Rejoice, Rejoice! A Christian Gospel The Israel-Haters Will Hate

Here's a Christian gospel that will definitely not leave the Tutus and Sizers of this world smiling.

Thanks to the initiative of a prominent South African Christian pro-Israel activist, and her tenacity in raising funds from generous like-minded people, this full -page ad appeared in the South African Sunday Times of 31 August.

Packed with a number of pertinent items, it is a splendid refutation of those Christians who attempt to delegitimise the little Jewish State.

Sincere thanks to Vivienne Myburgh and everyone else who made it possible.

(And hat tip to the indefatigable Shirlee)

Among the items in the ad are these:

Amen!

For Israel, Salvation Is From The (Third World) Christians?

Remarks the pro-Israel Christian Middle East Watch in the course of an article critical of the itinerary of the Pope's current visit to the Holy Land:

'In the arena of the Israel-Palestinian conflict ... the Holy See has shown a consistent and unbalanced support for the Palestinians, condemning Israel on a number of occasions for its responses to terrorism and violence (not least in the second intifada) without holding the Palestinians to account for their own actions.

While statements from Rome have been encouraging in overall Christian-Jewish relations, at a local (Middle Eastern) level church representatives have shown a wholehearted support for the anti-Israel BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) movement. 

The infamous 2009 “Kairos” document issued by Palestinian Christian leaders encourages Western churches to support boycotts against Israel and has spawned several national supportive “Kairos” organisations around the world. This unbalanced and blatantly anti-Israel document was signed by the heads of all the branches of Catholicism in the region. 

The Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land has fully imbibed the “occupation rhetoric” of the PLO and PA, partly in the mistaken belief that this support will somehow inoculate Catholic Christians against persecution by Muslims. Far from this being the case, there are many and repeated examples of brutal persecution of Christians within the PA-controlled areas.

All the traditional Christian denominations prefer to ignore both what is happening to their own people at the hands of Muslims and the inconvenient fact that Jewish Israel is the only Middle Eastern state where Christians can freely exercise their religious beliefs and practices....'

Read the entire article here

The New York Times reports that

'A conflict largely defined by dueling narratives became a battle of competing imagery during Pope Francis’ sojourn through the Holy Land, with Palestinians and Israelis both seizing on the pontiff’s strong symbolic gestures to promote their perspectives....

“He made some gestures that feel a little bit uncomfortable for us, but he also went out of his way to make gestures to comfort us,” said Rabbi Gordis, senior vice president of Jerusalem’s Shalem College.

“It depends on which set of lenses one wants to bring to this,” he added. “If one wants to do a kind of tit for tat, photo op for photo op, then there are going to be Israelis that feel we got the short end of the stick. If you zoom out, what it feels like is an attempt to inspire.” ...'

Certainly, as the above tweet reminds us, Pope Francis made an extraordinary symbolic gesture in affirmation of the legitimacy of Zionism by visiting (and placing a wreath on) Theodor Herzl's grave on Mount Herzl, where the remains of the founder of modern Zionism have lain since 1949, when, the year following the establishment of the State of Israel and 45 years after his death and burial in Vienna.

For pontiffs have visited Israel before, gone to the western Wall and to Yad Vashem, but never to Herzl's resting place.

Melanie Phillips, writing in the Jerusalem Post,  wondered

"whether the pope will speak out clearly against this Christian victimization when he meets representatives of Islam on his visit to what he calls the Holy Land. He reportedly wants to heal the fissure between Jews and Palestinians. Very nice; but surely his priority should be stopping the slaughter of his own flock."

She proceeded to remind us that

'.... Across the developing world, including countries where Christians are being persecuted, the churches are experiencing phenomenal growth. If trends persist, Europe’s Christians will be overtaken by those in Africa, Latin America and Asia, most of the growth driven by the astounding expansion of Pentecostal, Charismatic and other evangelical churches....One reason for such growth is that people who have suffered from repressive regimes are turning to a religion which (thanks to its Jewish roots) underpins freedom and human rights. The more barbaric Islamic regimes become, the more people turn to Christianity....

