Israeli regulators on Sunday announced they ordered a US-based evangelical broadcaster taken off the air, saying the channel hid its missionary agenda when it applied for a license.
In his decision, Asher Biton, the chairman of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, said he had informed GOD TV on Thursday that it had seven days to stop broadcasting.
“The channel appeals to Jews with Christian content,” he wrote. “Its original request,” he said, stated that it was a “station targeting the Christian population.”
The decision was first reported by the Haaretz daily.
The controversy over GOD TV’s ‘Shelanu’ station has put Israel and its evangelical Christian supporters in an awkward position, exposing tensions the two sides have long papered over.
Evangelical Christians, particularly in the United States, are among the strongest supporters of Israel, viewing it as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. Some see it as the harbinger of a second coming of Jesus Christ and the end of days.
Israel has long welcomed evangelicals’ political and financial support, especially as their influence over the White House has risen during the Trump administration, and it has largely shrugged off concerns about any hidden religious agenda.
But most Jews view any effort to convert them to Christianity as deeply offensive, a legacy of centuries of persecution and forced conversion at the hands of Christian rulers. In part because of those sensitivities, evangelical Christians, who generally believe salvation can only come through Jesus and preach the Gospel worldwide, rarely target Jews.
In a statement, Shelanu said it was stunned by what it called Biton’s “unprofessional decision.”
Read the article in Sight magazine.