The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party
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The Middle East: Biblical Prophecy Meets the Neoconservatives
Last September, 2003
Last Update September 16, 2003
U.S. foreign policy is driven by a mix of unlikely bedfellows: the Religious Right and the Neoconservatives. While the two ideological movements have almost nothing in common, they support one another on the Middle East for very different reasons. The Religious Right seeks the expansion of Israel in order to fulfill an interpretation of Biblical Prophecy, but they are otherwise anti-internationalists. The Texas Republican Party Platform calls for not only rescinding U.S. membership in the United Nations, but also removing the U.N. from U.S. soil.
The Neoconservatives do not share the social values of the Religious Right, and they are fiercely international, believing the United States should aggressively project its power around the globe. This ideological mix is called "an explosive cocktail" by the French newspaper, Le Monde. This page will discuss first the Religious Right's drive to fulfill Biblical Prophecy, and then the neoconservative movement.
Biblical Prophecy: The Second Coming of Jesus Christ
The apocalyptic worldview in the United States comes from the Biblical book of Revelation about the coming of a new millennium. Fundamentalist Christians anticipate the end of time which will be preceded by a cataclysmic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. When evil is conquered, true believers enter The Millennium of peace and harmony under God's rule. This period marks the return of Christ. This interpretation of Biblical prophecy is referred to as pre-millennialism.
Biblical Prophecy tells of a
"glorious time for all believers" as Falwell explains
in his book Nuclear War and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Believers will be Raptured - They will rise up in the air to meet the Lord, and unbelievers will be left behind in a terrible state of
confusion and suffering to endure seven years of tribulation.
This scenario has become the subject of many popular movies and books including the Left Behind series co-authored by Reverend Timothy LaHaye. Following the Rapture, during the Tribulation period, "a powerful ruler led by Satan and referred to as the Antichrist will rise to power ... God will be pouring out his wrath upon the earth and mankind, unlike anything that has ever taken place. It will be a time of terrible persecution and suffering ... At the end of the Great Tribulation, Jesus Christ will come in great glory and power to defeat the forces of Satan at the battle of Armageddon." (Nuclear War and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.) The return of Christ marks the beginning of the Millennium, or one thousand years of earthly paradise with the Lord.
Certain events have to occur for this prophecy to be fulfilled. The world's Jews must return to Israel, so Israel has to expand to accommodate this mass migration. Ed MacAteer, considered to be the godfather of the Religious Right, and one of the founders of the Moral Majority, talked about his expansionist dreams for Israel in an interview on CBS' 60 Minutes in October, 2002. "I believe that we are seeing prophecy unfold so rapidly and dramatically and wonderfully and, without exaggerating, makes me breathless…Every grain of sand between the Dead Sea, the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea belongs to the Jew." When asked if that includes the West Bank and Gaza, his answer was "Every bit of it."
"The best friends that Israel has are those people who believe the Bible does not contain the word of God, but that the Bible is the word of God," said McAteer at a prayer breakfast. For Mother Jones article discussing the impact of the Born-Again Christian-Zionist lobby: Click Here.
The Reverend Tim LaHaye describes the fate of the Jews in the book Left Behind. "The final battle in the history of the future will be fought on this ancient battleground in Northern Israel called Armageddon. And the Jews? Well two-thirds of them will be wiped out by now and the survivors will accept Jesus at last." So an expanded Israel is key to this interpretation of Biblical prophecy.
Falwell made his first trip to Israel in 1978 with an invitation from Prime Minister Menachim Begin. This began a strong relationship between the Likud Party, the hawkish party of Israel, and the Religious Right in the United States. Falwell has led many groups of Christian Zionists on pilgrimages to Israel, and the Religious Right has been subsidizing settlements ever since.
A Colorado-based group called Christian Friends of Israeli Communities – communities translates as settlements in the West Bank and Gaza - runs an adopt-a-settlement program. According to the director of its Jerusalem office, one-third of the 145 settlements receive funds from Christians. To demonstrate how strongly the pre-millenialists feel about the expansion of Israel, here’s what Falwell told 60 minutes:
"There's nothing that would bring the wrath of the Christian public in this country down on this government like abandoning or opposing Israel in a critical matter." The critical matter he’s referring to involves freezing or dismantling settlements.
Gershom Gorenberg, an American-born Israeli journalist who is an associate at the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University, told the same 60 Minutes: "They don't love the real Jewish people. They love us as characters in their story, in their play, and that's not who we are. If you listen to the drama that they are describing, essentially it's a five-act play in which the Jews disappear in the fourth act."
"The remarkable influence of the Christian right and more specifically Christian Zionism on the current Bush Administration's Middle East policy has been hard to miss," writes Melani McAlister in "An Empire of Their Own" for The Nation. "Right-wing figures in Congress like Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe and House majority leader Tom DeLay have close working relationships with evangelicals like LaHaye, Falwell and Ralph Reed. These evangelists and politicians are in turn deeply connected to the Israeli right, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu."
