Letter to Evangelicals Now on behalf of the BMJA

[In response to this review]

Sir,

Many things could be said in response to Alec Motyer's review of Israel, God's Servant by David Torrance and George Taylor in July's EN. However we are particularly troubled by Dr Motyer's assertion that he "still cannot find any 'Jews' in the Old Testament". It is disturbing that a man of Dr Motyer's calibre can make such a statement. It seems to us, from the context of the whole review, that by 'Jews' Dr Motyer does not simply mean "rabbinic Judaism", but that he means "the Jewish nation" as a whole. If he does not find 'Jews' in the Old Testament, whom does he find?

It is a worrying development for Messianic Jews amongst many others to read such statements from a respected leading theologian. We know some will accuse us of being hysterical for bringing up the Holocaust; however the truth is that in Nazi Germany, it became common place for theologians to argue that the characters and writers of the Bible were not Jewish. For example, German Protestants established the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life, where Jesus himself was turned into an Aryan. A dejudaized hymnbook Grosser Gott Wir Loben Dich was published in 1940 and was commercially successful, followed by Die Botschaft Gottes, a dejudaized New Testament. 100,000 copies of each were published in the first edition. An ethnically-cleansed catechism, Deutsche mit Gott: Ein deutsches Glaubensbuch was also published.

We are sure that Dr Motyer's phrase does not spring from the same hateful motivation and we are not accusing him of antisemitism; it is nevertheless unfortunate. We have members of our Alliance who escaped Nazi Germany who therefore find such comments chilling and deeply offensive - as do we.

Stephen Sizer outdoes himself

Stephen Sizer is a radically anti-Zionist British evangelical, whom I have blogged about previously here, here, here and here. Follow those links and you should get a feel for Sizer's agenda and methodology. Even by his standards, though, the extract below, from an article on his website responding to this blog post by Irene Lancaster, takes some beating:

Regarding the fallacious assertion that Israel was attacked in 1967 – I would refer you to the confessions of Prime Minister Moshe Sharett (in his personal diary), General Mordicai Hod, Commander of the Israeli Air Force, General Haim Herzog, former head of Israeli Military Intelligence and Head of State, and Foreign Minister Abba Eban that Israel precipitated the 1967 war for their own purposes. Israeli’s survival was not at stake. Mordechai Ben-Tov, for example, admitted “The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail and exaggerated a posteriori, to justify the annexation of new Arab territory.” Similarly, even Menachim Begin admitted, “We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him (Egypt).” [my emphasis]

Yes, Sizer actually claims that Israel's existence was not threatened in the run-up to the 1967 war: a statement with which no serious historian would agree. Consider the following crucial bits of information from Michael Oren's book Six Days of War (Penguin, 2002):

The war decision of the Israeli cabinet, drafted by Dayan and passed by a 12-2 vote, was that

the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan are deployed for a multi-front attack that threatens Israel's existence. It is therefore decided to launch a military strike aimed at... preventing the impending assault. (pp157-8). Cf:-

p86: "It is now a question of our national survival" (Yitzhak Rabin)
p87: "The Arab states will interpret Israel's weakness as an excellent oppportunity to threaten her security and her very existence" (Aharaon Yariv)
p134 "The question isn't free passage but the existence of the people of Israel." (Ariel Sharon)

The same book also includes a photograph of Israelis digging trenches in the run up to the war. Presumably Sizer believes this was a cunning Zionist hoax to hoodwink the watching world.

No serious historian would claim that Israel's existence was not at stake in the run-up to the 1967 war. Sizer refers to alleged entries in the diary of Moshe Sharrett but, since Sharret died in 1965, these apparent confessions would seem to require an explanation beyond even Rev Sizer's powers of imagination. Regarding Mordechai Ben-Tov, Sizer omits to mention that he was a Knesset Member for Mapam, a miniscule Stalinist party controlled by the KGB. Ben-Tov was so slavishly loyal to Stalin that he had supported the Doctors Plot:-

"Bentov argued that revolution is cruel by nature, and therefore we must not rush to condemn events such as the infamous Doctors’ Plot, in which nine Russian Jewish doctors were arrested on false charges of plotting to murder top government officials." (See http://www.azure.org.il/magazine/magazine.asp?id=377)

As for the Begin quote, Sizer strangely omits Begin's next sentences: This was a war of self-defence in the noblest sense of the term. The Government of National Unity then established declared unanimously [sic]: we will take the initiative and attack the enemy, drive him back, and thus assure the security of Israel and the future of the nation.*

The selective quotation says a lot about Sizer's ethics and methodology. Why do so many people take him seriously?

[I should say that I sent this material by email to Sizer a few weeks ago. He responded but declined to comment on any of these points.]

* The quote comes from a 1982 Jerusalem Post article. Jerusalem Post's online archive only goes as far back as 1989 but I have a PDF copy of the relevant speech on my computer. If you would like to see it, let me have an email address and I'll send it to you.

Israel shows Britain the way?

It's not often that I come across anything of great interest in The Law Society Gazette (I know this may seem hard to believe), but this article by Joshua Rozenberg caught my attention. It seems that various English law lords and appeals judges have visited Israel's Supreme Court and have met Israeli judges on visits to London. Presumably, this is because English judges feel they might have something to learn from how the Israeli Supreme Court operates, and how it deals with claims brought by campaign groups and residents of the West Bank and Gaza. Something to chew on for those who would like to see a complete exclusion of Israelis from the cultural, academic and legal life of the planet.

Jewish stuff in this month's Evangelicals Now

Alec Motyer reviews Torrance and Taylor's Israel, God's Servant, here. I guess it was as positive a review the book was ever going to get in EN, which is, after all, supersessionist at heart.

There was also an artticle on the recent burning of New Testaments at Yehuda Or, but this article has not been reproduced on EN's website.

More on the boycott movement

The left's hypocrisy over Zimbabwe, here

Eve Garrard (of Keele University) has written a terrific letter of resignation from the Universities and Colleges Union, here. I suspect she won't be the last. "The Union purports to be antiracist: it asserts that 'racism is widespread throughout further and higher education', and that the 'UCU is opposed to race discrimination in whatever form it takes'. But it doesn't seem to be opposed to current race discrimination against Jews (except when it can be safely attributed to Nazis), and it does seem to believe that the UCU itself is entirely free of the racism which it regards as so widespread elsewhere. It appears to be impervious to the possibility that its own practices are open to question under that heading. Its peevish and self-satisfied response to criticism from the All-Party Inquiry into Anti-Semitism was a salutary example of this, as was the Union's flat refusal to meet the OSCE Special Representative on combating anti-Semitism. Its officials declared that they were too busy to meet the Representative. Perhaps Union personnel should announce that they're opposed to race discrimination in whatever form it takes, except when they're really busy. Even when it is pointed out to the Union, in the clearest possible terms, that its proposed actions constitute institutional discrimination against Jews, it is so determined to persist in those actions that it spends very large sums of its members' money trying to find out if there is some way in which it can single out the Jewish state for hostile attention and still remain within the law."

Good news for a change

Boycott hit by a wave of collaborations, here

Jewish Groups welcome Presbyterians' move towards balance, here

The Modern Version of the Blood Libel

Melani Phillips on the Mohammed Al-Dura affair, here

Thoughts on (what some people claim isn't) the boycott campaign

Here.