 The striking feature of these new Christians is that, because they are evangelicals and thus take very seriously what is written in the Bible, they devoutly support Israel.

.... Westerners may feel uncomfortable about these new churches since they emphasize healing, prophecy, visions, ecstatic utterances and the supernatural. But they are amongst Israel’s best friends in the world. And their amazing growth has major global implications.

In the West, Christianity is in decline. Even in the US where the churches are still relatively strong, the culture war is being lost to the forces of galloping secularism. With the Islamic world exploiting this civilizational vacuum, Britain and Europe are steadily being Islamized. At same time, the developing world is becoming Christianized. The face of Christianity is thus changing color, from white to (its original) brown and black.

This growth is a huge opportunity for Israel because these new Christians are free from the poisonous hostility towards it of the Western churches. Encouragingly, Israel has come to view these new allies as a strategic asset, but it needs to invest in them much more, helping improve their economies and living standards, to cement this friendship and use it to transform Israel’s leverage at the UN.

It’s not true that time is running out for Israel. Time is running out for the West. It’s not true that Israel is friendless.

It has many friends. Just different ones. And it has to nurture them more carefully....'

"Salvation is from the Jews," observes a celebrated phrase in one of the Christian gospels.

For Israel, salvation (so to speak) therefore seems set to come from the Christians, particularly Christians of the Third World.

See her article, with its encouraging statistics, here

As she says,

'In Iran, of all places, the churches are experiencing the fastest expansion in the world with estimated annual growth rates of more than 20 percent. According to some sources, the number of Iranian evangelicals has grown from a few hundred in 1979 to more than five million today.

 It’s even happening in China. Mao expelled Christian missionaries and predicted that “colonialist” Christianity would disappear. Yet from a total of 900,000 then, Chinese Christians have now grown to at least 80 million.

 One reason for such growth is that people who have suffered from repressive regimes are turning to a religion which (thanks to its Jewish roots) underpins freedom and human rights. The more barbaric Islamic regimes become, the more people turn to Christianity. Just a few years ago Algeria, for example, had around 1,500 Christians; under its repressive Islamist government, their numbers have swelled to nearly 200,000.'

But Israel and its friends mustn't be complacent.  For the anti-Zionist Christians in the West (including that tireless crusader against Israel Stephen Sizer, no stranger to either Iran or Algeria and who recently had one of his anti-Zionist works translated into Chinese) have obviously also taken note of  these figures.  Their pernicious influence must be countered.

For as Sizer wrote last November here:

"I am in Algeria this week at the invitation of the Minister for Religious Affairs and Wakf, Bouabdallah Ghlamallah, and the Right Revd Dr Mouneer Anis, the Anglican  Bishop of Egypt and North Africa. I have been giving a series of lectures on the Middle East conflict from a Christian perspective in universities and Islamic institutes, made some TV and radio programmes, given several newspaper interviews, and preached in Holy Trinity Church, Algiers, the only Anglican church in Algeria....

One of the issues I am addressing is the influence of Christian Zionism in perpetuating the Middle East conflict,  which tries to suggest Zionism is some how compatible with Christianity and lends it a veneer of Biblical credibility it does not warrant. The movement has been repudiated unequivocally by the heads of the indigenous Middle East churches in the Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism....

The Algerian Religious Affairs Ministry are keen to arrange a follow-up lecture tour of other universities in 2014.'

"The Problems for [Us] West Bank Christians Started in 1993 When the Area Was Handed Over to the Palestinian Authority"

http://unitycoalitionforisrael.org/uci_2014/?p=6460

“Unless Israel exists Hamas will take over West Bank – we need Israel to protect us. We do not hate the Israelis, we don't love them either but we are cool with them. They are protecting us."

"We want to live under the Israelian control we do not want the PA, it is bad for us Christians."

"....The problems for West Bank Christians started in 1993 when the area was handed over to the Palestinian Authority....after the 2nd intifada, it got worse ..."

Those are the statements of three young Palestinian Christians quoted in  a document titled "Methodist  Church  Consultation  Response" issued by the Emmaus Group, a Christian organisation that aims effectively to counteract the anti-Israel mischief of Sabeel and Kairos, and indeed of that of such anti-Israel clerical crusaders as the Rev. Stephen Sizer, who to judge from what he and his followers have written today on social media are (deservingly) much miffed by the document.

Indeed, the document, which argues forcefully against BDS, is an admirable rejoinder to the Israel-demonising nonsense put out by such elements within the Methodist Church and other churches, elements that are often, absurd as this may seem, apologists for Islam.

For instance, the report observes:

'Jointly, the Palestinian Territories (West Bank and Gaza) are 95.2% Moslem.  Gaza is 99.99% Moslem and its population of 1.76 million includes just 1, 500 Christians. The West Bank population is estimated at around 2.6 million of whom 75% are Moslem, 17% Jewish “settlers” and 8% Christian. If one ignores for a moment the Jewish settler population of 325,000, it leaves a total Palestinian populus of 4.3 million, of whom 208,000 are Christian, i.e. 4.8%.

This is highly significant to the BDS question raised by the Methodist Church as we will demonstrate. 

In the 1931 census conducted by the British, the Christian Population of Bethlehem and surrounding districts was 81%. In the late 1980s it was estimated at 85%. Today it is 7%.

In the 1960s Ramallah was 90% Christian whereas today it is a Moslem city. Ten years ago the Churches of Bethlehem asked the Israeli authorities to re-route the security wall as they didn’t want to live under a future Palestinian autocracy: facts that speak volumes. [My emphasis here and below]

We have chosen to include these figures in our response because they demonstrate a catastrophic decline in Christianity in the Palestinian Territories over the last 20 years.

Previously, between 1948 and 1989, the figures had remained fairly constant.

The decline and exodus of Christians from the Territories echoes the decline from Israel’s neighbouring Arab-Islamic states.

The Palestinian territory is, in terms of demography, an Islamic territory and therefore not unique in this phenomenon. The exodus did not start in 1967 when Israel “occupied” the land, but began after the first intifada and escalated significantly after the second.

Today, many assume the exodus of Christians from the Holy Land is primarily due to the ongoing disputes with Israel and occupation, however this is not the case. In fact the opposite is true, illustrated in part by sample comments included in this document by Palestinians. The year-on-year growth in the Moslem community also demonstrates people are not leaving because of disputes with Israel.

The decline and exodus is largely due to the ever-increasing levels of discrimination in a radical Islamic community, in which Christians are regarded as second-class citizens. Today, one only has to look north to Syria, south to Egypt, or east to Iraq, to observe atrocities being committed against Christians by radicalised regimes and cultures.  Christians in the West Bank are looking at what’s happening in these countries adding greatly to their fears for their future.'

 It ends:

'We are called to be peacemakers:to encourage people to seek first the kingdom of Heaven and the righteousness of God. We should not to do as the world does, propagating division and violence,for we do not belong to this world. We can and should alleviate suffering – and in the Palestinian case, we should seek to achieve this not by boycotting Israeli products made in the West Bank, which create jobs for Palestinians, but by publicly challenging the discrimination our brothers and sisters receive from the Palestinians themselves. If we really want to help these people we should challenge the vast abuse of power in public office by the Palestinian government, question the massive disappearance of western aid, the incubation of terrorist activity and the incitement to violence in government/ UNWRA funded schools – all of which are clearly against God’s will for mankind.

We must encourage the Palestinian Church to rise above politics and pray for the peace of Jerusalem as instructed to us in the Psalms. We must encourage them to trust in the Lord, pray for their enemies and those that persecute them, because vengeance belongs to the Lord – not man, especially not through political activism. We must help them to remove the plank from their own eye before removing the speck from Israel’s. We should not encourage them to engage in partiality or political activism and cause them to sin.

The Emmaus Group concludes that Christian engagement in political activism and policies which might harm Christian and Jew are both illogical and fraught with risk....

An endorsement of the BDS campaign cannot be honouring to God and nor will it help the region’s persecuted Christians. In fact it is our belief that it will bring greater division, unrest and persecution to the region.'

Read the entire report here

"Facts Have Become Distorted, Truth Has Become Irrelevant ..." (video)

Prominent British Zionist Paul Charney has initiated the following e-petition to the UK's Department for International Development (DFID).  It is available for signing here:

 "The Palestinian Authority (PA) currently provides salaries to any Palestinian convicted of committing terrorism offences against Israel. These wages are directly pegged to the length of the sentence, so the more grievous the crime, the higher the salary. Since these wages are much larger than those earned by average Palestinians, they clearly reward violence, including murder, and undermine peace. Around 40 per cent of the PA’s budget is made up from donor aid; the UK government has promised £33 million of taxpayer’s money for the 2013/14 period alone. The Palestinian ministers responsible for this policy publicly deride international donors who express unhappiness with their money being used to pay terrorists; only a credible threat of this aid being removed will alter the situation. We are therefore calling on DFID to cease all direct funding to the Palestinian Authority until it agrees to no longer provide salaries for those convicted of committing violent acts against Israel."

Mr Charney can be seen on the following video, discussing the meaning of Zionism with two warm-hearted Christian supporters, and, in a country that is a prime hub of anti-Israel activity, answering the question "What can Christians do to fight against this delegitimisation of Israel?"

Although the programme aired in 2011, it is essentially as pertinent in 2014 as it was then, and worth a look.

It includes footage which demonstrates the humanity of the IDF and the sheer brutality of Hamas, with the latter's disregard for the human rights of those on both sides of the conflict.

As Charney stresses, in the struggle to defame and destroy Israel

"Facts have become distorted, truth has become irrelevant ....

 Delegitimisation has become another tool for Israel's enemies ... to get rid if Israel altogether ....

 The fundamentalist Islamic ideology is not just to wipe Israel off the map ... but it's to change the Western world as we know it .... If they succeed in getting rid of Israel ... Europe is next ... the USA is next ..."

As this report indicates, another prominent British Zionist, former MP Eric Moonman, now 84, is advocating a  US-style ADL in order to counteract antisemitism in the UK: "enemies of the Jews have got away with it for a long time".

And in future anti-Israel protesters who disrupt concerts and suchlike to vent their spleen may face the long arm of the law (report here)

No More Anti-Israel Hatefests at St James's Piccadilly: petition to the Archbishop of Canterbury

Did you know that, according to eyewitnesses, a church official with a spray can was seen dutifully painting over messages deemed offensive (by the church) on the St James's, Piccadilly, "Apartheid Wall" yet did not paint over a swastika? (Disgusted members of the public erased it themselves.)

Did you know that a slogan praising the antisemitic quenelle sign was left on the wall?

Did you know that people bearing Israeli flags, such as the Sussex Friends of Israel (seen below; note the presence of the brave young Arab man, now no stranger to regular readers of this blog, who staunchly defends Israel every chance he gets), were refused admittance into the church compound (protected by tall locked iron gates)?

The despicable stunt held by the church has now been removed, but its pollutant stench, that of church-sanctioned antisemitism, remains.

A petition to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Justin Welby, has been initiated.  

Please sign it!

"Bethlehem Unwrapped" was a disgraceful [anti-]Israel hatefest.. The Israeli Embassy in London accused St James’s Church in Piccadilly of attempting to “incite against Israel and Israelis”.

The visitor to Bethlehem Unwrapped was invited to believe that all the problems of Bethlehem’s Christians today stem from Israel’s security fence. There was absolutely no mention of the fact that the reason why the Christian population of Bethlehem has declined so rapidly in recent years is not because of this but because the Christians are being gradually forced out from their historic homeland by extreme Islamist Palestinians.

The Rector Lucy Winkett appeared distinctly unbothered by whom she allied with in her anti-Israel hate-festival. One of her ‘partner organisations’ is ‘Interpal’, an organisation which in the US is designated as a terrorist entity.

Neither Lucy Winkett's blog nor the Festival pointed out that Israel is the only country in the Middle East whose Christian population is growing

Worst of all, neither noted that the wall/fence has cut deaths from suicide bombings by over 90%.
How disgusting that £30,000 was given to erect the mock-wall. Why did Lucy Winkett not insist the money was given to the poor and hungry?
 
http://www.thejc.com/comment/columnists/c-e-sanctioned-israel-hate

This church has an unfortunate history of malevolence against Israel.

We call on Justin Welby to condemn this ill-conceived stunt and to ensure that C of E churches are no longer abused to vilify Israel."

To sign, go here

To My Christian Readers

Thank you for following my blog.  May you have a Merry Christmas.  And of course Compliments of the Season to everyone else.

Interesting, not necessarily merry, Christmas-themed articles here and here
Richard Millett's report on the replica "Wall" (the one that defends Israelis against suicide bombers) outside St James's Church , Piccadilly here
(More photos of that, the church's latest Israel-demonising initiative, by an old chum of ours here)
And a special mention of Christian reader Ian G. for the many pro-Israel articles and articles of Jewish interest on his blog (born during the past year) here
Bibi's Christmas message here

"May It Please The Kangaroo Court": Christian Scholar socks it to Britain's BDSer Methodists

Infamously, as is well-known, the pro-BDS Methodist Church in Britain (a dying church hijacked by leftists) posted some weeks ago a survey regarding BDS that has caused considerable controversy. (See a summary and the link on our old pro-Boycott pal Richard Hall's blog here.)

Among those who took the opportunity to respond was pro-Israel Nick Gray of the UK-based Christian Middle East Watch (see here).

Now, in an absolute corker of an "open letter" to the Methodist Church's Peter Tidey,  American Christian scholar and pro-Israel advocate Dexter Van Zile characterises the survey's fourteen questions as the products of a "kangaroo court" since 

'A quick perusal of the questions indicates that the church has already concluded that Israel is solely responsible for the continued existence of the Mideast conflict, and that the Palestinians (and their Arab supporters) bear no responsibility.'

Van Zile goes on:

"Despite my misgivings, I decided to respond to your survey.

.... I am responding as a Christian who has grown disgusted with the monomaniacal focus of so-called peace and human rights activists in the West, who have hijacked church bureaucracies in their campaign to demonize Israel.

Below are my responses to your church's interrogatories.

Question One: What do you understand to be the motivation/inspiration behind the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in relation to Israel?

The BDS campaign has, as intended by its organizers, proven to be a powerful vehicle in the effort to enlist people to the demonization and de-legitimization of the Jewish State, which represents the gold standard for human rights in the Middle East.

Israel treats its enemies, dissidents, minorities, and its own citizens with far greater humanity and respect than any other country, regime, or political movement in the region and yet it is the country that is being targeted by BDS activists both inside and outside the Methodist Church in England. Anti-semitism is clearly part of the equation in the BDS movement.

If you doubt that anti-semitism plays a role in this campaign, consider the following:

Saudia Arabia is responsible for broadcasting Wahhabism, a radical form of Islam, to other countries in the world. In addition to oppressing women and minorities, and supporting jihadis who have killed Christians in Syria, the Saudi regime has funded the construction of mosques in North America and Europe whose leaders have made it harder for Muslims to integrate into Western society. (Inhabitants of England may have some knowledge of this problem.)

Iran has oppressed religious and ethnic minorities and supports Hezbollah, an organization that has intentionally murdered civilians throughout the world. It is, by many accounts, pursuing a nuclear weapons program to provide an atomic umbrella to its proxies in Syria and Lebanon.

Syria has been the scene of a deadly civil war where more than 100,000 people have been killed in just over two years. The Assad regime has used poison gas against civilians.

Turkey brutally oppresses Kurds and has refused to accept responsibility for the Armenian Genocide, which resulted in the deaths of 1.5 million people between 1915 and 1922.

Many goods produced in China are manufactured by slave labor. The country oppresses religious and ethnic minorities and has occupied and brutally repressed Tibet.

Moreover, Christians are being ethnically cleansed in Iraq, with hardly a word of protest from their co-religionists in the West, although to be fair, people are coming around on this issue. (Just not the Methodist Church.)

Why is there no BDS campaign targeting these countries? Where is the Methodist outrage over these misdeeds?

Question Two: In your view, what would be the essential elements of any peace agreement in Israel/Palestine?

Personally, I used to think that the Clinton Parameters would bring an end to the conflict. Today I’m not so sure.

The problem we face is that the current crop of Palestinian leaders who have encouraged their people to fight against Israel for the past several decades cannot obtain anything that wasn’t already offered to them previously on a number of occasions.

If they were to accept a peace treaty now that was largely similar to what could have been achieved in 1947, 1948, 68, or at Camp David in 2000, Palestinians would ask: “What was the point of all the suffering we endured over the past several decades? Why did you send us off to war? What did we achieve with the death of our children?”

As a result of this reality, one essential aspect of peace is the departure of the current crop of aged leaders from the Palestinian scene.

Other essential elements of peace include an acknowledgement of Israel as a Jewish state by Palestinian leaders and a repudiation of the anti-Jewish hostility that has animated Palestinian public life for decades (and which has only gotten worse since the Oslo Accords).

A normalization and routinization of daily life for both Israelis and Palestinians would also be necessary. That would require the cessation of rocket and other terror attacks against Israel, which in turn, would allow the reduction of security measures that Palestinians complain about. This is not possible until Palestinian leaders of all stripes abandon their efforts to exercise a veto of Jewish national life in a sovereign state.

Peace will also likely require tolerance for the presence of Jews in the West Bank. The West Bank will not and should not be Judenrein, even if it is part of a Palestinian state. Israel has a 20 percent Arab population. Palestinians will have to tolerate the presence of the other in their state, just as Israel has.

Can the Methodist Church in England encourage Palestinians to accept the Jewish other?...."

This is impressive, highly relevant, stuff from Dexter Van Zile. Read his entire piece here

"A Very Worrying Development": The Rebranding Of NGO BibleLands

Readers who've looked at my previous post will notice that the chief executive of the British NGO BibleLands has taken umbrage at what I've cited regarding the Islamic persecution of Copts and other Christians in the Middle East, and concentrates his fire-power upon Israel.

A Christian reader of mine, Ian G, who has been a teacher of religious studies, has the following to say about BibleLands.  I thank him for sharing his insights with me.  What he writes makes interesting and disturbing reading.

Writes Ian G:

"I see that they also intend to change their name to 'Embrace the Middle East'. The logo is also being changed to two hands where the Cross is suggested, rather than plain and obvious.

See here and here

Whenever a Christian organisation rebrands like this, one needs to look closely for the real reason. They always talk about modernising and relevance, but they often mean abandoning the original vision.

In this case, the name BibleLands clearly accepts that Israel, along with other nations, has an historic connection to a piece of the BibleLands. The Cross is an historic event that took place in Roman occupied, Jewish Jerusalem. Much of the Tenach and the New Testament takes place in Israel.

If, like me, you were brought up to believe in an Israel that occupied, roughly, Galilee, Samaria and Judea, than the return of Jews to the Land is of momentous significance to both Jews and Christians. Most especially to all who actually believe the Bible.

Whilst the debt that Christianity owes to Judaism is implicit in the name BibleLands it is eradicated in 'Embrace the Middle East'. Now the Middle East is just another place that needs help.

It is also worth looking at their interactive map of Israel and Palestine.

It would appear that Bethlehem is 50 per cent Muslim and 50 per cent Christian. My understanding from sources such as the Barnabas Fund  and Israel Today is that this is no longer accurate. For example Israel Today recently published three articles on the exodus of Arab Christians from areas in the control of the Palestinian Authority: or the archived articles of the Barnabas Fund.

Apparently, 70 per cent of the population of the Gaza strip live below the poverty line. Oh, and Israel does not have a recognised capital in Jerusalem. Funny, but the Bible says...

Now you see why they've changed the name.

The sad and dangerous thing about all this is that generations of churchgoers have grown up singing their Christmas carols from the 'Bethlehem Carol Sheet' produced by BibleLands. But that was in the day when Jesus was a Jew and Bethlehem was the City of David –  in Judea ( Luke ch.2 v.4).

