On the Dark Side of the Moon: Sizer in Oklahoma

This year, the Christ at the Checkpoint (CATC) Conference, a bi-annual Israel-bashing event dedicated to undermining Christian Zionism and founded by Palestinian activists in Bethlehem eight years ago, is being held in the United States for the very first time.

As reported inter alia here, Luke Moon, deputy director of the Philos Project, believes that while CATC will in all likelihood not "turn a significant number of evangelicals against Israel, he believes their attack on Christian Zionism is anti-Semitism in disguise" and has expressed surprise at finding that Stephen Sizer, CEO of the so-called Peacemaker Trust (which appears to be more obsessively concerned with attacking Israel than ever before) is a speaker: 

A naive ally -er- alibi (geddit?)  Yep, there's always one ...

"I kept asking myself, are the organizers so foolish to cast such a negative shadow over the conference. It became clear that Sizer's work in fighting Christian Zionism was more important than his anti-Semitism.

This shows me two things about CATC. First, it shows that they are not as concerned about anti-Semitism as they claim. Second, they fail to recognize how inviting Sizer undermines their efforts to attract Christians to their cause. 

Anti-Zionism seeks to delegitimize the claims of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. It is the connection to that land, the shared memory and hope that one day they would be restored to their land, Zion, that preserved the Jews as a particular people among the nations they lived. Anti-Zionism seeks to strip that away.

I believe there is sufficient evidence to show that attacking Christian Zionism not only harms Jewish-Christian relations, it leads to an environment where it's not just the relations that are harmed, it's the Jews themselves."

Friends on ...

Meanwhile, Sizer (who is apparently hoping to visit Atlanta and Seattle next year) is miffed that the first  review of the Kindle edition of his (Sizer's) notorious book Zion's Christian Soldiers is a critical one, albeit measured, by James Mendelsohn, and is requesting his social media faithful to post their own to neutralise it.

Opines Mendelsohn:

'[T]he book is seriously marred by the author's very obvious anti-Israel agenda.

Facebook react ...

A clear example of this is his statement on pp. 69-70: "The 'dividing wall of hostility', typified by the barrier that separated Jews and Gentiles in the temple, has been broken down by Jesus Christ. It is ironic, if tragic, that despite his willingness to comply with all the petty temple regulations concerning ritual purity, Paul would eventually be arrested for allegedly bringing Greeks into the temple and defiling God's house (Acts 21:28-29).

Today, their successors in the government of Israel are seeking to erect a much higher and longer 'separation barrier' to preserve their racial identity and exclusive claim to the land of Palestine." The phrase, "Today, their successors..." seems to imply that Jews, or at least Jewish leaders, are incorrigibly racist. Since there are both Jews and Arabs both to the East and to the West of Israel's security barrier, Sizer's claim is demonstrably false. Rather, the security fence was built to stop Israelis being killed, and has been demonstrably successful: 431 Israelis were killed in 137 suicide bombings between September 2000 and the completion of the northern and most of the Jerusalem sections of the wall, 100 in March 2000 alone.

and react ...

 After the completion of the wall in the north, there was not a single terrorist attack across that section. By December 2004, the number of suicide attacks launched from the West Bank had fallen by 84% in less than two years. (Figures from Sir Martin Gilbert's updated Israel, A History, p. 631.) Since Sizer neither mourns these Israeli dead nor condemns (or even acknowledges) their killers, and instead denounces the structure designed to protect Israelis as a symbol of racist imperialism, it is hard not to conclude that he has no objection to Israelis being killed. (This is not to deny that the wall undoubtedly causes serious hardship and suffering to the Palestinians; nor that the wall cuts into land beyond the Green Line, which could otherwise have been allocated to a future Palestinian state.)

... ever more ...