Messianic Jews say they are persecuted in Israel

Ynet news article, here

Howard Jacobson on the boycott

Have a listen, here - it's about 10 minutes long, funny, and devastatingly brilliant.

UNRWA: Barrier to Peace

(From this site)

UNRWA: Barrier to Peace Jonathan Spyer Perspectives Papers No. 44, May 27, 2008 May 28, 2008 Executive Summary: The United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) was created under the jurisdiction of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with the unique responsibility of solely aiding the Palestinians. Due to this special status, the UNRWA perpetuates, rather than resolves, the Palestinian refugee issue, and therefore serves as a major obstacle toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like no other UN body, UNRWA's definition of refugees includes not only the refugees themselves, but also their descendents. Moreover, refugees keep their status even if they have gained citizenship. UNRWA employs teachers affiliated with Hamas and allows the dissemination of Hamas messages in its schools. The Hamas coup in Gaza of July 2007 has resulted in a Hamas takeover of UNRWA facilities there. Therefore, UNRWA's activities require urgent action. The Agency should be dissolved and its services transferred to more appropriate administering organizations. Background Millions of refugees worldwide - over 130 million since the end of World War II - have come under the responsibility of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which aims to resettle and rehabilitate refugees. On December 8, 1949, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 302, establishing an agency dedicated solely to "direct relief and works programs" for the Palestinian Arab refugees - UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) - making it a unique body. UNRWA exists in order to perpetuate, rather than to resolve, the Palestinian refugee issue. No Palestinian has ever lost his or her refugee status. There are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants who are citizens of Jordan, for example - yet as far as UNRWA is concerned they are still refugees, eligible for aid. UNRWA, over the past 60 years, has transformed itself into a central vehicle for the perpetuation of the refugee problem, and into a major obstacle for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Problem of Definition When UNRWA first began counting refugees in 1948, it did so in a way without precedent - seeking to maximize the number of those defined as refugees. UNRWA counts every descendant of the original refugees as a refugee themselves - leading to an increase of 400 percent in the number since 1948. This was a politically motivated definition to imply that either Palestinians would remain refugees forever or until the day that they returned in a triumph to a Palestinian Arab state that included the territory where Israel existed. If they built lives elsewhere, even after many generations - decades or centuries - they still remained officially refugees. In contrast to other situations around the world, other refugees only retained that status until they found permanent homes elsewhere, presumably as citizens of other countries. Moreover, refugee status was based solely on the applicant's word. Even UNRWA admitted its figures were inflated in a 1998 Report of the Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (July 1997-30 June 1998): "UNRWA registration figures are based on information voluntarily supplied by refugees primarily for the purpose of obtaining access to Agency services and hence cannot be considered statistically valid demographic data." Fostering Conflict In October 2004, then UNRWA Commissioner General Peter Hansen publicly admitted for the first time that Hamas members were on the UNWRA payroll, adding, "I don't see that as a crime. Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another." Consequently, taxpayers' money in countries where Hamas was legally defined as a terrorist organization, like the United States and Canada, was being illegally used to fund Hamas-controlled activities. Hanson's view that Hamas was a normal political organization whose doctrines did not interfere with the governance and education of Palestinians remains the position of UNRWA. This has been so even when Hamas has committed violence against other Palestinians. After the organization seized Gaza by force in July 2007, UNRWA immediately indicated to Hamas that it was eager to get back to providing its services. Nothing was changed in its procedure or performance after the takeover. A graphic demonstration of this issue was the death of Awad al-Qiq in May 2008. Qiq had a long career as a science teacher in an UNRWA school and had been promoted to run its Rafah Prep Boys School. He was also the leading bombmaker for Islamic Jihad. He was killed while supervising a factory to make rockets and other weapons for use against Israel, located a short distance from the school. Qiq was thus simultaneously building weapons for attacking Israeli civilians while indoctrinating his students to do the same. Islamic Jihad did not need to pay him a salary for his terrorist activities. The UN and the American taxpayer were already doing so. The increasing numbers of UNRWA teachers who openly identify with radical groups have created a teachers' bloc that ensures the election of members of Hamas and individuals committed to Islamist ideologies. Using classrooms as a place to spread their radical messages, these teachers have also gravitated to local Palestinian elections. Thus, UNRWA's education system has become a springboard for the political activities of Hamas. For example, Minister of Interior and Civil Affairs Minister Saeed Siyam of Hamas, was a teacher in UNRWA schools in Gaza from 1980 to 2003. He then became a member of UNRWA's Arab Employees Union, and has headed the Teachers Sector Committee. Other notable Hamas graduates of the UNRWA education system include Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, the former Hamas chief. Fostering Dependency UNRWA's budget has been supported by many countries of which the United States and Western countries have been the largest contributors. In 1990, UNRWA's annual budget was over $292 million, and by 2000 it had increased to $365 million. Despite this seemingly significant rise, however, actual allocations among the various refugee camps has decreased - compounded by a very high birth rate and burgeoning camp populations. Refugees were discouraged from moving out and had the incentive of being on welfare if they remained. Per capita spending among refugees in camps thus declined from $200 in services per year per refugee in the 1970s to about $70 currently. This situation has been most evident in Lebanon, where the government provides little if any additional assistance to the Palestinians. UNRWA provides jobs to a large number of Palestinians (it has a full time staff of 23,000). While the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) avoid employing locals who are also recipients of agency services, UNRWA does not make this distinction. UNRWA thus keeps a large population of refugees and their descendants in a permanent state of welfare dependency, financed by the western taxpayer. In so doing, it acts as a barrier to attempts to make the refugees into productive citizens. Bureaucracies have a tendency to become self-perpetuating. In the case of UNRWA, this tendency is exacerbated by the fact that the organization's raison d'etre is the preserving of a refugee problem, rather than finding a solution for it. Conclusion The UN erred when it created a UN body devoted exclusively to one refugee population and with a modus operandi contradicting that of all other relief institutions. Four steps are required to bring the international approach to the Palestinian refugee issue in line with standard practice on similar situations. First, UNRWA itself should be dissolved. Second, the services UNRWA currently provides should be transferred to other UN agencies, notably the UNHCR, which have a long experience with such programs. Third, responsibility for normal social services should be turned over to the Palestinian Authority. A large portion of the UNRWA staff should be transferred to that governmental authority. Fourth, donors should use the maximum amount of oversight to ensure transparency and accountability. Dr. Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya Israel.

The Longest Hatred 27

Sickening white supremacist "Christian" antisemitism, here

Deborah Lipstadt on the UCU boycott, here. When someone of her stature says something is antisemitic, you'd like to think that even the fine minds who head up the UCU would sit up and listen.

The blasphemous heterodoxy of Sabeel

Read Paul Wilkinson's report on the 2004 conference of the Sabeel Ecumenical Palestinian Liberation Theology Center, here, needs to be read to be believed. Sabeel appears to be able to accommodate all shades of theological opinion, including Jesuits, Feminists, New-Agers and Evangelicals, as long as they are opposed to the state of Israel.

Mitri Raheb, the Director of the International Centre of Bethlehem, for example, in his “alternative reading” of Acts 1:6-11 described Christ’s disciples as “nationalistic”, “narrow-minded”, and “blinded” to the future.

