Showing posts with label British Christians. Show all posts

Sunday, July 10, 2016

British Christians Must Tend to Israel's Wounds - Charles Gardner ISRAEL TODAY

British Christians Must Tend to Israel's Wounds

Sunday, July 10, 2016 | Charles Gardner ISRAEL TODAY

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British and European nations now under constant threat of terror attacks should spare a thought (and prayer) for Israel.

In one of the most shocking incidents yet since the start of lone-wolf knife and gun attacks by Palestinian terrorists, a 13-year-old girl was butchered to death while asleep in her bed.

The grisly murder of Hallel Yaffa Ariel came just days after a senior adviser to PA president Mahmoud Abbas urged his people to slit the throats of Israelis rather than engage in dialogue. “If you ask me my blunt position, I would say—every place you find an Israeli, slit his throat,” Sultan Abu al-Einein, a central committee member of the ruling Fatah party, told the Palestinian website Donia al-Watan when asked about Palestinian officials participating in Israeli conferences. “Likewise, I am against talks, negotiations, meetings and normalization in all its forms with the Israeli occupation.”

And on the day after the world woke up to news of Hallel’s tragic death, an Iranian military official boasted of having 100,000 missiles in Lebanon ready to annihilate the Jewish state.

Speaking on al-Quds Day, when Iranians mark their solidarity with Palestinians, Iranian Revolutionary Guard deputy commander Hossein Salami said: “The opportunity to destroy Israel is now better than ever because tens of thousands of long-range missiles all over the Islamic world are ready to hit Israel immediately upon receiving the order.”

Adding gross insult to these appalling injuries have been the outrageous comments of Britain’s Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn who appeared to compare Israel to Islamic State during an event designed to confront claims of anti-Semitism within his party.

Jewish Labour MP Ruth Smeeth left the meeting in tears after saying she had been insulted by a hard-left activist using “traditional anti-Semitic slurs”, adding that Mr Corbyn’s failure to intervene was “final proof for me that he is unfit to lead and that a Labour Party under his stewardship cannot be a safe space for British Jews.”

Mr Corbyn denied that he had intended to compare Israel to ISIS. A spokesman said he had been referring to states that were Islamic in character such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Iran. He actually said: “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organizations.”

In any case, the Jewish people are under greater threat now than they were under the Nazis, and this time British Christians especially must avoid the shameful option of passing by on the other side of the road like the religious folk in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10.25-37). Israel has fallen “into the hands of robbers” (v30). We must take pity on them, tend to their wounds and look after them. The church dare not remain silent. “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish.” That’s a pretty dire warning from God’s word.

But a great opportunity also lies before us, as the verse continues: “And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4.14)

However, if we refuse to come to their aid, we will not prosper. For, in speaking of the future glory of Zion, Isaiah declares that “no weapon forged against you will prevail”. (Isa 54.17)

Charles Gardner is author of Israel the Chosen, available from Amazon, and Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com

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Friday, July 17, 2015

Holocaust Survivor Saved by Christians Returns the Favor

Thursday, July 16, 2015 | Israel Today Staff

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Christians

At the age of 19, Arthur George Weidenfeld was among the many Jews whom British Christians successfully rescued from Nazi-controlled Austria just as Adolf Hitler and his cohorts were putting the “Final Solution” into action.

Seventy-seven years later, now a British lord, Weidenfeld is looking to return the favor by rescuing Syrian and Iraqi Christians under mortal threat from the advancing Islamist horde known as ISIS.

Weidenfeld was brought to England in 1938 by the Quakers and the Plymouth Brethren. Not long after, he started the publishing business of Weidenfeld and Nicolson. In 1976, his overwhelming success and unrestrained philanthropy landed Weidenfeld the title of Lord, Baron Weidenfeld, to be exact.

This week, Weidenfeld told London’s The Times that he “has a debt to repay,” and has established the Weidenfeld Safe Havens Fund to transport and financially support Middle East Christians facing forced conversion and death.

According to reports, the Fund has already flown 150 Syrian Christians to Poland, where it will support them financially for the next 12–18 months while they get on their feet and integrate with their new country.

