VICE (2013) s02e05 Episode Script
Terrorist University & Armageddon Now
[Explosion.]
SHANE SMITH: This week on "Vice," we follow in the footsteps of the Boston bomber in Dagestan.
NARRATOR: Then, it's the end of times.
MAN: The Lord himself will descend from heaven, and we are going to crown Jesus Christ King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Don't point that camera, eh? [Shouts.]
[Cheering.]
MAN: Oh! THOMAS MORTON: Can America get on the right side of Armageddon by supporting Israel? We're gonna talk to some of the people that were here about the secret war that's going on in Dagestan.
[Explosion.]
The tiny Russian republic of Dagestan has been in the news a lot lately.
Many in America first heard of it when it became known that one of the alleged Boston bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, spent 6 months there before returning to America to carry out this terrible crime.
[Explosion.]
[Siren.]
More recently, Dagestani terrorists attacked Russia in a series of suicide bombings.
Now, these same extremists also vowed to disrupt the Winter Olympics in nearby Sochi, causing international concerns over Russian security surrounding the global event and a harsh response from President Putin.
SMITH: Now, in order to understand why so many suicide bombers are coming out of this tiny republic and to see firsthand what Tamerlan Tsarnaev went through during his time there, we traveled to Dagestan to follow in his footsteps.
Our first stop upon arriving in Makhachkala, Dagestan's capital city, was to meet one of Tamerlan's Dagestani connections who also served as kind of an unofficial religious mentor to him to explain to us exactly what he experienced during his time here.
Now, due to the intense international scrutiny of the bomber's actions while in Dagestan, he would only speak to us if we agreed to conceal his identity.
I know that Tamerlan Tsarnaev came here for 6 months, about 6 months, in 2012.
What do you think he learned here? SMITH: So the FBI or the CIA came here and wanted to ask you questions, or asked you questions.
Why do you think that is? SMITH: Now, when he mentions-- quote, unquote--"the forest" in the questions that the FBI asked him, what he's referring to is "going to the forest," which is the local term for joining the Islamist insurgency in Dagestan.
It refers to young people disappearing into the republic's remote mountainous region to join the militants and begin their indoctrination into Islamic jihad [Explosion.]
[Sirens.]
which, despite its dire consequences, more and more Dagestani youth are doing every year.
[Flies buzzing.]
SMITH: One thing I didn't understand is that if joining the insurgency is a one-way ticket-- i.
e.
, you join, and then you die-- then, despite that fact, why is the insurgency still so popular amongst young people? SMITH: In an effort to understand all of this a bit better, we met with a local imam whose students have been targeted by the authorities as insurgents and whose mosque, we were told, Tamerlan attended.
Do you think that the People of the Book, like Christians and Jews, or secular people should convert to Islam and the world should be under Sharia? SMITH: So, just to be clear, what he is saying here is that, "A," not only in the world convert to Islam, but that, "B," they should all be under Sharia law.
SMITH: Not surprisingly because of messages like this, the security forces have targeted the imam's followers.
Are young men who come to this mosque being taken away by the Special Forces and being detained? Because young people are being taken away from their homes, there's a lot of anger with the young people, and they're joining the rebels.
Is this happening here? SMITH: Police abductions and torture of suspected militants are everyday occurrences here.
There are countless stories of young men around Tamerlan's age being kidnapped, tortured, and, in many cases, murdered.
One such young man is Sokhrab Abakar, a 23-year-old taxi driver from Makhachkala.
We're here at a house with a family who's showing me pictures of their son, and I was wondering maybe if you could tell me the story of what happened to your son.
SMITH: After their son's disappearance, the family was given cell phone footage from the sympathizer that clearly shows their son's abduction in the plain light of day.
Can you tell me what's happening in this-- Right.
[Car horn honks.]
So they've taken him from his car and put him in this car.
SMITH: So they don't admit that they've taken him.
SMITH: And because there's no law and the police are acting like this, are a lot of young people getting angrier? [Explosion.]
SMITH: Because of the extreme police tactics used in fighting the insurgents-- such as kidnapping, torture, and murder-- they've become the focus of almost constant attacks by the militants.
[Machine gun fire.]
This building is a government building that they had a car bomb come and attack.
They had a little, tiny bomb so that the police would gather around it, then a big car bomb go off.
[Explosion.]
[People screaming.]
