American Christian Zionism and Israel-Palestine Conflict: A Rapture or Rupture

Abstract

The main argument of this paper is that American support for the state of Israel needs to be considered in the backdrop of the Christian Zionism and as a religious and theological motif rather than merely a political ally. Thus, how the Christian Zionists have purposefully worked to support the Jews to get settled in Israel by assisting them in migration and by supporting their cause of restoration of the Promised Land needs to be seen as a profound ideological commitment. Through a contextual analysis of the emergence of Christian Zionists the paper attempts to explore and highlight the approaches, interpretations and the prospects of this theological utopia. The paper seeks the answers firstly, how the traditional supersessionalist or replacement view of Israel was replaced with the restorationist views based on the literalist understanding of the Biblical verses about Israel after the reformation period? Secondly it explores that how this theological shift has contributed to the emergence of Christian Zionist eschatological view of the restoration of Israel and led to the the American Evanglical outlook. Finally, this paper attempts to conclude that the impact of American Christian Zionist tendencies on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should not be undervalued rather it needs to be reconsidered in view of the American stance during the recent episodes of violence and genocide in Palestine.