by Isi Leibler
The recent initiative
by a group of Protestant Christian leaders calling on Congress to
re-evaluate military aid to Israel is a nauseating example of applying
double standards against Jews and Israel under the cloak of piety and
hypocritical sanctimoniousness.
The signatories include
leaders of the Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist and National Council
of Churches. Although many of the rank and file members of these
churches are supporters of Israel and unaware of these activities, their
radical anti-Israeli leaders have obviously not been inhibited from
taking such action despite being aware of the role of their churches in
demonizing, persecuting and murdering Jews over the past 2,000 years.
One is tempted to
suggest that some of the current Lutheran leaders have inherited the
anti-Semitic poison of their 16th century founder, Martin Luther, who
after failing to convert the Jews, called on his followers to murder
these “poisonous envenomed worms” and set fire to their synagogues and
schools. They have simply redirected his anti-Semitic obsessions toward
the Jewish state in lieu of individual Jews.
These Protestant
Christian groups share a common belief in the displacement of the Old
Testament by the New, in stark contrast to evangelical Christians who
reject this approach and do not believe that permanent exile is God’s
punishment for Jews’ rejection of Christianity.
The timing of this
appeal to Congress to effectively end military aid to Israel magnifies
their malice. Today, Israel faces greater threats to its existence than
at any time since its establishment. It is the only country in the world
whose neighbors would launch a war designed to annihilate it tomorrow
if they felt they could succeed.
It is a time when a
nuclear Iran poses a potentially existential threat to Israel; Islamic
fundamentalism has widened the scope of its influence and menaces
Israel's security at virtually every border; the anti-Semitic Muslim
Brotherhood, the creator of Hamas, holds the reins of power in Egypt and
threatens to undermine the peace treaty with Israel; al-Qaida operates
freely in the Sinai Peninsula and threatens Israeli civilians; Iran’s
surrogate, Hezbollah, aims thousands of missiles at Israel’s major
population centers; Hamas continues to launch missiles from the Gaza
Strip at innocent Israeli citizens; and Syria is engulfed in a bloody
civil war between al-Qaida, jihadist groups and President Bashar
al-Assad’s Alawites, with 30,000 people already killed.
One must ask: Is this a time for “Christians” to call on Congress to limit military support for an embattled Jewish state?
And the utter humbug in
which they sanctimoniously couch their approach is to claim that they
wish “to help build a peaceful and resilient civil society” and “seeking
a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians” — despite many having been
at the forefront of boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against
the Jewish state.
They act as though
Israel represents the obstacle to peace talks, but Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas refused to deal with Israel even after Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implemented an unprecedented 10-month
moratorium on settlement construction in a futile effort to bring the
Palestinians to the negotiating table.
The church leaders
complained bitterly about the settlements, which, beyond the major
blocs, amount to a minute proportion of the West Bank population. They
conveniently overlook the fact that two Israeli prime ministers offered
the Palestinian Authority virtually the entire West Bank but were
rebuffed without even a counter-proposal. They also disregard events
following the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip when the
areas ceded were transformed into launching pads used to hurl missiles
deep into Israel.
“Christian”
sensitivities were apparently equally undisturbed by the vicious
anti-Semitic incitement and hatred and the sanctification of terrorist
mass murderers not only by Hamas but also the Palestinian Authority,
both of which to this day still deny that there is any Jewish link to
Jerusalem.
And, if that were not
enough, the bizarre behavior of these Christians is exacerbated by their
blindness and insensitivity to what is happening to their own Christian
kinsmen in the region. In Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and most
Muslim countries, freedom of religion other than Islam is absolutely
prohibited. Christians are persecuted and not a day goes by without
reports of pogroms and murders against Christian minorities, especially
Coptic Christians in Egypt. Tens of thousands of Christians flee Arab
countries whenever Islamists assume control.
Are they not aware of
the mandatory death penalty which Islamic jurisprudence imposes on
converts from Islam to Christianity or any other religion? Or the death
penalty for blasphemy which is repeatedly applied to infidels?
Yet these “Christians”
have the gall to call on Congress to restrict military aid to the sole
democracy and only country in the region in which Christians and members
of all faiths are guaranteed freedom of worship. A country in which
Christians are to be found at every level of Israeli society, including
the Knesset, the Supreme Court and academia.
When it is suggested
that these Christians are biased against Israel or motivated by
anti-Semitism, they will indignantly insist that they are merely seeking
justice for the oppressed Palestinians suffering under Israeli
occupation. They conveniently ignore the fact that granted security, the
vast majority of Israelis yearn to separate themselves from the
Palestinians and have no wish to rule over them.
To their credit, most
American Jewish leaders have responded with indignation and anger to
this primitive display of double standards against the Jewish state.
Jewish Council for
Public Affairs President Rabbi Steve Gutow accused the signatories of
being “out of sync with mainstream values” adding that “we eagerly await
the day when these church leaders step away from the troubling fixation
on hurting Israel and adopt an approach to peacemaking that fosters
reconciliation rather than conflict.”
The Rabbinical
Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis, stated
that such callous and biased behavior by these Christian groups warrants
a re-evaluation of their organization’s interfaith activities.
They also assert that
aside from the double standards employed in this call to Congress, the
timing of such an initiative, in the midst of the Jewish holidays and
the absence of any prior consultation, is an “egregious breach of trust”
that challenges the merits of maintaining interfaith dialogue with such
hostile groups.
And full marks to Abe
Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League, who withdrew from an Oct. 22
interfaith event with these groups and called on all other Jewish groups
to do likewise.
In a post-Holocaust era
in which Israel and the Jewish people are no longer powerless, there is
no need to humiliate ourselves by sharing platforms with Christian
denominations that behave toward us or the Jewish state as their
predecessors behaved toward Jews in the Middle Ages.
Fortunately, there are
numerous other Christians, like the many evangelicals who passionately
love the Jewish state, and Catholics influenced by the Vatican Council’s
1965 Nostra Aetate, who have demonstrated their strong support for
Israel.
Isi Leibler’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com. He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2696
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
2 comments:
Another reason to vote Romney into office. He is pro Israel, and won't be faking it.
These people call themselves "christians". They are NOT
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