The Evangelical's Mindset: The "Virtuous Jews" versus The "Evil Arabs"

[Agnapostate]

I've concluded that the consistent evangelical Christian, while perhaps not stooping to judgments about individual Jews and Arabs, is likely to have the "virtuous Jews versus evil Arabs" perception in his mind because of the Old Testament's depiction of the Jews as God's chosen people as opposed to the Angel of the LORD's prediction to Hagar that Ishmael, father of the Arab nations, "shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man, And every man's hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren." Combined with the fact that the majority of Arabs have adopted Islam, a religion regarded as a perversion of the Judeo-Christian monotheistic tradition by the large majority of evangelicals, some bias is likely to exist, I suspect, which obviously complicates the standard evangelical perception of the Israel-Palestine conflict. What are your thoughts?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I think this should be in 'Discrimination', 'Religion' or 'Chit Chat'.

[TC]

Me too : moved!

[Agnapostate]

I would have gone for religion right away if it weren't an OI forum. I know there's plenty of non-oppositional content there but it tends to send the wrong impression. :\

[Richard Nixon]

I'd be inclined to say yes but it's partially based on recent events.

[Il Medico]

Most definitely. Though the bias has hugely increased since 9/11 and Middle Easterners becoming the new national enemy (In the USA). It's absolutely disgusting.

[9]

I tend to be of the opinion that "the Evangelical's Mindset" is largely dictated by the interests of the capitalist class - certainly in America. Many Christian fundamentalists view the State of Israel exactly the way the capitalist class views it:extremely valuable land that needs titanic military capacity to ensure that it remains safely in the hands of allies. So the only discrepancy that (rather superficially) exists between the two groups (capitalist class versus Christian fundamentalists) in this regard lies with the reason each views Israel as "extremely valuable land".
The capitalist class considers it "extremely valuable land" due largely to its geographical significance (the link between the Mid East/Asia and Africa) which will allow for far greater leverage in exploiting the resource-laden portions of those regions from the perspective (quite correctly) of Western imperialism. Conversely, the Christian fundamentalists view the stolen land as "extremely valuable" for religious reasons, namely that the second coming of Jesus will occur somewhere in (I can't remember the specific location) Israel.
Seeing as many of the most influential Christian fundamentalists in the US belong to the capitalist class, and considering the voluminous history of religion being used as a tool to justify the occupation/expropriation of land from its indigenous inhabitants (in addition to innumerable other crimes), the fact that these two (relatively overlapping) "groups" have identical interests hardly strikes me as a coincidence. So essentially, it seems to me that the "Virtuous Jews" versus "Evil Arabs" mindset of Evangelical Christians is merely a manifestation of the interests of the capitalist class reflected in the form of popular religious dogma to better secure mass acceptance of and support for the agenda of the capitalist class.