Why I’m Not A Christian Zionist
December 15, 2020
By Thomas Getman
At the time of the “1967 War” my wife and I lived in Philadelphia. I was a youth worker and Karen was a senior at Temple University where there was a large Jewish student population. We were ill informed about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and could have been labeled I suppose as inadvertent Zionists because of childhood Sunday School flannelgraph lessons, and as a student at a Christian college myself where no one questioned that assumption. In our young adult years relationships with Jewish friends, and faithful Presbyterian church membership with pastors and congregants who celebrated Israel’s claiming the mantle as “God’s chosen people,” allowed us the comfort of ignorance. We rejoiced with the 1967 street victory celebrations not thinking to object to the banners and shouts “kill the Arabs”. We had devoured without question the misinformation in the best-selling novel The Exodus by Leon Uris about the founding of the State of Israel.
Between the late 1960s and 10 years later when I joined the staff of progressive Republican anti-war Senator Mark O. Hatfield (1976-85) I do not remember ever paying enough attention or having someone call my assumptions into question. But one of the country issues assigned to me was tragic South Africa and its severe and deadly apartheid oppression of the black and so called “colored” majority population. It soon dawned on me that the only ally in the world for the South African government was Israel. They were labeled by the US government and others as the “polecat countries”. I discovered they were military allies and security partners against their oppressed citizens. When I served on the drafting team for the anti-apartheid legislation and travelled in South Africa to interview both representatives of the oppressed and the oppressors, South Africa and Israel were mentioned in the same breath.
When it became necessary in conscience to move from general words of opposition to concrete action, I was held accountable in 1989 by none other than the iconic Archbishop liberation stalwart Desmond Tutu. I was at a beach “liberation” on Afrikaaner-owned False Bay community near Cape Town. Two American friends and I joined several thousand mostly students from many different racial backgrounds to remove the “Whites Only” signs while singing “Wade in the Water” to integrate the last segregated beach in South Africa. As we departed with the jubilant crowd, the Archbishop stopped his car to say, “Thank you for your presence, the years of solidarity, the financial, spiritual and legislative support…. but we are now on our feet and Madiba (Mandela) will soon be out of prison. If you, Tom, want to prove your bona fides in terms of human rights, turn your eyes to the Palestinians…You are dismissed from here”! Needless to say, my eyes were opened and my heart set alight!
When Senator Hatfield was not certain to run for re-election I was asked to open World Vision’s government relations office… One of my responsibilities was to support with visits and lobbying the work of our staff in Israel and Palestine. When the country director position there opened, I was appointed and led a staff of mostly Palestinian relief and development professionals. I appreciated the work of Jewish human rights organizations who sought to inform Christian Zionists of the dangers of the heresy that equates biblical Israel with present political state and limits the children of Abraham to Jews only. I have come to appreciate profoundly if all people are not liberated no one of us is free.
Getman served as an aide to the late Sen. Mark Hatfield. He then held a number of executive roles for World Vision, including director for international relations in Geneva, where he liaised with various United Nations groups and the World Council of Churches. From 1997 to 2001, he was director of World Vision’s programs in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. He also served on the board of the U.N. Deputy Secretary for Emergency Relief as the chair of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies. He retired from World Vision in 2009. His views are his own.