Showing posts with label OLIVIER MELNICK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OLIVIER MELNICK. Show all posts

Monday, December 5, 2016

Putting the Holocaust Into Its Proper Context - OLIVIER MELNICK CHARISMA NEWS

The Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. (Wikimedia Commons )

Putting the Holocaust Into Its Proper Context

OLIVIER MELNICK  CHARISMA NEWS
Standing With Israel
We live at a time when Jewish people are being accused of dwelling unnecessarily on the memory of the Holocaust. But at the same time, we are seeing swastikas being painted on doors, walls and even tombstones across the globe.
Mahmoud Abbas was unanimously reelected as leader of Fatah, and the West is supposed to get excited about the man they believe could make peace with Israel. Let us not forget he is a Holocaust denier who wrote his thesis in 1982 on that very topic under the title "The Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement."
Populist parties are gaining tremendous ground in Europe as the desire to stop and control the migrant crisis becomes a priority. With them, they bring the deep rooted European racial antisemitism we thought was defunct.
Only a couple of years ago on the streets of Paris, I heard people marching and chanting, "Jews to the ovens." It seems a lot of people are either denying the Holocaust, wanting another one or worse, are clueless about the first one.
I don't think we speak too much of the Holocaust, but we don't think about it in its proper context.
Scholars, philosophers, theologians and historians have all grappled with the Holocaust, trying to come to terms with the immensity of its evil in strength and scope. Some within classical Jewish religious thought believe the Holocaust was God's retribution or payback for Israel's sins. In other words, it was God's desire to discipline Israel for her sins and, as such, was part of God's plan all along.
The common name for it is Mi-penei hata ' einu (Hebrew for "because of our sins we were punished.") It refers to divine punishment for the sins of Israel. It is true that the Tenach is replete with stories about the sins of Israel and their consequential discipline from God.
Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize laureate, Elie Wiesel, wrote in 1962 of the religious Jewish reaction to the Holocaust in Commentary Magazine: "The feeling of guilt was, to begin with, essentially a religious feeling. If I am here, it is because God is punishing me; I have sinned, and I am expiating my sins. I have deserved this punishment that I am suffering."
Wiesel, along with many others, feel that while the punishment inflicted by the Holocaust might not be proportionate to the sins committed by Israel, the two are related. Incidentally, if one believes that—as the Bible teaches—the price for our sins is death (Ezek. 18:4), then the Holocaust could be justified. But why would God wait almost 2,000 years to punish Israel, and why inflict pain and suffering on generations that are so far removed from the previous ones?
Others see Israel as the Suffering Servant of Is. 52:13-53:12. They will assign the suffering of the Holocaust to all Israel (all Jewish people.) Although it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the meaning of Isaiah 53, let's state that this controversial passage definitely speaks of suffering, humiliation and death in no uncertain terms. But it can also refer to a person and not Israel as a whole. If indeed it refers to a person in particular, Yeshua of Nazareth is the only one who would fit that description, especially since toward the end of the passage, after humiliation, suffering and death comes resurrection.
Some speak of Hester Panim ("hiding of the face,") also known as "the eclipse of God." Ps. 44:23-24 speaks of God hiding His face: "Awake; why do You sleep, O Lord? Arise; do not reject us forever. Why do You hide Your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?"
Was God absent during the Holocaust? From the standpoint of protecting the victims from suffering and death, it would certainly appear to be true. Each and every one of the six million innocent victims—if they could speak—would most likely testify of God's absence or lack of involvement.
Yet, when we speak of the eclipse of God, we must recall what an eclipse is all about: a visual disappearance while the physical presence remains. In other words, God might have been eclipsed or might have been hiding His face during the Holocaust, but He was always there and always within reach. Not only was He there, but He felt the pain of the victims as Isaiah 63:9a tells us: "In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them."
Many religious people, Jewish and Gentile, wound up in the camps. If God was silent, some of His people weren't. The eclipse of God was not because He didn't care, but possibly because for a time, He removed Himself from the affairs of men, leaving the fate of many in the hands of a few. At the very least, He allowed for the Jewish people not to be under His protection, as He had done repeatedly in the long history of the children of Israel.
