Why Christian Leaders’ Pro-Israel Letter Matters

Yesterday, a group of prominent Christian leaders sent an open letter to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, congratulating him on the formation of his new government and affirming their support for “the world’s only Jewish state.” The missive—the result of the efforts of the writer and activist Robert Nicholson—expresses its signers’ “strong sense of friendship with Israel based on shared values that originate in the Hebrew Bible.” Elliott Abrams comments:

[T]he letter is signed by dozens of Christian leaders from very mixed ethnic and denominational backgrounds. Certainly their followers are in the tens of millions, many times the population of Israel—or the U.S. Jewish population. The list includes the leader of one of the largest black denominations in the U.S., a member of [former] President Trump’s evangelical advisory board, the CEO of the largest evangelical broadcasting channel, and a range of clergymen and -women, academics, writers, and public intellectuals.

Israel’s new leaders have certain advantages and other disadvantages as they replace Benjamin Netanyahu after his twelve years in office. Many of the relationships he developed, for example with foreign heads of government, were personal and not easy for his successor to jump into. In the United States and in Europe, where many on the left and center-left saw Netanyahu as an opponent, relations may improve; certainly, Democrats in the United States who saw Netanyahu as tied to the Republican party have an opportunity to rebuild relations now with the new team in Jerusalem. This statement by Christian leaders makes a different argument: that their support is for Israel, not any particular leader.

Read more at Pressure Points

More about: Benjamin Netanyahu, Christian Zionism, Evangelical Christianity, Naftali Bennett, US-Israel relations

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa