Stephen Sizer's "Racists for Israel"

Yesterday, in a comment on my blog that I have not published, the blog's resident troll, a droll, wacky sort of bloke in the UK (who runs a scurrilous anti-Zionist website that I'm more than happy to help leave in the obscurity it so richly deserves by not naming or linking to it) tauntingly alerted me to this event:

Pastor Mike Fryer is no stranger to students of Christian Zionism, and I've mentioned him on this blog more than once for his sterling efforts on behalf of Israel.

In 2010, here, I drew attention to an impressive essay on Christian antisemitism that Mike Fryer wrote the previous year, which contains the following observations:

‘Many in Christendom today are using charity and good works to re-enforce in the minds of many Muslim fundamentalists that Islam has the right and even a duty to take land from the Jewish people and establish a homeland for themselves. They are referring to land, which the Jewish people by right, by international law and by religion are entitled to possess. 

“Christian” organizations such as Sabeel and Christian Aid speak openly in favor of a Palestinian homeland and use terms such as an “oppressive Israel regime” and “Israeli Occupation”; Church denominations such as the Church in Wales, the Anglican Communion, Methodists and Presbyterians have all spoken of divestment of Israel and support the Palestinian cause to create another state within the confines of the land of Israel. These and many other church organizations, such as the Vineyard, are encouraging governments to negotiate with terrorists ... [and] have eagerly moved away from the term antisemitism and now use the term anti-Zionism. What is the difference? By using the former you can be called a racist and prosecuted but the term anti-Zionism is not perceived in the same way and although it means the same it is, in this current political climate, “acceptable”....

In the [Welsh] town in which I live an anti-Israel play was performed at our local theatre. I led some other Christians for Zion supporters as we stood at the door to the theater and gave out leaflets, not criticizing anyone but stating facts. Many local church leaders and Christian groups attended the play and were obviously opposed to our stance. We found it difficult that many who teach from their pulpits that we are always to seek truth actually ignored the truths in our message….

Three years ago I attended a meeting at which a Church in Wales canon was speaking about the situation in Israel. There were a number of clergy present, none of whom knew me. I listened to lie after lie encouraging the audience to sympathize with Islam and the Palestinian people, and to see Israel as an aggressive regime, hell bent on persecuting the Palestinian people. At the end of the presentation there was a time for questions. At the conclusion of a stream of pro-Palestinian questions, I asked some pertinent questions which showed that the speaker was aware that he was not telling the truth about the actual matters he was referring to. The meeting was immediately stopped and worried clergy, thinking I was a journalist surrounded me in an effort to find out what the purpose of my attendance was.’

Last year, Mike Fryer condemned the anti-Israel Greenbelt festival (at which, be it noted, one of the speakers was the Reverend Lucy Winkett of St James's Church, Piccadilly, the woman behind the recent replica Wall stunt) in the following terms (read more of his remarks and about his efforts then here):

'During the years which preceded the Second World War Political and Religious meetings were being held throughout Europe during which Jews were condemned as a danger to society. Little was done by Christians to stop this teaching which incited the hatred which enabled the mass murder of men women and children to take place. Ordinary men who before the war were upright members of the community joined such units as Battalion 101 who were reservist Police officers and who became the most violent killers in history. Within five short years those men in that battalion, who numbered less than 500, originally defenders of communities, became the murderers of 83,000 Jews. They, who had families of their own, stripped and shot women and children at point blank range and the local Clergy watched. This happened for many reasons but one reason was that people were afraid to do anything to oppose such violence. If you were caught helping Jews you would be arrested and taken to the murder camps or executed on the spot, as were your family.

On Sunday the 25th of August the Greenbelt Christian Youth Summer Camp being held at Cheltenham Racecourse will host Reverend Lucy Winkett the Chair of the Amos Trust who will launch, on behalf of the trust, the Kairos Britain network of Churches. This network, which is also being launched in other countries around the world is targeting Israel as an oppressive unjust and racist nation who give no rights to the Palestinians. They condemn Israel and call out for Justice for Palestinians but they ignore the rights of Israel to defend herself and to live on land rightfully her own. They call for what they describe as an end to oppression and injustice by Israel but refuse to address the oppression of Christians in Gaza or the removal of Human rights of women and young men or the summary executions in HAMAS governed areas. They don’t condemn the firing of 29,000 rockets which have been fired at Israeli communities since 2000 or the suicide bombings which are now being prevented by the security fence. They don’t address the increasing teaching of hatred in Palestinian Arab schools. I could go on but I think I have made my point. 

Greenbelt are also hosting a number of other speakers who are anti-Israel, one of whom Mark Braverman who calls Zionism Racism. This conference attended by the big names in Christianity such as Graham Kendrick and Steve Chalk are inciting our youth to hate in the same way as European Church leaders did in the years preceding the Holocaust. This incitement is no less subtle and neither is it in any way less dangerous.

 The difference between now and then is that we are not going to be rounded up and shot for standing with Israel and speaking out when the rest of the Church is condemning her. So why aren’t we? In every genocide there are victims, perpetrators, bystanders and rescuers. Many Christians in Holocaust were classified as bystanders because of the real threat of being murdered alongside Jews. So today why are many in the Christian community bystanders when there is no threat except that of words from those fuelled by antisemtism?

We are conditioned to believe that by attending a conference or a meeting held by a pro-Israel speaker and giving our money to support such ministries that we are doing all we can to help Israel. We are conditioned because this is how it has always been done and we go home satisfied that we have done the work that God has called us to do. We have actually become by-standers even by-sitters unless we put the knowledge we gain from such meetings into real action. Why aren’t we rallying at Greenbelt or New Wine or any anti-Israel meetings? Why aren’t we gathering together to pray at such events and show these groups that their teaching is heretical and inciting hatred.

The first part of the definition of Hate Speech is “Speech which generates fear on the part of an individual or group” I believe the Jewish community here in the UK are not as much fearful of the anti-Israel meetings as they are of the apathy within Christendom which allows these meetings to take place without a challenge.

I have written to the BBC who will hold their Radio 2 good morning Sunday programme at Greenbelt when this network is launched  to point out that we will be attending because there is another side to the story, but they have not replied. I know the Jewish community have asked Greenbelt to allow them a speaker but that has been denied....'

Regarding the despicable Wall stunt at Lucy Winkett's church Mike Fryer wrote on Christmas Eve:

'I can only describe the 30 metre long and 8 metre high wall erected outside St.James Church Piccadilly last night as another warped and disgusting addition to the heretical life of this sad Church.

Rev Lucy Winkett of St. James and Chair of “The  Amos Trust” another organisation which spends its time lying about, and vilifying Israel was the person who launched the Kairos Network at the Greenbelt festival this summer and is backing this horrible construction .

The wall has been erected to try and tell a tale that it is a wall of occupation and apartheid and it is being connected to the Christmas story in Bethlehem which adds to the heretical message. The wall will remain in position for twelve days.The wall is another attempt to sow the seeds of hatred into to congregation members and those who pass by this central London Anglican congregation and is nothing less than despicable.

There is not one acknowledgement of the real security barrier in Israel being a construction for the protection of Israeli citizens from suicide bombings and terror attacks.

It is very sad to this happen in our time in our Capital city but it also sad that the Church leaders has not ordered that it be removed from Church premises.'

I don't know how Mike Fryer persuaded Lucy Winkett to afford him the small concession of holding yesterday's event at St James's Church, and I don't know how successful, or otherwise, the event was, given that there appears to have been little publicity about it. (Update: report by Nick Gray here)

My resident troll posted the above flyer for the event onto his Facebook page, together with a mocking screed of his.  Stephen Sizer, who follows the troll on Facebook, shared the link, and in so doing made a derogatory comment above the flyer:

"Racists for Israel"

I blinked hard when I read this, and double-checked to see whether the vicar had posted so un-Christian and unjustified a remark, or whether the troll had written it.  Alas, the words are the vicar's.

How very ironic it is that Stephen Sizer should label Christian Zionists "racists" when among his own Facebook Friends he has a number of people who have written antisemitic messages on his Facebook wall below links he has made.

He really should take more care regarding the company he keeps on social media.

A few, at least, of his Facebook Friends have an unfortunate history of what  by any fair assessment can be regarded as antisemitic track records.  They have been identified as such not by me (though I have indeed  pointed out a few particularly egregious comments by his Facebook Friends) but by other bloggers.  They themselves know who they are.  But does he?

Sizer cannot be expected to know what his Facebook Friends write away from his Facebook page, but it is surely unconscionable that a man of the cloth such as he allows messages that disparage Jews as Jews, including the racist canard that Ashkenazi Jews are not semites but rather of Khazar stock, to go unchallenged and unchastised.

http://www.newantisemitism.com/2012/03/truth-half-truths-and-lies-christ-at.html

Last week, below a video link that Sizer had made, one of his Facebook Friends linked  to an entirely different video, one of the Rothschilds-control-the-world variety.  The link in question had disappeared a few hours later.  Either the Facebook Friend who posted it had a twinge of conscience or he had been told by somebody that posting so unequivocally antisemitic a message brought the entire thread into disrepute.