So we're gonna talk to some of the people that were here, some of the ex-policemen, about why there are so many bombings, about why police are the targets, about the secret war that's going on in Dagestan that's now bleeding out into Russia, bleeding out into Syria, and bleeding out into America to the Boston bombers.
Magomed Shamilov is a retired senior police officer who was fired when he fought against corruption within the police force.
Why are the militants so angry at the police? Why are they targeting the police? So you're a policeman, an ex-policeman, saying that the police corruption and the police terror tactics are leading to further radicalization within the rebels.
SMITH: So the local police force being corrupt has led to a continuing cycle of violence in Dagestan [Radio chatter.]
[Machine gun fire.]
but what ramps up the insurgency even more are the tactics used by the Russian Special Forces, or Spetsnaz, whose hyperviolent antiterrorist techniques have led to even more and more anger from the people, which, in turn, leads to more Dagestani youth going to the forest.
Now, we wanted to talk to somebody from the Special Forces, but, obviously, if you talk to them, they become a target of the insurgents.
So we're talking to one who just left the Spetsnaz.
He still has two brothers in the Spetsnaz.
So we have to be very careful.
We're not gonna show his face.
He would only speak to us on the condition of anonymity.
We're here on the outskirts of town.
We're gonna go see what happens within the Spetsnaz.
Can you tell us your rank and your duties when you were in the Spetsnaz? Why do you think that there's so many terrorist attacks? There's a lot of them here in Dagestan.
SMITH: So we asked the commander to walk us through a recent Spetsnaz operation to clear an apartment of militants.
Da.
OK.
SMITH: The video we watched together was shocking.
The video shows an armed siege from November 2012.
A female insurgent named Zamira Tutusheva had been cornered in an apartment along with two other militants and her two young children.
In an effort to get her to surrender, the Spetsnaz got her father to plead with her to give herself up.
Zamira herself refuses to come out but is persuaded to give her two-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son to their grandfather before the attack begins.
So now that he's got the children out, I guess they've had a deal with the Spetsnaz because now they come in.
[Gunfire.]
How often do these kind of battles take place? SMITH: Her last phone calls were recorded by the Spetsnaz.
This one is of a friend of hers advising her to get killed rather than be taken alive.
[Gunfire.]
SMITH: So this woman was willing to have her children die, and she was willing to kill herself.
Why do you think the insurgents are so fanatical? [Explosion.]
[Explosion.]
SMITH: Now, videos like this one are ubiquitous in Dagestan and only serve to recruit more and more people into the insurgency because what you have here is a perfect storm.
On the one side, you have jihadists who have the goal of an Islamic state under Sharia law and on the other, a corrupt and hyperviolent security services that serve as the perfect opponent to the jihadis who train here, and since the fighting is so brutal and the stakes are played so high, the terrorist that come out of this region are at the core of the best planned and most deadly suicide attacks.
[Explosion.]
Oh! SMITH: Dagestan has become a kind of terrorist university that sends its graduates all over the world, including America, for it was in this environment that Tamerlan Tsarnaev lived for 6 months prior to the Boston bombing.
As long as this perfect storm of insurgency and counterinsurgency continues in Dagestan, terrorist just like Tamerlan will continue to be created here.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the focal point of geopolitical instability in the Middle East since the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Although the vast majority of the international community, the UN, and the United States publicly support a two-state solution to try and end this conflict, after decades of negotiation, a final settlement has never been reached, and tensions between the Jewish state and the Arab world continue to fester.
Throughout this process, America has remained firmly behind Israel as its greatest supporter.
In fact, Israel receives more U.
S.
foreign aid than any other country in the world.
Now, much of this support has been attributed to a strong, wealthy, and very pro-Israeli lobby in America, which is true, but you'd think that the majority of the strength behind this lobby would be the Jewish community in the U.
S.
, which is only partially correct because, as it turns out, in terms of sheer numbers, the evangelical Christians from America's Bible Belt make up the majority of this lobby's power base.
So we sent Thomas Morton to find out why a bunch of born-again Christians from Texas are so in love with the nation of Israel.
MAN: This may be the most important prophetic spot in the entire Bible because the final act of the Book of Revelation is going to begin right here at this place.
The Bible teaches that Russia, Iran, Ethiopia, Libya, Turkey, and other nations will come down under a UN flag, and they will invade Israel at this particular point.
Can you imagine thousands of tanks out here in this valley rumbling, fighting, firing? Can you imagine jet airplanes screaming overhead? The battle is going to be fierce.
