Where Would Jesus Settle?

Jason Ditz, July 22, 2015

Once again reflecting the huge disconnect between Israel’s far-right government and common sense, Israeli MP Michael Oren, who previously served as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, insisted that the US owes Israel unconditional support because God wills it so.

“God speaks only one language and it’s the language in which we are yelling at each other in the next hall,” Oren declared during the caucus, adding that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph would be considered “Jewish settlers in Bethlehem” today, and that God wants Israel to be strong.

The attempt to equate Jesus to settlers is a particularly bizarre comment, especially since it was made during a caucus focused on courting Christian support for Israel. It’s a transparently ham-fisted effort to shoehorn some of Israel’s worst, most opposed policies on the international community through Jesus.

On the one hand, the argument doesn’t hold water even within the spiritual context, as the Biblical story had Jesus et al. going to Bethlehem for the sake of a census. They were described in the text as living in Nazareth, which is an Israeli town, albeit one far-right parties are constantly trying to “trade” to a future Palestinian state because of all the Arabs that live there.

That’s neither here nor there, though, and the real issue is that Oren seems to believe this is part of a successful strategy to court US and international Christians toward supporting Israel. Oren appears to be dramatically underestimating the amount of work it takes to manipulate the average person, informed by his story of a far-right Texas Congressman promising him unlimited funds for Iron Dome because he thinks Jesus wants those missiles.

This ignores the reality that a far-right Texas Congressman would probably through money at anything war-seeming, and Oren’s four year term as the Israeli ambassador to the US appears to have left him convinced of our extreme gullibility.

http://antiwar.com/blog/2015/07/22/where-would-jesus-settle/