Hastening Armageddon Why the Unholy Alliance between American Evangelical Fundamentalists and Jewish Zionists poses a threat to World Peace By Asiff Hussein

Little do we realize that events unfolding in the West today are bound to have serious implications for the Muslim world and indeed the world at large. One of these is of course the emerging Islamophobic sentiment in the West, particularly in Europe, which has recently manifested itself in hostility to such perceived Islamic symbols like the veil and minarets. This appears to be but an expression of an identity crisis many Europeans are presently experiencing given the large Muslim migrant communities living in their midst today. It is not unlikely that this is but a passing phase of the European experience and will gradually subside or fade away. However, little is it known that there is a much bigger threat to the Muslim world than this, and that it emerges not from Europe which abandoned its crusader-like mentality long ago, but from the USA many of whose Evangelical Christians have of late been espousing a rather peculiar and perverse brand of Christianity which is a far cry from the religion of love that Jesus thought and is more akin to Jewish tribalism with its emphasis on a chosen people and justification of misappropriating other peoples’ lands besides a number of other unsavoury aspects that find no place in the true teachings of Christianity. 

Recent Trend

And surprisingly this is a relatively recent trend. It could be said to have begun in the 1970s when some Christian preachers armed with the Bible (or rather some biblical passages taken off context) in one hand and the television on the other, commenced a new crusade on behalf of Israel, telling Americans that it is God’s Will that Israel should triumph over its enemies and that Jerusalem should be its Capital. They go still further in arguing that the third holiest mosque of Islam, Al Aqsa in Jerusalem should be demolished to pave way for the rebuilding of a Third Jewish Temple with all rituals of ancient Jewish worship including animal sacrifice. The construction of this Jewish Temple, they contend, would result in a great war between Israel and its enemies which would result in the destruction of a greater part of the world as we know it. This great battle which will be the last great war between good and evil they believe will precede the return of Christ who after destroying much of the world would sit on King David’s throne in a Jewish temple and from there rule the world. In other words, these zealots are pressing for a nuclear war that would end the world in our generation This cataclysm is known in Christian Fundamentalist terminology as Armageddon, a corruption of a little known Hebrew place name Har Megiddo in Jezreel Valley of Israel, an insignificant spot some 55 miles from Tel Aviv where these fundamentalists believe the final great war will be fought.

One would think that this rather absurd doctrine is a fringe movement much like the various cults that are allowed to propagate in the US, but nay, it is a fast growing movement, particularly among mainstream, middle to upper-middle class Americans. It counts among its adherents large sections of the US political, military and business establishments. Former US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush were adherents of this worldview. So was former President Jimmy Carter in the initial stages of his presidency, though later he renounced these views when he realized that they were just a façade to justify Israeli aggression against a helpless people, the Palestinians, whose cause he later espoused with great zeal. President Reagan in a 1983 conversation with Tom Dine of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is reported to have said: “You know, I turn back to your ancient Prophets in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if we’re the generation that’s going to see that come about…… Believe me (these prophecies) certainly describe the times we’re going through”.

Misleading Americans

Michael Baigent in his recent book Racing Toward Armageddon (2009) says that as many as 58% of Americans say that they believe in these teachings, which is truly unsettling. This however is not surprising when we consider the vast influence Jewish Zionists have on nearly all aspects of American life including their religious life, the insular attitude of many Americans coupled with their spiritual penury and quite significantly the impact of the mass media, particularly in the form of television. Like the epic series Mahabharat aired on Indian television which contributed to the emergence of a rather grotesque form of Hindu fundamentalism and the rise of the ultra-nationalist BJP, so we find that the many religious TV programmes presented by Christian fundamentalists such as Jerry Falwell and Hal Lindsey have contributed to the emergence in the American religious sphere of a rather perverse form of Christianity that has little to do with the teachings of Christ. Hence these evangelical preachers are commonly known as Televangelists.