MORTON: The horrific, multinational fighting this preacher is describing is the Battle of Armageddon, which is supposed to happen right here just as soon as Israel is a fully Jewish state, which is why a bunch of Christians in Texas have become the most fervent Zionists on God's green earth.
While most Americans probably think the pro-Israeli lobby is largely a Jewish thing, actually most of its support comes from right here in the Bible Belt, where evangelical Christians overwhelmingly believe that Israel has a right to exist because God said so.
Go to the phone right now and call that number and say, "Yes.
I'm gonna stand with Israel.
"I'm gonna bless the people of the Bible.
I'm gonna bless God's chosen people.
" Will those of you in this audience who support the state of Israel stand to your feet and give a shout of support? [Cheering and applause.]
MORTON: While a lot of Israel's financial support does come from Jewish wallets, there are close to 70 million evangelicalin America versus less than 14 million Jews worldwide, and, given that roughly 80% of these Christians support Israel, that makes American Christians the largest pro-Israeli voting block in the world, about 4 times the size of the Jewish community on Earth.
There's a lot of money behind the Christian Zionist movement.
This church behind me, Cornerstone, is one of the biggest supporters of Israel not just among Christians, but in the world.
The pastor here, John Hagee, has raised an estimated $70 millions over the course of his ministry.
Pastor Hagee also founded Christians United for Israel, or CUFI, which is the largest pro-Israel lobbying organization in America, even bigger than AIPAC, the organization most people assumed dominates the American Israel lobby because it's the biggest Jewish one.
What's dicey about CUFI is that a good deal of their money for Israel is spent on buildings and organizations in the Israeli settlements.
These are massive Jewish communities built well within Palestinian territory in violation of international law.
The settlements are run by some of the most fanatical Zionists who believe the Bible entitles them to their land and that ceding any of it back to the Palestinians would be a violation of God's law.
God gave them that land.
They own that land.
MORTON: While there's nothing wrong with Christians supporting Israel, the way these Christians have chosen to do so puts them firmly on one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one that's directly opposed to the U.
S.
government's official policy, and they're using their massive political power and money to oppose the peace plan John Kerry is currently trying to push through.
That's the two-state solution that would give the Palestinians the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the Israelis would get the rest, hopefully ending all the violence.
Evangelicals not only lobby Washington and send money to Israel to fight the two-state solution.
They also make up over 40% of American tourists in Israel every year with popular Holy Land pilgrimage tours.
Many of these tours actually have stops in the Israeli settlements which are used by the settlers to solicit donations for their cause.
We're in Qarne Shomron, Israeli settlement.
We're about to meet Sondra, who deals with Pastor Hagee in the United States.
She is not a Christian.
She's an Orthodox Jew, and right now, She's hosting a bunch of Christian Australians who are touring the settlement and, hopefully, coughing up the bills.
To make the settlements more relatable to their Christian friends, Sondra and her organization use the Palestinian territories' biblical names of Judea and Samaria.
It is for us, as people who believe in the Bible, to stand on the moral and spiritual right of the Jewish people to Judea and Samaria.
Amen? ALL: Amen.
Good.
MORTON: After Sondra's presentation, we reboarded the bus to see the settlement for ourselves.
BARAS: Come on, guys.
I want you to try to punch him in the stomach.
Let's give it a try.
[Laughter.]
Unfortunately, our Arab neighbors also have these kinds of guns.
You need to be protected with something like this.
MORTON: How important is Christian support specifically for the settlement? Christian support for the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria is critical because it's a very large group of people all over the world and we need to hear their voices, and--thank God-- they are raising their voices on this issue louder and louder every day.
MORTON: Another Christian Holy Land tour leader is evangelical pastor Irvin Baxter, whose Endtime Ministries takes its flock to Israel twice a year.
The focus of their tours is actually the real reason evangelicals overwhelmingly want the Jews to control all of Israel, which is the actual end times, as in Armageddon, because, according to their interpretation of the Bible, Jewish control of the Holy Land will lead directly to the second coming of Christ.
BAXTER: The word "Armageddon" is actually two words-- "har megiddo," or "hill of Megiddo.
" You are standing on the hill of Megiddo right now.
The final act of the Book of Revelation is going to begin right here at this place, and when Israel is about to be defeated, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ himself will intervene.
It says it this way.