Sadly, this is not an isolated instance in Sizer's book. At page 8, the Union of Jewish Students (i.e. your friendly local J-Soc) is cast as an opponent of intellectual freedom. On page 10, Sizer asks, "Why is Israel allowed to retain nuclear weapons, while Iran is threatened with a pre-emptive attack for aspiring to obtain nuclear technology?", yet inexcusably fails to mention that Iran's president has denied the first Holocaust and has threatened to perpetrate a second. At footnote 12 on page 6, Sizer draws on the conspiracy theories of Mearsheimer and Walt. In a footnote on page 15, he refers approvingly to the flawed and highly partisan works of Jimmy Carter and Ilan Pappe, and also to Uri Davis, a PLO observer member who helped to promote the antisemitic play "Perdition" in the 1980s, which alleged that Zionist leaders collaborated with the Nazis in perpetrating the Holocaust.

despicably (click here for the antisemitic article*)

Sadly, this in keeping with an author who demonises supporters of Israel as "people in the shadows" and for whom Uri Davis, neo-Nazi favourite Israel Shahak and Holocaust-denier-defender and intellectual crook Noam Chomsky are "leading Jewish academics". For all that Sizer says that "Anti-Semitism must be repudiated unequivocally" (p. 15), some of his terminology and sources seem to point in the other direction. It is surely not a coincidence that, in 2015, Stephen Sizer was censured by Andrew Watson, the Bishop of Guil[d]ford, for posting "clearly anti-Semitic material" on social media.

Saddest of all, though, is the fact that, Zion's Christian Soldiers? has, like Sizer's previous book, been published by Inter-Varsity Press, a reputable Christian publishing house, and has been endorsed by various prominent Christian leaders, including Dick Lucas and Rico Tice. One might not expect reviewers to check every source and factual assertion (though we might hope that a responsible publisher would), but frankly this is of little comfort to those of us who are Jewish, who recognise antisemitism when we see it, and who are all too aware of what antisemitism has led to through the centuries....'

*When will Sizer clear out that Augean stable?!

Love & Hate, New Time, Olde Tyme

Canadian politician Candice Bergen (yes, really!) poses a straightforward question regarding funding for an antisemitic group in Toronto to Pierre Trudeau, and receives a less than straightforward answer. 

Meanwhile, two tweets from a brave man:

And another of those lovable Olde Tyme-in-our-time preachers:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxvmEzfqT4g

To quote the translator and uploader, Memri.org:

'During a parliamentary session in Gaza, Hamas MP and cleric Yunis Al-Astal recited at length quotes from the Quran, vilifying the Jews. "We do not have time to list their abominations, which merited their transformation into apes and pigs," he added, saying that due to these faults, Jewish scholars were described as "dogs," and the simple people were described as "donkeys." Al-Astal further said that Allah has gathered "those corrupters" in Palestine in order "to annihilate their corruption at the hands of His servants of great might," and ended with a recommendation to produce a generation of "servants of Allah with great might." The Gaza parliamentary session aired on Al-Quds TV (Lebanon).'

And a preacher stateside:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMRl4py7KFo

To quote CAMERAorg:

'Gayle Harris, Suffragan Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, defames Israel while speaking at a meeting of the denomination’s House of Bishops during the 2018 General Convention.

During her testimony in favor of a resolution that condemned Israel for allegedly mistreating Palestinian children (but made no mention of the hate-indoctrination on television shows broadcast by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority), Harris accused Israeli soldiers of shooting a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in the back 10 times.

When did this happen? What is the name of the victim? The first that the world heard of this atrocity was from Harris herself speaking at a church meeting a few years after the alleged incident happened. That doesn’t make any sense. Since when would Palestinian leaders fail to broadcast such an atrocity to the world?

Harris also told a story about Israeli security officials attempting to handcuff a three-year-old boy after his rubber ball bounced off the Temple Mount onto the Western Wall.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center highlighted the absurdity of the bouncing-ball story: “There is a high stone wall on top of the Temple Mount that blocks balls and people from going over the side.” Moreover, as anyone who has been on the Temple Mount can attest, Israeli soldiers do not need to “come up” to the Temple Mount as Harris stated, because they are already stationed on the site.

CAMERA has called on Bishop Harris to provide confirmatory details about these stories and if she can’t retract them and apologize for spreading unsubstantiated propaganda to her fellow Bishops. The Israel-Palestinian conflict is tragic enough. It does not need to be made worse by unsubstantiated atrocity stories that only serve to demonize Israel.'  (See also here and here)

"War Has Been Declared. Its Agents Must Be Answered ..."

