c. 1998 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ Thousands of evangelical and Pentecostal Christians gathered for a conference here, Monday (Oct. 5) cheered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tough stand in peace negotiations with the Palestinians just days before the he flies to Washington to seek a deal with Yasser Arafat on a second phase of West Bank redeployment.

Appearing before a crowd of over 5,000 Christians from around the world, Netanyahu told a cheering throng waving blue and white Israeli flags that their support for his hardline stand has been”very, very effective”in protecting Israel from”undue pressures and threats.””The state of Israel is stronger because of your support,”Netanyahu told the annual Christian Feast of the Tabernacles gathering sponsored by the ardently pro-Israel International Christian Embassy, a private organization with no official diplomatic standing. “We are in the midst of negotiations on an agreement we didn’t sign, but are pledged to honor … but there will be no peace without security, without an end to the hatred, hostility and the threats of violence,”said Netanyahu, due in Washington in mid-October for meetings with Arafat and President Clinton.”I cannot tell you now if we will have an agreement in the upcoming meetings in Washington. If they (the Palestinians) honor their agreement, then we will have an agreement. But there can be no unilateral concessions,”said Netanyahu, who has gone out of his way to court Christian Zionist support.

Speaking prior to the prime minister’s appearance, an International Christian Embassy official from Oslo, Norway, suggested that the”real message of Oslo”was that Israel should hold on to the entire West Bank _ rather than concede territory to the Palestinians in return for peace, as was promised in the 1993 Oslo agreement between Israel and Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.”`My people Israel, they will not again be rooted out of the land which I gave them,'”said Leif Wellerop, quoting the biblical book of Amos.”God has brought you back to this land, he will uphold you here, and he will have his way. This is the message we want to give you from Oslo as Christian Zionists.” Netanyahu, himself a secular Jew, later told the crowd that”you don’t have to be a believing Jew or a believing Christian to understand that the birth of Israel, the rise of Israel had something of the miraculous and eternal to it. “Our claim to this land is based on the greatest and most incontrovertible of documents in creation, the holy Bible. It is the Bible that has given us the deed to this land …. The Palestinian people have to come to terms with the fact that we are in this land and we will stay here.” During the 10-day feast gathering, which celebrates a biblical pilgrimage to Jerusalem known to Jews as Sukkot, Christian Zionists also will visit controversial Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in Arab east Jerusalem to express their support for continued Jewish settlement in all parts of the biblical land of Israel.

Freezing settlement activity is a key agenda item in the ongoing Israel-Palestinian negotiations. Christian Embassy spokesman Dave Parsons said Christian Zionists _ who view Israel’s existence as part of the New Testament’s plan for Jesus’ Second Coming _ ardently oppose such a move. “We support the right of Jews to live anywhere in Jerusalem or anywhere in the communities of Judea and Samaria (the biblical names for the West Bank). And we’re going to let some of the pilgrims go see the sites, and hear from some of the groups that are trying to maintain a Jewish presence in some of these places which have been in the headlines,”Parsons said.

Other events on the calendar include a massive march through Jerusalem on Thursday, and a concert Monday (Oct. 12), with Christian gospel singer Paul Wilbur. The concert will generate a sequel to the best-selling live concert album produced at the 1996 Feast of the Tabernacles gathering,”Shalom Jersualem.”

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