The Lord himself will ascend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God.
He is going to defeat the antichrist.
He's going to defeat the false prophet.
Both of them will be cast alive into the lake of fire.
At that time, Satan is going to be bound for the next 1,000 years, and we are going to crown Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
[Applause.]
Real quickly, I will take time for a few questions.
BAXTER: Well, I can't tell you for sure if Maryland will still be there or not? MORTON: In addition to Armageddon, Pastor Baxter's Endtimes tour hits all the other local attractions associated with the apocalypse, including the most contested piece of real estate on the planet--Jerusalem, which houses some of the more sacred sites for Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike.
It's also were Jesus lands at the grand finale of the end times, which doesn't pan out so great for the Jews.
BAXTER: 2/3 of Israel will die.
It's Zechariah 13, I think-- maybe verse 7, 8, 9, right in that area-- that 2/3 will die.
through the fire, and that 1/3 will then turn to Messiah en masse when He comes back, and the scripture says that they will run out to Him, and when they bow to worship Him, Zechariah 13:6 says they're gonna notice He has got wounds in His feet and in His hand, and they're gonna say, "You're Jesus? "Oh, Messiah, we've been so stubborn.
"We've been so proud.
We've been so blind.
Could you ever forgive us?" and 2,000 years of blindness is gonna come peeling off the Jewish mind, and those of us that have been up, caught up in the rapture and come with Jesus here-- MORTON: Oh, because the Christians have been raptured out.
All who are born again will have been raptured.
When Jesus comes, we'll be called up to meet Him in the air, and then we will come with Him to the Mount of Olives, and so we're gonna be watching this whole panoramic thing unfold as the Jewish people turn to their Messiah.
We're gonna be converting people by the hundreds of thousands during this time.
It's gonna be the best of times and the worst of times.
MORTON: While the 2/3 of Jews who die are definitely getting the "worst of times" end of the stick, it's a little less clear how the rest of the world fares in the pastor's end-of-days scenario.
Can America get on the right side of Armageddon by supporting Israel? Americans can let their legislatures know, support Israel.
Right now under the present Obama administration, there seems to be a drift somewhat away from Israel, at least a determination to force Israel to do what America thinks it should do.
The only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.
BAXTER: The Jewish people should say, "Look.
This is our promised land.
"The Bible says we should not give it up.
"So we're not giving it up.
You have to respect our religion.
" MORTON: Aside from potentially derailing an otherwise pretty solid peace plan, Christian support for the Israeli settlements further makes life a pain in the ass for the Palestinians living nearby, which is exactly what's happening at Beit Jala, a Palestinian village on the outskirts of Bethlehem where Jesus was born.
Xavier Abu Eid is also Christian as well as an official in the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
We met him at a weekly outdoor Mass put on by the Catholic church as a form of protest against Israeli encroachment.
Two years ago, an Israeli court decided to build the wall here where we are.
So basically, all this valley that you see here, it's going to be on Israeli side of the wall.
[Speaks Arabic.]
Hello.
How are you? Hey, how are you? For example, he is one of the 58 landowners that are going to lose their land here and are 58 Palestinian Christian families that are going to lose their land here, and you're not talking about immigrants that came here.
No.
You're talking about indigenous population of this land.
We are standing now over a territory that no one in the world, not even the U.
S.
, recognizes as part of Israel.
I know a lot of evangelicals.
It's really big in America right now to support Israel because, they say, "Well, the Bible says Israel belongs to the Jews," and a lot of them also believe that once the Jews take over all of Israel, then they get to have Armageddon.
I read the Bible, and I never saw the Bible says that God is a real estate agent.
Those Christian Zionist organizations, they are not giving money, actually, to the state of Israel.
They are giving money to the most ideological settlers, and, of course, I don't think that's a very Christian act.
If I were a Palestinian Christian, I wouldn't involve myself in this conflict.
I'd stay out of it and say, "Look.
"I know what's coming.
"I'm gonna serve Jesus Christ.
"When He gets here, He'll straighten all this out.
" MORTON: While Baxter's advice for Christians on the ground is basically just to bunker down and get ready for the inevitable, he and his fellow Christian Zionists in America are working full tilt to make the end of days a reality and are using the voting strength of their followers to try and get Washington on their side and in a political conflict that's already been hijacked by religious zealots on both the Palestinian and Israeli side, adding millions of doomsday-ready American evangelicals to the table is like pouring gas on a fire in the most flammable region in the world.
