IRVINE, CA (ANS) -- Michael Oren, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, has thanked Evangelicals for their unswerving support of Israel.

Ambassador Michael Oren speaking at Mariners Church

American-born and educated Oren, who in June 2009 took up his duties as Israel’s Ambassador to the US, addressed some 300 pastors and Christian leaders at an event held on Monday, February 8, 2010 at Mariners Church in Irvine, California.

The gathering was organized by Gen. Shimon Erem, Founder and Chair of the Israel Christian Nexus / The Alliance for Jerusalem.

A noted author, historian and Middle East scholar, who moved to Israel in the 1970s, was given a warm welcome at the meeting that was led by Dr. F. Kenton Beshore, president of the World Bible Society, and who’s son, Kenton, is the senior pastor of Mariners Church, one of the largest congregations in America with a campus of 50 acres.

After his speech, Oren received a standing ovation, but after being treated so well by the local Christian community, the Ambassador found that things weren't so diplomatic when he tried to give a speech not long afterwards at the nearby University of California, Irvine (UCI.) Twelve people were arrested after Ambassador Michael Oren was shouted down some ten times by protesters.

He spoke to about 500 people about U.S-Israeli relations, and there was heavy security. Before the speech, the UCI Muslim Student Union sent out an e-mail criticizing Oren's appearance. At least nine of the people arrested were UCI students, but it's not known if they belonged to the Muslim group.

Dan Wooding interviews Ambassador Oren

Before heading off to into the storm at UCI, Mr. Oren agreed to talk to me about wide-ranging topics that affected Israel and I began by asking him why he had flown across the country from Washington, DC, to talk meet with Southern California Evangelical leaders.

“I came to this event because the Evangelical community in the United States is a very prominent and crucial component of the United States-Israel relationship,” he said. “It is a component that has proven vital to Israel’s security and well being in the course of Israel’s existence over the last six decades.”

In his talk at Mariners, Ambassador Oren said that, just after 9/11, travel to the Holy Land almost “dried up,” but he said Evangelicals continued to make their pilgrimages.

“Many tourists were frightened away by the prospect of the suicide bombers, but Evangelical Christians had a faith that strengthened and girded them, and a sense of a commitment to Israel that couldn’t be diluted, certainly not broken by terror,” he told me during the interview:

So what about today? Is Israel now safe to travel to?

“Israel is a very safe place to go to,” he said. “One of the interesting statistics that I like to always bandy about is that the longevity rate of Israelis is the second highest in the world.”

With a huge smile on his face, he added, “So if you want to live a long and healthy and spiritually fulfilled life, I think you should come to Israel. It is very safe.

Dr. F. Kenton Beshore and Gen. Shimon Erem at the event

“I don't think any place in the world today is immune from the dangers of terror; whether it be the skies over Detroit or the skylines of New York; you’re always going to encounter that danger. Right now Israel in the year 2009 had its most secure year ever. It also had its best tourist season ever. Even the months of October, November December around Christmas time were the biggest tourist months in Israel’s history.”

I then turned to the “touchy” subject of Messianic Jews in Israel. (A Messianic is a Jewish person who believes that Yeshua (Jesus) is their Messiah.) I wondered if the growth of the Israeli Messianic community concerned him.

“I have no statistics on the size of the Messianic community, but I think certainly that the State of Israel wants the Jewish people to remain Jewish and greatly values its relationship with the evangelical community and other Christian communities in the world,” he said.

“But the State of Israel, because of our particular history, we are very sensitive to the notion of proselytizing -- very sensitive. The Christian churches that are active in Israel -- and there are a great number of them -- have an agreement with the Israeli government that they can they enjoy complete religious freedom, but that they should refrain from proselytizing.”

I told the Ambassador that during a recent visit to Israel, I was surprised to meet so many Russian Christians who have churches there.

“Nearly one million Russians came to Israel because of the nature of Soviet communism and because it destroyed the family and religion practicing,” he said. “Judaism was virtually illegal in the Soviet Union. Then, the usual criteria for the ‘law of return’ -- that you had to be born of Jewish parents -- were suspended, so you could move to Israel if you had just one Jewish grandparent.

