An Apocalyptic Foreign Policy
April 30, 2002

by Joe Sobran

     A few days ago [April 11] I expressed my gratitude 
to the general good nature of American Protestants. I 
received a response that only confirmed my lifelong 
feeling about these decent, lovable people. Catholics 
and Jews also wrote to express their warm agreement.

     Today, alas, I must write in a different vein. The 
unhappy fact is that these nice Protestants, for all 
their virtues, include a dangerous minority.

     I've never been one to attack the Christian Right. 
On many questions I heartily agree with it. But it exerts 
a powerful influence within the Republican Party, and at 
the moment this is not entirely to the good.

     Much of the Christian Right demands all-out U.S. 
support for Israel, not for reasons of national interest, 
but for allegedly Biblical reasons: they hope the battle 
of Armageddon, forecast in the Book of Revelation, will 
soon erupt in the Middle East, and they want the U.S. 
Government to help bring it about by backing Israeli 
aggression.

     Of course they don't consider anything Israel does, 
however violent, aggression. They contend that the Holy 
Land belongs to the Jews by divine right, and they 
approve of any claims Israel makes and any measures it 
takes to enforce its claims.

     Let me lay my cards on the table. I believe in the 
Book of Revelation too -- we Catholics call it the 
Apocalypse of St. John -- but I distrust anyone who 
thinks he can decode its mysterious prophecies, 
especially for the purpose of deciding U.S. foreign 
policy in the explosive Middle East. And I think most 
devout Protestants would agree.

     Nobody knows when the end of the world will come, 
and since the year 1000 many people, imagining that they 
have solved the enigmas of Revelation, have made the 
foolish mistake of predicting it prematurely. Various 
sects have not only confidently announced the date of the 
Apocalypse, but flourished even after they were proved 
wildly wrong. Like economists and sportswriters, 
theologians rarely pay for their erroneous predictions.

     God will bring about the world's end in his own good 
time, probably without the prodding of the U.S. 
Government. We must await the fulfillment of his plan in 
humble patience, without treating the Scriptures like 
astrological tables.

     Meanwhile, the duties of Christians remain what they 
always are: to act in justice and mercy, and especially 
to love one another. But the Christian Right, while 
cheering Sharon on, evinces little concern for its 
Christian brethren in the Middle East -- a scandalous 
fact, immensely distressing and baffling to the 
defenseless and suffering Arab Christians who cry for 
help, only to be ignored.

     This is not to suggest that religion has no 
pertinence to politics. On the contrary, Christians 
should always apply their faith to worldly affairs. The 
question is how this is to be done. We must beware of 
facile and fanatical interpretations that wind up putting 
us at odds with the plainest of the Beatitudes: "Blessed 
are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the 
children of God."

     Recently President Bush has looked like a weakling, 
unable to stand up to Sharon. But a more frightening 
possibility is that he secretly shares Sharon's vision of 
an expansionist Israel, for the same dubiously Biblical 
reasons much of the Christian Right does. His father, the 
former President Bush, at least resisted pressure from 
the Israel government and its American lobby; his 
insistence on American secular interests (as he 
understood them) may have cost him the 1992 election. But 
the current President Bush has either less courage or 
different convictions.

     Surely Bush knows that most Americans don't want to 
see U.S. policy in the Middle East guided by what they 
regard as an eccentric reading of the Book of Revelation. 
He has never said -- and would be unlikely to avow -- 
that he agrees with such a reading. But he is under 
fierce pressure from people who do, and his gestures of 
moderation, if they are sincere, are notably ineffectual.

     We are seeing the emergence of an odd alliance: a 
new "Judaeo-Christian" coalition of zealots who, for 
their different reasons, converge in support of a warlike 
Israel. Far from dreading war, they look forward to it. 
Unlike the conservatives of the America First era, they 
put Israel first. Let us pray that they will not lead us 
into a terrible disaster.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read this column on-line at 
"http://www.sobran.com/columns/020430.shtml".

Copyright (c) 2002 by the Griffin Internet 
Syndicate, www.griffnews.com. This column may not 
be published in print or Internet publications 
without express permission of Griffin Internet 
Syndicate. You may forward it to interested 
individuals if you use this entire page, 
including the following disclaimer:

"SOBRAN'S and Joe Sobran's columns are available 
by subscription. For details and samples, see 
http://www.sobran.com/e-mail.shtml, write 
fran@griffnews.com, or call 800-513-5053."