Speaking to members of the Council on Foreign Relations, a top leader from the Southern Baptist Convention in the US said he believes most evangelical Christians back the Israeli government's decision to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
"I think I can safely say that I'm speaking for a majority of evangelicals in saying that Evangelicals have and do strongly support Israel," said Dr. Richard Land, President of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission, during a meeting in Washington, D.C., last week.
While Dr. Land emphasised that he was not speaking for all Evangelicals, he said many evangelical Christians support Israel "for religious reasons." However, he said this evangelical support for the Jews is not synonymous with the support for the state of Israel.
"We certainly do not give blind acceptance of everything that the state of Israel does or has done," he said. "But we do support the first of the Jews to exist in the land that God gave to them without any time limitation.
"But that's something God's going to do," he later added, referring to the Jews’ ultimate return to the land.
Israel began its pullout of Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip and four isolated settlements in the northern West Bank in mid-August. The last Israeli soldiers left the strip on Sept. 12, officially ending nearly four decades of settlement in the area and marking the start of Palestinian rule over the remote strip.
Responding to the withdrawal, Land said, "You don't bless the Jews by asking more for the Jews than they're asking for themselves. And if the Israeli government elected by the Israeli people believes that this is in the best interest of ... the Jews who are in the land, then far be it from us to try to force upon them something which they think is counter-productive for themselves."I think I can safely say that I'm speaking for a majority of evangelicals in saying that Evangelicals have and do strongly support Israel.
Dr. Richard Land, Southern Baptist Convention
Land expressed his being "comfortable" with a two-state solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinian state.
Referring to what Shimon Peres, former prime minister of Israel, had said to Land in a previous meeting, the evangelical leader listed three facts about the situation: Jewish and Arab population on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is nearly evenly split, Israel is not going to abandon being a democratic state, and Israel will continue to be a Jewish state.
"If you are going to fulfill all three of those things, then you have to have a two-state solution," Land said.
Israel is "the most stable and assertive democracy in the Middle East," Land said. "You have to understand that Evangelicals really, really believe in religious freedom for everyone."
Audrey Barrick
Christian Today Correspondent
