Posted: 15 Feb 2016 MICHAEL SNYDER THE ECONOMIC COLLPASE
As you read this article, Turkish forces are massing along the border with Syria, and the largest “military exercises” in the history of the Middle East are being held in northern Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are publicly warning that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “will be removed by force” if a political solution cannot be found, and Turkey is claiming that it may have to establish a “safe zone” in northern Syria “for humanitarian purposes”.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their Sunni allies have poured massive amounts of money and arms into the conflict in Syria, and now that their Sunni insurgents are on the verge of total defeat, they are trying to come up with a way to justify going in there and doing the job themselves. For the Saudis, their focus is on trying to convince everyone that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is an extremely dangerous dictator that must be removed at all costs. The following comes from the London Independent… Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be removed by force if the peace process fails, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister has said.So precisely who will be doing the “removing” if force is necessary? Are the Saudis ready to send in ground troops? Apparently they are. Just consider what Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNN… Saudi Foreign Minister Jubeir made clear that his country’s troops would not go it alone.But if the Saudis try to take Damascus and remove Assad by force, the Syrians and their allies will certainly fight back. That means that the Saudis will be fighting Hezbollah, the Iranians and the Russians. Needless to say, Saudi Arabia is going to need a lot of help to do that. So that may explain why Saudi Arabia has organized the largest “military exercise” in the history of the Middle East. CNN finally reported on this gigantic gathering of military forces in northern Saudi Arabia earlier today… Saudi Arabia launched a massive military exercise that will include troops from 20 nations, state media reported Monday.This is the list of nations that are reportedly participating in these “exercises” so far… -Saudi Arabia -Jordan -Bahrain -Senegal -Oman -Qatar -United Arab Emirates -Sudan -Kuwait -the Maldives -Morocco -Pakistan -Chad -Tunisia -Comoro Islands -Djibouti -Malaysia -Egypt -Mauritania -Mauritius As I discussed yesterday, 350,000 soldiers, 20,000 tanks, 2,450 warplanes and 460 military helicopters are reportedly gathering for these “military exercises”. To me, that seems to be a great deal of overkill if the goal is just “training”. Here is more about these “exercises” from RT… The Saudi state agency made the announcement on Sunday, adding that participating troops will begin arriving in “the next few hours.”So are these forces massing for a ground invasion of Syria? We shall see. In the end, we probably won’t have to wait too long before we find out the answer. Meanwhile, Turkish officials continue to assert that they may have to establish a “safe zone” for refugees in northern Syria. Since thousands of refugees are continually pouring their direction, they claim that they have no other choice but to go in and take control of the situation. In fact, Turkey has already established several very large refugee camps on the Syrian side of the border… Some 100,000 Syrian refugees are being looked after in camps inside Syria close to the Turkish border, including 35,000 who this month fled a Russian-backed regime offensive in northern Aleppo province, a top Turkish official said Friday.But make no mistake – this is not just about helping refugees. The truth is that ISIS has been using Turkey as a home base for years, and hundreds of millions of dollars of ISIS oil has been shipped into Turkey where it has then been sold to the rest of the world. Barack Obama knows about all of this, and yet he has refused to do anything to stop it. At this point the cooperation between ISIS and Turkey has become so obvious that even CNN is admitting that ISIS militants are being resupplied from Turkey… To the east of Aleppo, Kurdish forces are, with American support, eyeing the remaining ISIS strongholds along the Turkish border — Jarablus and Manbij. The U.S. wants ISIS out, to remove its access to resupply of materiel and fighters from Turkey.Fortunately, the Russian bombing campaign has pretty much put an end to the endless parade of ISIS oil trucks that were entering Turkey, and now the primary supply line to Sunni militants in the strategically important city of Aleppo is about to be cut off. The corridor that runs through the city of Azaz is vitally important, and the Prime Minister of Turkey recently insisted that the Turkish government “will not allow Azaz to fall”… Turkey shelled YPG positions for a third straight day on Monday to try to stop its fighters seizing Azaz, just 8 km from the border. Ankara fears the Kurdish militia, backed by Russia, is trying to secure the last stretch of around 100 km along the Syrian border not already under its control.Unfortunately for the Turkish government, it appears that Azaz is already slipping away from the militants. The following was reported by an Iranian news source… Ankara is likely to take action to counter the Syrian military and allied groups