ABSTRACT
There are distinctive tendencies in the attitudes of Christian Churches to the existence of the State of Israel. While the indigenous Christian community in Palestine, which has lived there since the early Christian centuries under a variety of political rulers, sees no special importance in the state, and is prominent in the opposition to Israeli occupation and oppression, some ninety million Christian Zionists world-wide see Zionism as the instrument of God promoting the gathering of Jews into Israel. In some such circles, anyone who opposes Zionism opposes God himself. The mainline Christian Churches in the West take an intermediate position, distinguishing between the return of the Jews and the creation of a state.
