West Asia At War: Repression, Resistance and Great Power Games

by Talmiz Ahmad

Following the Second World War and the wave of sympathy for Jews after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism in the US now began not only to distinguish between Jews and Arabs, but also to see the Jews as a part of the shared ‘Judeo-Christian civilisation’, thus obliterating two millennia of animosity between Christians and Jews. In 1957, President Harry Truman told the Zionist Organization of America that Israel reflected ‘a rebirth of a nation dedicated, as of old, to the moral law [and was] an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilisation’.30 A significant source of support for Israel in the US were the Christian evangelists, also known as Christian Zionists, who believed that, once the Jewish state is established in the ‘Promised Land’ and the Third Temple is rebuilt, the Antichrist will emerge to destroy the temple. He will then usher in a seven-year period of tribulation and prepare the stage for the ‘second coming’ of Jesus Christ. The Jews will now either become Christians or perish violently. Christ will then preside over a 1,000-year reign of justice and happiness. Thus, evangelist theology, though founded on the ultimate destruction of the Jewish people, has set up an opportunistic alliance with Zionism, which has made the two communities partners in their shared animosity for Palestinians and Arabs, and Muslims in general.31 Israeli leaders from Menachem Begin onwards, with the help of the Jewish community in the US, have assiduously cultivated close ties with prom...