Slouching Towards Jerusalem
Pentecostalism and the End Times
“The Australian government has become an apologist for Israeli war crimes and a wrecker of sacred international humanitarian law principles.”
Professor Ben Saul,
Challis Chair of International Law,
University of Sydney, 20141
Australian governments have staunchly supported Israel since our Doc Evatt succeeded in his United Nations campaign to partition Palestine and create the state of Israel, but unconditional support needs a rethink. The above statement from Australia's leading international law expert was a response to the Abbott government's challenge to international law over the illegality of Israeli settlements. Abbott took Australian solidarity up a notch or two, but now the Morrison government has reached undreamt-of extremes.
Rawan Arraf, principal lawyer for the Australian Centre for International Justice, says that this is “the most proIsraeli government that we have seen in Australian history.”
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Evidence came thick and fast, starting a few weeks after Morrison took office in August 2018, when he proclaimed that his government would now recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and that the Australian embassy would move there forthwith - blithely breaking 70 years of bipartisan agreement that Jerusalem's status should be left to final peace agreements.
There was a religious dimension behind the astonishing move, together with the more obvious political motives. According to Morrison's Pentecostal beliefs, God's law trumps mere human law, and the Bible says that Jerusalem must be restored to the Jews as a prelude to the millennium and the
Second Coming, when “the Jewish people would embrace Jesus as Israel's King- Messiah.”
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To quote US televangelist Jerry Falwell, “There's not going to be any real peace in the Middle East until the Lord Jesus sits down upon the throne of David in Jerusalem.”
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According to Morrison's Pentecostal beliefs, God's law trumps mere human law, and the Bible says that Jerusalem must be restored to the Jews as a prelude to the millennium and the Second Coming
The thrilling religious significance of Morrison's Jerusalem announcement, following a similar move by President Trump, would not have been wasted on fellow Pentecostals and other evangelicals. For good measure, Morrison also announced that Australia would vote against a motion for the Palestine Authority to chair a meeting of the Group of 77 - a group of developing nations affiliated to the UN.
In that vote, three out of 146 countries voted against: Australia, the USA and Israel. Only those failing to under
5 stand that Palestinians are the tools of Satan and obstacles to God's plan will see this move as petty.
We ended up in a minority of two at the UN Human Rights Council last June, opposing three motions condemning Israel's expansions
Morrison wanted Australia to join two other countries defying international law by moving their embassies to Jerusalem: Trump's American Embassy and that of Guatemala, a little country plagued by corruption and death squads.
Uproar and threats to Australian exports from Malaysia, Indonesia, the Arab League and Muslims everywhere, plus a delay in a free trade agreement with Indonesia, resulted in Morrison's humiliating about-face in December 2018. But in a residual gesture of defiance, Morrison promised to set up a “trade and defence” office in Jerusalem instead - he is currently pursuing a free trade agreement with Israel.
Now, with a cease fire holding and Gaza in ruins, the rest of the world - including the new Biden administration - is taking baby steps in support of Palestinian rights. But Australia under Morrison goes firmly in the opposite direction. We ended up in a minority of two at the UN Human Rights Council last June, opposing three motions condemning Israel's expansions, calling for withdrawal to the 1967 boundaries, and for Palestinian rights to self-determination.
In this we were partnered only by the Marshall Islands, the tiny US client state with a population of 58,000. But a pugnacious Morrison boasted that while Australia in the past had timidly abstained from voting on resolutions
critical of Israel, that this would no longer be the case: “not any more and not on my watch.” We can look
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forward to further undermining of our international reputation.
Pentecostals consider the United Nations to be a tool of the devil, and it follows that Pentecostal pastors constantly protest at the UN “abuse” of Israel. Morrison toes the line, opining
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that sovereign nations need to oppose “unaccountable international bureaucracy,” and saying that “the UN General
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Assembly is now the place where Israel is bullied and where anti-semitism is cloaked in the language of human rights.”
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Barrister James O'neill points out that one of Australia's best-kept secrets has been our voting record at the UN on resolutions condemning military occupation and human rights abuses by Israel. We show an “unparalleled disregard, not only for the rights of the Palestinians but also fundamental principles of international law … Australia’s much vaunted support for the ‘rules-based international order’ is no more than empty rhetoric.”