Fr Peter du Brul, S.J. commenced his “Bible study” of Genesis 12:1-3 – which was apparently peppered with profanities – with the comment, “The gods must be crazy”.

It seems that the late Revd Dr Michael Prior, who was Chairman of the Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britain and a member of the International Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Islamic Jerusalem Studies, was the most outspoken critic of the Scriptures among the speakers. Speaking of the authors of the biblical narratives, Prior said, “It seems to me that they were very narrow minded, xenophobic, perhaps militaristic spin-headed bigots. The Church is full of them, full of them!”

Prior declared that the Bible should carry the warning: “This is a dangerous book. Reading it may damage somebody else’s health” He referred to Joshua as “the patron-saint of ethnic cleansers” and “a continuous genocidist” and called the conquest of Canaan “an abomination”.

All of which begs the question: why does this professing evangelical support Sabeel?

The ongoing terrorist threat to Israel

Thank God that this particular incident wasn't far, far worse.

Israel's police tried to ban this Israeli News broadcast on the Ami Ortiz bombing twice, third time they failed

[Adapted from an email from an Israeli pastor]

Have a look at this link to a news report done by Israel's Channel 1 News. This news report on Ami Ortiz was the highest rated show on Israeli TV during the time it was aired due to the number of viewers. As you will learn from the video, the Israeli police attempted to stop the airing of this report by taking Channel 1 to court twice. When their first attempt failed, they brought it before a higher court. Thankfully, the second attempt failed as well. The Lord used the fact that they were trying to cover up the case to bring greater publicity and awareness. Advertisements were made to make the public aware of how much the police are trying to block any information to be revealed about the case. It made people more interested.

The airing of the report also caused public officials as well as other media outlets to take interest in what's happening. They are starting to wonder what is being hidden and why. This is pressuring the police to finally start working on the case after they've sat on the evidence without doing anything.

As you watch this report, please pray. Here are some prayer points:

Pray for Ami:
Pray that the Lord would continue to speak to Ami and give him love, peace, hope, and joy.
Pray that the Lord would continue to perform miracles on his physical body. He still faces multiple operations to reattach severed nerves in his arms and a long road of physical therapy. Pray for miraculous healing.
Pray for his parents

Pray that the Lord would continue to give all involved more grace and strength for each day.
Pray that the Lord will give them wisdom and discernment as they deal with the police, officials, lawyers, and the media.
Pray that the Lord will continue to give them courage and boldness to proclaim His name.
Pray for their children:
Pray that the Lord will use this to work in the hearts of Israeli Messianic children and not be a point of discouragement.
Pray for the believers:
Pray that the Lord will continue to unite the believers all over Israel and the world through this matter.
Pray that the Lord will cast out all fear through His love and that they will be bold and courageous in declaring their faith.
Pray that the media will not twist any facts, but present the truth so that the Lord will be glorified.

The Longest Hatred 26

Robert Fine's fantastic piece on the UCU boycott motion, here

Anthony Julius on the boycott motion and the UCU's institutionalised antisemitism, here

:-)

Anti-Christian 'Cleansing' Campaign Picks Up Pace in Gaza

By Gil Ronen

Attacks on Christian targets and those identified with Western culture have grown more frequent in Gaza in the past two years, and especially since the Hamas takeover in June 2007, experts say. The targets have included churches, Christian and United Nations schools, the American International School, libraries and Internet cafes.

The most recent incident occurred this past Saturday, May 31, when gunmen attacked the guards at the Al Manara school, stole a vehicle belonging to the Baptist Holy Book Society which operates the school and threatened the society's director. The Hamas leadership is not acting to stop the attacks and no one has been brought to justice.

Global jihad involvement
An Israeli intelligence report determined that there has been an increase in the number of attacks on Christian figures and institutions, as well as those associated with Western values. The attacks are being perpetrated by elements identified with the global jihad and radical Islam. In the past two years, groups associated with Al-Qaeda took responsibility for attacks upon Christians and Christian institutions with the expressly-stated goal of driving Christians out of Gaza.

The Christian community in Gaza numbers around 3,000. According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC), the attacks on Christians have included the following:

• May 18, 2008: a large bomb exploded at the entrance to a fast-food restaurant near Al-Quds Open University in the center of Gaza City. The restaurant was completely destroyed. According to the owner, it was the second time his establishment had been attacked.
• May 16, 2008: a bomb exploded in the Rahabat al-Wardia school run by nuns in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City. Hamas condemned the incident and a call was made to the police to bring the criminals to justice. The previous year, when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, the school was subjected to thefts and an arson attack.
• April 3, 2008: a monument in the Gaza Strip's foreign nationals' cemetery was blown up. Hamas promised to investigate.
• February 15, 2008: Three gunmen from the "Army of Islam in the Land of Ribat," a network headed by Mumtaz Dughmush, broke into the YMCA library in Gaza City and set off a bomb which caused extensive damage. Hamas police condemned the event, calling it "a criminal act" and promising to investigate. The Hamas security forces detained a number of Army of Islam operatives but released them shortly thereafter, following a threat to use force to free them. After the event, senior Hamas figures met with senior Christian figures to express solidarity.
• January 10, 2008: a group called "Army of the Believers -- the Al-Qaeda Organization in Palestine," attacked the International School in Beit Lahiya twice, burning vehicles and stealing equipment. According to a statement issued two days later, the school was accused of spreading polytheism and hatred for Islam. The attacks were timed to coincide with U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Israel.
• December 31, 2007: the "Friends of the Sunnah Bayt al-Maqdis" issued a manifesto on the Pal-Today Website, affiliated with Islamic Jihad, threatening to attack anyone who participated in New Year's Eve celebrations.
• October 6, 2007, elements linked to Hamas abducted Rami Khadr Ayad from his home and shot him to death; he was a Christian who worked for the Holy Bible Society. The Hamas administration condemned the murder and opened an investigation whose results are so far unknown.
• June 19, 2007: during the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip Hamas gunmen attacked and vandalized a monastery and church.
• April 21, 2007: elements linked to the global jihad attacked the American International School in Gaza City.
• April 15, 2007: a group calling itself "The Swords of Truth in the Land of Ribat" set off bombs in two Internet cafes and a store selling Christian books, causing damage.

A(nother) sad day for British academia

Once again the annual congress of my union, the Universities and Colleges Union, has passed a motion which is but a step away from a boycott of Israeli (and only Israeli) academics. For numerous arguments against it, see here.

Norman Finkelstein loses it in Lebanon

I've read plenty of second-hand criticism of Norman Finkelstein, but you have to see him in the flesh to see how truly deranged he is - see his impassioned defence of Hizbollah here. Remember that this is the organisation whose leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has said the handy thing about all the Jews gathering in Israel is that "it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide". I guess Norman thinks this is just more legitimate criticism of Israel. an

Totalitarian government suppresses criticism

Or maybe not. Here and here.

Bishop against the boycott

Wonders never cease. Here.

Overstepping the mark

I'm belatedly reading Stephen Sizer's latest critique of Christian Zionism, Zion's Christian Soldiers? (IVP, 2007). If I'm honest, there's a lot of value in his critique of loopy American dispensationalist Christians and their theological and political views. I spat feathers, though, when I read this statement on pp. 69-70:

"The 'dividing wall of hostility', typified by the barrier that separated Jews and Gentiles in the temple, has been broken down by Jesus Christ. It is ironic, if tragic, that despite his willingness to comply with all the petty temple regulations concerning ritual purity, Paul would eventually be arrested for allegedly bringing Greeks into the temple and defiling God's house (Acts 21:28-29). Today, their successors in the government of Israel are seeking to erect a much higher and longer 'separation barrier' to preserve their racial identity and exclusive claim to the land of Palestine."