What is equally unsettling is that this doctrine pervades many American Christian denominations including the so-called charismatic churches such as Pentacostal and Assembly of God as well as Southern and Independent Baptists besides countless other non-denominational ‘Bible’ Churches and Mega-Churches.  Among these so-called Bible churches, the Dallas Theological Seminary is said to be the fountainhead of the doctrine that God demands that ‘Good Christians’ destroy planet earth and has graduated many of the pastors teaching Armageddon theology in nearly 1000 such Bible Churches. It is estimated that there are over 80,000 fundamentalist pastors in the US, many of whom broadcast on 100 Christian television stations and a 1000 Christian radio stations. Christian Zionism is here to stay and it is high time the rest of the world including the mainstream Christian world was made aware of its dangers.

What is most intriguing about this doctrine is that it is strangely new to the Christian world. The first seeds seem to have been sown in the aftermath of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Later Christian Fundamentalists, inspired no doubt by Jewish Zionists, would come to look upon it as a fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy which spoke of the return of the Jews to the Promised Land. This is strange because the Christian Church did not hold such views for the past 1800 years of its existence. The Church then had agreed that the prophecy regarding a Jewish restoration applied to the return of the Israelites from exile in Babylon in the 6^th century B.C when the Persian Emperor Cyrus permitted the Jews who had been exiled to Mesopotamia to return to Palestine.  Nor did the Church look upon the Jews as a chosen people. Rather it looked upon them as a cursed people due to their animosity towards Jesus and the other unacceptable practices they indulged in such as usury. But the new doctrine views the Jews in a new light as the chosen people of a God who is pre-occupied with his chosen nation Israel without a care for the rest of his creation. In the Process it seems to undermine the teachings of Jesus Christ which speak of God’s universal love and grace for all humanity. In contrast, the new doctrine places the Jews and their state of Israel on centre-stage, thereby making a cult of the land of Israel. This cult recognises the right to kill with impunity all those who stand in the way of the Jewish state’s expansionist goals, and this includes Palestinians – both Muslim and Christian. By making a cult of Israel, the Christian Zionist is willing to condone whatever Israel does, even wanton murder- as orchestrated by God. In doing so he recognizes the Talmudic teaching that a Jew may kill a non-Jew with impunity. And in doing so he goes against the teachings of Christ which actually represent a break from the Talmud, focused as they are on love and compassion to one’s fellow humans.

One cannot but suspect that this fundamentalist agenda has been nurtured and promoted by Jewish Zionists who seem to have surreptitiously influenced and misled these charismatic Christian preachers who were keen to push for a new brand of Christianity which in a century or so earlier would have been regarded as nothing  but heretical. One has only to read the works of these misled Christian Zionists to realize how Christian they are, for example when they elaborate on the Samson Complex gloating on how Israel could take the entire world down with it along with itself if its existence is threatened. The example they give is of Samson, the Herculean figure who killed many Philistine notables along with himself when he brought down their temple by pulling together its two central pillars. Another complex they elaborate on is the Masada Complex, stressing on the siege of Masada during the First Jewish War against the Romans when extremist Jewish zealots took their own lives and that of their families when the Romans besieged it in 73 A.D. The Jewish leader Elazar could not accept that the revolt had failed and instead dwelt on his belief that the Lord had turned against the Jewish people. Finally, he ordered: "Let our wives die before they are abused, and our children before they have tasted of slavery, and after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually". After this oration, the men killed their wives and children, and then fell on each other. Not surprisingly Masada is today one of the Jewish people's ‘greatest symbols’. Israeli soldiers take an oath there: "Masada shall not fall again". And to think that there are Christians among us today who condone the massacre of these innocents in the name of tribal honour.

Tribal Doctrine

What is also intriguing is why these fundamentalists should hold to the tribal doctrine that the Jews are the chosen people at the expense even of their fellow Christians. For instance when they wax eloquent of the Jews being the ‘Chosen People of God’ or when they argue that the European Union, the ‘revived Roman Empire’ is the Beast foretold in scripture. The armies of the European Union, they believe, will ravage Jerusalem, only to be struck down by the Messiah Jesus in the valley of Megiddo which will be filled with blood standing to the horses’ bridles for a distance of 200 miles from Jerusalem. According to this belief the Messiah will come to the aid of his people – the Jews of the land of Israel. 