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Distinguished human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, speaking on the ABC'S Q&A program, said that she is constantly embarrassed by such biased conduct. Australia is obliged under international law to give effect to all peoples' right to self-determination, and as she said, our government should recognise a State of Palestine if it does in fact support a two-state solution as Morrison unconvincingly proclaims.
Instead he attempted, at Israel's bidding, to prevent the International Criminal Court from investigating Israeli and Palestinian war crimes; another embarrassing failure.
Meanwhile during the recent conflict, a bevy of younger Democrats led by four non-white women, moved President Biden, a dyed-in-the wool supporter of Israel, to put pressure on the country. After at least four phone calls from Biden, Netanyahu cancelled plans for a triumphalist Jewish march through East Jerusalem, and postponed the evictions of Palestinian families from their homes there, while calling a
cease fire which still holds at the time of writing.
On 16 April, Democrat Betty Mccollum put forward a motion to stop spending tax payers' funds on weapons for Israel unless conditions for Palestinians are met, together with 13 co-sponsors in the House and support from over 100 NGOS.
Biden has reinstated funds to the Palestinian Authority and promises to help Gaza rebuild. There is no threat to Israel's security - quite the reverse - if we join the rest of the world in moves to support the rights of Palestinians.
If Australia under Morrison continues to undermine international law, we need to know why. I've been reading up on Morrison's belief system – a historian notes that “it is extraordinary how little Pentecostalism has been researched, given its global influence and growth.” It seems that
11 unconditional support for Israel is a central pillar of his faith.
Several commentators have looked at Pentecostal doctrine regarding items such as their Prosperity Gospel (God wants good people to be rich) or climate change (coal is God's gift to man, and global warming is God's plan for the end times). Not so much has been written on Pentecostal attitudes to Israel, or how far Morrison's beliefs account for an extreme bias.
Morrison will not expound on how his faith affects his decisions. He fobs off queries with vague answers like “the Bible is not a policy handbook,”
12 refusing to be more specific. Senior journalists like Katherine Murphy and Jacqueline Maley have been politely rebuffed in their efforts to interview Morrison and/or his Pentecostal Horizon Church on policy issues.
“Understanding Morrison's faith is most definitely in the public interest because faith burns at the heart of the man,” wrote Murphy of a leader who regards himself as the “chosen bearer of God's mandate.” Although
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Morrison invited the media to film him and wife Jenny engaging in ecstatic worship, and has told journalist and presenter Julia Baird that his faith “informs his worldview,” this is as far
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as he goes.
Author James Boyce comments that “Morrison has told the Australian public almost nothing about what his heartfelt beliefs actually are,” adding that Pentecostal gatherings “share a perspective on Christian life that is largely alien to the Western tradition.”
Pentecostals have a tradition of being ‘seeker-friendly' when it comes to curious outsiders and potential recruits, showing off joyful forms of worship and
good fellowship while the darker beliefs in Satan, endtimes and damnation for depraved non-believers are not advertised.
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As things stand, observers are left to flail around trying to match up current policy decisions with Pentecostal doctrine, keeping in mind that Cabinet contains not one but two Pentecostals – the other being Morrison's equally committed “Brother Stuie”, Stuart Robert, now Minister for Employment
– from a sect that represents only 1.1% of the Australian population.
The President of the Rationalist Society protests that “We have a right to know what ideas guide the actions and decision-making of those who stand for public office…far too often religious views are deemed off-limits.”
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Remaining off-limits is convenient, because some Pentecostal views will seem not only bizarre but downright dangerous to many.
Before being elected PM, Kevin Rudd laid out the ways in which his faith might influence decisions. His challenge to Morrison to do likewise remains unanswered, but Gerard Henderson of the Sydney Institute states that Morrison has not breached the division between church and state, and that “Kevin Rudd could not provide one example of how Morrison has endangered Australian democracy.” However it can be argued that he has endangered Palestinian and Israeli lives, and Australian interests and reputation by taking a leading role in an international campaign to defy international law and kill any lingering hope of a settlement, perhaps because of the belief that “the Arab-israeli conflict would only cease in the millennium.”
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From the beginnings of the Pentecostal movement in the 1920s, under the influence of evangelical allies, support for the “restoration of Israel” became a major focus. Morrison's
CABINET CONTAINS NOT ONE BUT TWO PENTECOSTALS – THE OTHER BEING MORRISON’S EQUALLY COMMITTED “BROTHER STUIE”, STUART ROBERT, NOW MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT