After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Israel's economy was devastated, but then came 9/11, and "suddenly new profit vistas opened up for any company that claimed it could spot terrorists in crowds, seal borders from attack and extract confessions from closed-mouthed prisoners…Many of the country's most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel's status as a fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom--a living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war…Israel now sends $1.2 billion in "defense" products to the United States—up dramatically from $270 million in 1999…That makes Israel the fourth-largest arms dealer in the world…Much of this growth has been in the so-called "homeland security" sector. Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry. By the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2 billion--an increase of 20 percent. The key products and services are …precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the "global war on terror." [14]
Thinking people comprehend that all governments lie, that politicians get addicted to gaining and keeping power and that religion has been misused for eons.
Shortly after my first of five trips to occupied Palestine, in 2005, a USA Episcopal priest and I exchanged a few emails before he left America to work with Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem Holocaust memorial, where the world is taught to “Never Forget.”
I wrote to the priest about my concern that the fastest growing cult in the U.S.A. is the cult of Christian Zionism and that approximately 25 million U.S. Christians choose the simple answers of fundamentalism rather than struggle with a God of justice, mercy and compassion.
Christian Zionists, such as John Hagee cling to Genesis 12:3: "I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse: and in you all the families of the world are blessed" as if God meant blessings to be political power and military might.
The ancient Israelites and today's religious fundamentalist nationalist Zionists hold to the belief that a particular religion and race are more chosen, worthy, special and esteemed by God over and above any other. Looking down on one’s enemies to foster one’s own tribal interest and praying to God to smite one’s enemies is what the ancients did.
The fact that Genesis 12:3 was promised even before Ishmael, the father of the Arab nation, and Isaac, the Jew, were born is overlooked and ignored by Christian Zionists, who also fail to comprehend that the very first mention of Israel is when Jacob was renamed Israel for having wrestled and struggled with God. Thus, in the Biblical sense, anyone and everyone who struggles and wrestles with God is Israel, too, for Israel means more than a geographical location.
The Episcopal priest insisted that the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of the prophetic scriptures, and God’s covenant with Israel is eternal, exclusive, and will not be abrogated. He referred me to Genesis 12:1-7, 15:4-7, 17:1-8; Leviticus 26:44-45; and Deuteronomy 7:7:8.
I wrote back that for Christians, the New Testament holds greater weight than the Hebrew Scriptures and I referred him to Matthew 5:43-45, which not only critiques Genesis 12:3; it blows it apart, for Jesus commanded his followers to, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, that you maybe children of your Father."
I asked that priest to consider the fact that blind allegiance to the Israeli government has allowed our 'best friend' in the world to become a very big bully. I questioned that priest regarding how God is always on the side of the oppressed and if we truly love our friend, wouldn't we hold them accountable when they cross the line and practice injustice?
I asked that priest to consider how the views of Christian Zionists who have come to see the political state of Israel as a replacement for Jesus is at the center of their Christian faith, and that certainly is not Christianity.
I asked that priest how he could take Genesis 12:3 to literally mean that blessings equal land and political power, and ignore God’s promise in Genesis 21:17-20 to ‘make a great nation out of Ishmael’s descendents’ and that ‘God was with the boy.’
I charged that priest that his way of thinking allows for the continuing military occupation of Palestine and oppression of people that God also made promises too, and I asked him aren't Christians to be on the side of the oppressed and marginalized?
I cautioned that priest that whenever religion and politics get in bed together, we the people for justice and peace always get screwed!
I alerted that priest if he ever considered that the Israeli government is using uninformed, misinformed Christians like him to become apologists in support of their agenda of illegal occupation and settlements in the West Bank, east Jerusalem, Golan, and Gaza, on literal biblical misinterpreted grounds taken out of context.
I admonished that priest to consider how American Christians blind allegiance to every act of Israel as being orchestrated by God and therefore is to be condoned, supported, and even praised, should instead compel all people of integrity and good will to instead question and challenge the true motives of Christians who actually relish the idea of Armageddon-and who love to speculate on who gets left behind on Judgment Day.