Furthermore these Fundamentalists hold that before this great battle, there will be other battles, among these the war against Gog which they hold to be Russia and Gomer which they believe is modern-day Germany. These nations they believe will invade Israel, only to be laid waste by the Jewish state with the massive arsenal at its disposal.

What is so surprising about this doctrine is that it should hold that fellow Christian nations should be God’s enemies. Rather it seems the views of these Christian Zionists merely reflect parochial American views of two former enemies, the Germans during World War 1 and 2 and The Russians during the Cold War despite the fact that much has changed since the doctrine was propounded in the 1970s. To hold that these Christian nations are enemies because their forbears killed Jews or embraced Communism or fought against America has something so Un-Christian about it. As Un-Christian is the belief that the Jews are God’s chosen people in spite of the belief they themselves hold that the Jews were the ones who had Christ crucified on the cross.

Surprising but true. Such are the contentions of Christian Zealots such as Hal Lindsey, the author of The Late, Great Planet Earth published in 1970 which became a bestseller. Coming on the heels of the Six-Day War, the book is said to have fueled the popularity of Christian Zionism and its support of ethnic Jews as the "chosen people of God". It has since been published in over 50 languages, has had reported sales of over 35 million copies, and is still in print. Many of Lindsey's later writings are known to be sequels or revisions and extensions of his first book.

Christian Zionists

The doctrine has raised money and support for Israel and in a big way. One of its biggest supporters and fund-raisers was the recently deceased Jerry Falwell, an American televangelist who founded the so-called Moral Majority, which became one of the largest political lobby groups for evangelical Christians in the United States and was avowedly Pro-Israel. This influential group is credited with delivering two thirds of the white, evangelical Christian vote to Ronald Reagan during the 1980 presidential election. Falwell's staunch pro-Israel stand earned for his brand of Christianity the epithet "Christian Zionism"^. Once, addressing a conservative Rabbinical Assembly in Miami, Falwell pledged to “mobilize 70 million conservative Christians for Israel”. Further, Falwell is known to have made trips to the West Bank and surrounded by Jewish settlers flouting international law declared that God was kind to America only because “America has been kind to the Jew”. In 1980 Falwell was awarded Israel’s highest honour by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in New York. The Israelis also rewarded him with a costly jet plane, which however paled in comparison to the support he had given Israel. Such support is welcomed by the Zionist state. Alleck Resnick, President of the Zionist Organisation of America has gone on record to say “We welcome, accept and greet such Christian support for Israel” while Israel’s Evangelical Liaison Harry Hurwitz points out “Christian fundamentalists are by and large supporters of Israel, and we are not selective when it comes to mobilizing support”. So important was this alliance deemed that the Jewish Rabbinical council has appointed its own liaison to the New Christian Right.

Grace Halsell in her revealing book Forcing God’s Hand. Why millions pray for a Quick Rapture and Destruction of Planet Earth (2003) estimates that by the turn of this century  Christian fundamentalists numbered around 50 million in the US and that the most fervent advocates of Armageddon theology were seen in the evangelical and charismatic movements which represented the fastest growing branch of fundamentalism in North American Christianity. “In these burgeoning segments of Christianity” she says “ respected theologians, pastors and seminary presidents teach the same doctrine that cult leaders such as Jim Jones told his followers as he led them to death: The End is coming soon. So let’s get on with it”. Grace, a reputed Journalist who served President Lyndon Johnson as his speech writer for three years, signed up along with 629 other American Christians to go on a Jerry Falwell-sponsored tour to the Holy Land. Her objective was to learn more about Armageddon theology. Having traveled to Megiddo about 55 miles north of Tel Aviv, she became acquainted with a Christian Zionist named Clyde and the conversation she had with him she reproduces verbatim in her work, exposing the utter idiocy and arrogance of those who hold to such views: 

All the members of our party continue walking to a vantage point. We stop to absorb a commanding view of the valley of Jezreel. 