"Today, their successors..." Why not simply say, "Those racist Jews have learnt nothing"? Since there are both Jews and Arabs both to the East and to the West of Israel's security barrier, Sizer's claim is demonstrably false. Rather, the security fence was built to stop Israelis being killed, and has been demonstrably successful: 431 Israelis were killed in 137 suicide bombings between September 2000 and the completion of the northern and most of the Jerusalem sections of the wall, 100 in March 2000 alone. After the completion of the wall in the north, there was not a single terrorist attack across that section. By December 2004, the number of suicide attacks launched from the West Bank had fallen by 84% in less than two years. (Figures from Sir Martin Gilbert's updated Israel, A History, p. 631.) Since Sizer neither mourns these Israeli dead nor condemns (or even acknowledges) their killers, and instead denounces the structure designed to protect Israelis as a symbol of racist imperialism, I can only conclude that he has no objection to Israelis being killed*.

Sadly, this is not an isolated instance in Sizer's book. At page 8, the Union of Jewish Students (i.e. your friendly local J-Soc) is cast as an opponent of intellectual freedom. On the same page, Sizer refers approvingly to Jewish Voices for Peace, a left-wing hate group which equates Israeli policies with the Holocaust and cooperates with extreme left-wing organisations the Socialist Workers' Party and Revolutionary Communist League. On page 10, Sizer asks, "Why is Israel allowed to retain nuclear weapons, while Iran is threatened with a pre-emptive attack for aspiring to obtain nuclear technology?", yet inexcusably fails to mention that Iran's president has denied the first Holocaust and has threatened to perpetrate a second. At footnote 12 on page 6, Sizer draws on the conspiracy theories of Mearsheimer and Walt. In a footnote on page 15, he refers approvingly to the flawed and highly partisan works of Jimmy Carter and Ilan Pappe (see here and here), and also to Uri Davis, a PLO observer member who helped to promote the antisemitic play "Perdition" in the 1980s, which alleged that Zionist leaders collaborated with the Nazis in perpetrating the Holocaust.

But then, what should we expect from a man who demonises supporters of Israel as "people in the shadows" and for whom Uri Davis, neo-Nazi favourite Israel Shahak and Holocaust-denier-defender and intellectual crook Noam Chomsky are "leading Jewish academics"? For all that Sizer says that "Anti-Semitism must be repudiated unequivocally" (p. 15), some of his terminology and sources seem to point in the other direction. If Sizer wishes to make legitimate criticisms of Israeli policies and make theological arguments, he is free to do that: but why does he have to employ such dubious sources and phrases in the process?

Saddest of all, though, is the fact that, Zion's Christian Soldiers? has, like Sizer's previous book, been published by IVP, a reputable Christian publishing house, and has been endorsed by various prominent Christian leaders, including Dick Lucas and Rico Tice. OK, so we cannot expect reviewers to check every source and factual assertion (though we might hope that a responsible publisher would), but frankly this is of little comfort to those of us who are Jewish, who recognise antisemitism when we see it, and who are all too aware of what antisemitism has led to through the centuries.

* None of this is to deny that the wall undoubtedly causes serious hardship and suffering to the Palestinians; it clearly does. I should also say that I disapprove of those instances where the wall cuts into land beyond the Green Line, which could otherwise have been allocated to a future Palestinian state.

Union bans anti-boycott activist

Here. How much lower can my union sink?

Israel beyond the conflict

Messianic Jews and Arab born-again Christians under the spotlight, at http://www.charismamag.com/display.php?id=17050

Important Legal Victory in Israeli Supreme Court

In a landmark decisionyesterday, the Supreme Court of Israel ratified a settlement between twelve Messianic Jewish believers and the State of Israel, which states that being a Messianic Jew does not prevent one from receiving citizenship in Israel under the Law of Return or the Law of Citizenship, if one is a descendent of Jews on one's father's side (and thus not Jewish according to halacha).

This Supreme Court decision brought an end to a legal battle that has carried on for two and a half years. The applicants were represented by Yuval Grayevsky and Calev Myers from the offices of Yehuda Raveh & Co., and their legal costs were subsidized by the Jerusalem Institute of Justice.

All twelve of the applicants were denied citizenship solely based on grounds that they belong to the Messianic Jewish community. Most of them received letters stating that they would not receive citizenship because they "commit missionary activity". One of the applicants was told by a clerk at the Ministry of Interior that because she "committed missionary activity", she is "acting against the interests of the State of Israel and against the Jewish people". These allegations are not only untrue, but they also do not constitute legal grounds to deny one's right to immigrate to Israel.

This important victory paves the way for persons who have Jewish ancestry on their father's side to immigrate to Israel freely, whether or not they belong to the Messianic Jewish community. This is yet another battle won in our war to establish equality in Israel for the Messianic Jewish community just like every other legitimate stream of faith within the Jewish world.

(From the Jerusalem Insititute of Justice)

What is the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism?

David Hirsh's paper, here, is quite the best thing I have read on this topic. He is more critical of Israel than I would sometimes be, but he is spot on when he comes to analysing antisemitism. Central to his argument is his use of the "Livingstone Formulation", which I posted about here.

Morrissey breaks the boycott.

The world's greatest living Mancunian gets it right, here. If you dislike Mozzer and/or The Smiths, repent!

The 60-Year War for Israel's history

Efarim Karsh, as ever, is spot on here.

The sickening reality of evangelical antisemitism III

A friend of mine recently made contact with a young Messianic Jew studying at a Bible College in the North of England. Apparently last year one of his lecturers said, "we are Israel now, we are the Jews but without the big noses". Sadly, this kind of racist comment from evangelicals has long since ceased to surprise me. Do you think the lecturer would dare say, "Simon of Cyrene is probably the only nigger mentioned in the New Testament"?!?

Here we go again...

The national executive committee of my union is once again gearing up to boycott Israelis (and only Israelis) from UK campuses. Here, together with David Hirsh's typically astute fisking. At the forefront, once again, is Tom Hickey of the Socialist Workers' Party, who has in the past spoken in front of a reading list which includes the works of Holocaust Denier Roger Garaudy. You think I believe him when he says he's not motivated by antisemitism?

Selah

This blog will now be resting until April. I'm off to Israel next week (my first trip - can't wait), where among other things I'll be checking out the Voice in the Wilderness Congregation in Jerusalem.

This year, Good Friday and Purim fall on the same day (21 March). As you remember God's wonderful plan of rescue, remember to pray that the Jewish people, as a nation, will yet "look upon... him whom they have pierced", "mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn," and yet embrace the fountain that cleanses from sin and uncleanness.

The Longest Hatred 25

'Today, more than 60 years after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, it is a current event' . Anti-semitism on the rise globally, here.

Irene Lancaster on Christian Aid

Here. It's great.

Stephen Sizer: critics and admirers

David Hirsh quite properly identifies Rev Sizer's use of an antisemitic motif here: "People that stand against the hatred of Israel have a right to organise politically without being de-legitimised in the language of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as 'the people in the shadows'."

