Daphne Anson: A Childs Guide To Stephen Sizer: "The master of apologies"

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)

Wednesday 4 February 2015

A Childs Guide To Stephen Sizer: "The master of apologies"

NB: posted 20 January 2015; attracted 60 comments, none of them hostile; 11 likes; at least two shares

Since the Jewish News of 30 January caused his despicable link made ten days earlier and not removed until 28 or 29 January to the "9/11: Israel did it" WikiSpooks article to go viral, Stephen Sizer has been the subject of numerous blogs and press reports.

The admirable Nick Gray, director of the British NGO Christian Middle East Watch opened his article on the matter with a delicious vignette of the media scrum that resulted in Sizer's parish:

"The pleasant and rather up-market town of Virginia Water in South-West London must have wondered what was going on this week as it was invaded by live-broadcast satellite TV vans and their accompanying film crews and reporters.

As random worthy citizens of Virginia Water were interviewed it came to light that it was their vicar, Rev Dr Stephen Sizer, who had brought this invasion upon them."

Particularly relentless, and justifiably so, has been the influential British blog Harry's Place, which, quite rightly, seeks to draw the Guildford diocese's attention to this and this and this and this

There's a cynical but undeniably astute (and rather enjoyable) article on Sizer's "apology" and the church's "investigation" by American David Fischler here

But if there's one commentary more than another in the blogosphere that's worth reading on Stephen Sizer as a result of this latest outrage on his part (and indeed ought to be mandatory reading for all who would seek to understand Sizer and his cat-like nine lives), it's one dated 2 February, written by another American, well-known Christian scholar Betsy Childs.

Her outstanding and beautifully-written article is entitled "The Master of Apologies".

It makes disturbing as well as enlightening reading. It should and must convince the Guildford diocese that the vicar of Virginia Water is incorrigible and deserves no more benefit of the doubt.

Here's a taster:

"The Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer, minister of the Church of England and Vicar of Christ Church Virginia Water in the Diocese of Guildford, has demonstrated a readiness to issue apologies. It might be instructive to examine a few of these apologies to see what we can learn from them. ....

[In October 2011] TDr. Sizer posted a link on Facebook to an anti-Semitic website called The Ugly Truth. He apologized in an email to his bishop in which he said

I am embarrassed and sorry that I have caused you this concern. I will be more careful in what I allow to be posted on my Facebook. I normally take great care to avoid material that promotes racism or violence and have in the past “unfriended” people who abuse my trust.

An example of the antisemitism posted by some of Sizer's Facebook Friends

....

In October 2013, Dr. Sizer reached a conciliation agreement with the Board of Deputies of British Jews, following its charge of anti-Semitism related to Sizer’s use of social media and other activities. Dr. Sizer posted an apology on his website:

The internet allows us to communicate with a mass audience at the press of a button, but with it comes the risk that we might publish our thoughts without adequately reflecting on our choice of words or how they might be interpreted. I will do all I can to guard against this risk in the future. Whilst the web is a rich source of reference, it also contains a great deal of material with which one would not wish to be associated. It is important that those using new media to conduct political debate ensure that they do not inadvertently associate them [sic] with such material. It is for this reason that I have undertaken to take greater care over links in the future.

This January, Stephen Sizer posted a link to an article from a website called Wikispooks. ...When contacted by Jewish News Online, Sizer removed the link, but said that he would welcome evidence refuting the allegations. The Church of England put out a statement that Dr. Sizer’s conduct was unacceptable and promised an investigation into the matter. Only then did Dr. Sizer apologize for this his most egregious Facebook link yet, writing on his website:

I very much regret and apologise for the distress caused by the reposting on Facebook of a link to an article about 9/11 from Wikispooks. It was particularly insensitive in that last week coincided with Holocaust Memorial Day. [Disingenuous; it had been up on Facebook for an entire week by 27 January - D.A.] I removed the link as soon as I received adverse feedback [From whom? the Board? - D.A.], and realised that offence had been caused. I have never believed Israel or any other country was complicit in the terrorist atrocity of 9/11 [So why post that link and write that the linked article "raises so many questions"? - D.A.], and my sharing of this material was ill-considered and misguided. At the request of the Diocese, I will be suspending my use of all social media and blogs with immediate effect and until further notice.

What can be learned from all these episodes? While Stephen Sizer has shown himself ready to apologize, he has been unwilling to alter his behavior. It is past time for his church to stop allowing him to plead carelessness as his excuse. His continual posting of anti-Semitic content, as well as his disingenuous apologies, brings dishonor to the name of Jesus and the body of Christ."

Please read it all, here:

Incidentally, for Betsy Childs on Sizer's eyebrow-raising participation in the Teheran Conference last year in which Holocaust deniers were well-represented see here

It's important to remember that the Board's targeting Sizer's antisemitism, not his anti-Zionism

Sizer gains sympathy from a 9/11 truther on a vile antisemitic website that's mentioned in Betsy's article (q.v.) Update: see also here

Screenshot immediately below bears url http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/02/01/another-martyr-for-911-truth/screen-shot-2015-02-01-at-3-12-49-pm/

Anthony Hall is a Canadian 9/11 truther.

5 comments:

Hoarse Trojan4 February 2015 at 11:00
Rev Stephen is the victim of no one but himself -- pray for his deliverance from the anti-semitism which inhabits his heart.
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Daphne Anson4 February 2015 at 11:47
https://www.rebelmouse.com/israelexists/968169906.html
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Unknown3 April 2017 at 12:50
Hi Daphne

thanks for your insightful blog!

We need to monitor the activities of Stephen Sizer and his new venture:

"Peacemaker-Mediators'
https://ongood.ngo/peacemaker-mediators/4046

This man deceives people that he is for the cause of peace. His persistent slander of Jews and Israel (in place of balanced critique that every country should be subjected to) show that he has strayed from justice issues to being part of a long history of clerical anti-Semitism.

He needs to be accountable for his actions through honest debate and discussion. The truth will always prevail.
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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.'
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'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)

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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!

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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)

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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.
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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...
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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

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