“At last” Clyde remarks in a voice filled with emotion “I am viewing the site of the last great battle”. 

But how, I ask did he know this was the site for Armageddon ? 

“You take the name – Megiddo- and add the additional Hebrew word har, meaning mountain, and that gives you a phrase meaning the mountains of Megiddo or ‘Har-Megiddo’. That translates into the word Armageddon”. 

I do not see any mountain, but reason that since we look out upon a valley, the vantage point on which we stand can easily be considered the har. Even so, would not Har-Megiddo– literally the mountain of Megiddo- mean a place, not an event ? 

“No, no” Clyde replies: “This is the site involving all nations. It will be the final battle between the forces of good, led by Christ, and the forces of evil”.  

She continues: Yet this battle is to be waged in a field before us, a valley so small it would fit into a Nebraska farm and be lost if placed in a big Texas ranch. Gesturing toward the miniscule quiet valley of terraced fields, I remark to Clyde that it looks very small for the last, great decisive battle. 

“Oh no- it’s not too small ! you can get a lot of tanks in here”. 

Tanks, I repeat, and all the armies of the earth ?

“All of this. You’ve got to remember this will be the greatest battle ever fought. Several million will die right here”. 

And a nuclear war will start here at Megiddo, and destroy the world ? 

“Yes” he replies “You read this in Ezekiel. It describes a nuclear war, saying there will ‘torrential rains and hailstone, fire and brimstone’ and ‘a great shaking in the land’ with mountains falling and cliffs collapsing and walls tumbling to the ground in the face of ‘every kind of terror’. Ezekiel could scarcely have been referring to any thing other than an exchange of tactical nuclear weapons”. 

Clyde’s certitude staggers my sense of reality. And did Clyde, I ask, visualize Jesus as a five-star general, opting for the use of nuclear weapons ?

 

“Yes”, he responds “In fact, we can expect that Christ will make the first strike. He will release a new weapon. And this weapon will have the same effects as those caused by a neutron bomb. You read that their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongues shall consume away in their mouths. You see, that’s what happens to victims of a thermonuclear blast – so Zechariah had foreknowledge of that”.

But is Clyde saying, I ask, that Christ Himself will make the first strike ? Before replying, Clyde draws himself up to his full six feet: “Yes, that’s right”.

Forsaking fellow Christians

Grace reveals another interesting character of Falwell during a second trip to the holy land she undertook in 1985 as part of a Falwell-sponsored tour with more than 800 other Christians: 

In coloured brochures outlining each trip, Falwell did not mention we would be I the land of Christ, where Jesus was born, had his ministry and died. Rather, the focus was on Israel. We had only Israeli guides, stayed only in Israeli hotels and ate only I Israeli restaurants. Christians were all around us, tens of thousands of them. But Falwell did not arrange for us to meet Christians.

The Christians she refers to are of course the Palestinian Christians, one of whom Jonathan Kuttab tells her that “Falwell and his followers who base their Christianity on Old Testament stories of a Chosen Land for a Chosen People, pretend we are not here” and adds “They adopt a racist doctrine that makes us invisible. We don’t fit into their Hebraic scenario”. Such then is the plight of the Christians of Palestine who were long protected by their Muslim brethren and have now been forsaken by a fellow Christian nation, the US which is more keen on safeguarding the interests of the erstwhile enemies of Christendom – the Jews.

To this day, Christians form a significant part of the Palestinian population. They have lived happily under Muslim rule for centuries and in more recent times have contributed to the Palestinian struggle against Israel in no small way. The Founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Habbash was a Christian while the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was married to a Christian lady Suha. To this day, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre, Christendom’s most sacred church in Jerusalem are kept by the Palestinian Muslim Nusayba family by the unanimous consent of the various Christian churches of the holy land.