If that somebody was the vicar, then, praise where it's due.

But in any case more dissociation from Friends who leave antisemitic comments on his Facebook page needs to be done.

"Racists against Israel"?

Quite so.

Update: see what the survivor of a ghastly attack by Palestinian Arab terrorists says here about Stephen Sizer (hat tip: reader Herb).

"You Are Fighting For The Soul Of The Church" Pro-Israel British Christians Are Told By Jewish Leader

Remember my post regarding the disturbing Israel-bashing high jinks brought to the Greenbelt festival at Cheltenham Racecourse last weekend by former diplomat Jeremy Moodey's NGO Embrace the Middle East?

Well, pro-Israel Christians have not allowed the demonisers to have it all their own way.

In the course of a spirited challenge to Greenbelt's organisers, one made the following points:

'Israel can only be seen to be being unjust if it has violated historical land ownership rights in the region.

Land bought by Jewish settlers in the 1880’s and onwards was bought from the absentee Turkish landlords, who were eager for funds. The land that was initially settled was uncultivated, swampy, cheap and empty land. It was only later that cultivated land was bought. In his memoirs, King Abdullah of Jordan wrote, “…the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping”. Therefore, up until 1948, when the State of Israel was formed, no land was seized or acquired in any way other than through legal means.

....Did you know that there has never been a sovereign Palestinian state and a people group who regard themselves as Palestinians from the point of view of the Arab people groups! In fact, when the first congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in 1919 the agreement was that “we consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria.” The only people who considered themselves ‘Palestinians’ in the first half of the 20th century were the Jewish inhabitants. Even the Jewish national newspaper was called ‘The Palestinian Post’!

Further, prior to 1948, in the 1930s there was a huge rate of immigration by Arabs into the region mainly from Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Syria & Lebanon. In 1939, Winston Churchill said “Far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied until their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up (increase) the Jewish population.” This is an important point because it dispels the myth that the Arab Palestinian people have lived there for generations. It raises a further point when we talk about Palestinian refugees displaced by the anti-Israeli war one day after the formation of Israel in 1948 (an idea sanctioned by the United Nations General assembly in 1947) that many of them would have been as recent to the land as the Jews themselves!

[W]ill you tell people at Greenbelt this aspect of the historical facts?

.... Did you know there are 2 historical refugee problems but they have been handled differently?

The 820,000 Jewish refugees who were forcibly ejected from Arab countries where they had often lived for thousands of years were all welcomed and integrated into Israel or the Jewish world elsewhere. There are no Jewish refugee camps.

The 750,000 Arab refugees who were displaced in 1948, were placed into squalid refugee camps by fellow Arabs who had just gone to war as the aggressors (and lost) on their behalf but were unwilling to pay for the consequences. Jesus said the following words in Luke 14:28-30 “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build, and was not able to finish.” Incredibly, over 50 years later, over a million of these poor people are still in these camps, despite billions of dollars of relief paid by rich Arab states, the U.N.,the E.U. and others. Where on earth has all the money gone? Why on earth are they still in camps and not integrated into Arab society by the oil rich nations that aggressed Israel one day after it was inaugurated as a sovereign state, an act sanctioned by the United Nations? And yet, Israel is the nation left to carry the can!

[W]ill you tell people at Greenbelt this aspect of the historical facts?

....Is it reasonable for Israel to concede land by the so called “Palestinians”?

.... [I]s it really reasonable of us here in the U.K. to expect the Jews to re-assimilate a group of people who are driven by a mindset that can be summed up by the work of Yasser Arafat who was dubiously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. I quote the following which is not an exhaustive account of his statements.

Yasser Arafat in 1970 said (Washington Post March 19, 1970)

The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromise.

El Mundo, of Caracas, Venzuela reports Arafat as saying (Feb 11, 1980)

 Peace for us means the destruction of Israel.  We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations.  Since Jan. 1965, when Fatah was born, we have become the most dangerous enemy that Israel has...We shall not rest until the day when we return to our home, and until we destroy Israel.

On September 13, 1995 - the same day that the peace agreement ceremony was held in Washington D.C., Yasser Arafat spoke on Jordan Television:

Since we cannot defeat Israel in war we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there,and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.

The late King Hussein was fond of describing Arafat as a man:

Who never comes to a bridge he can’t double cross.

U.S. News and World Report quoted Arafat as saying (May 1 1989 p78)

I am not seeking the peace of compromise, but the peace of Saladin.

With this mindset running the PLO, you would have to be a nutcase to concede land to a people grouping hell bent on destroying you! This is the same spirit that rose against Israel in 1948 which again was formally recognized and sanctioned by the United Nations.