on choking up a supply link on which militants relied to get weapons and logistics.Wait for the next few days and you will have the answer? That sounds rather ominous. Like I said yesterday, I don’t think that I have ever seen a scenario which was more likely to lead to World War III than the one that we are watching play out right now. Do Saudi Arabia and Turkey actually expect to waltz into Syria and start taking territory without a response from the Syrians, Hezbollah, the Iranians and the Russians? And if fighting does break out, how is the United States possibly going to stay out of it? The truth is that Saudi Arabia and Turkey would never invade Syria in the first place without the express approval of the Obama administration. The next couple of weeks are key. If we can get into early March without an invasion, by that time Saudi Arabia and Turkey may have missed their window. The troops gathered for the massive military exercise in northern Saudi Arabia will start to go home, and by then the Sunni militants remaining in Aleppo will probably be pretty much completely defeated. But will Saudi Arabia and Turkey really be willing to walk away after pouring so much time, effort and money into the conflict in Syria? They had dreamed of turning Syria into a full-blown Sunni nation, and if they give up now Syria will end up being dominated by Iran and Hezbollah. It will be a result that is far worse than if they never tried to overthrow Assad in the first place. So my gut feeling is telling me that Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their Sunni allies are not done in Syria. But their obsession with that country threatens to plunge us into World War III, and if that happens the consequences will be felt by every man, woman and child on the entire planet. |
Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news and prophecy.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
World War III Approaches: Saudi Arabia And Turkey Drop Hints That An Invasion Of Syria Is Imminent - MICHAEL SNYDER THE ECONOMIC COLLPASE
Calm in the Eye of the Storm - Aviel Schneider ISRAEL TODAY
Calm in the Eye of the Storm
Monday, February 15, 2016 | Aviel Schneider
ISRAEL TODAY
The storm is raging all around, but in the midst of it, Israel remains an island of relative stability like the eye of a hurricane.
The full interview appears in the February 2016 issue of Israel Today Magazine.
CLICK HERE to read it all
CLICK HERE to read it all
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Should Jesus Unite Mortal Enemies? - Tsvi Sadan ISRAEL TODAY
Should Jesus Unite Mortal Enemies?
Monday, February 15, 2016 | Tsvi Sadan ISRAEL TODAY
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is taking a toll on Messianic Jews and Arab Christians who, in principle, are supposed to follow Jesus' command to love one's enemy.
The tension between Messianic Jews and Evangelical Palestinians has grown ever deeper with the appearance of the Christ at the Checkpoint conferences that promote a brand of Replacement Theology in which "Palestine" replaces Israel.
Most Messianic Jews have boycotted these conferences for their blatant hate toward Israel, and for their aggressive theological efforts to delegitimize the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.
Some Messianic Jews, however, think that no matter what the circumstances, conflict between Messianic Jews and Evangelical Palestinians is intolerable and unacceptable.
In an effort to resolve this conflict, a group of Messianic Jews and Evangelical Palestinians, most of whom are organizers of and participants in the caustic Christ at the Checkpoint conferences, met last month in Larnaca, Cyprus.
A press release published on the website of the very same people who organize, draft and propagate the "Palestine is Israel" agenda, outlines the way in which people who hold diametrically-opposed theological positions can still live up to Jesus' command to love your enemy.
The document proposes some practical steps aimed at expressing the unity that should exist between the two groups.
The document asserts that unity is possible on the basis of common ethical values: "...our unity in the Messiah must uphold ethical standards of life that are worthy of our calling." In order to live up to this standard the document calls for “a generous theological stance, which makes room for and respects the conscientious convictions of others that they sincerely derive from their reading of Scripture.”
In other words, those drafting this document believe that sincerity alone if enough to validate irreconcilable interpretations of the same sacred text. Sincerity and goodwill supersede truth.
The document goes on to state that "we recognize that we hold very different theological positions regarding the land," yet "deplore those ways of speaking and acting that are incompatible with obedience to our Lord."
Simply put, in this version of Christian righteousness, a Palestinian "brother" can maintain that "the establishment of the State of Israel as a catastrophe" and still be able to live in peace with Messianic Jews. Similarly, a Messianic Jew is expected to embrace those who are calling for his demise.
This conclusion is possible, but only if the Messianic Jews in question fail to see themselves as part of greater Israel, in which case they can tolerate the notion that Israel's rebirth was a catastrophe.