Ms. McAlister suspects "the pro-Israeli positions emerging from the Christian right are at best instrumental and at worst a dangerous enthusiasm for the impending destruction and/or mass conversion of Jews." Click Here
Brit Tzedek v'Shalom is a national organization of American Jews that believes, "the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians long for an enduring peace and that security for Israel can only be achieved through the establishment of an economically and politically viable Palestinian state. This necessitates an end to Israel's occupation of land acquired during the 1967 war and an end to Palestinian terrorism."
A founding principle states: "We call for bringing safely home to Israel the settlers from all settlements except those included as part of a negotiated and mutually agreed upon exchange of territories between Israel and Palestine in determining the final borders of both states. "
Click Here
While Bush shares many of the beliefs, and supports most of the political agenda of the Religious Right, his road map for
the Middle East is not consistent with an expansionist Israel and indicates that Bush is probably not a
pre-millennialist. This article in the Forward, a Jewish newspaper, discusses a split in the
Christian right over President Bush's road map.
Click Here.
One has to wonder, though, about the President's committment to his road map. Former President Jimmy Carter, who negotiated the peace between Israel and Egypt,
pointed out that a commitment to peace requires a huge amount of time from the President. Carter questioned Bush's month long vacation at his ranch
in Crawford, Texas while the Middle East was falling apart. Whatever Bush believes, his carelessness about the fate of the earth has the same kind of naive magic one finds in
pictures of the Millennium. After the Great Tribulation, the Lord returns to an earth with clear blue skies and lush green meadows.
One doesn't have to worry about the environment, because somehow it will be pristine when the Lord returns to earth. The Bush administration has declared war on the
environment since
the day he took office. In addition, he doesn't seem concerned about radioactive
fallout
from nuclear war,
and his nuclear policies have greatly increased the risks that nuclear weapons will proliferate and be used.
The following article, "George W. Bush's War on Nature" by Glen Scherer, originally published in
Salon, claims,
"Republicans are pushing the most radical assault on the environment in modern times."
Click Here House Majority leader, Tom DeLay has visited Israel to counter President Bush's road map to peace.
Click Here Neoconservatives and the Religious Right:
"An Explosive Ideological Cocktail"
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel argues that Neoconservatives see the U.S. as the "Roman Empire of 21st century." The newspaper describes a "neocon" vision of a "unipolar world, with America as the Rome of the 21st century, a colossus that can dictate its will to the world, noting that America spends as much on defense as the next 15 countries combined and has troops stationed in 75 countries." Click Here
"Who are they, the creators of the 'Project for the New American Century'?" asks Sojourner's magazine. "What is the 'Project,' and why is it cause for concern? The people behind it are now prominent players in the Bush administration, and some of them -— most notably, Vice-President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -— are household names. And their plan is for nothing less than securing U.S. global domination for decades to come -— and that's according to their own testimony." Click Here
From a MoveOn Bulletin: "The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is a Washington-based neo-conservative think-tank founded in 1997 to 'rally support for American global leadership.' PNAC's agenda runs far deeper than regime change in Iraq. Its statement of principles begins with the assertion that 'American foreign and defense policy is adrift' and calls for 'a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity'." The MoveOn Bulletin offers a compendium of articles relating to PNAC. Click Here
Alain Frachon and Daniel Vernet report in Le Monde, "The Strategist and the Philosopher," "George W. Bush has made Neoconservatives and Christian fundamentalists live together. The latter are represented in the government by a man like John Ashcroft, the Attorney General. The former have one of their stars as Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. George W. Bush ... has realized a surprising and explosive ideological cocktail, marrying Wolfowitz and Ashcroft, Neoconservatives and Christian fundamentalists, two opposite planets." Click Here.
Michael Lind explains "How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington – and Launched a War," April 10, 2003. Lind describes a "metaphorical Pentagon" that includes "the Israel lobby and the religious right, plus conservative think tanks, foundations and media empires. "The final corner of the neoconservative pentagon is occupied by several right-wing media empires. Rupert Murdoch disseminates propaganda through his Fox television network. His magazine, the Weekly Standard – edited by William Kristol, the former chief of staff of Dan Quayle (vice president, 1989-1993) – acts as a mouthpiece for defense intellectuals such as Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith and Woolsey as well as for Sharon's government. " Click Here
Neoconservative Elliott Abrams, was appointed to the Middle East's top policy spot in the National Security Council (NSC) on December 2, 2002. Abrams has opposed the Oslo peace process and called for Washington to "stand by Israel," rather than act as a neutral mediator between Israel and the Palestinians. This article from Foreign Policy In Focus from the Institute for Policy Studies highlights Abrams career. Click HereMoveOn concludes that the neo-conservatives "represent the views and interests of only a tiny elite, not the popular sentiment in the United States. Most Americans would be horrified to learn how PNAC and others are shaping the Bush Doctrine -- both because of the ideology they describe and because they use money and media to gain disproportionate political influence."
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