Anxious for Armageddon
Militant Coalition of Christian Fundamentalist and Jewish Orthodox Cults Plots Destruction of Al Aqsa Mosque
By Grace Halsell
For three decades, Gershon Solomon, a militant Israeli who heads an organization dedicated to the destruction of Jerusalem’s most holy Islamic shrine, has led Zionist zealots in armed assaults on the Muslim grounds of Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, that encloses both the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosque.
No Israeli political leader has spoken out against the assaults on the mosque, holy to a billion Muslims around the world. Moreover, no Israeli rabbi has condemned them. Indeed, beginning in 1967, many of the assaults were led by Jewish rabbis.
I first heard about the Israeli militants’ intent to destroy the mosque in 1979 when I went to Jerusalem. I talked at length with Bobby Brown, a third-generation American from Brooklyn who, flying to the Jewish state and instantly becoming a new citizen, confiscated land from Palestinians to help build an illegal Jewish settlement. “The mosque,” he told me, “has to go. It is a blot on our land.”
Militant Jews such as Brown and Solomon want a Jerusalem that is “pure” Jewish—without evidence of inhabitants of the other monotheistic faiths and their shrines. Surprisingly, millions of U.S. evangelical Christians endorse and financially support this Jewish plan.
Although united in their immediate goal of destroying the mosque, the Israeli militants and Christian zealots have different long-range agendas.
Secular Jews such as Stanley Goldfoot, one of the perpetrators of the dynamiting in 1946 of the King David Hotel which killed some 100 Christian, Muslim and Jewish civilians, want the mosque destroyed for political reasons. Other Jews believe that the building of a temple on the Muslim grounds will usher in the Jewish Messiah.
A growing number of Christians embrace the idea that in all history, Israel is on center stage. They say God has planned epochs of time (“dispensations”) such as an “in-gathering” of Jews in the ancient land of Canaan. One epoch, they say, includes the p½esent time when Jews are obligated to build a Jewish temple and re-institute animal sacrifice. Such epochs or “dispensations” are necessary, they say, before Christ can return. Ironically, while Christian dispensationalists place Israel as the most important nation in all the world, they do not respect or even like Jews—as Jews. Yet, because they believe Christ can only land in a “safe” area near Jerusalem, they make a cult of the land. They thus give total, unquestioned support to Israel.
Goldfoot and Solomon are welcome in countless U.S. pulpits, where Christian Zionists give generous donations of money, as well as their gold wedding rings and gold earrings to finance the mosque’s destruction. They know its destruction might well trigger wars culminating in Armageddon, but they welcome this. They push Armageddon along, saying they, as “Born-Again Christians,” will be spared any suffering, because they will be “Raptured,” wafted up to heaven to view the slaughter below. “I’m not worried,” Lynchburg, Virginia televangelist Jerry Falwell shouts. “You know why? I ain’t gonna be here!”
This dispensationalist doctrine, less than 200 years old, pervades Assemblies of God, Pentecostal and other charismatic churches, as well as the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention and countless so-called Bible churches and mega-churches. It’s estimated that at least one out of every 10 Americans is a devotee of this cult.
In both Israel and the U.S., a conspiracy of silence reigns as militants lay siege to the Jerusalem mosque. No political leader—or religious leader—in Israel or the U.S. has addressed the issue. In the case of Israeli rabbis, if they themselves have not aided and abetted planned assaults on the mosque, they have kept silent. In the case of all major U.S. Christian church leaders—the voices that are heard throughout the land—if they themselves are not raising money to destroy the mosque, they keep silent about the conspiracy.
“I don’t favor it,” one Christian told me. “But if it happens” –the destruction of the mosque—“it doesn’t mean I won’t sup-
port it.”
Grace Halsell, a Washington, DC-based author, is the author of 15 books, including Journey to Jerusalem and Prophecy and Politics. They, along with her latest book, Forcing God’s Hand, are available through the AET Book Club.