If, however, Messianic Jews do see themselves as an integral part of Israel, this document is yet further evidence of a disturbing phenomenon wherein Jews in increasing numbers are embracing the destructive narrative of their enemies. Only in this case they are doing so in the name of Jesus.
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Monday, February 15, 2016
A Lighthouse & Watchman - Now Think On This by Steve Martin
A Lighthouse & Watchman
Now Think On This
Steve Martin
“I am God. I have called you to live right and well.
I have taken responsibility for you, kept you safe. I have set you among my
people to bind them to me, and provided you as a lighthouse to the nations, to
make a start at bringing people into the open, into light: opening blind eyes, releasing
prisoners from dungeons, emptying the dark prisons.”
(Isaiah 42:6-7, THE MESSAGE)
(Isaiah 42:6-7, THE MESSAGE)
We have been hearing much in our Sunday gatherings on our roles as being watchmen. I take that word seriously, and act on it - to pray, to proclaim, to write accordingly, and then to post on our blog Love For His People. Even as the watchman of old sought the Lord, listened to His voice, and spoke out what they were told, I too want to be one who does that.
While being faithful as a watchman to bring the
warnings that come with the territory, there is also always hope in the midst
of it all, as that comes straight from the Father’s heart. His light brought
forth, as a lighthouse, guides us through the sea of life.
Jesus’ love for the nations causes Him to bring
awareness to His people of what is coming. His prophetic words, recorded in the
historical Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, have proven over and over
again of His loving actions. The Lord God of Israel, the Messiah, has continually
sought to draw us to Himself through those writings, and current warnings.
Another practical, visual way the Lord has also demonstrated
His light shining in the world has been through ocean and lakeside lighthouses.
Located on many coasts throughout the world yet today, these beacons of light
through the centuries have given direction to the incoming vessels, and hope to
the ones anxiously watching for a light to guide them safely into the harbor.
They have stood tall while withstanding the raging seas and mighty storms that
have pounded and battered at their foundations through the years.
Lighthouses are a vivid example of the Lord’s hope,
standing strong and tall in the battle, shining forth the beam of hope to show
us the way.
One summer in the late 90’s our family took the time
for a vacation trip, to do the eight hours of travel from Charlotte to the
Atlantic Coast of North Carolina. Our goal was to visit all seven lighthouses,
from Currituck as the northernmost one, stopping at the most famous and tallest Cape Hatteras on the Outer Banks, with the final destination being close to
the southern border with South Carolina. We did it in the seven days we had.
We
started at the northern end, first with Currituck Beach Light Station, followed by Bodie Island Lighthouse, Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, Ocracoke Lighthouse, Cape Lookout, Oak Island Lighthouse, and finally Old Baldy on Bald
Head Island. Being that one is only accessible by water or air,
we didn’t make it out to see that one. Someday we may!
As lighthouses and as watchmen too, we have been called
upon to stand strong, prepared in our spirits to announce the oncoming storms
that seek to take out or overtake the Lord’s people. As lighthouses in the spiritual
realm, watchmen are to stand ready to shine the light, the silver lining of
hope, as the darkness seeks to consume the continents with its encroaching
power. The Lord has given us the weapons of warfare and the fortitude established
in our character to be the watchmen, and the spiritual lighthouses.
We have been prepared for the war ahead.
Now think on this,
Steve Martin
Founder
Love For His People, Inc.
We are blessed when the ministry receives gifts to bless
the families that we do in Israel, India, Pakistan and the hurting ones here in
the USA. You also can share out of the abundance you have been given.
Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA humanitarian
organization started in 2010 to share the love of the Father in the nations.
If these messages minister to you, please consider
sending a charitable gift of $5-$25 today, and maybe each month, to help us
bless families we know in Israel, whom we consistently help through our
humanitarian ministry. Your tax deductible contributions receive a receipt
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Todah rabah! (Hebrew – Thank you very much.)