SHANE SMITH: This week on "Vice," we follow in the footsteps of the Boston bomber in Dagestan.
NARRATOR: Then, it's the end of times.
MAN: The Lord himself will descend from heaven, and we are going to crown Jesus Christ King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Don't point that camera, eh? [Shouts.]
[Cheering.]
MAN: Oh! THOMAS MORTON: Can America get on the right side of Armageddon by supporting Israel? We're gonna talk to some of the people that were here about the secret war that's going on in Dagestan.
[Explosion.]
The tiny Russian republic of Dagestan has been in the news a lot lately.
Many in America first heard of it when it became known that one of the alleged Boston bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, spent 6 months there before returning to America to carry out this terrible crime.
[Explosion.]
[Siren.]
More recently, Dagestani terrorists attacked Russia in a series of suicide bombings.
Now, these same extremists also vowed to disrupt the Winter Olympics in nearby Sochi, causing international concerns over Russian security surrounding the global event and a harsh response from President Putin.
SMITH: Now, in order to understand why so many suicide bombers are coming out of this tiny republic and to see firsthand what Tamerlan Tsarnaev went through during his time there, we traveled to Dagestan to follow in his footsteps.
Our first stop upon arriving in Makhachkala, Dagestan's capital city, was to meet one of Tamerlan's Dagestani connections who also served as kind of an unofficial religious mentor to him to explain to us exactly what he experienced during his time here.
Now, due to the intense international scrutiny of the bomber's actions while in Dagestan, he would only speak to us if we agreed to conceal his identity.
I know that Tamerlan Tsarnaev came here for 6 months, about 6 months, in 2012.
What do you think he learned here? SMITH: So the FBI or the CIA came here and wanted to ask you questions, or asked you questions.
Why do you think that is? SMITH: Now, when he mentions-- quote, unquote--"the forest" in the questions that the FBI asked him, what he's referring to is "going to the forest," which is the local term for joining the Islamist insurgency in Dagestan.
It refers to young people disappearing into the republic's remote mountainous region to join the militants and begin their indoctrination into Islamic jihad [Explosion.]
[Sirens.]
which, despite its dire consequences, more and more Dagestani youth are doing every year.
[Flies buzzing.]
SMITH: One thing I didn't understand is that if joining the insurgency is a one-way ticket-- i.
e.
, you join, and then you die-- then, despite that fact, why is the insurgency still so popular amongst young people? SMITH: In an effort to understand all of this a bit better, we met with a local imam whose students have been targeted by the authorities as insurgents and whose mosque, we were told, Tamerlan attended.
Do you think that the People of the Book, like Christians and Jews, or secular people should convert to Islam and the world should be under Sharia? SMITH: So, just to be clear, what he is saying here is that, "A," not only in the world convert to Islam, but that, "B," they should all be under Sharia law.
SMITH: Not surprisingly because of messages like this, the security forces have targeted the imam's followers.
Are young men who come to this mosque being taken away by the Special Forces and being detained? Because young people are being taken away from their homes, there's a lot of anger with the young people, and they're joining the rebels.
Is this happening here? SMITH: Police abductions and torture of suspected militants are everyday occurrences here.
There are countless stories of young men around Tamerlan's age being kidnapped, tortured, and, in many cases, murdered.
One such young man is Sokhrab Abakar, a 23-year-old taxi driver from Makhachkala.
We're here at a house with a family who's showing me pictures of their son, and I was wondering maybe if you could tell me the story of what happened to your son.
SMITH: After their son's disappearance, the family was given cell phone footage from the sympathizer that clearly shows their son's abduction in the plain light of day.
Can you tell me what's happening in this-- Right.
[Car horn honks.]
So they've taken him from his car and put him in this car.
SMITH: So they don't admit that they've taken him.
SMITH: And because there's no law and the police are acting like this, are a lot of young people getting angrier? [Explosion.]
SMITH: Because of the extreme police tactics used in fighting the insurgents-- such as kidnapping, torture, and murder-- they've become the focus of almost constant attacks by the militants.
[Machine gun fire.]
This building is a government building that they had a car bomb come and attack.
They had a little, tiny bomb so that the police would gather around it, then a big car bomb go off.
[Explosion.]
[People screaming.]
