Friday, March 06, 2009

Beware the new axis of evangelicals and Islamists

Melanie Phillips, here. One of her subjects, Stephen Sizer, shows how much he really cares about antisemitism by suggesting, here, that one can combat racism by supporting "the United Nations Durban Review Conference to be held in Geneva in April. The Durban Review Conference, to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, 20-24 April 2009, will evaluate progress towards the goals set by the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, in 2001." You can have a look at the kind of goals set in 2001 here. Benjamin Pogrund, a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, has little confidence that the Durban Review will be any different. Anyone who really cares about racism would, not for the first time, be well-advised to do the exact opposite of what Reverend Sizer suggests.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Related to this, I just had two thoughts (there goes my quota for the month!):

Firstly, Christian support for Israel is primarily found in the west - the USA in particular, Europe to a lesser extent. So anyone who disagrees with it needs to address their concerns to the Christian communities in those countries.

In which case, why has Stephen Sizer's book "Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon?" been translated (no doubt with his support) into arabic and farsi?

This does nothing to influence western opinion, but could quite easily contribute to antisemitism amongst muslims in arab countries. Perhaps that's what the plan was...

Secondly, I wonder what it must be like to be a member of Sizer's church, which is simply the parish church in a commuter village, with a theological position on the conservative side of anglican evangelicalism. The only notable fact I can observe is that it's in an extremely well-off part of England.

Do his parishoners know about everything he gets up to and how offensive some people find his views? And do his anti-zionism activities (including international travel) take him away from his day job?