Palin’s Israel position must be seen in true perspective

The JTA article, about Sarah Palin, which appeared in the Nov. 26 edition of The Jewish Chronicle (“Palin joins other GOP prospects in slamming Obama on Israel”), failed to acknowledge significant details about Palin’s statement on the West Bank settlements.
Given her ties with a distinct religious movement, it is logical to question if Palin was referring to her beliefs about the end times when she told Barbara Walters that “more and more Jews will be flocking to Israel.”
I am a researcher who has spent almost seven years specializing in the end times narratives of Christian Zionists. There are significant variations in these prophecy narratives, but a consistent prerequisite to the prophesied Millennium, or 1000-year utopia, is the regathering of all Jews in a “greater Israel.” These accounts include the belief that “fishers and hunters” are required to force Jews to fulfill this prophecy, with the fishers being described as Christian Zionists who entice Jews to move to Israel, and the hunters as those who will violently force the remaining Jews to flee their home nations.
This was the topic of John Hagee’s now infamous sermon quote about Hitler as a hunter sent by G-d, although the significance of the rest of this 2005 sermon series was not publicized.
Sarah Palin has close ties to a movement that is sweeping through many charismatic churches and which holds very distinctive end of times beliefs. It is called the “New Apostolic Reformation” or simply “Apostolic and Prophetic,” and teaches that in preparation for the end time, these churches must become unified under the authority of the movement’s apostles and prophets. They reject the idea of being raptured (taken from the earth before the horrors of the end times) and believe that they will remain on earth during the Tribulation to fight evil themselves. Due to their end times theology they support Messianic ministries and aggressive proselytizing in Israel. New Apostolics now lead many Christian Zionist ministries.
Shoresh David in Monroeville is under the apostolic authority of Messianic apostle Dan Juster. Juster and his colleagues have an international network of Messianic seminaries, training, and proselytizing that makes Jews for Jesus look insignificant.
Apostle Mary Glazier, a national leader credited with building the movement’s spiritual warfare network in Alaska, told a New Apostolic conference audience in June 2008 that Palin had joined her network as a 24-year-old. The editor of Charisma, a leading charismatic magazine published by an apostle, confirmed Palin’s relationship with Glazier to New York Times writer Laurie Goldstein, who reported this in a Oct. 25, 2008, article. After the election Charisma confirmed Palin and Glazier’s continued relationship. Throughout the campaign the networks of the movement disseminated prophecy statements about Palin, and in an interview with James Dobson she thanked her “prayer warriors across the nation.”
Palin’s church of over 20 years, Wasilla Assembly of God, is led by a pastor who is dedicated to the movement’s ideology, and the church has been a gathering spot for national leaders of the New Apostolic movement for years. Palin was “anointed” in a ceremony at Wasilla Assembly of God by Kenyan Thomas Muthee in 2005, prior to her campaign for state office. Muthee had been featured in a series of movies titled “The Transformations,” produced by the movement to teach spiritual warfare as a way to take Christian “dominion” over government and society. In the ceremony Muthee talked about the seven spheres of society over which the New Apostolics believe they must take control. This ideology is taught through the “Reclaiming the Seven Mountains of Culture” campaign, which promotes the end of separation of church and state and religious pluralism.
Palin returned to Wasilla Assembly of God June 8, 2008, to give the speech at a graduation of Master’s Commission students, a ceremony in which the senior pastor of spoke openly about Alaska as a refuge state in the end times and which culminated in the presentation of swords to the graduating students.
This is just a small fraction of the information that our research team gathered on Palin’s relationship with the New Apostolic Reformation, some of which can be seen in a special focus section at Talk2action.org. We need to be aware that Palin’s statement may have been more indicative of her end times beliefs than her politics, and that the mixing of the two is very dangerous for Israel and Jews worldwide.

(Rachel Tabachnick, who is not related to Chronicle staff writer Toby Tabachnick, is a full-time researcher on Christian Zionism and part of the research team that produced the video on John Hagee that was widely broadcast in May 2008 and resulted in U.S. Sen. John McCain’s rejection of Hagee’s endorsement of his presidential bid.)