop defended the slaughter of the indigenous
Pequot peoples of colonial Massachusetts as part of a divine
plan, 19th-century theologians defended America's
westward expansion as "manifest destiny" and the will of
God. Such theologically rooted aggrandizement did not stop
at the Pacific Ocean: the invasion of the Philippines
in the 1890s was justified by president William
McKinley and others as part of an effort to "uplift"
and "Christianize" the natives, ignoring the fact
that Filipinos (who by that time had nearly rid the
country of Spanish colonialists and had established the
first democratic constitution in Asia) were already more than 90%
Christian.
Similarly, today - in the eyes
of the Christian Right - the Bush doctrine and the
expansion of US military and economic power are all part of a
divine plan. For example, in their 2003 Christmas card,
Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne included
the quote, "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground
without His notice, is it probable that an empire can
rise without His aid?"
But is such thinking
normative in the US? Polls show that the ideological gap
between Christian conservatives and other Americans
regarding the US invasion of Iraq and the "war on
terrorism" is even higher than the ideological gap
between Christian conservatives and other Americans
regarding Israel and Palestine.
In many respects, much of the American right may be
at least as concerned about how Israel can help the US
as about how the US can help Israel. Because of the
anti-Semitism inherent in much of Christian Zionist theology, it
has long been recognized that US fundamentalist support
for Israel does not stem from a concern for the
Jewish people per se but rather from a desire to
leverage Jewish jingoism to hasten the second coming of
Christ. Such opportunism is also true of those who -
for theological or other reasons - seek to advance
the American empire in the Middle East. And though a
strong case can be made that US support for the
Israeli occupation ultimately hurts US interests, there
remains a widely held perception that Israel is an
important asset to US strategic objectives in the Middle
East and beyond.
Strategic calculation trumps
ethno-religious card
Ultimately, Washington's championing of Israel - like its approval
of other repressive governments - is part of
a strategic calculation rather than simply ethnic politics.
When a choice must be made,
geopolitical considerations outweigh ethnic loyalties. For example, for
nearly a quarter of century, the US supported
the brutal occupation of East Timor by Indonesia and to
this day supports the Moroccan occupation of
Western Sahara, despite the absence of powerful
Indonesian-American or Moroccan-American ethnic lobbying forces. The
US was able to get away with its support for
occupations by Indonesia and Morocco because of their relative obscurity.
This is certainly not the case with Israel and
Palestine. (Interestingly, even though the East Timor
situation involved a predominantly Muslim country
conquering, occupying and terrorizing a predominantly
Christian country, virtually no protests arose from the
Islamaphobic Christian Right.)
The Christian
Right has long been a favorite target for the Democratic
Party, particularly its liberal wing, since most
Americans are profoundly disturbed by fundamentalists of
any kind influencing policies of a government with a
centuries-old tradition of separating church and state.
Yet the positions of most liberal Democrats in Congress
regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are far
closer to those of the reactionary Christian Coalition
than to those of the moderate National Council of
Churches, far closer to the rightist Reverend Pat
Robertson than to the leftist Reverend William Sloan
Coffin, far closer to the ultraconservative Moral
Majority than to the liberal Churches for Middle East
Peace, and far closer to the fundamentalist Southern
Baptist Convention than to any of the mainline
Protestant churches.
Rather than accusing these
erstwhile liberals of being captives of the Jewish lobby
- a charge that inevitably leads to the countercharge of
anti-Semitism - those who support justice for the
Palestinians should instead reproach congressional
Democrats for falling captive to the Christian Right.
Such a rebuke would be no less accurate and would likely
enhance the ability of those who support peace, justice
and the rule of law to highlight the profound immorality
of congressional sanction for the Israeli occupation.
Those who support justice for the Palestinians
- or even simply the enforcement of basic
international humanitarian law - must go beyond raising awareness
of the issue to directly confronting those
whose acquiescence facilitates current repressive
attitudes. It will not be possible to counter the influence of
the Christian Right in shaping US policies in the
Middle East as long as otherwise socially conscious
Christian legislators and other progressive-minded
elected officials are beholden to fundamentalist voting
pressures. It is unlikely that these Democrats and
moderate Republicans will change, however, until
liberal-to-mainline churches mobilize their resources
toward demanding justice as strongly as right-wing
fundamentalists have mobilized their resources in
support of repression.
Stephen Zunes
is an associate professor of politics and chair of the
peace and justice studies program at the University of
San Francisco. He serves as Middle East editor for the
Foreign Policy in Focus project and is the author of
Tinderbox: US Middle East Policy and the Roots of
Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).