Er, ever heard of Arab Rejectionism?

Onward Christian soldiers!  That's the title of a well-known hymn, and that, in essence, is the call of call a Christian supporter of Israel, Brian Schrauger, in a call, as it were, to arms.

Writes Brian Schrauger, inter alia:

 'Since 2010, the "Christ at the Checkpoint" conference has only been in Bethlehem. Last week organizers announced they are going global. What must Christians who stand with Israel know and do to counter "Christ at the Checkpoint" and its declaration of war against them?....

“There simply is no biblical basis for Christian Zionism,” says conference organizer Munther Isaac. He made this assertion in 2016 and did so as a pastor, Bible professor and theologian.

At the CatC conference in 2016, the hired gun to assault Christian Zionism was the so-called ‘Bible Answer Man,’ Hank Hanegraaff from the US.

Not only is the ethnicity of today’s Jews dubious, said Hanegraaff, Christian Zionists are directly responsible for what he called Jewish Zionism’s “murder, terrorism and ethnic cleansing in 1948.” Moreover, he asserted, all talk of a third Temple (as per the prophet Ezekiel) is “nonsense.”

In fact, said author and historian Robert Smith this year, all forms, all expressions of Christian Zionism lack ethical integrity. Hence there is no ethical common ground for discussing any of their arguments with them. 

Little wonder that the number one written objective of CatC this year was “to challenge the theology of Christian Zionism.”....  

When the conference kicked off on Monday evening, the keynote speaker was Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malik. Speaking in the place of President Mahmoud Abbas, he declared that Jesus was crucified because he was a Palestinian, then proceeded to eviscerate Israel and US President Donald Trump. 

Every CatC leader was there. They fawned and applauded and patted al-Malik on the back. Then, wrapped in Christian lingo, they re-asserted all of his key points. 

Later in the week an unscheduled representative of the PA appeared at the podium. Her powerpoint presentation was a gatling gun declaration of the PA’s explicit anti-Israel narrative, vilifying it as a criminal enterprise. ....

One of the main ways CatC and its advocates disarm evangelical opposition is by seducing it.

Pleading for love and unity, it relentlessly argues for Israel as an essentially criminal entity. Advocates for Israel who buy the seduction are persuaded that silence in the face of these assertions are necessary expressions of Christian love and unity.

Another seduction is using weapons from an entire armory of rhetorical accusations. The accusations against evangelicals who stand with Israel include charges of one-sided prejudice, lack of compassion, divisiveness, blindness, political motivation and, although the word itself is never spoken, heresy. 

Perhaps the most effective seduction is various use of “bait and switch” appeals. Like a salesman who gets his mark to say yes about things unrelated to his real objective, CatC does the same. Appealing to evangelical sensibilities and expressions, those who participate, standing with raised hands and bowed heads, invariably find themselves in that same posture as anti-Israel invective is proclaimed as gospel truth.

This happened at the very start of this year’s CatC. Asking attendees to stand for an opening prayer, the program immediately proceeded to the ‘Palestinian National Anthem.’ Asked to remain standing, everyone apparently did. Refusing to stand for the prayer, I was spared the embarrassment of having to sit in the face of an anthem that declares, 

Warrior, warrior, warrior, ...

Meanwhile, in London, an undisguised aim

I will live as a warrior, I will remain a warrior, I will die as a warrior - until my country returns Warrior!

.... Never, ever, let down your guard at this event or others like it—including a increasing array of services at local churches.

Go global

CatC’s leadership and advocates are already taking their attack to evangelicals around the world. Apart from the West, they are all-but entirely unopposed. War has been declared. Its agents must be answered. They must be opposed.

Everywhere.

Especially in such a time as this.'

[Emphasis added]

Read the entire article here

"Stefan" Says: "Ben Gurion Airport Security is Not What it Used to Be ..."