The initial goal is to get as many as 2,000 Christians out of Syria in the coming months.

Much like with the Nazi Holocaust, the nations of the world are doing very little to assist and save the beleaguered Christians of the Middle East, leaving individuals and smaller organizations to tackle this impossible task.

Weidenfeld acknowledged that he can’t save everyone, but feels there is significance in a Jewish Holocaust survivor reaching out a helping hand to Christians in the greatest of need.

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Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Persecutors of Jews Queue Up to Say Sorry!

Wednesday, June 17, 2015 | Charles Gardner ISRAEL TODAY

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Anti-Semitism

Amidst rising anti-Semitism, there appears to be a somewhat surprising parallel move towards repentance by some European nations for the many shameful actions taken against Jews over the centuries. The latest comes from Spain which, having expelled some 300,000 Jews in 1492, now appears ready to invite their descendants back!

The Sephardic Ancestry Bill, which is expected to pass through the Spanish Senate this month, aims to correct an “historic mistake” by offering citizenship to as many as 3.5 million Sephardic Jews around the world whose ancestors were forced out by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

Neighbouring Portugal has in recent years passed a similar ‘Law of Return’ offering citizenship to the many Sephardic Jews they persecuted, including my own ancestors who were forced to flee to America in the 19th century. So I guess that entitles me to Portuguese citizenship!

These are welcome moves which contrast sharply with the growing hostility towards Jewish communities being demonstrated in Europe generally, not only in the desecration of synagogues and personal attacks, but in the calls for boycotts and condemnation in the political and economic sphere.

No doubt Spain has been influenced by their former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar who, in aTimes article almost exactly five years ago, urged support for Israel on the basis that “if it goes down, we all go down.”

Aznar argued that the Jewish state is at the cutting edge of the battle between militant Islam and the West and concluded: “Israel is a fundamental part of the West which is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not our fate is inextricably intertwined.”

And in 2008 a Spanish newspaper is said to have published a hard-hitting article expressing similar sentiments – regretting the part Europe had played in an attempt to destroy a people who had pursued nothing but life and peace, while at the same time welcoming Muslims whose extremist ranks blew up trains and hijacked planes.

It does at least continue to demonstrate the potential power for good inherent in the printed word in a world where there is an ever-intensifying battle between truth and propaganda.

Meanwhile, a group of nearly 200 British Christians want to apologize and make amends for the way in which their government turned back Jewish refugees fleeing war-torn Europe 70 years ago, preventing tens of thousands from landing in their biblical homeland apparently because they exceeded a quota on immigration.

In doing so, Britain reneged on its own Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising to do all in its power to establish a home for the Jewish people. Shortly after making the promise, penned by Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour, Britain was awarded the mandate to rule the area following the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

They were thus presented with an obvious opportunity of fulfilling their pledge. But from 1938 to 1948 the British prevented more than 90 ships from landing at Haifa, according to Julie Stahl and Chris Mitchell in an article for CBN News.

“I’m here to commemorate those Jews…who suffered or died as a result of the shameful policies of the British government of the day,” Col Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, is reported as saying.

Rosie Ross, who organized the day of repentance, said: “We turned them away and put them in camps in Cyprus and Mauritius, and some were even returned to deportation camps in Germany.”

Others were locked up in a detention camp in Atlit, south of Haifa.

Lord Simon Isaacs, speaking at the event, said the quota on immigration breached Britain’s contract with the Jewish people ratified at the treaties of San Remo (1920) and Versailles (1923). And he said there were two reasons behind their behaviour: appeasing the Arabs and a Labour government that was essentially anti-Jewish.

He hopes the British government admits its mistake in time for the 2017 centenary of the Balfour Declaration. Modern Israel was re-born in 1948 despite Britain’s obstructive tactics.

