Why Fundamentalists support Israel- straight from Pat Roberts on

[Heer, Jeet (National Post)]

Nathan's point that I underestimate the importance of religion is
well-taken. But really, now much power do Christian fundamenalists have over
U.S. foreign policy? Right Wing Christians also supported aparteid in South
Africa and continue to support Ian Paisley types in Northern Ireland, yet
this doesn't seem to weigh on US foreign policy as much as Israel does. 


> ----------
> From: 	Nathan Newman
> 
> Abortion and gay rights are just sidelights for many fundamentalist
> Christians compared to the second coming of Christ-- do you ever watch the
> 700 Club?  Pilgrimages to Jerusalem and the "Holy Land" and constant.
> Polls have shown that support for Israel is about twenty percentage points
> higher in the deep South than in any other region.
> 
> There is a tick of secularists that they never take the religious
> seriously
> on direct religious issues-- while many issues led to the breakdown of the
> Oslo negotiations, one of the touchest, most irresolvable issues was the
> Temple Mouth issue, since neither side wanted to tell their people that
> they
> had traded away God's holy site for anything else.
> 
> Leftists may want to reduce Israel to colonialism and imperialism, but for
> a
> bunch of religious folks, it's all about a creche and death penalty
> imposed
> 2000 years ago.
> 
> -- Nathan Newman
> 
>