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October 8, 2004/Tishri 23 5765, Vol. 57, No. 6
Evangelicals give support for Israel
DINA KRAFT
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - "I Stand by Israel" reads Christel Diek-mann's T-shirt as Star of David earrings dangle above her shoulders.
On her 34th pilgrimage to Israel, she is one of more than 4,000 evangelical Christians from across the globe that has gathered here to pledge their unconditional support for the Jewish state.
"If I believe in the Bible, I have to help Israel," said Diekmann, 51, who runs a Jewish-Christian outreach organization in Oberursel, Germany.
Dismissing any skepticism about the unflinching support for Israel offered by the evangelists, American tele-vision evangelist Pat Roberts-on, who has spoken out vehemently against Palestin-ian statehood and militant Islam, said, "I'm one of the best friends you've ever had."
Israel's minister of Diaspora affairs, Natan Sharanksy, who spoke to and was honored by the visiting pilgrims, told JTA that the evangelical Christians are good for the Jewish people.
"First of all, they are friends and secondly they are very important allies," he said in a phone interview, adding that the evangelicals have "moral clarity" about the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Sharansky noted that the evangelicals' theology about the Messiah is different from that of the Jews, but said that it did not matter for now, noting it could be a long time until the Messiah comes.
The Christians gathered in Israel this week to celebrate the Sukkot holiday in what they call their annual Feast of the Tabernacles, a festival they say was traditionally a time for non-Jews to celebrate along with Jews during the period of the ancient Temples.
The festival was organized by the International Christian Embassy, whose officials dubbed the event "the largest solidarity mission to Israel this year."
The Christian Embassy was founded 25 years ago, Parsons said, "to minister comfort to the Jewish people" and to show Jews that there are those who were dismayed by the history of Christian anti-Semitism and wanted to stand with Israel and its right to exist.
According to Parsons, with its representatives in 80 countries, the International Christian Embassy is probably the world's largest Christian Zionist organization.
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