Ah, how pristine our old friend Stephen Sizer's passport appears to be in this 2013 checkpoint photo opportunity:

As gleaming as this token, honorary one the peripatetic ex-vicar acquired on his travels recently:

With frequent peregrinations hither and thither in the cause of undermining Christian support for Israel it's not surprising that the owner's EU one is looking a tad knocked about a bit.

Our old friend has been visiting Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and Ramallah, all the while treating his followers on social media to such posts as these (the first two are nods to Sandra Watfa):

which, inter alia, attracted such odious and unchallenged responses as these from his disciples:

 There was also this from the so-called Peacemaker Mediators' CEO:

That article:

'Howard Jacobson, Simon Sebag Montefiore and Simon Schama posted an open letter in The Times in which they said they were “troubled by the tone and direction of debate about Israel and Zionism within the Labour Party”.

In the centenary year of the Balfour Declaration, in which the British government committed its support to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the trio say: “Zionism is the right of the Jewish people to self-determination. We believe that anti-Zionism, with its antisemitic characteristics, has no place in a civil society.”

 In 2009, Booker Prize winner Jacobson, now 75, wrote that criticism of Israel was “a desire to word a country out of existence,” and this week he again equated criticism of Israel with the will to destroy it.

“We do not object to fair criticism of Israel governments,” the three wrote, “but this has grown to be indistinguishable from a demonisation of Zionism itself – the right of the Jewish people to a homeland, and the very existence of a Jewish state.”

They said Jewish conspiracy theories had resurfaced along with “the promotion of vicious, fictitious parallels with genocide and Nazism,” adding: “How, in such instances, is anti-Zionism distinguishable from antisemitism?”

Adding their voice to a growing debate about anti-Zionism and antisemitism, the authors also allege that anti-Zionists “claim innocence of any antisemitic intent” but “frequently borrow the libels of classical Jew-hating”.

Turning their combined attention to Labour, they say “such themes and language have become widespread in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party… so far the Labour leadership’s reaction has been derisory. It is not enough to denounce all racisms”.'

And if by this post he's attempting to indict Israel, he's barking up the wrong tree:

 For we read:

 'Approximately 215 million Christians experience high, very high, or extreme persecution. North Korea remains the most dangerous place to be a Christian (for 14 straight years). Islamic extremism remains the global dominant driver of persecution, responsible for initiating oppression and conflict in 35 out of the 50 countries on the 2017 list.  Ethnic nationalism is fast becoming a major driver of persecution. “While this took an anti-establishment form in the West, in Asia it took an anti-minorities form, fueled by dramatic religious nationalism and government insecurity. It is common—and easy—for tottering governments to gain quick support by scapegoating Christians. The total number of persecution incidents in the top 50 most dangerous countries increased, revealing the persecution of Christians worldwide as a rising trend.

The most violent: Pakistan, which rose to No. 4 on the list for a level of violence “exceeding even northern Nigeria.”

....The top 10 nations where it is most dangerous and difficult to practice the Christian faith are:

North Korea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Eritrea'

But coming back to that passport with its Israeli stamps, here's what our old friend has to say, along with his fellow Christian Israel-basher Jeremy Moodey, who as its (now ex-) CEO put Embrace the Middle East (formerly BibleLands) on its present anti-Israel path:

 As to why these campaigners against Christian Zionism are so deplorable, read what French-born US-based Olivier Melnick wrote in 2015 here

Incidentally, on the subject of the phrase "Judeo-Christian" there is a most contentious current article by a Canadian  British-based academic here

Watfa Heck, Stephen Sizer?

Our old friend the ex-vicar of Virginia Water, nowadays  CEO of the Israel-bashing Peacemaker Mediators "charity", has been attending a Christian conference in Hong Kong on the theme of "Love Thy Neighbour".

According to the conference's blurb:

"This year’s conference theme is ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ and there is no more relevant time in history than right now to take a fresh look at Jesus' timeless truth. With social, political, racial, and economic issues at stake, we need to be reminded that Mark 12:30-31 is still our greatest call to Worship and Justice.

Across 2 full days, 6 main sessions, 24 workshops, and 8 different workshop streams, we will open up a conversation on the prophetic call we carry to reach out toward the other in compassion, justice, and love.

