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Christian Zionism

Opening an 'Embassy for Yesha'


By Stan Goodenough
October 18, 2006

It was an event that went largely unnoticed (or was purposefully ignored) by the news media. For many of those participating, however, it was one of prophetic magnitude and an opportunity to express their unshakeable resolve.

On Sunday, October 8, in front of more than 300 visiting Gentiles and invited Israeli guests, the Jerusalem-based pro-Israel Christian organization, the International Christian Zionist Center, officially opened its new offices on the road between Jerusalem and Bethel.

According to an ICZC press release, the move to the area in Samaria, behind the controversial security fence and inside the territory earmarked for a future State of Palestine, was made ?in solidarity with the people of Israel and their undeniable historic link to all their divinely-promised land.?

Because every unilateral Israeli withdrawal in the region had only increased the bellicose stand of Israel?s enemies and intensified their terrorism against Israel, with their final aim being to excise the sovereign Jewish state from their Muslim midst, ICZC director Jan Willem van der Hoeven said the Christians represented by the organization believed that ?Israel needs to spell out to the world ? as well as to her own, battered, people ? that this tiny piece of land is theirs and will never be forsaken by them.?

With members in nations around the globe, the ICZC had committed itself to ?tirelessly spelling this out to our own gentile leaders and governments.?

Van der Hoeven recalled how, in 1981, after 13 embassies crumpled under Arab pressure and fled from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, he had led a small group of Christians in founding the International Christian Embassy so that Christians around the world could say to Israel, ?You are not alone.?

?I feel to repeat that action today,? Van der Hoeven said, ?and open an embassy for Yesha (the targeted areas of Judea, Samaria and Gaza) here, to say like Ruth to the Jews in these endangered communities, ?Your God is our God and we are with you.?

?It is on the hearts of millions of Christians, from China to Brazil, from America to South Africa, as some of you have come to say to the Jewish people, ?You will never have peace when you give up the land; but you will have peace when you keep it!??

The land where the ICZC offices were situated was the very land Jacob had been sleeping when God promised him that ?the ground on which you are lying, I will give to you.?

This land, which included Ariel and Bethel and Shiloh and Hebron and Jerusalem, was now under the gun. And if the battle to preserve Bethel and Shiloh was lost, the battle for Jerusalem would also be lost.

Among the Israeli guests asked to address the gathering were Ron Nachman, the founder and mayor of Ariel, the biggest Jewish community Samaria, and Hebrew University Professor of Arabic Studies Moshe Sharon.

Stepping up to the microphone, Nachman declared: ?In the Bible there is no West Bank, no Occupied Territories?only the Promised Land.?

He reminded world leaders that ?the first deed in real estate was not in Washington DC, not in Paris, not in London, it was in Hebron.?

But he bemoaned the fact that the Gentile nations do not see ?the biggest threat today: the clash of civilizations, Islam against Christianity and Judaism.?

Nachman said he believed it was important that Christians and Jews stand together in defense of Israel?s land.

When visiting the United States, he said, ?I am not welcomed and not invited to speak by the Jewish establishment, because I am mayor of the biggest Jewish city in ?the West Bank.? So I go to the Christians.?

The mayor, a former Knesset member, said he sees ?a great hope in the connection of the Jewish and non-Jewish communities? in resisting the world?s efforts to rob the Jews of their land.

However, he stressed, while it was good that people prayed against the uprooting of Jewish communities ?Gush Katif was evacuated despite all the prayers.?

The fight was also a political fight ?and we need to fight it on that front,? he said.

Moshe Sharon sounded the alarm he has been speaking out for many years but which have mostly fallen on the deaf ears of politicians who believe they have to remain politically ?correct:? The world is caught up in a clash of civilizations and is already in fact embroiled in World War III.

The Middle East conflict was part of that war, but it was reaching deep into areas in the Western world.

?Beware Europe! You are on the way to becoming an Islamic state. There are 4800 mosques in Germany alone!! And right now in the oldest city in Finland, a new mosque is being erected that is so high it will be visible from 50 km away??

Muslims were teaching that ?Europe is the cancer. Islam is the answer!?

Sharon, an advisor on Arab affairs to a number of former Israeli prime ministers, said there could never be peace ?between Israel as a Jewish state and the Arabs, for as far as the Arabs are concerned the establishment of the state of Israel is a reversal of history; it was something that could not happen!?

The word ?peace? simply does not exist in the Quran, he said.

Returning to the podium, Van der Hoeven told the gathering that while the International Christian Zionist Center was the only Christian-led organization to fully support Jews against expulsion from the heartland of Israel by physically locating itself on the endangered land, he believed other pro-Israel groups would one day follow this example.

It was the vision of the ICZC to help train the millions of Christians from every nation to stand pro-actively with Israel, spiritually, materially and politically, as Israel?s few remaining friends among the nations faded away.

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