Monday, October 27, 2008

Questions for Stephen Sizer

Dear Reverend Sizer,

If you are reading this, would you care to comment on this email which you sent, on first name terms, to a certain Israel Shamir in September 2004, asking him to cooperate with you in your anti-Zionist activities? Would you further care to comment on the fact that the same Israel Shamir elsewhere opines that "We must deny the concept of Holocaust without doubt and hesitation, even if every story of Holocaust down to the most fantastic invention of Wiesel were absolutely true", who assures us that "Nobody has to be a Jew, and as their crimes in Palestine multiply, it is imperative not to be one", and who is described by Times journalist Stephen Pollard as "an extreme anti-Semite"?

Oh, and should you perhaps care to preface your answer with "some of that material postdates my Sept 2004 email to Israel Shamir", perhaps you could answer me this: were you aware that some pro-Palestinian activists had disassociated themselves from Israel Shamir a full THREE AND A HALF YEARS previously? (Quote: "We do not have any need for some of what Israel Shamir is introducing into the discourse on behalf of Palestinian rights, which increasingly includes elements of traditional European anti-Semitic rhetoric.")

Perhaps you can also answer me this: why were you emailing Israel Shamir at the same time as you were presumably researching for your December 2005 book "Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon?" in which you claim that you desired to "repudiate anti-Semitism" (p. 261)? Rev Sizer, how do you square your desire to repudiate anti-Semitism with your documented links with Israel Shamir?

Just in case you're struggling for answers, let me help you out with a couple of suggestions:

(1) You knew that Shamir was a virulent anti-Semite, but chose to network with him anyway. If this is the case, then how do you expect people to believe you when you say you repudiate antisemitism?

OR

(2) You did not know that Israel Shamir was a virulent anti-Semite, even though this had been made abundantly clear three-and-a-half years earlier. If this is the case, then how do you expect people to take you seriously as a scholar?

I can see no third alternative: perhaps you can suggest one?

I await your answers with great interest.

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