So we're gonna talk to some of the people that were here, some of the ex-policemen, about why there are so many bombings, about why police are the targets, about the secret war that's going on in Dagestan that's now bleeding out into Russia, bleeding out into Syria, and bleeding out into America to the Boston bombers.
Magomed Shamilov is a retired senior police officer who was fired when he fought against corruption within the police force.
Why are the militants so angry at the police? Why are they targeting the police? So you're a policeman, an ex-policeman, saying that the police corruption and the police terror tactics are leading to further radicalization within the rebels.
SMITH: So the local police force being corrupt has led to a continuing cycle of violence in Dagestan [Radio chatter.]
[Machine gun fire.]
but what ramps up the insurgency even more are the tactics used by the Russian Special Forces, or Spetsnaz, whose hyperviolent antiterrorist techniques have led to even more and more anger from the people, which, in turn, leads to more Dagestani youth going to the forest.
Now, we wanted to talk to somebody from the Special Forces, but, obviously, if you talk to them, they become a target of the insurgents.
So we're talking to one who just left the Spetsnaz.
He still has two brothers in the Spetsnaz.
So we have to be very careful.
We're not gonna show his face.
He would only speak to us on the condition of anonymity.
We're here on the outskirts of town.
We're gonna go see what happens within the Spetsnaz.
Can you tell us your rank and your duties when you were in the Spetsnaz? Why do you think that there's so many terrorist attacks? There's a lot of them here in Dagestan.
SMITH: So we asked the commander to walk us through a recent Spetsnaz operation to clear an apartment of militants.
Da.
OK.
SMITH: The video we watched together was shocking.
The video shows an armed siege from November 2012.
A female insurgent named Zamira Tutusheva had been cornered in an apartment along with two other militants and her two young children.
In an effort to get her to surrender, the Spetsnaz got her father to plead with her to give herself up.
Zamira herself refuses to come out but is persuaded to give her two-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son to their grandfather before the attack begins.
So now that he's got the children out, I guess they've had a deal with the Spetsnaz because now they come in.
[Gunfire.]
How often do these kind of battles take place? SMITH: Her last phone calls were recorded by the Spetsnaz.
This one is of a friend of hers advising her to get killed rather than be taken alive.
[Gunfire.]
SMITH: So this woman was willing to have her children die, and she was willing to kill herself.
Why do you think the insurgents are so fanatical? [Explosion.]
[Explosion.]
SMITH: Now, videos like this one are ubiquitous in Dagestan and only serve to recruit more and more people into the insurgency because what you have here is a perfect storm.
On the one side, you have jihadists who have the goal of an Islamic state under Sharia law and on the other, a corrupt and hyperviolent security services that serve as the perfect opponent to the jihadis who train here, and since the fighting is so brutal and the stakes are played so high, the terrorist that come out of this region are at the core of the best planned and most deadly suicide attacks.
[Explosion.]
Oh! SMITH: Dagestan has become a kind of terrorist university that sends its graduates all over the world, including America, for it was in this environment that Tamerlan Tsarnaev lived for 6 months prior to the Boston bombing.
As long as this perfect storm of insurgency and counterinsurgency continues in Dagestan, terrorist just like Tamerlan will continue to be created here.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the focal point of geopolitical instability in the Middle East since the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Although the vast majority of the international community, the UN, and the United States publicly support a two-state solution to try and end this conflict, after decades of negotiation, a final settlement has never been reached, and tensions between the Jewish state and the Arab world continue to fester.
Throughout this process, America has remained firmly behind Israel as its greatest supporter.
In fact, Israel receives more U.
S.
foreign aid than any other country in the world.
Now, much of this support has been attributed to a strong, wealthy, and very pro-Israeli lobby in America, which is true, but you'd think that the majority of the strength behind this lobby would be the Jewish community in the U.
S.
, which is only partially correct because, as it turns out, in terms of sheer numbers, the evangelical Christians from America's Bible Belt make up the majority of this lobby's power base.
So we sent Thomas Morton to find out why a bunch of born-again Christians from Texas are so in love with the nation of Israel.
MAN: This may be the most important prophetic spot in the entire Bible because the final act of the Book of Revelation is going to begin right here at this place.
The Bible teaches that Russia, Iran, Ethiopia, Libya, Turkey, and other nations will come down under a UN flag, and they will invade Israel at this particular point.
Can you imagine thousands of tanks out here in this valley rumbling, fighting, firing? Can you imagine jet airplanes screaming overhead? The battle is going to be fierce.
