Israel Has an Abortion Problem
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America has an abortion problem.
Israel has an abortion problem.
Israel is about to have a problem with America.
On Friday, June 24, 2022, The Supreme Court of the United States overturned a decades long precedent regarding abortion found in Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey. As a result of this decision, abortion rights are now for individual states to determine with many banning abortions either in part or in their entirety.
This monumental decision was the result of a decades long war waged by the American Evangelical Christian Church who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into this “holy war”.
Israel has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the world with termination for a pregnancy being allowed and even free in most cases. These laws were further relaxed on June 27th in response to the overturn of Roe. You can read more about Israeli abortion laws here: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/legal-terms-of-abortion-in-israel. This is not to say Israel has a perfect scenario regarding abortion, but rather to stand as a contrasting point.
When it comes to the Zionist project of Israel, the American Evangelical Christian Church is by far the majority of its supporters. The reasons for this are many, with some reasons being more terrifying than others. So what will happen now?
The majority of Evangelical Christians who identify as Zionist will point to prophecies found in the Christian Bible about the Jews returning to their land as their reason to support Zionism and Israel. Some of these prophecies include events such as Jesus returning to Earth after all the Jews have returned to Israel, and the subsequent destruction of every non-Christian.
After realizing this, it does not take a very large mental leap to realize that a majority of Zionists are not Zionists because they believe in Jewish self-determination, but rather because we are a means to the end of their prophecy.
So what will happen now that American Evangelicals have succeeded in removing protections for abortion for American women. They will have to grapple with the disparity found in their support for Israel.
Before any Jew suggests that we bow to their power- it will not save you. They will not spare you from their campaign of Christian nationalism because you agree with them on Israel.
I am writing as a young, Jewish American woman of childbearing age. I no longer have access to abortion care in the United States. I have already begun an aliyah application to move to Israel. But this will not fix the lack of access for countless American women, and it will not fix the pending schism between Israel and America due to the American Evangelical Christian Church.
We must fight to restore the right to abortion care in America via legislation in Congress. And we must prepare for a day where Israel will no longer receive support from America due to the removal of approval from the fundamentalist Evangelical United States.
So we must look to a near future where Israel will separate from the American Evangelical Christian Church. What must we do to prepare for this momentous day?
We must begin building new bridges of partnership and nurture the relationships we have already built. The future of Israel lies in the Middle East- and this will not be an easy path without American support. But it is worth doing.
We must no longer rely on lazy allyship with people who do not care if we lived or died. We must put in the hard and difficult work of building networks of support from those who are undecided about our endeavors. People who are not knowledgeable but are receptive to our message of a co-existive peace. Yet, we must take excessive care to not disparage well meaning Palestinian peace activists because not only will it discredit our message, but it will also hurt these activists who desire peace alongside us.
Israel will have a reckoning with American Evangelical Christian Church about abortion. And we must be prepared.
We are the New Zionist Journal by the New Zionist Congress. We believe that Zionism is a constantly morphing ideology and as an organization we are working to come alongside young Zionists to help them develop New Zionist rhetoric for a more mature Israel. The New Zionist Journal is a place for New Zionist theory to be shaped by our community.
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