For more on the subject, read my new book, Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com and Amazon.com

PHOTO: Scene depicting the expulsion of the Jews from Spain

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Sunday, June 7, 2015

British Christians Repent for Broken Vows to Israel

Haifa port, Israel

British Christians Repent for Broken Vows to Israel

By Julie Stahl and Chris Mitchell

CBN News Middle East Bureau

Friday, June 05, 2015

HAIFA PORT and ATLIT, Israel -- Seventy years have passed since the British government prevented thousands of Jews from reaching their biblical homeland. Now British Christians want to apologize and make amends.

The epic feature film, "Exodus," starring Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan, depicts the events that happened around World War II. For 10 years, the British body overseeing pre-state Palestine turned away thousands of Jews trying to escape from Europe.

One of the film's scenes takes place between Newman and co-star Eva Marie Saint, who plays a British nurse named Katherine.

"I'm trying to save a Jewish child," Saint says. "You're late," Canaan tells her. "Lady, you're 10 years late. Almost 2 million Jewish children were butchered like animals because nobody wanted them."

Dock of Tears

The Haifa port was known as the Dock of Tears. From 1938 to 1948, the British prevented more than 90 ships, carrying tens of thousands of Jews fleeing Europe to return to their biblical homeland, from docking there.

"I'm here to commemorate those Jews … who suffered or died as a result of the shameful policies of the British government of the day," Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told CBN News.

Rosie Ross, founder of a group called "Repairing the Breach, organized the day of repentance.

"We turned them away and put them in camps in Cyprus and in Mauritius and even some of them were returned to deportation camps in Germany and others who weren't turned away from their land were actually incarcerated here in this detention camp," Ross told CBN News.

British Lock Up Thousands of Jews

The British basically locked up thousands of Jewish refugees at the Atlit Detention Camp. They sprayed the newcomers with pesticide, separated the men from the women and sent them to the showers.

It's a part of history lost between World War II and the founding of the Jewish state, but Ross and other British Christians didn't forget.

"This whole period of British history is something that's been on my heart for a long time and the need for people from Britain to really confess and repent for what Britain did at that time," she explained.

Nearly 200 British Christians, as well as Jewish victims of that time, came first to the Haifa port and then to the detention camp for the commemoration.

Joan Thomas from the Ebenezer Emergency Fund led participants in prayer.

"As we have taken up confessions and prayers with deep sorrow for our nations reneging on the Balfour Declaration and turning our back upon the Jewish people," Thomas prayed.

Past Can Be Redeemed

Rev. Alex Jacob with Love Never Fails, a coalition of pro-Israel Christian ministries across the U.K. told participants, "We know that the past cannot be changed, but it can be redeemed."

The British Christians handed out Bibles to mark the incident when a British ship commander ordered the burning of all books in Hebrew and Yiddish, including Jewish Bibles, as told in the book Exodus 1947, by Ruth Gruber.

Survivors attending the memorial had mixed reactions to the Christian appeal.

"If I forgive them, will it raise the dead?" Holocaust survivor Mordechai Libr, one of the Jews who arrived in Israel only to be sent back by the British told CBN News. "There is no forgiveness for this. None. Nothing in the world can bring them back," said Libr who lost his entire family in the Holocaust and survived as a child alone.

Arie Itamar, another Holocaust survivor who arrived on the Exodus ship, was glad to be part of the event.

"I wanted to meet other British people to hear from them what their opinion about the events, and now I see that not only is it a meeting but also for asking for forgiveness," Itamar said. "It is very, very important. I'm very glad to be in this event.

Quota Breached Contract

Keynote speaker Lord Simon Isaacs, the 4th Marquess of Reading, said the quota on immigration breached Britain's contract with the Jewish people.

"That contract was Balfour Declaration 1917, San Remo Treaty in 1920 and that was all ratified in the treaty in Versailles in '23," Isaacs said. "It was the contract that essentially the British government broke."

Isaacs said there were two reasons behind their behavior during the British Mandate: "appeasing the Arabs and a Labor government that was essentially anti-Jewish." He hopes the British government admits its mistake in time for the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration in 2017.

Col. Kemp says there's also a message for today.

"Not to condemn Israel when it shouldn't be condemned, but to stand up for Israel, to support Israel as Israel so often supports us," he said.

Watch video: British Christians & Israel

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Sunday, July 10, 2016