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Now Think On This - In the New Year of our Lord 02.15.16 -
#244 –“A Lighthouse and Watchman” – Monday at 8:45 am
All previous editions of Now Think On This can
be found on this Blog, and on the website: Now Think On This
I would be most grateful if you'd share this
encouraging word with your family and friends. You can easily use the social
media icons below. Thanks! Steve
Christians Who Demonize Israel – Part II By Dr. Denis MacEoin - BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS
Christians Who Demonize Israel – Part II
It is commonly repeated by Palestinians that there were never any Jews in the Holy Land before the 19th century and that the first and second Jewish Temples never stood in Jerusalem. Not only do these claims fly in the face of over a century of archaeological work and the records of Greek, Roman and other historians in antiquity, they flatly contradict and annul the texts of both the Old and New Testaments. By their own rejection of Jewish rights in Israel, Christians unwittingly repudiate their own rights and history.Christians in St Thomas Church did not once criticize or deplore the Palestinian glorification of violence, this delight at the murders of children, this dancing in the streets when innocent throats are cut.Is it the Christian thing to demand that hospitals and doctors across the globe should refuse to use Israeli medicines or surgical devices or advanced medical equipment? Would Christians who work with bodies like Christian Aid call on countries damaged by natural and man-made calamities to ban Israeli aid teams?Abandoning Israel will not soothe the hearts of the Palestinian people or make the Christians less vulnerable — as we are now seeing from the throat-slittings and mass displacements throughout the Middle East, done not by Jews but by Muslim fanatics.
(See also Part I: Christians Who Demonize Israel: Kairos)
Christians make up only some 1.5% of the Palestinian population. They live in an overwhelmingly Muslim atmosphere and are, given the threats they face from Muslim extremists, naturally loath to express a Christian narrative that differs from the dominant Palestinian narrative, which openly rejects many fundamental Christian beliefs. It is commonplace for Palestinians to express denials of history. Thus, it is repeated that there were never any Jews in the Holy Land before the 19th century and that the first and second Jewish Temples never stood in Jerusalem. Not only do these claims fly in the face of over a century of archaeological work and the records of Greek, Roman and other historians in antiquity, they flatly contradict and annul the texts of both the Old and New Testaments.
Jesus, it would seem, was not a Jewish teacher but a Palestinian Arab who never set foot in Herod’s Temple because it did not exist, and there were never any Jews in the Holy Land. Mitri Raheb, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, has actually argued that there is no DNA connection between Jews (ancient or modern) and Jesus, but that he himself, as a Palestinian, has such a link. By associating themselves closely with this Palestinian historical fabrication and never asserting the Biblical record (as to do so might be regarded as supportive of the Jewish right to a homeland), many Palestinian Christians are in danger of supporting by omission the Qur’anic claims that the Torah and Gospels have been falsified by rabbis and priests.
By denying that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people and claiming that Jews have no right to return there after two millennia, Muslims give no space at all to the history of the Christians with regard to the Jews, and their more modern relationship. Christian churches have inflicted lasting harm on Jews through pogroms, inquisitions, and ghettoization. Many Christians came to the rescue of Jews during the dark days of the Holocaust. Others stood by in silence. The creation of Israel in 1948 and the return of Jews, including Holocaust survivors, to the Holy Land was, in some degree, reparation for centuries of persecution and contumely. But today, the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (now in the eleventh year of a four-year term) repeatedly and openly declares that not a single Israeli will be allowed to live in a future State of Palestine. It must be assumed that by Israelis he means Jews, as Arab-Israelis would be considered Palestinians by default.
Recently, at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Abbas rejected Israel’s right to exist in any borders: “For how long will this protracted Israeli occupation of our land last? After 67 years, how long?” In other words, the “occupation,” according to him, really began 67 years prior, in 1948, when the State of Israel declared its independence within the terms of UN Resolution 181. Many Palestinians and their supporters, including Christian supporters, have also for decades been declaring: “Palestine will be free from the river [Jordan] to the [Mediterranean] sea,” signaling that a future Palestine will ideally be free of any Jewish inhabitants.
Last September, during the World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel — an initiative of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF) of the World Council of Churches, St Thomas The Martyr Church in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, hosted an event titled “Walls Will Fall”. The event featured deeply one-sided presentations and literature, denying Jewish rights in Israel.
By their own rejection of Jewish rights in Israel, Christians not only unwittingly repudiate their own rights and history, they also defy all the love and striving for forgiveness that has characterized the endeavor of bringing justice to the Jews in recompense for the suffering kings and churches had caused them.
Many Christians claim that they work for peace and justice in the Holy Land. The truth is that those taking part in events such as “Walls Will Fall” do not. They present a viciously biased condemnation against only one side, Israel, and its main inhabitants, the Jews, while refusing to mention unremitting Arab, Muslim and Palestinian violence from the 1920s on. There is no mention of the five Arab armies that attacked the tiny Jewish state on the day of Israel’s birth in 1948, while openly boasting of an imminent genocide of all the Jews.
There is no mention of the Arab coalition of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq that mustered to attack Israel in 1967, again boasting of an imminent slaughter of all the Jews. There is never any mention of the 1973 invasion of Israel by Egypt and Syria, supported by nine Arab states and Cuba, and preceded by threats by Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat, who said he was willing to sacrifice a million soldiers to destroy Israel. No mention of thousands of terrorist attacks. No mention of the Arab policy of “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it.” Not a single mention of Hamas and its 1988 Charter, in which it is stated “there is no solution to the Palestinian question except through jihad,” and which declares peace talks, international efforts for peace, and any compromise as “a waste of time,” and that calls for the slaughter of all Jews in the world.
On October 1, 2015, Palestinian gunmen shot and killed a young Jewish couple, Rabbi Eitam Henkin and his wife Naama, who were driving home through the West Bank with their four children. Mahmoud Al-Aloul, a member of the Fatah Central Committee (an institution that is part of the Palestinian Authority) posted on its official Facebook Page that Fatah was responsible for the shootings: “The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement Fatah, accepted responsibility for the Itamar operation [murder of Eitam and Naama Henkin], carried out against settlers, leading to their deaths.”
Leading members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, ‘Azzam al-Ahmad and General Sultan Abu’l-Einen, praised the attack. General Al-Einen, who serves as Abbas’s adviser on NGOs, called for more attacks on Israelis. There were celebrations across the West Bank. The festivities included the launching of fireworks and the waving of flags in the streets. Such celebrations take place every time Jews are killed in the area.
Two days later, on October 3, a Palestinian man stabbed to death two Jewish rabbis and injured the wife and two-year-old child of one of the rabbis. The widow reported from hospital that she attempted to escape from the terrorist after the stabbing began. “I ran for dozens of meters with a knife in my shoulder, bleeding. Arabs in the area who saw this horrible scene clapped and laughed, and told that they hoped for my quick death…. I felt I was about to faint,” she said. “I tried to hold on to someone who passed by, and they just… shook me off and kicked me, and said ‘die.'”
Since then, deadly attacks have become a daily feature of Israeli life. Knives are the weapon of choice. It is, on a small scale as yet, a third intifada, known now as the Knife Intifada. Even children are going out with knives, in order to kill.
The Israeli government, as any government, has no choice but to protect its citizens, as it has had to so many times in the past. This response may mean tightening security and more restrictive actions. More checkpoints may have to go up. The security fence may have to be strengthened. Palestinians will suffer. Those who work in Israel may lose their jobs or experience greater inconvenience. Yet Kairos and other Christian organizations apparently express approval when they exonerate the Palestinians of all blame and focus their wrath on Israel and the Jews alone.
Israeli Jews do not go out onto their streets to celebrate the deaths of even the most vicious murderers — terrorists who have killed twenty, thirty or more people in an attack. No one sent up fireworks or handed out sweets when Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, was hanged in 1962 — the only person ever executed in Israeli history — in the Israeli city of Ramla. People may be pleased when they hear of the death of a terrorist, just as we are: innocent lives may have been saved.
St Thomas Church chose to say nothing about such Palestinian killings, or else preferred to blame them on the so-called “occupation” or Israel’s clearly needed security measures.
Palestinian authorities name schools, sports grounds and teams, parks and streets after mass murderers, and put their faces on large posters to decorate walls and schoolrooms, acclaiming them as role models. They teach their children in schools and summer camps to admire terrorists as heroes and heroines, and to aspire to become killers and martyrs themselves. There is nothing remotely like this in Israeli schools or youth clubs. Instead, the walls of Jerusalem’s Holocaust research institute, Yad Vashem, are covered with the photographic images of individual Jews and entire Jewish families shot and gassed and starved to death in the death camps or by the einsatzgruppen squads. And there is also a garden filled with names next to flowers to commemorate the righteous Christians who risked their lives to save Jews.
Yet Christians in St Thomas Church did not once criticize or deplore the Palestinian glorification of violence, this delight at the murders of children, this dancing in the streets when innocent throats are cut (as in the massacre of the Fogel family in 2011), this elevation of killers to the ranks of saints. Instead, they cast bitter criticisms of the slightest Israeli misdemeanour, and censure Israel even when it behaves in entirely legal and moral ways — the same way they would expect of their own government if their people were being targeted by rockets, run over or stabbed.
In Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian religious and political leaders preach their longing for the extermination of a democratic and tolerant state, and prophesy the coming genocide of men and women and children whose parents and grandparents and great-grandparents perished in the concentration and death camps of Nazi-controlled Europe. The Israeli government and people have for over 67 years prayed and called for a peaceful two-state solution and for co-existence with their neighbors. The Jews have never agitated for the elimination of a Palestinian state or the killing of its citizens.
Yet Christians in St Thomas Church chose to say not a word about Palestinian, Arab, and wider Islamic incitement. They chose instead to describe Israel as an imperialist, colonial, and apartheid state – in flagrant contradiction to historical facts and Israel’s record in repeatedly pulling out of territory — the Sinai, Lebanon, and Gaza — in a concrete and irreversible search for peace. Apartheid exists nowhere in Israeli law or daily life, and claims of its existence ignore the growing status of Israeli Arabs, who serve as full members of Israel’s parliament, as judges (including on the Supreme Court), as professors in the universities, diplomats, as hospital administrators and chief physicians, in the media and entertainment, in the police, the army, the air force and elsewhere, with exactly the same rights as Jews.
This deliberately twisted view of Israel is wrong; it is morally wrong and it is ethically wrong. It is bearing false witness against thy neighbour: It is a sin. It is wrong from the perspective of Christian ethics, wrong in the context of peacemaking and justice, an affront to honesty. It is not simple one-sidedness; it is gross moral blindness.
Hatred for Israel and the Jewish people — who have only one country in the world in which to take refuge in a time of need — will not bring peace. Abandoning Israel will not soothe the hearts of the Palestinian people or make the Christians less vulnerable — as we are now seeing from the throat-slittings and mass displacements throughout the Middle East, done not by Jews but by Muslim fanatics.
Obstruction of Israeli security measures will not bring safety. Support of Palestinian rejection of the peace process and refusal to compromise will not bring security to either side. On September 30 this year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared before the General Assembly of the United Nations that he has abandoned the Oslo Accords, the basis on which the peace process takes place. Describing terrorists as freedom fighters will not bring justice to their victims, or to their families, or to the four little children who saw their parents gunned down and buried.
What one could read and hear during Walls Will Fall was a wholesale denial that Israel had any genuine security risks, a totally ahistorical claim that terror attacks must be blamed on a spurious “occupation”, and a fatuous assertion that the “occupation” and Jewish settlements are illegal in international law, which they are not.[1]
There is no question that the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank suffer greatly and that it is a Christian duty to care for them and work to alleviate their suffering. It is also the case that many actions, legal rulings, and displays of force by Israel and the Israel Defense Forces have been wrong-headed and harmful to Palestinians. These are all things that are open to discussion and that must be part of any Christian work for peace and justice in the Holy Land.
But it must be self-evident that to take the side of one party, while expressing hostility for the other, is not the way to a resolution of the problem and sadly exposes to question much about the decency and integrity of the people crying hatred aloud. Christians who claim that Israel is an “apartheid state”, for example — a charge made in some of the literature displayed on the stalls in St Thomas Church — have adopted a singular falsehood and taken it as fact, even while seeing for themselves the reality that not a single apartheid law or practice exists in the country. Not only that, but, disquietingly, there is never a murmur about the truly apartheid policies of Saudi Arabia, where even the display of a Bible is illegal, where non-Muslim laborers can be beaten and treated as sub-human, and where non-Muslims are not even allowed to enter the city Mecca, and may enter Medina only as a visitor.
This argument has been recently advanced by a South African MP Kenneth Meshoe, president of the Christian Democrat Party, who has argued against the claims of the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement. “There are many Christians that support Israel, but they don’t come out,” he has said.
“Those who know what real apartheid is, as I know, know that there is nothing in Israel that looks like apartheid. … The view that Israel is an apartheid state, is an empty political statement that does not hold truth. You see people of different colors, backgrounds, and religions [coexisting in Israel]. The BDS movement is a real pain… to us in South Africa who love the truth. [The] BDS movement is not a democratic movement; they are a movement of intimidation, a movement that performs hatred. People who don’t believe in hatred should not allow the BDS movement to stop them from doing the right thing.”