In contrast, the Christians of Palestine like their Muslim brethren have suffered immensely from Israeli oppression, not the least from expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem which continue to be constructed in defiance of the UN and International law with generous aid pouring in from the US treasury and Evangelical Christian Zionists. In a letter from Congressman Henry Hyde to President George W. Bush in 2007, Hyde pointed out that expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were "irreversibly damaging the dwindling Christian community". During the recent war on Gaza, two churches, Baptist and Catholic, were damaged by Israeli shelling, and many Christians including 15 year old Christine Turk lost their lives during the Gaza offensive. In December 2009, prominent Palestinian Christian leaders released a historical document, the Kairos Palestine Document. The document declared the Israeli occupation on Muslim and Christian Palestinian land as a "sin against God" and called on churches and Christians all over the world to consider and adopt it and to call for the boycott of Israel. The document stated that leading Israel into isolation is the only way that there can be a peaceful solution in the Holy Land. The isolation of Israel it argued would pressure the Jewish state to abolish all laws that discriminate against Palestinians and non-Jews. But all this to no avail, for the fast-growing Evangelical movement has all but abandoned its Christian brethren in its blind support for the Jewish state.

Jonathan Cook in his article Israel's Purging of Palestinian Christians has this to say:

This vision of our future, set out by American and Israeli Jews, is steeped in fundamentalist Christian religious symbolism, from the promotion of a civilized West's crusade against the Muslim hordes to the implication that the final confrontation between these civilizations (a nuclear attack on Iran?) may be the End Times itself – and thereby lead to the return of the Messiah.

If this clash is to be realized, it must be convincing at its most necessary confrontation line: the Middle East and more specifically the Holy Land. The clash of civilizations must be embodied in Israel's experience as a civilized, democratic state fighting for its very survival against its barbarian Muslim neighbors.

There is only one problem in selling this image to the West: the minority of Christian Palestinians who have happily lived under Muslim rule in the Holy Land for centuries. Today, in a way quite infuriating to Israel, these Christians confuse the picture by continuing to take a leading role in defining Palestinian nationalism and resistance to Israel's occupation. They prefer to side with the Muslim "fanatics" than with Israel, the Middle East's only outpost of Judeo-Christian "civilization."

Without Palestinian Christians confusing the picture, it will be much easier for Israel to persuade the West that the Jewish state is facing a monolithic enemy, fanatical Islam, and that the Palestinian national struggle is really both a cover for jihad and a distraction from the clash of civilizations against which Israel is the ultimate bulwark. Israel's hands will be freed.

Christian Zionism is a threat to Christianity just as it is to Islam and the sooner this unholy alliance between the American pseudo-Christians and Jewish Zionists is exposed- the better.

Exposing the hidden agenda

The Muslim world has a duty to safeguard not only its interests, but also the rest of the world from the dangers posed to it by World Zionism which is perhaps the most rabid form of racism that ever existed. Resting on the premise that Jews are the chosen people and the rest their slaves, Jewish Fundamentalism is not too different from Nazism. The term by which Jews call non-Jews is often lost to us in translations which give it as gentile which appears not to be a derogatory term on the face of it. However, little is it known that the actual term is goyim which is often used in a very derogatory sense by Jews when referring to non-Jews.

