By Walid Shoebat

Jesus At The Check Point is a “Christian” organization with a “liberal socialist” twist and will soon be speaking at a church near you.

They are touring in order to muster support for “Christian Persecution”, or so they claim:

Their motto is “none-violent resistance against the Israeli Zionist occupation”. “Zionism is the obstacle to peace”, they write; and they want to “educate evangelical Christians” to “understand the Bible from a Palestinian Christian perspective” which openly supports a “divided state” as the solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The main dynamo and sponsoring agent of these tours is the Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem Israel. In its Second International Conference, led by the Palestinian Awad family, which includes Sami Awad, Bishara Awad and Alex Awad. They claim to be evangelical Baptists and have been able to appeal to some influential figures. They pitched several American evangelicals for recruitment [1] and were successful in getting many of those evangelical leaders to bring them into American churches.

However, what many in the west do not know is that this group has nothing to do with being Baptists or are even involved in any way shape or form with Christian persecution. There is no mention whatsoever by this group of any persecution by Islamists against Christians in the Middle East. The persecution against Christians, they say, emanates from the Jewish presence in all of biblical Judea. That Jewish presence, they claim, is responsible for the confiscation of Arab lands.

According to them, it’s the Zionists – not Hamas – that persecute Christians. These ‘Christian’ Palestinians actually promote Hamas’s legitimacy and fully support terrorism, but not as their tactic. To them, terrorism is legitimate as a tactic for other Palestinian groups so long as these are resisting what they term as “Israeli occupation”.

We captured their TV interview before the evidence was removed (which we obtained a copy) after contacting the mega church pastor Wayne Cordeiro of Foursquare Gospel Church in Honolulu Hawaii. Seven years ago, Cordeiro invited [2] this group and was persuaded to call Israel “an occupation”.

Here is Part I:

The type of peacemaking advocated by Awad and Cordeiro is also typical of the emergent church. They each expect Christians to confess the sins of their fathers without exposing the other side; such people and movements lament the crusaders’ persecution of Muslims and ask Christians to humble themselves to Muslims, seeking their forgiveness. When will Christia churches finally demand that Muslims confess their sins of deceit? – The Case FOR Islamophobia, p. 190

Part II (Watch Awad’s false prediction in 2006 – ‘Hamas will change’):

While Alex Awad says that he “does not support Hamas”, this declaration has a line of fine print; he insisted evangelicals need to accept the reality that Hamas is the “legitimate representation of the Palestinian people”.

Cordeiro shockingly concurred:

“We need to give them [Hamas] a chance.” – Part II above

Our Arabic sources show that besides supporting Hamas, this group supports The Popular Front to Liberate Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist group. Despite this, both organizations are declared illegal by the United States (see here and here).

The history of this fiery Palestinian brand of Christianity is not new; it was an invention by Palestinian socialist revolutionaries from decades ago, which arose to recruit Christians to join the ranks of socialists, communists and even terror groups like the PFLP. To understand this brand of theology, we secured a dissertation for graduation approved by the Bethlehem Bible College written by Yousef Ijha (photo of Awad and Ijha can be seen here), entitled Study on Christian Zionism which stated:

“Herzl established the first Zionist Congress in 1897, and succeeded in gathering the Jews of the world around him including the shrewdest of Jews to issue forth the most dangerous plan in the history of the world The Protocols of the Elders of Zion derived from sacred Jewish teaching”.

While such extreme views were being espoused and given credence, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was proven to be a fraudulent document by the best of historians.

True to the socialist theology taught by the Awads, Ijha became a prominent figure who organized for the communist leftist group, World Federation of Democratic Youth, an anti-American group that has branches in the Middle East and North Africa. While he was a student of Awad, Ijha publicly proclaimed his allegiance to the PFLP terrorist organization while honoring the famous terrorist Ahmad Saadat the Secretary General of the PFLP terror group:

“All greetings to our comrade the General Council of Ahmad Saadat of the PFLP…and a red greeting drenched in the blood of the martyrs.”

Currently Sadaat is in Israeli custody for his involvement in murder of former Minister Rehavam Ze’evi.

Indeed, the Awads will concur with their recruits; on May 2008 Alex Awad attended an Islamic terror supporting conferences hosted in Jakarta, Indonesia. Among the speakers at this event was Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini’s daughter, Zahra Mostafavi, who has previously urged children to become suicide bombers. Also included were representatives from Hamas and Hezbollah, which he tried to whitewash.

This group expresses through essays and various news outlets how they abhor evangelicals’ understanding of biblical prophecy regarding Israel. Yet, they themselves are not devoid of prophetic proclamations. In 2006, during Alex’s appearance on Cordeiro’s show, predicted that within three to four months Hamas would morph into a spotless leopard. Reality today is that Hamas is gaining momentum after the Arab Spring and is adding more spots. Hamas reinstated Islamic laws, including the:

“…prohibition of arms for the vanquished non-Muslims; the prohibition of church bells; and restrictions concerning the building and restoration of churches.”

The main deception used to convince the naive to join the ranks of the enemy is first to convince evangelicals that what counts is the Gospel and nothing more. While it’s true that this is the first priority for evangelicals, the Bible to them does not consist of a booklet with the Four Spiritual Laws; it is not devoid of Ten Commandments, plight, land and destiny either. Evangelicals need to beware; Christian Palestinianism is designed to eradicate the Jewish presence and not aid persecuted Christians.