MORTON: The horrific, multinational fighting this preacher is describing is the Battle of Armageddon, which is supposed to happen right here just as soon as Israel is a fully Jewish state, which is why a bunch of Christians in Texas have become the most fervent Zionists on God's green earth.
While most Americans probably think the pro-Israeli lobby is largely a Jewish thing, actually most of its support comes from right here in the Bible Belt, where evangelical Christians overwhelmingly believe that Israel has a right to exist because God said so.
Go to the phone right now and call that number and say, "Yes.
I'm gonna stand with Israel.
"I'm gonna bless the people of the Bible.
I'm gonna bless God's chosen people.
" Will those of you in this audience who support the state of Israel stand to your feet and give a shout of support? [Cheering and applause.]
MORTON: While a lot of Israel's financial support does come from Jewish wallets, there are close to 70 million evangelicalin America versus less than 14 million Jews worldwide, and, given that roughly 80% of these Christians support Israel, that makes American Christians the largest pro-Israeli voting block in the world, about 4 times the size of the Jewish community on Earth.
There's a lot of money behind the Christian Zionist movement.
This church behind me, Cornerstone, is one of the biggest supporters of Israel not just among Christians, but in the world.
The pastor here, John Hagee, has raised an estimated $70 millions over the course of his ministry.
Pastor Hagee also founded Christians United for Israel, or CUFI, which is the largest pro-Israel lobbying organization in America, even bigger than AIPAC, the organization most people assumed dominates the American Israel lobby because it's the biggest Jewish one.
What's dicey about CUFI is that a good deal of their money for Israel is spent on buildings and organizations in the Israeli settlements.
These are massive Jewish communities built well within Palestinian territory in violation of international law.
The settlements are run by some of the most fanatical Zionists who believe the Bible entitles them to their land and that ceding any of it back to the Palestinians would be a violation of God's law.
God gave them that land.
They own that land.
MORTON: While there's nothing wrong with Christians supporting Israel, the way these Christians have chosen to do so puts them firmly on one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one that's directly opposed to the U.
S.
government's official policy, and they're using their massive political power and money to oppose the peace plan John Kerry is currently trying to push through.
That's the two-state solution that would give the Palestinians the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the Israelis would get the rest, hopefully ending all the violence.
Evangelicals not only lobby Washington and send money to Israel to fight the two-state solution.
They also make up over 40% of American tourists in Israel every year with popular Holy Land pilgrimage tours.
Many of these tours actually have stops in the Israeli settlements which are used by the settlers to solicit donations for their cause.
We're in Qarne Shomron, Israeli settlement.
We're about to meet Sondra, who deals with Pastor Hagee in the United States.
She is not a Christian.
She's an Orthodox Jew, and right now, She's hosting a bunch of Christian Australians who are touring the settlement and, hopefully, coughing up the bills.
To make the settlements more relatable to their Christian friends, Sondra and her organization use the Palestinian territories' biblical names of Judea and Samaria.
It is for us, as people who believe in the Bible, to stand on the moral and spiritual right of the Jewish people to Judea and Samaria.
Amen? ALL: Amen.
Good.
MORTON: After Sondra's presentation, we reboarded the bus to see the settlement for ourselves.
BARAS: Come on, guys.
I want you to try to punch him in the stomach.
Let's give it a try.
[Laughter.]
Unfortunately, our Arab neighbors also have these kinds of guns.
You need to be protected with something like this.
MORTON: How important is Christian support specifically for the settlement? Christian support for the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria is critical because it's a very large group of people all over the world and we need to hear their voices, and--thank God-- they are raising their voices on this issue louder and louder every day.
MORTON: Another Christian Holy Land tour leader is evangelical pastor Irvin Baxter, whose Endtime Ministries takes its flock to Israel twice a year.
The focus of their tours is actually the real reason evangelicals overwhelmingly want the Jews to control all of Israel, which is the actual end times, as in Armageddon, because, according to their interpretation of the Bible, Jewish control of the Holy Land will lead directly to the second coming of Christ.
BAXTER: The word "Armageddon" is actually two words-- "har megiddo," or "hill of Megiddo.
" You are standing on the hill of Megiddo right now.
The final act of the Book of Revelation is going to begin right here at this place, and when Israel is about to be defeated, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ himself will intervene.
It says it this way.
The Lord himself will ascend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God.
He is going to defeat the antichrist.