What is missing from their website is a clear 'Statement of Faith'; there are now only 'Core Values' backed up with selected New Testament verses.   (A text out of context is a pretext.)

Compare this with the statement of faith for Barnabas Fund  and any other genuine Christian organisation and it quickly becomes obvious that BibleLands has lost its way.

This is happening to more and more Christian groups and denominations and is a very worrying development."

A Welcome New Cyber-Voice: Christian Middle East Watch

Pro-Israel Christians rally in London last year

The past fortnight has not been a happy one for Jewish-Christian relations, as church after church endorses or attempts to endorse resolutions injurious to Israel, the Church of England being the latest ecclesiastical body to show its contempt for Jewish sensitivities and Israel's security.

This latest episode may be read about here and is the subject of a searing criticism by the great Melanie Phillips.

Of some comfort, in these circumstances, is the fact that there's a splendid new UK-based pro-Israel site called Christian Middle East Watch that deserves to become well- known.  As its menu-bar indicates, it's divided into several subject sections relating to Israel and the Jewish People.  Its statement of purpose says, in part:

"We are a long overdue voice coming from the Church in Britain, seeking to bring balance and truth to the debates and issues concerning the Middle East; at the heart of which lies the seeming unending and intractible struggle between the Jewish State of Israel and her Muslim neighbours.

Christian Middle East Watch aims to be a primary source of accurate and balanced information concerning Israel and the Middle East

Great Britain, historically a Christian nation, has unique ties to the Jewish people and Israel. This is principally through her Judeo-Christian heritage, historical links, common democratic values and shared sacred scriptures. We also have many historical links to the Middle East as a whole, having governed much of it in our empire and having helped to bring down the Ottoman Empire in World War One.

In modern Britain today there has been an increase in antisemitism and unprecedented hostility against the nation of Israel, largely because of ignorance and a lack of historical understanding of the current conflict in the Middle East. By addressing the issues that follow, the CMEW is helping to reinforce Britain's Judeo-Christian heritage and the biblical morality underlying our nation's parliamentary and legal systems."

Here's a synopsis of a major article (which really must be read in its entirety) on that site entitled "The Delegitimisation of Israel as a Jewish State":

"The accusations against Israel are serious indeed. But how does the evidence match against these accusations?

No other nation has had to combat, since its birth as a state, the perpetual, aggressive attempts by Muslims to annihilate it that Israel has. The PLO, the Muslim Brotherhood and their offshoot, Hamas, and more recently President Ahmadinejad in Iran, have all sworn publicly that their ultimate purpose in the Middle East is to destroy the ‘Zionist presence’ and to rid the whole of the land west of the Jordan River from the ‘infidel usurpers’. More recently hostile campaigners have focused their resources on trying to delegitimise Israel politically in the world’s opinion. Isolation spells disaster for Israel - its survival and prosperity depend on its relations with the world in trade, science, arts and culture – all of which rely on its legitimacy in the world's eyes.

Some would argue that this is only the mind-set of extremists, but when these ‘extremists’ become the spokesmen for the whole Palestinian people, supported by delegitimisers in the west, and when Hamas and Fatah, sporadically in coalition, adamantly refuse to recognise the right of Israel to exist, then the world must judge aright in its dealings with the situation.

From the post-World War One San Remo Declaration to the State of Israel's acceptance into the UN in 1949, history shows the complete legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state. Her compliance with the controversial UN Resolution 242 and her willingness repeatedly to offer 'land for peace' in binding treaties reveals Israel's heart to maintain peace and her standing in the world by peaceful means. Her record on human rights and integration of minority groups into a tiny landmass alongside her own people displays a tolerance and humanity often found lacking in neighbouring nations. Israel needs not to prove any further her legitimacy in the community of nations; her neighbours should accept and recognise this and make serious moves towards a lasting peace in the Middle East."

