May 23, 2011--The Rapture of Bibi Netanyahu
On Friday the media mavens were pursuing two seemingly unrelated stories-- one serious, the other amusing.
The serious story was the tense meeting between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at which they expressed very different visions for the future of Israel and Palestine.
The concurrent amusing story was about the millennialist cult waiting for the end of the world, which they believed was scheduled by God to occur on Saturday, May 21st, Reporters chuckled about how some of talk show host's Harold Camping's followers gave up their jobs and were bundling together in anticipation of the Rapture that would whisk them right up to heaven.
While covering these very-different-seeming stories no one noted or commented about the serious connection between them. How the aspirations of those waiting for the Rapture, the Second Coming of Christ that it would signal, and the ultimate Last Judgement are among Israel's most fervent supporters.
To these fundamental Christians, facts-on-the-ground in Israel, especially the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which Bibi Netanyahu is loath to give up, are necessary biblically-prophesied preconditions for the rolling out of the End of Times.
Obviously this did not happen on Saturday (though there was a significant volcanic eruption on Sunday in Iceland), but these religious fanatics are already rechecking their calculations and I am sure will come up soon with a new date for the End as their eschatologist predecessors have done through the ages.
And while they are checking their math and poring over their calendars, while they are waiting, they will continue to do all they can to support Israel's expansion eastward into what they think of as Greater Israel since Jews occupying the West Bank and lands beyond it are to them the essential next steps in God's divine plan.
For these believers, after the Israelis secure more land in the region, it will be necessary for all Jews, me included, to return to Israel; and while there, in addition to needing to become Christians, we must do all we can to take the lead in converting others because only the most faithful will be raptured when The Time comes.
Those who believe this are not a handful of crazies who can be dismissed as we mocked the small May 21st band but rather tens and tens of millions of Americans who believe fully in the coming Rapture and all that will follow. The only disagreement is about the date. Serious millennialists, while proclaiming these beliefs, differ only about the when of it.
Polls show that at least a quarter of all Americans, though they are not rushing to give up their day jobs, are waiting for the Rapture.
And while waiting, they are busy voting. Almost all are enthusiastic Republicans who make up the core of the GOP's base.
Among their most important issues, perhaps as passionate as not believing in taxation, not wanting to render unto Caesar, is their commitment to the current Israeli government's expansionist policies because these are essentially linked to their own religious beliefs. If Israel is forced by someone like an Obama (who quite a number claim is the Antichrist) to swap land for peace, this to the fundamentalists would represent turning back the millennialist prophetic calendar.
President Obama knows this and thus treads among these issues with considerable political trepidation, though he also knows the fundamentalists are not his crowd. And Prime Minister Netanyahu, who spent formative years in the U.S. knows this as well and thus is adept at playing the evangelical card while at the same time working the network of unquestioning American Jewish supporters of Israel who do not have a clue as to the true nature or agenda of these fundamentalist "friends" of Israel. Because if they did it might give them pause about embracing support that will require them to return to the Holy Land, convert to Christianity, become Jews for Jesus, or pay the eternal consequences.
The serious story was the tense meeting between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at which they expressed very different visions for the future of Israel and Palestine.
The concurrent amusing story was about the millennialist cult waiting for the end of the world, which they believed was scheduled by God to occur on Saturday, May 21st, Reporters chuckled about how some of talk show host's Harold Camping's followers gave up their jobs and were bundling together in anticipation of the Rapture that would whisk them right up to heaven.
While covering these very-different-seeming stories no one noted or commented about the serious connection between them. How the aspirations of those waiting for the Rapture, the Second Coming of Christ that it would signal, and the ultimate Last Judgement are among Israel's most fervent supporters.
To these fundamental Christians, facts-on-the-ground in Israel, especially the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which Bibi Netanyahu is loath to give up, are necessary biblically-prophesied preconditions for the rolling out of the End of Times.
Obviously this did not happen on Saturday (though there was a significant volcanic eruption on Sunday in Iceland), but these religious fanatics are already rechecking their calculations and I am sure will come up soon with a new date for the End as their eschatologist predecessors have done through the ages.
And while they are checking their math and poring over their calendars, while they are waiting, they will continue to do all they can to support Israel's expansion eastward into what they think of as Greater Israel since Jews occupying the West Bank and lands beyond it are to them the essential next steps in God's divine plan.
For these believers, after the Israelis secure more land in the region, it will be necessary for all Jews, me included, to return to Israel; and while there, in addition to needing to become Christians, we must do all we can to take the lead in converting others because only the most faithful will be raptured when The Time comes.
Those who believe this are not a handful of crazies who can be dismissed as we mocked the small May 21st band but rather tens and tens of millions of Americans who believe fully in the coming Rapture and all that will follow. The only disagreement is about the date. Serious millennialists, while proclaiming these beliefs, differ only about the when of it.
Polls show that at least a quarter of all Americans, though they are not rushing to give up their day jobs, are waiting for the Rapture.
And while waiting, they are busy voting. Almost all are enthusiastic Republicans who make up the core of the GOP's base.
Among their most important issues, perhaps as passionate as not believing in taxation, not wanting to render unto Caesar, is their commitment to the current Israeli government's expansionist policies because these are essentially linked to their own religious beliefs. If Israel is forced by someone like an Obama (who quite a number claim is the Antichrist) to swap land for peace, this to the fundamentalists would represent turning back the millennialist prophetic calendar.
President Obama knows this and thus treads among these issues with considerable political trepidation, though he also knows the fundamentalists are not his crowd. And Prime Minister Netanyahu, who spent formative years in the U.S. knows this as well and thus is adept at playing the evangelical card while at the same time working the network of unquestioning American Jewish supporters of Israel who do not have a clue as to the true nature or agenda of these fundamentalist "friends" of Israel. Because if they did it might give them pause about embracing support that will require them to return to the Holy Land, convert to Christianity, become Jews for Jesus, or pay the eternal consequences.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:14 AM
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