Herbert Zweibon, Chairman of Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI), has turned to the Christian Evangelical community - numbering in the tens of millions in the US and considered to be one of US President George Bush's core constituencies - to institute a "Pray for Gaza Day."
Zweibon is asking churches across the United States to observe a day of prayer for Gaza's Jewish communities ahead of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to President Bush at the White House.
"It is their hope," Zweibon said of the Evangelical Christians, "to prevent the surrender of 21 Jewish communities in Gaza to the terrorists who are now in the area. In addition, all Bible-believing Christians and Jews recognize that a giveaway of the Holy Land is a violation of God's Covenant with the Jewish people. Joshua 13:1-3 and Judges 1:18 are cited as specifically naming Gaza as part of the biblical entitlement."
"There are also historic, strategic and moral reasons for holding onto Gaza," AFSI's Chairman Zweibon continued. "The 1967 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff report, which has never been revised, declared Gaza a strategic requirement for Israel's defense. President Bush's March 19 assertion that 'Any sign of weakness or retreat simply validates terrorist violence and invites more violence for all nations' would be negated if Israel would withdraw from Gaza. America's war on terror in Iraq would become more difficult and dangerous as we discover that terrorists by any name are all the same. This is borne out in the words of Moqtada Al-Sadr, who told his followers: 'I am the striking arm for Hizbullah and Hamas in Iraq because the fate of Iraq and Palestine is the same.'"
Quoting leading Evangelist Pat Robertson's plea to Israelis at the Herzliya Conference last December, Zweibon said, "Please don't commit national suicide... The slogan 'land for peace' is a cruel chimera. The Sinai was given up. Did that bring lasting peace? No. Southern Lebanon was given up. Did that bring lasting peace? No. The world's Christians ask that you do not give away the treasured symbols of your spiritual patrimony... Those political leaders who... dismiss the spiritual dimension of Israel's existence will find that they receive the mess of pottage of Esau rather than the inheritance of Jacob."
Zweibon is asking churches across the United States to observe a day of prayer for Gaza's Jewish communities ahead of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to President Bush at the White House.
"It is their hope," Zweibon said of the Evangelical Christians, "to prevent the surrender of 21 Jewish communities in Gaza to the terrorists who are now in the area. In addition, all Bible-believing Christians and Jews recognize that a giveaway of the Holy Land is a violation of God's Covenant with the Jewish people. Joshua 13:1-3 and Judges 1:18 are cited as specifically naming Gaza as part of the biblical entitlement."
"There are also historic, strategic and moral reasons for holding onto Gaza," AFSI's Chairman Zweibon continued. "The 1967 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff report, which has never been revised, declared Gaza a strategic requirement for Israel's defense. President Bush's March 19 assertion that 'Any sign of weakness or retreat simply validates terrorist violence and invites more violence for all nations' would be negated if Israel would withdraw from Gaza. America's war on terror in Iraq would become more difficult and dangerous as we discover that terrorists by any name are all the same. This is borne out in the words of Moqtada Al-Sadr, who told his followers: 'I am the striking arm for Hizbullah and Hamas in Iraq because the fate of Iraq and Palestine is the same.'"
Quoting leading Evangelist Pat Robertson's plea to Israelis at the Herzliya Conference last December, Zweibon said, "Please don't commit national suicide... The slogan 'land for peace' is a cruel chimera. The Sinai was given up. Did that bring lasting peace? No. Southern Lebanon was given up. Did that bring lasting peace? No. The world's Christians ask that you do not give away the treasured symbols of your spiritual patrimony... Those political leaders who... dismiss the spiritual dimension of Israel's existence will find that they receive the mess of pottage of Esau rather than the inheritance of Jacob."