On the other hand, Rev Sizer is, it seems, warmly admired by a range of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, here.

A nice bit of Jewish eschatology

Hat tip: Rory Shiner

Iran trains Hamas

Here.

Israel defends herself, the UK media condemns her

Here.

The Zionists are responsible!

This is funny. Click here for solid proof that the Zionists are responsible for.. well, pretty much anything. I wonder whether Stephen Sizer, that self-proclaimed opponent of all forms of antisemitism, used a technique like this when insinuating (in a book which has been warmly endorsed by many evangelical leaders) that Israelis were complicit in 9/11?*

* S. Sizer, Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon? (IVP, 2004), p. 251 footnote 170.

With friends like these...

Mahmoud Abbas, so often described as a Palestinian "moderate", who apparently favours a two-state solution, refuses to rule out returning to "the armed struggle" against Israel [did he ever leave the armed struggle in the first place?]; boasts of having fired "the first shot [against Israel, on behalf of the PLO] in 1965" (when the Palestinians were occupied by Jordan, not Israel), and boasts of his pride in the fact that Fatah trained Hizbullah: here.

Is it any wonder that peace between Israel and the Palestinians is so elusive?

Citizenship of Israeli Messianic Jews under threat

An update letter from Michael Decker who works with Calev Myers of the Jerusalem Institute for Justice:


Lately a very disturbing situation has been occurring whereby the Minister of Interior has attempted to revoke the citizenship of Jewish believers who have immigrated into Israel in accordance with the Law of Return. The main claim is that these people have immigrated into Israel on the basis of falsified information.

According to the current legal situation in Israel, the authority to begin the procedure of revoking a person's citizenship is given to the Minister of Interior. The Minister of Interior then gathers the evidence whereupon he decides to revoke a person's citizenship and also makes the decision based on the evidence that he himself gathers. Furthermore, the final process of executing the final decision is also given exclusively to the Minister of Interior. By right (de jure), the law itself does not provide any appeal procedure.

This situation is very disturbing and it has a direct effect on the local Messianic community in Israel since many well known Israeli Messianic leaders have received such notices from the Ministry of Interior.

The Jerusalem Institute of Justice wishes to change this disturbing legal situation and we believe that such a change is possible. We intend to utilize various examples of mistakes made by the Ministry of Interior wherein an attempt was made to revoke a person's citizenship based on falsified information which the person had presented, when in reality this person did not present falsified information at all and has basically been a victim to this unrestrained authority granted to the Minister of Interior.

In order to publish this information, we would need to hire a lobbying company who would post articles and news broadcasts including true stories of mistakes made by the Minister of Interior, while at the same time we would submit an amendment to the two existing sections in the Law of Citizenship and in the Law of entry into Israel which grants the Minister of Interior this authority.

We will propose that this right be stripped from the Minister of Interior and given to the judicial authorities. If a registration clerk desires to revoke a person's citizenship, it should not be done in a closed, hidden or secretive manner. We believe that a proper process would be for the Ministry of Interior to submit a letter of indictment before a court of justice, which would thereby give a citizen the chance to defend himself. Subsequently, a neutral judge would decide according to the evidence, presented before him by both parties.

If this amendment passes, then the Ministry of Interior will be obligated to write a statement of claim accusing a person merely because of his religious beliefs. It goes without saying that such a prerequisite would prevent the Ministry of Interior from beginning a procedure to revoke the citizenship of a person merely because of his religious worldview.

We estimate that such a venture would end up costing approximately $150,000 USD - $200,000 USD. Please consider partnering with us in this extremely important campaign. We also believe that this is a very urgent matter that should not be deferred.

Let us continue to work together to advance civil rights, freedom of religion and social justice in our great nation. Thank you again for your meaningful support and prayers.

We are making available online an article that I wrote which further describes the legal situation regarding citizenship revocation in Israel. To view this article as a .pdf document:

Click the 'Revocation of Citizens' article link.

Sincerely Yours,

Michael Decker, Senior Legal Activist

"Palestinian Christians live in constant fear"

Let's not forget to pray for our Palestinian brethren in their sufferings:

"It is well known that Christian Palestinians who have been subject to firebombings, seizures of homes and businesses, assaults and death threats still tell foreign visitors that they have excellent relations with their Muslim neighbours. After the foreigners go home, these Christians must remain, and are loath to give any reason for jihadist extremists to think that they are stirring up trouble.

And so it goes -- news trickles out about one outrage or another, but it gets lost if it gets noticed at all. Meanwhile, Christians in Gaza and the West Bank try to live quietly, never knowing whether a newspaper in Denmark or a papal speech in Germany or nothing in particular might be the pretext for violence coming to their doors.

It is an awful way to live. It is more awful still that so few know, or care about it."

"We don't serve Jews"

CHIILLING account of lurid antisemitism in Belgium, here. It makes my blood run cold.

The sickening reality of evangelical antisemitism

I've posted on this before, here.

Richard Gibson writes on the well-known British Christian leader who once asked him, incredulously, if he "liked Jews", here.

I want to come back to this in future posts: there is, sad to say, more of it around than most evangelicals (I suspect) would either realise or dare to acknowledge.

Sermons everyone should listen to

Richard Gibson on "Romans from a Hebrew Perspective", here: it's fantastic!

Mike Moore on "How the West was won: the triumph of Palestinian propaganda", here: it's also fantastic!

The Longest Hatred 24: "The Livingstone Formulation"

[Taken from David Hirsh's piece here]

The Livingstone Formulation has become an absolutely standard response to a charge of antisemitism. It is a rhetorical device which enables the user to refuse to think about antisemitism. It is a mirror which bounces back an accusation, magnified, against anybody who makes it. It sends back a charge of dishonest Jewish conspiracy in answer to a concern about antisemitism.

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, wrote: ‘for far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government'. The Livingstone Formulation does two things.

Firstly, it denies that there is a distinction between criticism of Israel and demonization of Israel. Criticism of Israeli human rights abuses is not only legitimate, it is entirely appropriate. Demonization, for example, which singles out Israel for unique loathing, or which claims that Israel is apartheid or Nazi or essentially racist, or which characterizes Israel as a child-killing state, or a state which is responsible for wars around the world, or a state which is central to global imperialism, is not the same thing as criticism of Israeli government policies.

Secondly, the Livingstone Formulation does not simply accuse anyone who raises the issue of contemporary antisemitism of being wrong, but it also accuses them of bad faith: ‘the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical...' [my italics]. Not an honest mistake then, but a secret, common plan to try to de-legitimize criticism with an instrumental use of the charge of antisemitism. Crying wolf. Playing the antisemitism card. The Livingstone Formulation is both a straw-man argument and a charge of ‘Zionist' conspiracy. It is itself an antisemitic claim. Its regular appearance is also, in itself, evidence that antisemitic ways of thinking are becoming unexceptional in contemporary mainstream discourse.

In February 2005, Ken Livingstone became embroiled in an apparently trivial late night argument with a reporter, Oliver Finegold, after a party at City Hall. Finegold asked him how the party was. Livingstone became angry because he felt Finegold was intruding. After a little banter to and fro, he asked Finegold whether he had been a ‘German war criminal' before becoming a reporter. Finegold replied that he hadn't, and that he was Jewish, and that he was offended by the suggestion. Livingstone went on to insist that Finegold was behaving just like a ‘German war criminal', that his paper the Evening Standard ‘was a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots' and that it has a record of supporting Fascism.2

What would Livingstone have said had he been speaking with a black journalist? ‘What did you do before, were you a plantation owner?' ‘No, I'm black, I wasn't a plantation owner, and I'm quite offended by that.' ‘Well you might be black but actually you're just like a plantation owner...'

Instead of apologizing for his mildly offensive behaviour and moving on, Livingstone chose over the next few days to treat the publication of this exchange as a political opportunity rather than a gaffe. He wrote an article criticizing Ariel Sharon in which he included the following formulation: ‘For far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government, as I have been.'

The Livingstone Formulation alleges that Zionists cry ‘antisemitism' when people criticize Israel. In response to the Finegold incident, Livingstone cried ‘Israel' when being accused of antisemitism. His insults towards Finegold were connected to Israel or to its human rights abuses only inside his own mind.

Livingstone went on to normalize suicide bombing against Israeli civilians. He was to condemn the suicide attacks on the London transport system of 7 July 2007, but, far away, he found suicide attacks on the Israeli transport system to raise more complex issues. ‘Palestinians don't have jet fighters,' he said, ‘they only have their bodies to use as weapons. In that unfair balance, that's what people use.'

Livingstone does more than ‘criticize the policies of the Israeli government'. For decades, he has been part of a movement in the UK which sees Israel as a pariah state with a menacing and malign influence well beyond its borders. In the 1980s Livingstone was associated with the Workers Revolutionary Party, an extreme anti-Zionist group, and was the editor of one of its front newspapers, Labour Herald. As Mayor, Livingstone treats the antisemitic Muslim cleric Yusef al-Qaradawi as an honoured guest of the city, in spite of his repeated antisemitic statements (for example, Qaradawi praised Mel Gibson's movie ‘The Passion of the Christ' on the basis that it exposed "the Jews' crime of bringing Jesus to the crucifixion").

It is rare that Jewish communal or Israeli spokespeople make the evidently false claim that criticism of Israeli policies is necessarily antisemitic. Neither does anybody serious treat criticism as though it was demonization. The contention that criticism is denounced as antisemitic nearly always functions as a straw-man argument. The difficult arguments that some over-enthusiastic ‘critics' of Israel are reluctant to deal with are that criticism of Israel is often expressed using rhetoric or images which resonate with antisemitism; or that criticism often holds Israel to higher standards than other states, and for no morally or politically relevant reason; or that it often employs conspiracy theory; or that it uses demonizing analogies; or that it casts Jews as oppressors; or that criticism is made in such a way as to pick a fight with the vast majority of Jews; or that the word criticism is really being used to stand for discriminatory practices against Israelis or against Jews, such as ‘boycotts'. These much more serious and realistic charges are too often brushed off by blithely employing the Livingstone Formulation: ‘For far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government.'

Some good news from Israel

The email below was sent to me by a friend.

Prayer Update – Jan 15, 2008
from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Shalom intercessors and friends!
We thank you for your partnership in the gospel through your prayers for us! God bless you! As you pray, "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." - 1 Thes 5:23

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17: 22-23)

What God is doing!

Thank you with all our hearts for your prayers for the Chanukah Christmas party. God blessed us in many many ways during the throwing and planning of this party. One young woman was brought closer to the Lord. She has been studying and working for peace and reconciliation between Jews and Arabs in the secular realm for a long time and had grown disillusioned as a result. She said seeing what was happening at this party through Jesus Christ and hearing the people's testimonies and exhortations has restored her hope that reconciliation is possible but she said that the only way would be through Jesus. At the end of the party we broke into groups to pray for each other. During this prayer time she wept and said that God was convicting her of some areas in her life. Praise God for the work he is doing in her life and please be in prayer that the Lord would complete the work He has started in her and bring her into a relationship with Him! Also, more praise and thanksgiving to God for a joint meeting of Arab, Jewish and International students at Haifa University that was also a success! :) :)

Please pray :)

• For several young women (in Hebrew U's international school) who we see that satan is working hard at distancing from God. Pray God will give us wisdom in how to encourage them stay close to the One who can truly meet their deepest needs.
  
• For wisdom and open doors for Michele and Dana as they plan and prepare to start an International Students' Bible study.at Rothberg (Hebrew U)..that God will draw the people and stir up in the a hunger and a thirst for the righteousness of the living God.
• For the students from the universities in Jerusalem, Haifa, the North, Natanya, Tel Aviv and Beersheva who are organizing 2 day trips for themselves in February. The purpose of these trips is to bring believing students together for the strengthening of relationships and the building of vision as they enter the coming semester.

Durban II - Canada fights racism not Jews

I've pinched the piece below from Engage. I'm glad to see that Canada are taking a principled stand against the likely agenda of the UN's second world conference against racism, after the first conference in 2001 degenerated into a racist conference against Jews. (@ Rory Shiner - thanks for being a (rare) evangelical who takes antisemitism seriously - but it is inaccurate to argue that antisemitism re-emerged after 9/11 - it was alive and well beforehand. 9/11 in fact overshadowed the sickening antisemitism evident at Durban.) Sadly, but predictably, the British evangelical anti-Zionist Stephen Sizer approvingly cites the Durban 2001 conference in his writings, without any qualifying comment or context whatsoever.

The second UN World Conference Against Racism (Durban II), to take place in 2009, is currently in the planning stage. Despite being organised under the auspices of the reassuringly-titled UN Human Rights Council (which just kicked off the new year with another special session on Israel), the planning committee instils doubt - Iran somehow has a seat and Libya is Chair. Both are members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference which has been telling its members to suspend ties with Israel for several years. It was in this climate of heightening opposition to Israel that the NGO Forum at Durban I, which dragged itself to a close on September 8th 2001, nearly succeeded in writing racism against Jews out of its official anti-racist statement.

With these things in mind Canada has decided not to attend Durban II, Khabrein reports:

Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity Jason Kenny Wednesday said Canada would have nothing to do with such a conference that last time ended up promoting racism and intolerance.

"We'll attend any conference that is opposed to racism and intolerance, not those that actually promote racism and intolerance," he told the Canadian press.
Calling the 2001 gathering "a circus of intolerance", Kenney said: "Our considered judgement, having participated in the preparatory meetings, was that we were set for a replay of Durban I. And Canada has no intention of lending its good name and resources to such a systematic promotion of hatred and bigotry."

Indeed, Durban I marks the intensification of anti-Israel activity in Britain. It was hijacked by activists who attempted to use the occupation of Palestinian land as a pretext for excluding antisemitism from recognition as a form of racism. They pressed for a statement that Israel was a 'racist apartheid' state while simultaneously references to antisemitism - anti-Jewish racism - were removed from the statement. Salon reported at the time that the anti-Israel activity was planned and concerted. Predictably, those activists attracted, or included, the kind of people who distribute leaflets saying that 'Hitler should have finished the job' and shout things like "Kill Jews".

The conference ran on for a day after it was scheduled to end and the statement was eventually amended after a majority voted to remove the references to Israel as racist and apartheid from the NGO statement. Self-styled anti-racists with phoney exceptionalist values consider this turn-around to have been the result of Zionist pressure. In fact it was due to the stand taken by appalled genuine anti-racists to preserve recognition that hatred of Jews exists as a form of racism which predates Israel, exists independently of Israel and cannot - classic bit of victim blame - be laid at the door of Israeli policy.

Israel has been called a racist state by the UN before, for 16 years in 1975. The General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, sponsored by 25 states who stated that “the racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist regime in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same racist structure and being organically linked in their policy aimed at repression of the dignity and integrity of the human being” and “determin[ing] that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”. It was revoked in 1991 with miniscule motion 46/86.

Above all Zionism is a response by people of different ethnicities and religions to anti-Jewish racism. Defining Zionism as racism in a so-called anti-racist statement which simultaneously denies reference to antisemitism was ludicrous, appalling and impossible to misunderstand. Nothing has changed in the intervening period.

This is why Canada has made an early assessment that Durban II is probably not going to be worth attending. The question is whether anti-Israel activists are really prepared to squander an opportunity to unite member states in opposition to racism everywhere - Darfur, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Israel and many other countries where racism needs urgent attention - for the sake of trying to destroy the world's only Jewish country.

Background in the Jerusalem Post; more from the Associated Press

"Mainline churches embrace Burge's false narrative"

CAMERA critique various apparent distortions and factual inaccuracies in Christian anti-Zionist Gary Burge's influential book Whose Land? Whose Promises? here. I hope CAMERA's piece gets a wide readership. It concludes: "Two important questions raised by Whose Land? Whose Promise? are whether Israelis are entitled to have people speak about their state in a fair and factual manner and whether or not Jews have the “right to be ordinary.” These questions are at the root of Christian discourse about the Arab-Israeli conflict."

Gaza - Occupied Territory?

This piece, focussing on how international NGOs apply a double standard to Israel, comes from today's Jerusalem Post.

Prisoners of Gaza By ERIK SCHECHTER


The IDF posts are gone. The settlements are gone. Hamas even declared Gaza liberated. Yet two-and-a-half years after the disengagement, at least one local human rights group still considers the Strip occupied. And, surprisingly, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International agree.

In a report entitled "Disengaged Occupiers," Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement writes: "Israel's withdrawal of settlements and its permanent military ground installations from the Gaza Strip did not end Israeli control of Gaza but rather changed the way in which such control is effectuated."

It all sounds so fascinating, so subversive. But what about that little document called the 1907 Hague Regulations?

Article 42 clearly states that territory is occupied when "under the authority of the hostile army." Now the lawyers may quibble over how far ahead of the invading troops the law of occupation extends. But, basically, it's boots in - military occupation; boots out - no military occupation.

To get around this, Gisha displays an impressive level of creativity. First, it argues that technological advances like drones, gunships and laser-guided missiles have shattered the old paradigm. Second, the group notes that the IDF still occupies the West Bank, and the Oslo Accords consider the territories one unit.

Besides, the issue is not troops but "effective control," adds Gisha. Israel may only have close-circuit cameras at the Rafah crossing, but we limit the entry of people and goods into Gaza. We also set the customs rates, verify Palestinian IDs, and withhold tax money. If Israel wants to bottle up the Strip for 148 days, it can - and it has.

If Gisha is right, then Gaza becomes our little bedraggled ward. We must let the Palestinians import and export goods, if not through Rafah, then through Israel. We must supply the Hamas government with electricity until it repairs the transformers destroyed in June 2006. We have to do all this, and more.

Of course, the alternative is to open Gaza to the world and watch the rockets, guns and bombs flood the Strip.

ADMITTEDLY, no one likes being called the O-word. That's why the UN and NATO frame their non-belligerent occupations as "peacekeeping missions." Still, there are good reasons why we ought to reject Gisha's notion of occupation: It is disconnected from reality, conceptually weak and only applied to Israel.

First, despite Gisha's lavish praise of hi-tech weapons, they do not keep public order, pick up the trash, or perform any other government task. Nor is our well-stocked army in any position to quickly reassert Israeli rule in Gaza. That's why, after 1,000 or so Palestinian rocket attacks, we have not reconquered the place.

That said, we do assert authority over taxes, customs and ID cards. And there is Rafah. We retain a voice over what goes on at the crossing, but our power is almost all on paper. It is the Egyptians who really control the border, and if they want to let Hamas smugglers into Gaza (as they did two weeks ago), they can.

A SECOND, equally crucial point raised by Gisha is the nature of the territories. True, the Oslo Accords did hold them to be one political entity, but since the Hamas takeover of the Strip in June 2007, they are no longer so. Thus, the idea that Israel can control Gaza City via Ramallah is untenable.

Ultimately, the NGO report comes off vague and arbitrary. Israel is guilty, of course, but we are not sure why. The group offers no formula for how much "indirect control" makes an occupation. Nor it does explain how our domination of Gazan airspace and waters differs from an ordinary blockade.

That others would adopt a similar approach to Gisha is all the more jarring given how Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International usually address conflicts around the globe. Indeed, most other military occupations ( i.e., foreign rule, troops and settlers) go unremarked upon by the human rights community.

Take the case of the Western Sahara. In October 1975, the International Court of Justice ruled that this Spanish colony had the right to self-determination. However, Spain had other plans. The outgoing colonial power cut a side deal with Morocco and Mauritania, and in April 1976, the two states annexed Western Sahara.

The hard-fighting Sahrawi rebels forced Mauritania to withdraw in 1979. But it was Morocco - not the local nationalist movement - that took control of the evacuated areas. Confronted with this new reality, the UN General Assembly issued two resolutions that recognized Western Sahara as under Moroccan occupation.

Curiously, none of this registers with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Both groups insist on calling Western Sahara a "disputed territory" or "Moroccan-administered" - anything but "occupied." This legal conservatism stands in stark contrast to the super-elastic category used for Gaza.

EXPLAINING the contradiction, Human Rights Watch legal adviser James Ross tells me that his group uses terms "widely accepted" by the international community. True, interested parties often shape this discourse, but not to worry: The law, not the label, is what counts. And human rights law is applied to Western Sahara.

However, Ross admits that the laws of occupation are not applied. So while human rights groups count our closed-circuit cameras at Rafah, they ignore 200,000 Moroccan settlers living in Western Sahara. We get slapped for not feeding Hamas-run Gaza, but Morocco can happily deplete Sahrawi fish stocks and phosphate mines.

Obviously, this myopic obsession with Gaza cannot continue. First, it chains Israel to a make-believe occupation. Second, it confirms the Palestinian conceit that they are victims of forces beyond their control. Third, it overlooks very real occupations across the globe. Finally, it does violence to very concept of equality before the law.

NOW, BEFORE you get out the pitchforks and torches, let me say a word about the human rights community. They are good people. But they are just people, and, like the rest of us, they too can make errors in judgment - sometimes very serious ones. We need to keep human rights groups on track, not tear them down.

Donors, sympathizers and due-paying members ought to petition their organizations to be more forthright in outing occupiers. Academics can likewise be recruited to the cause. After all, few scholars deny that Pakistan conquered a part of Kashmir, or that China has swamped Tibet with settlers.

Once human rights groups commit themselves to using a reasonable and consistent definition of occupation in their reports, it will be harder for states to play politics in international fora. Then, who knows? We might just end up with something that resembles international law.

The writer is a former military correspondent of The Jerusalem Post.

