Daphne Anson: Knickers & The Vicar: Try This For Sizer

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)

Sunday, 26 October 2014

Knickers & The Vicar: Try This For Sizer

It would be quite wrong to assume that, for the entertainment and edification of his Facebook faithful, our old mate the Reverend Stephen Sizer posts solely about Israel, Zionism, and the Middle East.

Quite wrong indeed.

Occasionally the Israel-denouncing, anti-Zionism crusader from Virginia Water in Surrey will venture onto other tracks, as he has in the past day or two with this

and this

Rum sort of stuff for a clergymen, eh?

This is even rummer (no explanation necessary as to why):

Ah, yes, the vicar will have his little joke. ( It is a joke, isn't it, vicar?)

In a recent speech in Manchester, British Board of Deputies' vice-president Jonathan Arkush (for his statements on behalf of the Board regarding the vicar see here and here) stated:

"In July and August Israel was at war for 50 days. It was a war started by Hamas who fired 4,000 rockets at Israel. But when Israel defended itself by acting against the launching sites from where the rockets were fired, the world reacted with condemnation. Why ?

In its 66 years of existence Israel's Arab neighbours have not allowed it a single day of peace or even recognition. They began war after war, and ever since 1967 whenever Israel defended itself the world reacted with condemnation. Why ?

Here in the UK, just 2 months ago, we witnessed ugly demonstrations of hatred for the world's only Jewish state, including here on the streets of Manchester.

Did we imagine the placards and social media proclaiming 'Hitler was right' ?

Did we imagine the attacks on synagogues ?

Did we imagine the trashing of supermarkets by mobs intent on destroying kosher food ?

Did we imagine the 311 incidents classified by the CST [Community Security Trust] as antisemitic in July alone ?

Did we imagine the manager of Sainsburys in Holborn removing the kosher section because he feared a demonstration ?

Did we imagine the Tricycle Theatre's attempt to expel the Jewish Film Festival ? ....

And did we imagine the debate in the House of Commons just 6 days ago when MPs lined up to direct their bigotry and bile solely against the world's only Jewish state ? It was a depressing and shameful spectacle which only served to demonstrate the shocking ignorance to too many of our elected Members of Parliament."

He went on:

"Friends, Natan Sharansky was right to point to 3 indicators of antisemitism when it comes to criticism of Israel:

One, demonisation - treating Israel as somehow uniquely evil.

Two, delegitimisation - depriving Israel of having any right to exist

Three, double standards - reacting towards Israel in a way you wouldn't react towards any other country.

The "3 D's". we have seen far too much of them in recent weeks."

And concluded:

"How then do we react against antisemitism, the world's longest hatred ?

I will tell you how we react. First and foremost, we must be proud of our Jewishness and never be afraid to show it. We must turn up the volume of Jewish life. We must defend ourselves against attacks from wherever they may come - and that includes robustly defending attacks on shechita and brit mila.. we must promote the extraordinary achievements of the State of Israel and rebut the slurs.

And we must do so calmly, rationally and on the facts.

We must win allies, because we Jews cannot fight antisemitism alone. And that is why we must appreciate the presence of our friends here with us today, including Jim Murphy MP, Christians for Israel, the Kurdish community, Rev Mike Fryer and all of you who have come to show your support, and we thank you....

The Board cannot stop antisemites but we can lead the fight against antisemitism - and we do.

We shall continue to remind Government, opposition and everyone in the public space that prejudice may start against the Jews but it never ends with the Jews. As Lord Sacks has said, a society that cannot tolerate difference loses its humanity.

Friends, with your support, our pride in our Jewishness has achieved so much for our country. This is a battle we dare not walk away from. And we won't."

In conduct which will strike many people as unbecoming for a vicar, Reverend Sizer has greeted that speech by Jonathan Arkush as the launching pad from which to mock Mr Arkush and fellow- deputies Jerry Lewis and Jonathan Hoffman (pictured), both of whom are known for their stalwart support of Israel.

Also involved in this eyebrow-raising exchange are Methodist preacher Stephen Leah, secretary of the York branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and a changer of the verses of much loved traditional English hymns into Israel-demonising lyrics, plus a scurrilous blogger whose hallmark is this sort of nonsense and whose alias is a spoof on the respected (pro-Israel) blog Harry's Place (and with whom the vicar not infrequently engages in a spot of childish banter which includes a quite unbecoming cattiness about certain pro-Israel activists):

Shamefully, the vicar is all-too prone to belittle the concerns regarding antisemitism of the Board of Deputies and the Community Security Trust; one wonders what his diocesan superior, the new Bishop of Guildford, would make of a Church of England clergyman acting in such a gratuitous mocking manner towards members of the Jewish community.