One must also not lose sight of the fact that Judaism is not a proselytizing faith. It does not seek converts. One is born a Jew, not made. This attitude results in a rather tribal mentality where the message of salvation through belief in the One True God is only meant for those born as ethnic Jews and not for non-Jews, implying that only Jews would be saved and the rest of humanity consigned to the hellfire. This is of course not something that a Merciful God would want of them. Rather it was an outcome of their arrogance in disobeying God and his Messengers. This was seen in their rejection of the message of their last national Prophet Jesus (Peace Be Upon Him) who was sent to reform their evil habits such as usury and give glad tidings of a future prophet who would come after him. Jesus they rejected because he could not deliver what their tribal yearnings longed for, deliverance from the Roman yoke, and thus they conspired to get him painfully crucified on the cross, telling their Roman rulers that he had transgressed their laws and hence deserved death, which the Romans despite their reluctance, were bound to carry out. And finally when the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) whose message was meant for all mankind was sent, they would not accept him either, for the simple reason that he was not a Jew, but an Arab descended from Ishmael whom they held had been cast out by Abraham in favour of their ancestor Isaac. So vindictive were they that they plotted on numerous occasions to hinder the spread of Islam and even resorted to the devious device of feeding him some poisoned meat from whose ill effects he would later suffer, but not before completing the Mission he had been sent to accomplish by the Divine Will.

And so we find that this exclusive racist attitude has characterized the Jews since ancient times which also explains why non-Jews, and particularly Christians whose kindness they took undue advantage of, have persecuted them throughout much of their history. The term anti-Semitism is unique in that it describes a phenomenon so widespread throughout history and transcending both time and space that it is difficult to account for it’s existence except to conclude that it is more of a natural rather than an unnatural development;  the very outcome of Jewish attitudes towards the rest of humanity. The attitude of Jews towards non-Jews has throughout history been one of exploitation. This is seen for instance in their widespread practice of indulging in usury which they exacted without compunction from non-Jews while prohibiting it among themselves. This has evidenced itself on a number of occasions such as during the early days of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) when Jews often lent money to the Arabs amongst whom they lived on high interest, taking as security their wives and children, a practice which was only done away when Islam had been established in the land. Likewise we would find that even in Europe where they settled during the mediaeval period, the Jews thrived on usury, as is evident in Shakespeare’s great work, the Merchant of Venice which reveals the ignoble character of Shylock the Jew, reflecting as it were the then European perception of Jews as compulsive sinners.

But it is not only his fellow man that the Jew has exploited in his greed, but also nature. It was the Jews who first commenced the practice of breeding geese in extremely crammed up conditions and force feeding them so that they reached immense proportions by which means they could fetch a higher price. The geese so bred by being forced to stay in one position amidst great suffering would have all the food they were force fed with converted into fat. The practice also resulted in fattened goose liver which was soon promoted as a delicacy amongst Europeans who could freely purchase it in the local Jewish ghettos of their cities. In 1570, Bartolomeo Scappi, chef de cuisine to Pope Pius V, published his cookbook Opera, wherein he describes that "the liver of [a] domestic goose raised by the Jews is of extreme size and weighs [between] two and three pounds". This particular food item gradually evolved into a well known French ‘delicacy’ Foie gras which is still produced in the West in spite of the immense suffering caused to the animals concerned. And this indeed has been the case much throughout the history of the Jew – thriving on the misery of both man and the rest of nature. This of course cannot be the attitude of a true Christian

As the Qur’an says: 

“You will find that the closest people in friendship to the believers are those who say, "We are Christian." This is because they have priests and monks among them, and they are not arrogant” [5:82].

The Qur’an clearly tells us that the Christians are not as arrogant as the Jews and that they are the closest to us Muslims in friendship.  This is seen even today in the sympathy and compassion shown to the Palestinian cause by many good Christians such as British MP George Galloway who recently led an aid convoy named Viva Palestina to the distraught Palestinians, not to mention the American Peace Activist Rachel Corrie aged just 23 who laid down her life protecting a Palestinian home that was being overrun by an Israeli bulldozer.

 

What we can conclude from all this is that the Zionist Evangelical Christians we find today are not true Christians. They are an aberration, a freak cult that should be exposed for what it is, a danger to the Islamic World, to the Christian World and to the World at large. Not only have they forsaken their fellow Christians for their erstwhile enemies, but also preach a Christianity that has nothing to do with the true teachings of Christ. Theirs is nothing but a façade for promoting the Zionist project for world domination and a suicide cult that calls for the end of the world by a nuclear holocaust and great suffering to mankind. The sooner their designs are defeated, the better for the world.