Daphne Anson: By George, Vicar! Another Turbulent Priest!

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Thursday, 5 January 2017

By George, Vicar! Another Turbulent Priest!

To date, the Asia Pacific regional contingent on the rather strangely titled "Board of Reference"of Rev Dr Stephen Sizer's so-called "Peacemaker Moderators" outfit, which is to be launched on 6 May following the vicar's resignation from his Surrey pulpit on Easter Sunday, consists of the following persons:

Dr Philip Church, a senior research fellow at Laidlaw College in New Zealand whose publications include (as joint editor) The Gospel and the Land of Promise: Christian Approaches to the Land of the Bible, published in 2011.

Alistair Donaldson, who lectures in Biblical Theology, Biblical Studies and Hermeneutics at Laidlaw College and is the author of“The Kingdom of God and the Land: The New Testament Fulfillment of an Old Testament Theme,” an essay in the above-mentioned book.

The Right Revd Azad Marshall, about whom I wrote here

Rev Abraham W. Yeung, principal of the Macau Bible Institute (more here)

and

Sydney Anglican priest and keen amateur boxer Father Dave Smith, a sort of antipodean Sizer whose anti-Israel bias will be familiar to regular readers of my blog.

See, for example, his breath-taking Al Quds Day corker here

Father Dave is seen in this photo practising some nifty dance steps at a function given by the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) last year.

The president of APAN (the top photo, rather tellingly showing Arabic poems superimposed on a certain map, was a prize at their annual dinner in 2015) is another cleric with a hostile view of Israel.

For report click here

He's British-born, Aussie-raised George Browning, former Anglican Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn.

A firm and outspoken BDSer is he.

Yesterday (4 January) a letter by Browning was printed in the Brisbane Courier Mail, which has long been one of the most anti-Israel of Australian newspapers.

It's behind a paywall, but is entitled "Malcolm Turnbull is wrong Australia must not side with Israel"

Intended as a riposte to prime minister Turnbull's condemnation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, it consists of the usual bile, with all the usual Israel-hating disregard for Israeli sufferings, Hamas atrocities, and Arab rejectionism.

It concludes:

"For the prime minister to ally Australia with Israel against both our ANZUS partners and almost the whole of the international community raises some troubling questions regarding his foreign policy priorities.

What Australian interests are being served in taking such an isolated position on an issue of such international sensitivity? Has Mr Turnbull thought through the national security implications of this policy?

While such partisanship may win him the support of certain powerful domestic constituencies [emphasis added], it is no substitute for a realist foreign policy based upon an understanding that Australia’s interests are best served by upholding a regime of collective security grounded in a commitment to universal human rights and international law."

(Above at left, a "domestic constituency" with which APAN flirted in May last year.)

APAN-indoctrinated Aussie politicians pose in Canberra late last year

What is striking about Browning's letter is the number and calibre of the comments denouncing his stance.

At random:

Commenter Michael:

"So despite the multitude of Human Rights abuses in Saudi Arabia,Syria, Iran and other predominately Muslim countries the UN over the last year has made the majority of it's rulings against Israel.

The Muslim countries and Palestinians have openly professed to destroy Israel and have backed that up by launching major wars in 1948,1967 and 1973. Followed up by a constant barrage of missiles and Terrorist attacks on the Israeli population to this day. The West bank was secured by Israel 1967 after four Arab nations attacked Israel in an attempt to wipe it out.

Palestininan "ambassador" Izzat Abdulhadi addresses APAN

Nearly 2 million Muslims are free to work and reside in Israel without threat,no Jew is permitted to reside in the surrounding Arab countries. Children in Palestinian are raised and taught to hate the Jews by their leaders so what hope is there of a peaceful coexistence?

Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat in 2000 rejected the two state solution put on the table by Israel which included handing over the Gaza strip and most of the West Bank, simply because they refuse to recognise Israel as a nation.I am glad that after the Holocaust the Jews swore"Never again" and that because of the hatred shown towards them by the surrounding Arab nations and even yourself. The Jews have far more claim to that land than any other nation,secular history and archaeological finds and the bible show the deep roots the Jews have with this land. The Israeli's currently share their land with nearly two million Muslims who work and study freely in that nation,it is far more than what the surrounding Arab nations offer to a Jew.