 [W]ill you tell people at Greenbelt this aspect of the historical facts?

.... It is true that Israel ‘occupies’ the land since gaining it as a result of the Six Day War in 1967, but who did they occupy it from? Well believe it or not, the West bank was illegally seized by Jordan after 1948. After doing so, they made it an area forbidden to Jews. Can you imagine the fuss there would be if Israel adopted this same attitude with Arab settlers?

So who did Jordan take the West bank from? Before 1948, the West Bank was a parcel of land administered by the British as part of the British Mandate. It didn’t belong to them, they were just caretakers. Before that, the West Bank, called Judea & Samaria by the Jews was just the eastern part of Palestine, occupied by whoever happened to live there, Jew or Arab! In reality, the West Bank has not legally ever belonged to any State in modern history. So when Jewish settlers make their homes there, they are doing so on land that has been legally bought, not seized from anyone else, whether a State or individuals.'

"Occupation!" is the name of the game

A Christian blogger went so far as to compare  Embrace the Middle East's Israel-demonising board game "Occupation!" at the festival to the anti-Israel games played at their camp in Utoya by Anders Breivik's victims, adding:

'.... Nothing impresses a point on adolescent minds quite so readily as acting it out, something which Jeremy Mood[e]y, CEO of EmbraceME, will be well aware.

Greenbelt possibly have some way to go to ascend to the dizzy heights of Norwegian-style leftist anti-semitism.

But just imagine someone from Fatah sharing a stage next year with Peter Tatchell and calling for liberation for gay Palestinians.

Come on Greenbelt, how inclusive would that be?'

And another has issued a lengthy critique of the Kairos Document which is so dear to the heart of the Israel-demonisers working the Greenbelt crowd.

One of the generals leading the charge of the pro-Israel Christian soldiers against their Israel-demonising co-religionists has been Pastor Mike Fryer of Christians for Zion (I've mentioned this doughty fighter for Israel before on my blog, inter alia here and here).

This is the stuff he gave the troops: 

"During the years which preceded the Second World War Political and Religious meetings were being held throughout Europe during which Jews were condemned as a danger to society. Little was done by Christians to stop this teaching which incited the hatred which enabled the mass murder of men women and children to take place. Ordinary men who before the war were upright members of the community joined such units as Battalion 101 who were reservist Police officers and who became the most violent killers in history. Within five short years those men in that battalion, who numbered less than 500, originally defenders of communities, became the murderers of 83,000 Jews. They, who had families of their own, stripped and shot women and children at point blank range and the local Clergy watched. This happened for many reasons but one reason was that people were afraid to do anything to oppose such violence. If you were caught helping Jews you would be arrested and taken to the murder camps or executed on the spot, as were your family.

On Sunday the 25th of August the Greenbelt Christian Youth Summer Camp being held at Cheltenham Racecourse will host Reverend Lucy Winkett the Chair of the Amos Trust who will launch, on behalf of the trust, the Kairos Britain network of Churches. This network, which is also being launched in other countries around the world is targeting Israel as an oppressive unjust and racist nation who give no rights to the Palestinians. They condemn Israel and call out for Justice for Palestinians but they ignore the rights of Israel to defend herself and to live on land rightfully her own. They call for what they describe as an end to oppression and injustice by Israel but refuse to address the oppression of Christians in Gaza or the removal of Human rights of women and young men or the summary executions in HAMAS governed areas. They don’t condemn the firing of 29,000 rockets which have been fired at Israeli communities since 2000 or the suicide bombings which are now being prevented by the security fence. They don’t address the increasing teaching of hatred in Palestinian Arab schools. I could go on but I think I have made my point. [Emphasis added here and below]

Greenbelt are also hosting a number of other speakers who are anti-Israel, one of whom Mark Braverman who calls Zionism Racism. This conference attended by the big names in Christianity such as Graham Kendrick and Steve Chalk are inciting our youth to hate in the same way as European Church leaders did in the years preceding the Holocaust. This incitement is no less subtle and neither is it in any way less dangerous.

The difference between now and then is that we are not going to be rounded up and shot for standing with Israel and speaking out when the rest of the Church is condemning her. So why aren’t we? In every genocide there are victims, perpetrators, bystanders and rescuers. Many Christians in Holocaust were classified as bystanders because of the real threat of being murdered alongside Jews. So today why are many in the Christian community bystanders when there is no threat except that of words from those fuelled by antisemtism?