“Literally hundreds of thousands of Soviet people who where not Jewish, came into Israel and became Israeli citizens. So much so that at one point the Israeli army was printing out the New Testament in Hebrew so that soldiers could use it to swear in because they were practicing Christians serving in the Israeli army. We now have a great number. My son is in the army right now in an elite unit and one of the members of his unit is a practicing Christian.”

So was he saying that many of the Russian immigrants were not really Jewish, but Christians who had moved to Israel?

“Yes, there are of course, Messianic’s who are Russian, but there are also

Picture of Russian Orthodox Church and Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Israel

many Pentecostals, Baptists, both of whom were also persecuted under Soviet Communism,” he said. “There are also Russian Orthodox Christians and, if you want to celebrate the Russian Orthodox Christmas, which is a little bit after the Western Christmas, their churches are packed and you can’t get anywhere near them in Israel. So we have this community and it’s a very loyal and important community.”

I then asked the Ambassadors if he thought that Evangelical Christians should support Israel in the construction of more settlements in the Palestinian territories.

“Evangelical Christians have every right to express their political beliefs as do American Jews,” he replied. “All we ask is that they respect the decisions made by the democratically elected government of Israel. Israel has a resilient democracy. I would go so far as to say the most resilient democracy on the face of the earth.”

I then asked Mr. Oren if he felt that there would ever be a “two-state” solution so that Palestinians and Israeli’s would have their own separate countries.

“As a historian by training, I only predict the past,” he laughed. “But we are doing our best to try to get the Palestinians to a negotiating table -- to negotiate the possibility of a two-state solution. So far we have not even succeeded in getting them back to the negotiating table so it is certainly premature to talk about whether there’s a chance for such a state coming into being.”

Finally, I returned to tourism and asked Ambassador Oren what he thought of the website – www.travelujah.com – which is a faith-based social network providing relevant content, travel information, reservations and social networking services for people interested in the Holy Land, Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories and Egypt (the Sinai Peninsula).

“Well, it’s an unfair question because, before becoming an Ambassador, the people who run Travelujah came to me and asked me for some advice and I gave them a lots of it,” he said. “I’d been an advisor to the Israeli government on church affairs and I knew churches very well and had spoken at many across North America.

“I believe there is a great need for such a site, but also to understand that -- and this is difficult for Israeli Jews to understand – that there are great differences between the churches and great differences between the ways the churches regard the Holy Land.

“For example, a tour for a Baptist group looks very different than a tour for Roman Catholics. A Baptist group is not necessarily interested in visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and a Roman Catholic group is not as deeply moved by beholding the Sea of Galilee as the Baptists.

“It is a great mistake to view Christianity and Christians in a monolithic way. As Jews are not monolithic and have many differences between us, so too do Christians. So to encourage tourism among Christians in the United States and worldwide it is important that the tours should be set up in a certain way and adapted to each of their interests and spiritual needs.”

With that, the Ambassador shook my hand and was off to his raucous evening at the local university. What a contrast it was between the yelling and arrests there and the unreserved support from the local Christian leaders and pastors at Mariner’s Church.

It seems to me that free speech on at least one American campus took quite a hit with the protests at UCI.

Director of the University's Political Science department, Professor Mark P. Petracca, told the protesters, “This is beyond embarrassing...this is no way for our undergraduate students to behave. We have an opportunity to hear from a policy maker relevant to one of the most important issues facing this planet and you are preventing not only yourself from hearing him but hundreds of other people in this room and hundreds of other people in an overflow room. Shame on you! This is not an example of free speech.”

Note: I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.

To listen to the audio version of this interview, log onto www.assistnews.net and click on “Listen to Front Page Radio.”

Dan Wooding, 69, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 46 years. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC., and now hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on KWVE in Southern California and which is also carried on the Calvary Radio Network throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK. Wooding also a regular contributor to The Weekend Stand on the Crawford Broadcasting Network, and a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries. He is the author of some 43 books. Two of the latest include his autobiography, “From Tabloid to Truth”, which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, press this link. Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, also recently released “God’s Ambassadors in Japan” which is available at amazon.com.