APAN uses a Jewish refugee's poster from the Mandate period

Maybe if the Palestinians had accepted the generous two state solution offered to them in 2000 which included the Gaza strip and the majority of the West Bank it may have produced peace. The offer was turned down flatly by Yassar Arafat the Palestinian leader who refused to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as a nation and began a series of terrorist attacks on the Israeli population This is still the belief of the surrounding Arab nations openly professed by their leaders who would like to see Israel removed from the map. With this open aggression shown to Israel and it's citizens they have no other choice than to defend themselves."

Commenter Les:

For report (and VIDEO of Turnbull dancing) click here

'The Jews were permitted in Article 80 of the UN Charter recognising the League of Nations "Mandate For Palestine", to live ANYWHERE in Palestine - including Judea and Samaria (Note the Jewish Names) which the Arabs are now claiming for a future Arab State. When Jordan invaded Israel on the declaration of Israel's independence, they moved in Arab settlers, and the UN did nothing.

If this was a war between Arab and Arab over Palestine, no-one would care. Half a million people can die in Syria but this gets only one resolution in the UN General Assembly, but if Israel expands towns and cities in Area C, which even Abbas recognises would go to Israel in exchange for other land in Israel, the UN gets upset, claims "illegality" without any real legal reason, and passes twenty motions against Israel. No wonder even Ban ki Moon, the outgoing Secretary General of the UN said the UN is biased against Israel.'

Commenter Russell

"What's a former Australian Anglican Bishop doing as President of a Palestinian Avocacy Network anyway? Does he support the terrorist activities of Hesbollah and Hamas?"

Commenter Katherine

"Actually he does - in 1993 Bishop Browning, as he was then known, denounced Israel for deporting 415 Palestinian Hamas militants back to Lebanon. They were plotting to murder israeli citizens and were involved in bus bombings. He's be[en] a virulent Israel hater for a very long time"

Commenter Russell again:

Interesting isn't it how the anti Israel constituency simply ignore the terrorists atrocities of Hezbollah and Hamas whose sole aim is the entire destruction of Israel. If these torrorist organisation laid down their weapons there would be peace. If Israel laid down their weapons they'd cease to exist."

Commenter Jonathan:

"Yeah Israel can have peace with a Palestinian government that pays lucrative pensions to the family of anyone who murders a Jew and refuses to recognise that Israel has any right to exist at all. We should totally side with murderers and Muslim extremists"

Commenter Colours:

"I stand with Israel against a genocidal medieval theocracy. It always makes me uncomfortable how often you can scratch the surface of a Protestant minister and find a Jew hater hiding underneath."

Hear, hear, sir or madam!

Any bets the ex-bishop of Canberra and Goulburn will be co-opted onto Stephen Sizer's "Peacemaker Mediators" outfit before long?

2 comments:

Mr. Cohen5 January 2017 at 18:01
“The Jews have no rights in Jerusalem,” repeated Faisal, citing a League of Nations inquiry which showed, he said, that the Wailing Wall was part of the Al Aqsa Mosque. “Another wall can be built for them and they can wail against that.”

SOURCE: The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Sa'ud (chapter 43, page 419) by Robert Lacey, published in 1981 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, ISBN-10: 0006365094 ISBN-13: 978-0006365099

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“[USA] President [Jimmy] Carter added insult to injury. No Arab leader he had ever met, he declared, actually wanted to see the creation of a truly independent Palestinian state…”

SOURCE: The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Sa'ud (chapter 47, page 454) by Robert Lacey, published in 1981 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, ISBN-10: 0006365094 ISBN-13: 978-0006365099

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“Of course,” says one Saudi prince, “if God granted us a wish,
we would like the Palestinians to vanish off the face of the earth.
We know that they are only nice to us because they want our money.
They are dangerous men with Marxist tendencies.
But their disappearance would be a second wish.
The first wish is the disappearance of Israel.”

SOURCE: The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Sa'ud (chapter 47, page 455) by Robert Lacey, published in 1981 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, ISBN-10: 0006365094 ISBN-13: 978-0006365099

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Daniel Patrick Moynihan said this in 1982 June 18 at a rally at the United Nations:

“Much of the world has chosen to view Israel’s actions in Lebanon through the prism of selective morality. Many were silent when Syrian troops and armed radical bands occupied the country. They were silent when Syrian missiles were placed in Lebanon. They were silent when death and destruction rained down on Israeli settlements. They were even silent when they Syrian regime destroyed one of its own cities in response to entrenched political and religious opposition.”

