Christian lobby leader rallies Israel supporters in NW

By Deborah Moon

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“It’s time to look beyond the two-state vision and the roadmap, which have clearly failed, and think how can we ensure Israel’s security and really do something to help the Palestinian Arabs to get out of refugee camps,” said Richard Hellman, president of Christian’s Israel Public Action Campaign.

Hellman was in the Portland area at the end of March to lead a regional meeting “to encourage Christians, and Jews, to be strongly supportive of Israel at this difficult time in Israel’s history and at this transitional time in American politics.”

Hosted by Destiny Ministries International Church, the March 29 meeting was held at the Phoenix Inn in Vancouver, Wash. Hellman visited with the Jewish Review two days earlier.

After serving as chief counsol for Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), Hellman spent seven years in Israel helping write environmental laws and policies and representing Israel at international environmental conferences. He and his family lived in Israel from 1976 to 1983.

“I came back (to the United States) with this vision of recruiting and mobilizing American Christians and others interested in Israel to understand the peril and plight of Israel surrounded by enemy nations sworn to Israel’s destruction,” said Hellman.

In 1984, he joined the board of Americans for a Safe Israel and later started CIPAC, a registered Christian lobby for support of Israel and U.S.-Israel relations.

“I knew we had to mobilize American Christians and Jews unaware of the peril to Israel to have an impact on the House and Senate,” he said.

Hellman said supporting a secure Israel includes giving the Palestinian people real hope for a better future. He said the U.N. Relief and Works Agency has wasted billions of dollars keeping Palestinian refugees and their descendents in refugee camps.

“It’s time to do better and help them be resettled where they are and stop penning them in camps,” he said, adding Arab countries should be encouraged to absorb “their brethren.”

“Some will probably come to Palestinian areas (of Israel), but no way 3 to 5 million will come to Israel,” he said.

Hellman said that 100 million Americans believe God gave Israel to the Jewish people and one-third of Americans believe Israel is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

“Not to express hate to Palestinians, but their self-government should stop a little short of a full-fledged state, short of an army…” he said.

Among recent lobbying efforts where CIPAC has taken a leading role was the effort to have Iranian President Ahmadinejad charged with incitement to genocide. Hellman said CIPAC was the principle advocacy group supporting HCR21, which calls on the U.N. Security Council to charge Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The bill has stalled in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Hellman said CIPAC is renewing efforts on the bill.

Information on that effort, as well as CIPAC’s effort to encourage President Bush to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, can be viewed on the group’s Web site at cipaconline.org.

“If Bush wants to be a man of courage and keep his word, when he is in Israel in May he could say our embassy is now in Jerusalem,” said Hellman, noting that when he was campaigning for the presidency Bush said he would move the embassy to Jerusalem as a first order of business.

“It seems like a small thing, but I believe this is a critical issue in terms of respect for Israel and would be applauded by virtually all Americans,” said Hellman. “This is the capital of Israel and we must respect Israel’s choice. We have never so disrespected any other country…In the heart of the Cold War, we had our embassy in East Berlin.”

AFSI works closely with CIPAC, said Inez Weissman, chair of the Oregon chapter of AFSI.

“National AFSI works very closely with Dick on a political level, which is Dick’s strength,” said Weissman, who accompanied Hellman on his visit to the Review.

“We share the same view that that land was given to the Jewish people by God,” she said. “It’s not mine to give away.”

Weissman said she clearly remembers when Israel was voted into existence.

“I never dreamed we would be confronting what we are confronting today,” she said. “We are depending on the evangelical Christians to stand up and say ‘Never again.’ I think they are going to do it.”