By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams
Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—who once suggested that his boss, then-President Donald Trump, may have been sent by “God” to save Israel—waxed biblical again this week in defense of Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid regime in Palestine.
Interviewed by Julia Macfarlane and Richard Dearlove for an episode of the “One Decision” podcast that aired Wednesday, Pompeo—a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate who also previously served in Congress and as CIA director—denied that Israel is even occupying Palestine.
Mcfarlane noted that as secretary of state, Pompeo “undid the Hansel memo that called Jewish settlements in the West Bank against international law,” a U.S. position that had been in place since 1978.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention and other international law affirmed by numerous United Nations bodies, both Israel’s 52-year occupation and ongoing settler colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal.
Pompeo—who played a leading role in negotiating the historic Abraham Accords between Israel and multiple Arab dictatorships—countered that Israel “is not an occupying nation.”
“As an evangelical Christian,” he asserted, “I am convinced from my reading of the Bible” that “this land… is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people.”
“I am confident that the Lord is at work here,” added Pompeo—who refused to say whether he supported a so-called two-state solution to the crisis caused by Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and ongoing usurpation of Palestinian land.
According to a 2017 survey by LifeWay Research, a Christian polling group, 80% of U.S. evangelicals believe the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, largely through terrorism and ethnic cleansing, was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would hasten the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Around two-thirds of respondents said that the Bible says “God” gave Israel to the Jews, while more than half said Israel is important for fulfilling biblical prophecy.
Many evangelicals believe that Jews must rule Israel in order for Christ to return, but once he does nonbelievers including most Jews will be wiped out. Knowing this, numerous Jews and others have decried what has been called the “unholy alliance” linking Christian and Jewish Zionists.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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