And here's the summary of another, entitled "The BDS Campaign Against Israel":

"Israel's detractors in Britain are waging a vicious, often underhand, war against the democratic United Nations member state of Israel. Strongly emotive language is employed, which portrays Israel as exhibiting the characteristics of some of history's most genocidal and despotic regimes. What this language claims to portray, however, is a long way from the reality of life in Israel and the disputed Palestinian territories.

In reality, the boycotts, divestment and sanctions campaign in Britain has failed in its aims to stem trade between Britain and Israel (particularly with the so-called "illegal settlements") and to force major economic players to stop investing in or operating in the country (for example, the campaign against Veolia, a participant in the construction of the Jerusalem Light Rail Transit system). What it does, however, is to poison minds already predisposed to believe the worst about Israel and to draw into the same web those who are ignorant of what actually goes on in Israel but simply believe what they read or are told without checking facts for themselves.

In our major article on the BDS campaign, we expose some of the BDS campaign's tactics and participants."

 Be sure to check this site out!

Christians United For Israel Summit (video)

It sure beats those flotilla and flytilla bigots we've been seeing and hearing too much of lately!

In Praise of Israel's Christian Friends

On 6 July 1897, at a restaurant in London's Piccadilly, Theodor Herzl outlined his grand Zionist vision before a mainly sceptical audience comprising members of a club for young Anglo-Jewish intellectuals and cultural figures.  The most enthusiastic commentator present was an elderly non-Jewish guest, the pre-Raphaelite painter Holman Hunt, a devout Christian who knew the Holy Land intimately, depicted real Jewish faces (of people he encountered during his sojourns there) on his biblical-themed canvases, and had put forward a scheme for Jewish settlement not unlike Herzl's own - and at virtually the same time.

He was one of a number of nineteenth-century figures in the English-speaking world dedicated to the restoration of Jews to Zion.  While some of them were millenarians, believing that the ingathering of the exiles was a necessary prelude to the conversion of the Jews and thus to a new messianic age, some had no strong missionary agenda.  Arguably the most remarkable of the latter type was the Protestant, anti-Roman Catholic novelist and editor Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, who died in 1846; she anticipated the well-known twentieth-century philosemite Rev Dr James Parkes in holding that Judaism constitutes an alternate path to redemption.

Nowadays, mention 'Christian Zionism' and the American Evangelical Christian Right most often springs to people's minds.  In 'liberal intellectual' circles it is de rigueur to deride its adherents.  But at a time when 'Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions' is becoming the slogan of certain denominations and faith groups, some of which are attempting to invalidate the Jewish People's historic attachment to Eretz Israel altogether, all well-wishers of  the Jewish State should accord them the appreciation they deserve.

 Other staunch supporters of Israel in Christian circles include the Roman Catholic Sisters of Sion, represented at the Solidarity with Israel rally held in Sydney last month (during the immediate fallout from the flotilla affair) under the auspices of the News South Wales State Zionist Council.  As the name indicates they also include the Anglican Friends of Israel, founded in Britain in 2005; among its patrons is the Rev Dr Peter Mullen, rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, and chaplain to the London Stock Exchange.

As its website shows, the Anglican Friends of Israel are not slow, when occasion warrants, to counter injustices against Israel, be the latter in word or deed; among their more recent activities, for example, is a commendably articulate and robust letter to the BBC regarding its biased reportage, and a fine defence of Israel regarding the boarding of the Mavi Marmara - a defence which demonstrates a close knowledge of the issues involved and a sophisticated grasp of political realities.  A more sophisticated grasp, it is tempting to add, than that of Foreign Secretary William Hague, who was quick to condemn Israel as soon as news of Israel's raid on the Mavi Marmara broke - overlooking the terrorist-links of the IHH which sponsored the 'aid convoy' as well as the defensive reasons for Israel's  Gaza blockade and before all the information about the raid came to hand. (Justifiably, the Anglican Friends take him to task.)

Nor must we omit to mention Christian Friends of Israel (UK) who have joined with the Zionist Federation of Great Britain to denounce the recent resolution by the Methodist Conference to boycott produce from the disputed territories. The Anglican Friends have roundly condemned the Methodists too.  So, to all Christian champions of Israel: heartfelt gratitude and praise.