Zionism is something that has become very controversial in our day. In fact, speaking out against Zionism has become the new and acceptable form of anti-Semitism. In 2001, the United Nations Conference World Conference Against Racism met in Durban, South Africa. At the urging of Jew-haters, they declared that Zionism—the idea that Jewish people deserve a home in the land of their fathers—was itself a form of racism.
That’s right. If you believe God’s Word, the United Nations, which means most of the nations, thinks you are a racist! It’s outrageous.
Christian Zionism is defined as the support of the return of the Jewish people to Zion (Jerusalem or Israel) by Christians. These Christians recognize and celebrate the biblical covenant in which God promised certain lands to Abraham and his descendants—forever. This divine land grant, called the Promised Land, would be theirs for all time.
Since God’s decree, there has always been a presence of Jewish people in the Land, but they did not always rule it or maintain it as the State of Israel. That began to change in the 19th century. The contemporary outpouring of support for the belief in a homeland for the Jewish people surged to the forefront of British foreign policy in the 1800s. It was spread from there to the United States by those who believed in a literal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures: William Blackstone, Cyrus Scofield, Dwight L. Moody, John Nelson Darby, Professor George Bush, and other noted Bible scholars.
First, the Blackstone Memorial and then the Balfour Declaration began to influence noted politicians who were forced to take a stand—for or against God’s Chosen People. After a decades-long battle for the right to possess their original God-given grant, David Ben-Gurion stood before a microphone on May 14, 1948, and declared the rebirth of the State of Israel in Palestine. United States President Harry Truman was the first foreign head of state to acknowledge the new nation, and other heads of state took up the gauntlet to ensure that Israel would survive.
The Jewish people were no longer what staunch Zionist Chaim Weizmann had called “a sort of disembodied ghost.” They were following the command given to them in Deuteronomy: “Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the lord swore to your fathers.” When asked to speak to the Palestine Royal Commission in 1936, Weizmann explained: “I believe the main cause which has produced the particular state of Jewry in the world is its attachment to Palestine. We are a stiff-necked people and a people of long memory…. Whether it is our misfortune or whether it is our good fortune, we have never forgotten Palestine, and this steadfastness, which has preserved the Jew throughout the ages and throughout a career that is almost one long chain of inhuman suffering, is primarily due to some physiological or psychological attachment to Palestine. We have never forgotten it nor given it up.” Hebrew writings refer to Israel as the “navel” of the world, with Jerusalem at its center.