He's going to defeat the false prophet.
Both of them will be cast alive into the lake of fire.
At that time, Satan is going to be bound for the next 1,000 years, and we are going to crown Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
[Applause.]
Real quickly, I will take time for a few questions.
BAXTER: Well, I can't tell you for sure if Maryland will still be there or not? MORTON: In addition to Armageddon, Pastor Baxter's Endtimes tour hits all the other local attractions associated with the apocalypse, including the most contested piece of real estate on the planet--Jerusalem, which houses some of the more sacred sites for Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike.
It's also were Jesus lands at the grand finale of the end times, which doesn't pan out so great for the Jews.
BAXTER: 2/3 of Israel will die.
It's Zechariah 13, I think-- maybe verse 7, 8, 9, right in that area-- that 2/3 will die.
through the fire, and that 1/3 will then turn to Messiah en masse when He comes back, and the scripture says that they will run out to Him, and when they bow to worship Him, Zechariah 13:6 says they're gonna notice He has got wounds in His feet and in His hand, and they're gonna say, "You're Jesus? "Oh, Messiah, we've been so stubborn.
"We've been so proud.
We've been so blind.
Could you ever forgive us?" and 2,000 years of blindness is gonna come peeling off the Jewish mind, and those of us that have been up, caught up in the rapture and come with Jesus here-- MORTON: Oh, because the Christians have been raptured out.
All who are born again will have been raptured.
When Jesus comes, we'll be called up to meet Him in the air, and then we will come with Him to the Mount of Olives, and so we're gonna be watching this whole panoramic thing unfold as the Jewish people turn to their Messiah.
We're gonna be converting people by the hundreds of thousands during this time.
It's gonna be the best of times and the worst of times.
MORTON: While the 2/3 of Jews who die are definitely getting the "worst of times" end of the stick, it's a little less clear how the rest of the world fares in the pastor's end-of-days scenario.
Can America get on the right side of Armageddon by supporting Israel? Americans can let their legislatures know, support Israel.
Right now under the present Obama administration, there seems to be a drift somewhat away from Israel, at least a determination to force Israel to do what America thinks it should do.
The only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.
BAXTER: The Jewish people should say, "Look.
This is our promised land.
"The Bible says we should not give it up.
"So we're not giving it up.
You have to respect our religion.
" MORTON: Aside from potentially derailing an otherwise pretty solid peace plan, Christian support for the Israeli settlements further makes life a pain in the ass for the Palestinians living nearby, which is exactly what's happening at Beit Jala, a Palestinian village on the outskirts of Bethlehem where Jesus was born.
Xavier Abu Eid is also Christian as well as an official in the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
We met him at a weekly outdoor Mass put on by the Catholic church as a form of protest against Israeli encroachment.
Two years ago, an Israeli court decided to build the wall here where we are.
So basically, all this valley that you see here, it's going to be on Israeli side of the wall.
[Speaks Arabic.]
Hello.
How are you? Hey, how are you? For example, he is one of the 58 landowners that are going to lose their land here and are 58 Palestinian Christian families that are going to lose their land here, and you're not talking about immigrants that came here.
No.
You're talking about indigenous population of this land.
We are standing now over a territory that no one in the world, not even the U.
S.
, recognizes as part of Israel.
I know a lot of evangelicals.
It's really big in America right now to support Israel because, they say, "Well, the Bible says Israel belongs to the Jews," and a lot of them also believe that once the Jews take over all of Israel, then they get to have Armageddon.
I read the Bible, and I never saw the Bible says that God is a real estate agent.
Those Christian Zionist organizations, they are not giving money, actually, to the state of Israel.
They are giving money to the most ideological settlers, and, of course, I don't think that's a very Christian act.
If I were a Palestinian Christian, I wouldn't involve myself in this conflict.
I'd stay out of it and say, "Look.
"I know what's coming.
"I'm gonna serve Jesus Christ.
"When He gets here, He'll straighten all this out.
" MORTON: While Baxter's advice for Christians on the ground is basically just to bunker down and get ready for the inevitable, he and his fellow Christian Zionists in America are working full tilt to make the end of days a reality and are using the voting strength of their followers to try and get Washington on their side and in a political conflict that's already been hijacked by religious zealots on both the Palestinian and Israeli side, adding millions of doomsday-ready American evangelicals to the table is like pouring gas on a fire in the most flammable region in the world.