“But the world finds its collective voice when Israel sets out to liberate Lebanon from those who would use her as a pawn in their political machinations; and let us never forget that the introduction of foreign troops in Lebanon would never have been possible without the provision of weapons by the Soviet Union.”
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Nathan of Plaza6 January 2017 at 12:07
This lot too -- https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/10075/scottish-christian-group-back-boycott-divestment-sanctions-israel-solidarity
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'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

'This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it.... Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place.... Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered.... And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge).... Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more.... It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement.... Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.'
Rod Liddle (2018)

'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself.
Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
[L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

Jews have re-assumed the role of the canary in the mine and are the first to be targeted, but the world would face the same threat if Jews did not exist. Israel has been at the front lines confronting Islamic extremism but has received scant support... For Jews, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The virulence of the antisemitic hatred closing in on Jews in Europe (and elsewhere) is horrifying...
Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth. David Singer (2016)

The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.
Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.
Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance.
The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years? David Singer (2016)

The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long. Andrew Roberts (historian)

Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

Once again the armies of the Arab nations are coordinating their military efforts to destroy Israel - whatever they say about wishing merely to regain the lost territories.... [I]f the present Arab offensive had been launched at the pre-1967 frontiers, then the Israelis would indeed have been fighting to avoid annihilation. It seems now that the Israelis were right to maintain the ceasefire lines gained in 1967, and that to do so is the only guarantee of their continued safety.
Alan Sillitoe (The Times, 11 October 1973)

Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people, and there is no refugee problem.... [N]o one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.... Other nations - when they are defeated - survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.... [A]s it goes with Israel, so it will go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us. Eric Hoffer (1968)

Most of the present Arab countries were given their freedom after the 1914-18 War, or after the 1939-45 War.... Yet to listen to Arab spokesmen one might think that they had been cheated ... because they have not also got Israel. Israel is only .2 per cent of the land where Arab States have been established. Surely no fair-minded man can begrudge the Jews their own promised land when it is remembered that for every 2 acres that went to make up Israel, 1,000 acres became Arab.... Why is there an Arab refugee problem? The oil-rich countries have the money. There is no shortage of land, and the Israelis have the technical knowledge to show how it could be developed and made fertile. Bring those things together and the problem could be solved. 3rd Earl of Balfour (1968)

January 7, 2015 has already its place in the history of infamy, but also will be the date when the defenders of freedom and democracy will rise and pay tribute to those who died for their freedom and ours. Therefore, we must not forget on which side we are and who are our allies in the defense of the West and its values. Whether we admit it or not, the West is at war with an enemy who will not stop to destroy us...
The State of Israel boasts a commandment that, in one of the darkest hours in the fight for liberty Winston Churchill taught: "Never give up". Israel has proven to be a key ally in the fight against Islamism and also an example of how a liberal democracy can resist the jihadist stake and thrive as a Western nation ... Not only France but also all the West should look to Israel to defeat Islamism...
friendsofisraelinitiative.org

[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs... Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

Israel is, for us, a normal and a special country. A normal country, because it is just like any other democracy. A special country, because the Jewish culture, which eventually became the Judeo-Christian culture of the dignity of man, is the conceptual foundation of liberalism and democracy. This is why attacking Israel is tantamount to attacking Europe and the West. This is also why disputing Israel's legitimacy and its right to existence means questioning democracy. And this is why we are Friends of Israel. By defending Israel, we are defending ourselves. Marcello Pera

Israel ... is beset today by a unique combination of threats. It must defend its people from attack while defending its very right to exist. No other nation in the world faces this dual challenge. To deny Israel's right to confront some of the world's most vicious terrorist groups in order to ensure the safety of its citizens is to corrode international norms from within ... The assault on Israel is one part of a more general assault on the West, on democracy, and on the moral and cultural heritage that grew from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome ... Should these efforts succeed, similar efforts will certainly be turned against other western democracies. George Weigel

Apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lop-sided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture.... We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews. Ruth Wisse

I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

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