c. 2004 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ When Sen. Norm Coleman took to the podium at the Plaza Hotel this week near Manhattan’s Central Park, the Minnesota Republican made it plain to the audience of 1,500:

“I wouldn’t be in the United States Senate without the strong support of the Republican Jewish Coalition,” he declared.

Coleman was one of several senators praising the growing Jewish GOP group at its swank Monday afternoon party. Like many senators, Coleman also counts evangelical and fundamentalist Christians as part of his political core _ Christians who join their Republican Jewish colleagues in giving wholehearted support to Israel.

But while Jews and conservative Christians find common ground in supporting Israel’s right to exist, how the Jewish state will exist can at times divide liberal and centrist Jews and evangelical Christians.

“Where it becomes complicated is when many of them (evangelicals) oppose the idea of territorial compromise,” said David Bernstein, Washington director of the centrist group the American Jewish Committee.

“There is no Jewish-evangelical alliance,” he said. “There’s an illusion of alliance because both evangelical Christians and Jews (support Israel). That doesn’t mean that they’re coordinating in any way, shape or form. Their support is valuable, but that doesn’t mean there’s coordination.”

Bernstein said some evangelical and fundamentalist Christians he knows feel more comfortable with more conservative, Jewish-oriented Israel advocacy groups that present tough, no-compromise policy scenarios. Such scenarios may appeal to Christians with Bible-driven views of what modern Israel should be.

Republican National Committee Chairman and former Montana Gov. Mark Racicot downplayed any evangelical-Jewish rift on policy specifics, saying that the party has “bridges built to virtually all of the faiths.”

Political scientist Norman Ornstein said policy disagreements between Jews and evangelical Christians are found on the abortion and gay marriage issues, so it should be no surprise that disagreements are found on the finer aspects of Middle East policy.

“Friends in a broad issue may not be friends in the specifics,” Ornstein said. “Some evangelical organizations are going to have clashes, I think, with the more centrist and liberal Jewish organizations that are pro-Israel because they ally themselves with very tough-minded positions. But it’s not true of all evangelicals, and a lot of evangelicals who support Israel don’t necessarily adhere to a no-compromise position. So you’re going to find shifting alliances.”

Other Jewish political activists are unfazed by policy differences with Christians and welcome not only their support but their religious tourism dollars. Spending by the U.S. visitors has helped to sustain Israel’s tourism industry, which has been buffeted by terrorism fears.

Republican Jewish activists also point to the close relationship they maintain with evangelical political operatives.

“We had Ralph Reed at a briefing this morning (Aug. 30),” said Howard Joffe, a New Jersey business consultant and supporter of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, referring to the former Christian Coalition leader and Bush-Cheney regional campaign coordinator. “I think there is a coming together for this purpose … a meeting of the minds. A strong Israel means a strong United States. If there was no Israel, the United States would have to create it; it needs that.”

Stanley Treitel, an Orthodox Jew active in the Los Angeles Jewish community, dismissed AJC’s concerns about the influence that more conservative Zionist groups may have on Christians.

“I think that’s internal Jewish fighting,” he said. “I don’t think that anybody can control any one group. They (evangelical Christians) see that the right step to be taken with Israel is on the right side of the aisle, not on the left side, as say the American Jewish Committee or the American Jewish Congress. They’re on the left side of the aisle.”

DEA/PH END FINNIGAN