During the conference we will hear from international justice voices and practitioners in Asia who will explore practically what it might look like to love our neighbours as radically as Jesus did."

Our old friend gave his talk as foreshadowed in his comment beneath the image at right; it can be read on his website.

To quote him here (I've added the links; do please follow the one to Holy Land Trust to get the lowdown on its hostility to Israel and support for BDS):

'I led a workshop on Christian Jihad, the Biblical Basis for Proactive Peacemaking.

Sami Awad of the Holy Land Trust and Peacemaker Mediators Board of Reference member spoke on “Practicing peace in hostile surroundings. Other speakers included Jackie Pullinger, Eugene Cho and Craig Greenfield.'

Sizer has in the past worked strenuously to turn Christian populations in South-East Asia against Christian Zionism.

Sizer during his Hong Kong spiel; squint at the backdrop

For example through translations of his works, so it would not be surprising to learn that he carried on his anti-Israel proselytism while attending the conference.

I believe, incidentally, that the Beijing authorities rejected his application for a visa to China, probably owing to their crackdown on Christians.

As CEO of Peacemaker Mediators Sizer is no less peripatetic than he was as the spiritual leader of Christ Church, Virginia Water.  (It seems he'll be coming to the Antipodes next March.)

Nice work if you can get it, as one of his followers pointed out the other day, with a query to which the vaguest of responses was forthcoming:

More recent smears against Israel include this casual suggestion of racism:

All nations have the right and obligation to decide their own immigration policies, vicar.  How many asylum seekers has your seemingly beloved Iran taken in?

Surely you have read the Book of Job, being a clergyman.  Recall this verse?

“I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and I searched out the cause of him that I did not know” (Job 29:15-17).

Not a word there about the blind, lame, poor or disadvantaged having to be Jewish to qualify for Jewish kindness.

And in the same vein the modern state of Israel performs humanitarian acts large-scale and small to countries and peoples the world over, including citizens of "enemy" nations such as Syria.  Remember when Israel offered aid to your seemingly beloved Iran following an earthquake in 2003?  And the mad mullahs, preferring to let their citizens suffer rather than be aided by the Zionist Entity,  turned the offer down?

Meanwhile, the Corbynista Sizer's anti-Israel activism proceeds apace:

And as seen here he continues his requited love affair with the Iranian regime's propagandistic satellite channel Press TV:

Watfa heck, vicar?

Surely you have missed David Collier's revelations about Inminds' Sandra here

I mean, you and your Peacemakers Mediators chums don't want to have anything to do with persons who post memes like this one (see Collier's post for more).

Or do you?

(Meanwhile:

Sick?  Oh, I wouldn't say that...  Just a tad fourth form ...)

Israel-Demonising Priest Addresses Al Quds Day Crowd Down Under (videos)

Pro-Iran Sydney-based Anglican priest Father Dave Smith is an antipodean member of the International Board of Reference of pro-Iran Stephen Sizer's new Israel-demonising vehicle Peacemaker Moderators.

Last year Smith described the Iranian-sponsored Hate Fest that is Al Quds Day as "a day when God brings us together ... an intrinsically religious event" and regretted that he could not attend Melbourne's Al Quds Day rally in person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBh4q4JPWoE

This year Smith was star speaker at the Al Quds Day rally in Melbourne, ranting and raving against the Zionist Entity before a crowd of appreciative Israel-haters gathered outside the usual venue for anti-Israel love-ins of this kind, the State Library of Victoria.

His speech was temporarily interrupted by raucous cries of "Down Down Israel!!!" (a cry replicated on placards held by Israel-haters on hand) and followed by equally raucuous cries of "From the River to the Sea ..."

(Videos below: Jmedia Online)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMyaZPGfrtY

Another Israel-hater inveighing against "Zionists" in Melbourne including "an IDF training centre" on Collins Street; note the chants:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwPHvXtuE7w

And another one, an imam from Britain:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz6Lh_4WGrQ

A look at some of the charmers present:

For Iran's massive large-scale financing of international terror see here