Yet the economic, academic, and cultural squeeze of boycotts, divestment and sanctions was praised and recommended strongly throughout the Kairos workshop at St Thomas Church. No alternative approach was suggested, no questions were asked, no explanation of the real dangers of the BDS movement to cultural, academic, scientific, medical, or commercial life was even hinted at. Although the work of BDS — ostensibly to drive out Israeli settlements from the West Bank, but actually to try to destroy Israel by crushing it economically — is hailed as support for the Palestinians. It has, in fact, severely harmed them. When the Israeli company Soda Stream moved out of its West Bank factory last year, some 500 Arab workers lost their jobs. They also lost salaries of four to five times the standard rate for the area. Those who were able to find jobs in the new factory in the south of Israel have to travel for hours each day. Now, SodaStream has offered jobs to 1,000 Syrian refugees. This is the true impact of BDS on Palestinians who used to work side by side with their Jewish colleagues under identical conditions. BDS creates apartheid where there was none. Is that something Christians should support?
Perhaps this may be best illustrated by a local example. Retinal detachment and macular degeneration are two serious medical conditions that lead to complete blindness. They are often incurable. Researchers at Newcastle University’s medical school (one of the UK’s leading medical research centers) are working on a film that may replace retinas and restore a large measure of sight to the blind. They are working alongside teams from Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, combining semiconductor nanorods and carbon nanotubes to create a wireless, light-sensitive, flexible film that could potentially act in the place of a damaged retina. But BDS activists will insist that Newcastle University should break off this relationship with two Israel universities, in accordance with the principles of their academic boycott.
When a Kairos leader spoke at St Thomas church, she spent a lot of time on support for the BDS movement. It must be asked whether a Christian should endorse, let us say, a boycott of a research enterprise that promises so much to blind people. And it is essential to add that Israel is a world leader, next only to the United States, in science, technology and medicine. Its drugs and medical devices have saved lives and improved life for the sick and disabled. Is it the Christian thing to demand that hospitals and doctors across the globe should refuse to use Israeli medicines or surgical devices or advanced medical equipment?
Israel is a world leader in the management of water resources and has taken the lead in many Third World countries, especially in Africa, to end drought. Should Christians call on those countries to boycott Israeli water treatment and agricultural advances? Israel is always among the first countries to respond by sending aid teams, field hospitals, equipment and supplies to foreign countries in times of disaster. Would Christians who work with bodies like Christian Aid call on countries damaged by natural and man-made calamities to ban Israeli aid teams? Surely BDS is, in all respects, an un-Christian policy that plays into a bigoted and inhumane narrative.
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It is clear that much of the pro-Palestinian work carried out within Christian churches is inspired by aspects of Liberation Theology. Undoubtedly, the concern of liberation theologians and others with the poor, the oppressed, the sick and the persecuted is a valid expression of Christ’s message, and we have no complaints whatever about that approach while it remains within the religious sphere. But Liberation Theology was inspired by materialist Marxist theory and praxis, and then strayed into the political realm.
The Soviet Union was responsible for the spread of the view that oppression can be attributed largely to economics and materialism, or to imperialism and colonialism, and to a fixation on Israel as the chief bearer of that original sin. The application of such terms to Israel is historically and conceptually incorrect: Israel has no colonies, is not the seat of an empire, and has from its inception advocated a two-state arrangement as predicated in the 1947 UN partition plan. But many Christians now view Israel through a false and distorted lens. This view is simply a matter of political bias, a bias exacerbated (as elsewhere), not only by a refusal to admit Israel’s stunning human rights record for women, religious minorities, ethnic communities, and LGBT citizens, but also by a notable failure to hold sessions on regimes that genuinely oppress, persecute, torture and deny full rights to their citizens.
Why, for example, do Christians animated by zeal for the oppressed never hold meetings to uphold the rights of Iran’s large Baha’i community, whose members are hanged, tortured, imprisoned, and denied all civil rights and access to higher education, and whose holy places and cemeteries have been bulldozed in an ISIS-style desecration? Why do they meet only to condemn Israel, the only country in the Middle East to celebrate the Baha’i presence and to protect the important Baha’i World Center in Haifa and the two most important Baha’i shrines, visited by pilgrims from around the world? Surely this obsession with an open and democratic country, alongside their apparent indifference to the human rights abuses of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, North Korea and others, is a clear distortion of the Christian vision and the underlying ideals of a non-politicized gospel of liberation.
Reprinted with author’s permission from Gatestone Institute
Read more at http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7399/christians-who-demonize-israel#tIbPRc92Z0tWfQbX.99
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