Here's to you Mr Robinson

No, not English and British Lions rugby legend Jason Robinson, but Australian theologian Donald Robinson, one of the theologians who has influenced me most over the last few years. He is one of a rare breed: a conservative evangelical theologian who does NOT subscribe to (what I consider to be) the unhelpful and unbiblical (but sadly prevailing) view that the church is the "New Israel". He has recently been honoured with a compilation of essays to accompany the publication of his Collected Works. My Aussie mate Rory Shiner, who put me on to Robinson a few years ago, gives details of the collection here.

Alternatively, you can download Robinson's BRILLIANT chapter on "Jew and Gentile in the New Testament" (in his book Faith's Framework) for free here.

Messianic Britain

[Adapted from Richard Gibson's recent article in the Messianic Times]

Messianic Britain

There has been a Messianic Jewish community in Britain for a very long time. In 1813, forty-one Jewish believers founded an association called Bnei Abraham and in 1866 the British Messianic Jewish Alliance was formed as the Hebrew Christian Alliance of Great Britain , well before the establishment of the International Alliance in 1925. The International Hebrew Christian Alliance – now the International Messianic Jewish Alliance – was also started in Britain and for most of its history had its offices in Ramsgate, Kent before moving to America in 1999.

The British Messianic Jewish Alliance (BMJA) is not only the largest Messianic organisation in Britain but is also the oldest national Messianic alliance anywhere in the world. As such, it represents by far most of the Messianic Jews in Britain. The BMJA has its own magazine called Chai and runs an annual residential conference for its members as well as a day conference in London. The management committee is democratically elected tri-annually by its Jewish members, while associate members, though not Jewish, are highly valued and welcome to participate fully in the life and testimony of the Alliance.

The BMJA is an umbrella organisation for all Messianic Jews living in Britain who are in agreement with the doctrinal basis of the Alliance. There are currently between twenty five to thirty active Messianic Jewish congregations in Britain. The British Messianic Jewish Alliance of Fellowships (BMJAF), an alliance of seventeen independent Messianic Fellowships and Congregations that have sprung up all over Britain, is associated to the BMJA. The Alliance of Fellowships is the largest affiliation of Messianic congregations and fellowships in Britain and the BMJA web site ( www.bmja.net) carries a list of associated fellowships as well as articles that have appeared in Chai. A major initiative of the BMJA and Christian Witness to Israel has been the establishment of Yahad, a national network of young British Messianic Jews.

There are currently 300, 000 Jewish people living in Britain and consequently things are on a much smaller scale than in the States and Israel. In 1995 an estimate put the numbers of Jewish believers in Yeshua in Britain at around three to five thousand. There are no official figures on the current number of Jewish believers in Yeshua in Britain. Taking into consideration all the anecdotal evidence from various ministries at work in Britain and the statistics I've gathered from the BMJA and BMJAF, It would be safe to say that there are more Jewish believers in Yeshua in Britain in 2007 than there were in 1995. There has been no serious research undertaken to find out the real figure so some estimate around five to seven thousand. However it must be noted that the majority of Jewish believers in Yeshua in Britain attend churches of all types without attending a Messianic Fellowship. A small percentage attends a Messianic Fellowship, congregation or Synagogue in addition to their local church. Those British Messianic Jews that only attend a Messianic Fellowship, congregation or Synagogue is so small it is not even a percentage! The relatively new, Union of British Messianic Jewish Congregations consisting of seven congregations, is closely linked to the American-based International Alliance of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues and the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America. There are also a number of unaffiliated Messianic Fellowships but it is more often the case that when they are in a town with no Jewish population then there are no Messianic Jews in them.

The British Messianic movement stands as one of the potential bastions for the defence of the wider Jewish community against the rising tide of anti-Semitism, often dressed up as anti-Zionism. This new Anti-Semitism is manifested by a boycott-Israel fever that is currently sweeping British society including sad to say, many churches. The BMJA has been active in trying to combat anti-Semitism in churches.

The British Messianic movement also functions as a reminder that God has not finished with the Jewish people. However, the fact still remains that an estimated ninety percent of Jewish believers in Yeshua in Britain remain exclusively in churches and are unknown to the Messianic movement. Sadly, they also remain unknown both in the churches into which they melt and in the Jewish community that needs to hear a credible witness from Jewish believers in Yeshua.

How not to preach on Acts 4*

I recently heard an elder of a church refer to "the momentous ignorance of truth" of "the Jews" in Acts 4. He meant, of course, the "religious leaders". I do not recall him mentioning that the 5,000 who heard the message and believed (and that was only the men, verse 4) were Jewish, nor that the two men taking a courageous stand for the gospel before the Sanhedrin were Jewish.

There were 3 Jewish people in the congregation.

Clearly, Joe Weissman's article on anti-Jewish sentiment in British churches is on the mark.

* Or, for that matter, on any other passage.

Selah

This blog will now be resting until 2008. As you remember the birth of a Jewish baby in the town of Bethlehem, remember to pray for the salvation of the people to whom he first came, and for whom his heart still yearns.

The politicisation of Christmas and the demonisation of Israel 2

Hijacking Christmas (from Richard Gibson's column in the British Church Newspaper, 21 December 2007)

It is bad enough when secular Britain hijacks Christmas for commercial reasons, it's unforgivable when Christians hijack it for political ones. Garth Hewitt's unquestioningly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel Amos Trust is selling an alternative Nativity set. The promotional blurb states it's " a nativity set with a difference - this year the wise men won't get to the stable." The Nativity model has a separation barrier between the wise men and the manger. Sadly both size models have already sold out. One wonders why the Amos Trust is selling and Christians are buying an item that Adolph Hitler would have delighted in purchasing. The Nazification of Liberal Protestantism in Hitler's Germany sought the theological and social demonization of the Jews in order to grease the wheels of the Holocaust. Organisations such as the Institute for Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence in German Church Life were formed (see Betrayal by Ericksen & Heschel). How easily British Christians have forgotten the sins of our Continental European brethren as they theologically colluded with the Holocaust. Such ill advised actions by the Amos Trust must cause deep pain to those who remember the last time the person and story of Jesus was hijacked and utilised to rid another region of the world of six million Jews.

What ever your stance on the Middle East conflict, leave the birth of Jesus out of it.

[JM note: of course, since the wall is to the West of Bethlehem and the wise men came from the East, they would still be able to see Jesus today. But why let that leaven of dullards, "the facts", get in the way of anti-Israel polemic?]

Praying for Israel

My Aussie mate Rory Shiner, the only person I know who has named his blog after a song by The Smiths (and is therefore by definition a man of good taste) posts on this vitally important topic here.

The politicisation of Christmas and the demonisation of Israel

Honest Reporting on the media's annual "let's blame Bethlehem's plight entirely on Israel" scrum. The piece is also worth reading for its commentary on the radically anti-Zionist (and sometimes plain anti-Semitic) Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, an organisation which is given patronage by Western Evangelicals Stephen Sizer and Gary Burge.

When anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism

Honest Reporting UK on the Abrahams-Mendelsohn-Labour party-Zionist-Jewish conspiracy. It was nothing to do me with me, honest!

The Longest Hatred 23

Concerning report regarding increased levels of antisemitic incidents in Australia, here;

more encouraging report regarding the participation of British Muslims in Holocaust Memorial Day, here.