“Many conservative Christians say they believe that the president’s support for Israel fulfills a biblical injunction to protect the Jewish state, which some of them think will play a pivotal role in the second coming.”

How many? A thousand? A million?

“(T)he alliance of Israel, its evangelical Christian supporters and President Bush has never been closer or more potent.”

There’s no evidence given for this.

“Now, in tandem with the Israeli government, many evangelical Christians have focused on a new villain, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”

There are six paragraphs in the article detailing evangelicals’ concern about Ahmadinejad. It’s weird because the tone makes it seem like this is some crazy preoccupation of evangelicals, but considering Iran’s recent actions, there are plenty of people, religious and non-religious, who are scared of Ahmadinejad and his nuclear ambitions.

The article tries to tie the Bush administration’s support of Israel to the influence of evangelical voters, but the U.S.’s support of Israel has been ongoing through both Republican and Democrat adminstrations for 50 years, so the argument is a red herring. I’m an atheist, and I think there are plenty of non-religious-wingnuttery reasons for believing that Israel has a right to react aggressively to terrorist attacks. I also believe that there is a strong current of anti-Semitism in the U.N. which results in Israel being consistently condemned for their responses to terrorism, while the original terrorist attacks are ignored by the U.N. This makes me skeptical of Kofi Anan’s remarks.