Isaiah tells us God cared as He suffered affliction for His people. Additionally, God took no pleasure in the death of the many. Even assuming Israel was being punished by the Holocaust for being wicked—a case that cannot be made with absolute certainty—the prophet Ezekiel speaks of God when he writes, "Say to them: As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezek. 33:11a).
The Holocaust prompted many Jews who survived the Holocaust to come to the conclusion that God is dead. Again Elie Wiesel, this time in his seminal work Night,depicts the agonizing hanging of a young boy:
"Where is God? Where is He?" someone behind me asked ... For more than half an hour [the child in the noose] stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed. Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "Where is God now?" And I heard a voice within me answer him: "Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows."
But if God died during the Holocaust, why did it come to a halt in 1945? The Nazi war machine was well-oiled and extremely efficient. The liberation of the camps and the capitulation of Germany would militate towards God not being dead and, on the contrary, being instrumental in the end of World War II. This is also in line with His promise never to completely destroy Israel as found in Jeremiah (Jer. 31:35-37.)
I could continue to look at the Holocaust and wrestle further with causes for it. Regardless of how many approaches with come up with, we will most certainly come back to evil being at the core of the catastrophe.
This leads us to the problem of evil. The existence of evil in the world is a topic that is highly debated. Very few believe evil doesn't exist. The Holocaust and how low humanity could bring itself proved evil exists.
Hitler wasn't insane. Insanity would exonerate him of all responsibility for the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish problem." But Hitler was pure evil. But even when we recognize that, the source of all evil must still be identified.
I don't believe we can properly do such a thing without building our case on a biblical foundation. Morality is based on the balance between good and evil, which is best brought forward by looking at what the Tenach says.
Good and evil cannot exist independently of one another, since one defines the other. Going back to the first book of the Tenach, Genesis, we find out that one of God's most special angels, Satan, rebelled against God and fell from grace. From that point on, he has been working very hard at hating what God loves and loving what God hates. That puts the Jewish people and Israel directly in his crosshairs.
Satan knows that through the Jewish people, more specifically through the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10), will come the Redeemer of mankind, the Messiah of Israel. His goal is to stop that from happening, because at some point in the future, Messiah will put an end to Satan's career, and he doesn't care for his retirement plan.
I am often asked if the birth of the modern state of Israel is a direct result of World War II and the Holocaust. I believe the answer is a resounding no. Rather, the Holocaust was an attempt by Satan to destroy the Jews right before they would start fulfilling one of God's most amazing prophecy about their return to their biblical land (Ezek. 36-38.)
There is no doubt in my mind that Satan was aware of the return of the Jews to Israel in the end times. He had to stop it, or at least try, thus the Holocaust. He used Pharaoh to try to stop Moses from being born, he used Herod to try to stop Yeshua from being born and he used Nazi Germany and Hitler to try to stop the Jews from moving back to Israel and fulfilling God's covenantal promises. Satan exploited the fact that the Jewish people weren't under God's protection and were more at the mercy of the nation to attempt their total eradication. He almost succeeded, but God is greater. Not only God is greater, but He is interested in every single soul that exists. God wants to draw them to Him, one soul at a time. 
So again, it is not that we speak too much of the Holocaust, but maybe that we speak of it in the wrong context. 
Olivier Melnick is the author of They Have Conspired Against You, a book on the rebirth of worldwide anti-Semitism and how to fight it, as well as the novel The Rabbi's Triad, an evangelistic thriller. He is also a guest commentator on WorldNetDaily, Times of Israel and other websites such as his blog site at newantisemitism.com. Olivier serves as a Regional Director in Washington state. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Chosen People France.
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Friday, October 7, 2016

