Common Grounds

It Started Out So Good …

July 24, 2019 12:03
By Abraham A. van Kempen

The Hague, The Netherlands

Israeli journalist, Meron Rapoport, states in his article, ‘When Zionism imagined Jewish nationalism without supremacy:’

“In his recent book [‘Beyond the Nation-State’], Dr. Dmitry Shumsky [a historian of the Zionist movement at the Hebrew University] shows that, contrary to popular belief, the forefathers of Zionism did not envision a state based on Jewish supremacy. And yet Zionism, he says, inevitably involves the oppression of Palestinians.”
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The Abuse of Religion to Foster Extremism Is a Universal Phenomenon

July 31, 2019 15:06
Source: Common Dreams

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/07/29/abuse-religion-foster-extremism-universal-phenomenon

By James Zogby

Published July 29, 2019

When it masks a political agenda or when it justifies violence either by groups or state actors, it becomes a danger
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Evangelicals aren’t turned off by Trump’s first term — they’re delighted by it

August 14, 2019 10:57
Source: Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/evangelicals-arent-turned-off-by-trumps-first-term--theyre-delighted-by-it/2019/08/11/3911bc88-a990-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html?noredirect=on

By Julie Zauzmer
Published August 13, 2019

BRANDON, Fla. — Three years ago, Rickey Halbert was torn about whether to vote for Donald Trump.

On the one hand, he’d read about Trump’s extramarital affairs and the women who alleged he had sexually assaulted them. Halbert, a Defense Department employee, didn’t think the candidate matched his moral compass.
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Setting The Record Straight On Christian Zionism

September 16, 2019 12:58
Source: Forward

https://forward.com/culture/430428/setting-the-record-straight-on-christian-zionism/

By Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon

Publsished August 29, 2019

The book review for “Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, And U.S.-Israeli Relations” entitled “Why Everything You Think You Know About Christian Zionism is Wrong” grossly misstated numerous aspects of Christian Zionism and the movement in America. The narrative that Raphael Magarik puts forth seeks to debunk the idea that: “Christian Zionism conceals under a cloak of philo-Semitism, a nefarious agenda. Christian Zionists support Israel, supposedly, to hasten the end-times, when “Jews must convert or die.”
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Katanacho and the Protestant struggle against ‘Israelism’

October 10, 2019 17:06
By: Abraham A. van Kempen

This article is a translated and slightly revised version of a contribution by Dr. Steven Paas to a symposium of the Dutch branch of Kairos-Sabeel on 20 September 2019, at the occasion of the presentation of the Dutch translation of the Palestinian theologian Yohanna Katanacho’s book The Land of Christ.
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Can You Trust God to Let the Chips Fall Where He wants?

October 15, 2019 13:51
By: Abraham A. van Kempen
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Why evangelicals in the US should support the establishment of a Palestinian state

October 25, 2019 14:15
Source: The Christian Post

https://www.christianpost.com/voice/why-evangelicals-in-the-us-should-support-the-establishment-of-a-palestinian-state.html

By Issam Smeir, Voices Contributor

Published September 18, 2019

This summer in Bahrain, Jared Kushner's plan for a bright new economic future for Palestine was announced. This plan, however, not only does not include a solution to the political challenges in the region (that's anticipated to come this fall), but it follows on the heels of rumors that the Trump administration has been considering alternatives that do not include a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Countering Christian Zionism in the Age of Trump

November 01, 2019 13:24
Source: Middle East Research and Information Project

https://merip.org/2019/08/countering-christian-zionism-in-the-age-of-trump/

By Mimi Kirk

Published 08 August 2019

The May 2018 ceremony marking the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem featured many of the usual suspects. US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, Senior Advisor to President Donald Trump Jared Kushner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu all delivered remarks during the more than one-hour-long ceremony that touted the US-Israel relationship and, in Netanyahu’s words, embraced Jerusalem as “the eternal, undivided capital of Israel.”
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Jewish Citizens in a Future Democratic Palestine?

November 18, 2019 14:33
Source: Providence

https://providencemag.com/2019/11/dual-democracies-initiative-israel-jewish-citizens-democratic-palestine/

By George E. Assousa

Published November 13, 2019

As a 12-year-old boy in 1948, I fled with my family from our home in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Katamon and never returned. Life took me to Ramallah, where I received a good Christian education, and then to the United States, where I became a physicist. Eventually, I went to the United Kingdom, where I became involved in international economic development. My heart still beats with memories of my beautiful home in Jerusalem, but my mind—trained through physics to deal with concrete facts—tells me that, unfortunately, history in Palestine cannot be reversed. The future, on the contrary, is in our hands.
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Church of England report admits Christian anti-Semitism helped lead to Holocaust

November 25, 2019 14:54
Source: The Times of Israel

https://www.timesofisrael.com/church-of-england-report-admits-christian-anti-semitism-led-to-holocaust/

By ROBERT PHILPOT

Publshed 22 November 2019

Work acknowledges ‘fertile seed-bed for murderous anti-Semitism in the modern era’; in afterword to 105-page document, chief rabbi slams evangelical attempts to convert Jews
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