Here's a brief exchange between Reading Palestine Solidarity Campaign organiser Tony Gratrex, whose continuing flirtations with antisemitism (as shown up on my blog and on Harry's Place) should have ensured that Sizer de-friended him long since:

More conduct unbecoming? Here once again we see Sizer joining in the poke-fun with the scurrilous blogger calling himself Harriet whose obsession, indeed purpose in blogging, appears to be posting codswallop about the Board of Deputies and the "Hasbarafia":

Elsewhere on Facebook in recent days. The vicar cheerleading for Hamas? Surely not.

And for Muslim control of Rachel's Tomb?

Linking to material likening settlers in Judaism's holiest city to Isis:

See, by the way, the Rosh Pina Project's recent post (complete with video) about Sizer here:

"Rev Stephen Sizer, notorious anti-Zionist, appears yet again on Iranian propaganda channel Press TV, denting his academic credibility even further, as he claimed his fellow Christians who support Israel – Christian Zionists, are really no different from ISIS or Al Qaeda (3:38)! However Christian Zionists, even in their “extreme form”, (which is defined as supporting building homes for the wrong people (Jews) in the wrong place), are not chopping off people’s heads, slaughtering people who hold the wrong theology or practice, nor selling non-Muslim girls in to sex slavery. When Christianity was involved in its own Jihad during the Crusades, it was not Christian Zionists who took up arms, rather those who believed God had cast off the Jews and taken their land from them who went to war, urged on by clergymen like Sizer!

Sizer claims Christian Zionists have no place for Jews in their final End Times scenario (at 6:30mins) so why would Jews want their support for the here and now. However Sizer himself holds, as a conservative Anglican Evangelical, that all outside Jesus (including Muslims and Jews) face an eternity in hell. Sizer is disingenuous as he makes this cynical ploy to try to destroy what support Israel does get from Evangelicals.

Sizer seeks to position himself as a kind of martyr for Christian resistance against Zionist supporters, claiming the mere challenge against Zionism has caused him to suffer. However Sizer failed to grasp that people have no problem with criticising actual failures and proven wrong-doing, it is his dalliances with the edges of anti-Semitism, the re-branding of its canards and theological rehabilitation of Crusader Christian Jihad ideology, that worries so many of his detractors."

Championing Iran (the vicar seems inordinately fond of Iran):

Not supporting BDS for Iran, then, vicar? Despite all the human rights abuses there, including the persecution and putting to death of religious dissenters including Christians?

Are you unaware of crimes such as these against Iranian women?

How about this recent horrific spate of executions in Iran?

And Iran's death sentence on and subsequent putting to death of a 26-year-old rape victim Reyhaneh Jabbari, in defiance of pleas for mercy from various sources?

Surely someone as au fait with Iran as you are couldn't have been ignorant of that. Did you protest that sentence on Ms Jabbari, as you have Saudi Arabia's death sentence on a Shia cleric?

Surely you did not turn a blind eye?

Sceptical Sizer, and the company he keeps. The vicar on 9/11 yet again, though no snide reference to the "five dancing Shlomos" this time.

An oblique response to the murder by a Palestinian hate-merchant of three-month-old babe Chaya Zissel Braun in Jerusalem, the beloved daughter of parents who had longed for years to have a child, and who are now bereft, heartbroken, and traumatised:

Ah, and the Lobby, about which the vicar spoke recently in Teheran:

I'm sure the antisemites among your followers will have lapped that one up, vicar.

But are you sure, are you absolutely sure, that you want such people as your Facebook friends?

Postscript: Off to Bethlehem, where he's attending the Christ at the Checkpoint 4 planning meeting for 2016. He does get around, doesn't he? Let's hope it was not El Al that upgraded our old mate. Nah ... he wouldn't fly El Al, would he?

Having linked yet again to an article by chum-in-arms Ben White disparaging the pro-Israel Christian analyst Dexter Van Zile (who clearly gets under their skin):

Hat tip: reader P

6 comments:

geoffff27 October 2014 at 23:31
What a seriously unpleasant little man.
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Replies
David Guy28 October 2014 at 19:39
If we are to follow the money we should look at Stephen Sizer. The Anglican Church are not particularly generous to their clergy. Who is supplying all those plane tickets and hotel rooms?
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Replies

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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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