A Shocking Case of Anti-Semitism - OLIVIER MELNICK CHARISMA NEWS

Lord Arthur James Balfour
Lord Arthur James Balfour (Wikimedia Commons )

A Shocking Case of Anti-Semitism

OLIVIER MELNICK  CHARISMA NEWS
Nearly 100 years ago, a very important document was written in the United Kingdom by foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour to the leader of the Jewish community, Baron Walter Rothschild. It has become known in history as the "Balfour Declaration."
The text of that letter reads as follows: "I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet. 'His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.' I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation."
The Balfour Declaration is a document that has been foundational in the world's recognition of Israel's right for self-determination within the boundaries of her own historical and biblical land of Eretz Yisrael. It was followed by another important agreement including the original Balfour Declaration, known as the San Remo Resolution, where the Mandate for Palestine was drawn together (land boundaries were decided four years later.)
As a result of the drafting of the San Remo Resolution, Great Britain became responsible for the drawing of the Mandate and land boundaries for Palestine. This became later known as the "British Mandate for Palestine." Fast-forward to 1947 and the United Nations voted in favor of Resolution 181 and the partitioning of Palestine between Jews and Arabs.
On May 14, 1948, under the leadership of David Ben Gurion, one day before the end of the British Mandate, Israel became a modern nation. Within hours, five neighboring Arab countries declared war on the newborn Jewish state. One way or another, this war has lasted for 77 years.
Only days ago, in a move that could be seen as both creative and ludicrous, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas decided to sue Great Britain for the Balfour Declaration. Abbas asked his foreign minister, Riyad al-Malki, to help with the lawsuit.
According to the Palestinians, it is the Balfour Declaration that set in motion all the bloodshed seen in the Middle East in the last eight decades. In fact, Abbas insists that the Balfour Declaration paved the way to the rebirth of Israel, and thus Great Britain is to be held responsible for all Israeli crimes committed against Palestinians since.
This is a very bold move, even if it deals with people groups fighting for territory. Britain might have been involved in initiating the agreement, but whatever took place after the United Nations voted for the partitioning of the region, even if it was connected to the Balfour Declaration, remains the responsibility of Israel and her Arab neighbors.
Dan Margalit of Israel Hayom says, "But the Balfour Declaration didn't exist in a vacuum. The world supported it. Even King Faisal of Iraq, whose family originated in Saudi Arabia, reached an agreement with Weizmann on the terms. The declaration was approved in 1920 by an international conference that met in San Remo after World War I. The approval of the mandate by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922 gave the Balfour Declaration international validity, almost like the 1947 U.N. resolution to establish a Jewish state in part of the land of Israel." 
But here is a bigger problem: Palestinians didn't exist in 1917 (Balfour), 1920 (San Remo), 1924 (San Remo Land boundaries), 1947 (U.N. partition vote) and 1948 (Israel's Declaration of Independence). As a matter of fact, Palestinians didn't come onto the scene as a "people" until the mid-1960s. In essence, Abbas is retroactively inserting the Palestinians into history to justify the injustice he is claiming took place in 1917 and subsequent years. It is akin to quoting Abraham Lincoln saying: "Don't believe everything you read on the internet," except that the latter statement is funny because it was made tongue-in-cheek. Abbas is dead serious about the Palestinians going way back in history.
The original Palestinian was invented, forcibly placed in Israel as a "displaced refugee" and further coerced into staying through several generations, born within the refugee camps and/or territories. Palestine went from a geographical area to a political agenda aimed at the complete destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.
It took about 50 years to get where we are today. The current acceptance of the Palestinian narrative has become the new normal and is used as the foundation to historically justify a lawsuit against Britain for the Balfour Declaration. That justification doesn't rest on factual history, but this will not stop the PA from proceeding with the suit.
So what is next—a lawsuit against Italy for the San Remo Resolution of 1920? What about suing the United Nations for allowing Israel to become a modern nation in 1947/48? I suppose the Palestinians could even go as far as suing themselves for signing the Oslo Accords in 1993!
Taken to an extreme, they could sue God Himself for giving the Land of Canaan to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants (Gen. 12:7, 13:15, 15:18-21, 35:9.) After all, it looks like God started it all!
Ironically, for once, the Jews are not being blamed, and I'll take that as a small victory. 
Olivier Melnick was raised in a secular Jewish family in Paris. After meeting Ellen, his future wife, and reading a book on prophecy that she had given him, Olivier began a search, which led him to belief in Yeshua (Jesus) as his Savior in 1983. His desire is to help Christians understand the Jewish roots of the faith and he hopes to train many to be effective in Jewish outreach. His passion is to see his people throughout the world receive Yeshua as their promised Messiah. He is the author of They Have Conspired Against You, a book on the rebirth of worldwide anti-Semitism and how to fight it, as well as the novel The Rabbi's Triad, an evangelistic thriller.
For the original article, visit newantisemitism.com.
3 Reasons Why you should read Life in the Spirit. 1) Get to know the Holy Spirit. 2) Learn to enter God's presence 3) Hear God's voice clearly! Go deeper!
Has God called you to be a leader? Ministry Today magazine is the source that Christian leaders who want to serve with passion and purpose turn to. Subscribe now and receive a free leadership book.
Did you enjoy this blog? Click here to receive it by email.