We are conditioned to believe that by attending a conference or a meeting held by a pro-Israel speaker and giving our money to support such ministries that we are doing all we can to help Israel. We are conditioned because this is how it has always been done and we go home satisfied that we have done the work that God has called us to do. We have actually become by-standers even by-sitters unless we put the knowledge we gain from such meetings into real action. Why aren’t we rallying at Greenbelt or New Wine or any anti-Israel meetings? Why aren’t we gathering together to pray at such events and show these groups that their teaching is heretical and inciting hatred.

The first part of the definition of Hate Speech is “Speech which generates fear on the part of an individual or group” I believe the Jewish community here in the UK are not as much fearful of the anti-Israel meetings as they are of the apathy within Christendom which allows these meetings to take place without a challenge.

I have written to the BBC who will hold their Radio 2 good morning Sunday programme at Greenbelt when this network is launched  to point out that we will be attending because there is another side to the story, but they have not replied. I know the Jewish community have asked Greenbelt to allow them a speaker but that has been denied.

As you know Fathers House/Christians for Zion is taking a bus from North Wales to the Greenbelt event on 25th but I am only aware of one other group who is joining us and that is a car full of passionate believers from Northamptonshire. I am however aware that if there is a Charismatic speaker at a conference in London or Manchester the meeting will be full. Why is this the case, it easier to sit in a conference and enjoy the meeting and do nothing except listen. Is it also because Greenbelt are launching this on a Sunday and all the Israel supporters will be in Church on a Sunday and unable to attend? Is it because it is too far? Is it because it takes us out of our comfort zone? If so then we have become bystanders/by-sitters.

The launch of the Kairos Britain Network a week on Sunday will, I am sure, see many Churches join but few if any in the conference will oppose it. Britain can only boast of 13 who are considered Righteous Amongst the Nations (those who rescued Jews during the War) compared with such as 4,767 in the Netherlands and we in Britain did little to help Jews escape the terrors. I know God wants us to help the Jewish people, in fact Yeshua encourages us to do so in Mathew 25 when He says, and you visited me in prison, clothed, fed and helped me because you did it for one of these my family.   

Ezekiel 36 makes it very clear that God is gathering the Jews back to the land He promised them, not for their sake, the scripture points out, but for His Holy name. Greenbelt and their speakers are denying Gods Holy name and the people within our Nation are being blinded by such organisations from seeing God in action and being faithful to all His promises.  

Please, please, whatever you are doing on Sunday 25th August, join us at the Greenbelt meeting, write to BBC radio 2 tell your friends pass on this plea and become rescuers not bysitters....'

On his rallying call, echoed by the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem and Christian Friends of Israel, over 100 practising Christians from various parts of the UK travelled to Cheltenham to demonstrate support for the Jewish State being so grotesquely maligned there.

Wrote Mike Fryer regarding his counter-attack on the Greenbelt shenanegans:

'I am so blessed by the response to the call for prayer and a show of support from the Christian community at the Greenbelt Festival on Sunday. There is a full coach travelling from Fathers House in North Wales and believers from all over the country are making their way to the main entrance of Cheltenham Racecourse for 11am on Sunday to meet together, pray and show our deep concern for the stance Greenbelt have taken. The call for a gathering at Greenbelt has been supported  by ICEJ, CFI and so many other ministries, such in the concern.

Your prayers have been answered because we are meeting with a senior representative of Greenbelt at 12 noon and I am sure he will be impacted by the numbers.

Many of us have written to the BBC who are broadcasting from Greenbelt on Sunday. Today I spoke to the producer of BBC 2 “Goodmorning Sunday” and she has assured me that none of the Greenbelt anti-Israel content will be addressed on the programme. They will be focusing on the music at the event. So praise God that He has heard your prayers.

I look forward to seeing you all at the main entrance of Cheltenham Racecourse the venue for the event at 11am on Sunday.'

Amanda Ruth Thomas takes up the story:

From http://roshpinaproject.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/greenbelt-len.jpg

'Sheffield-born Business Administrator Marie Reaney, expressed the sentiment of the 50-strong group from Mike’s own ‘Father’s House Sabbath Congregation’:

 “If Israel is smashed up, we go down with her. We’re grafted in; we have no choice.”

Other supporters travelled independently, some making long journeys by car or by train.

“It’s exactly the same as it was in the 30s,” said Joanna MacDonald [pictured; h/t thejc.com] from the Rhondda Valley in South Wales. “For the most part, Christians were silent, and anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head again.

“We are here to support Israel, to support the Lord of Israel, Yeshua Ha Mashiach, and to help to open the hearts of others who have been deceived.”

Greenbelt Creative Director, Paul Northup, did not accept the need for Greenbelt to host a pro-Israel speaker next year, at Pastor Fryer’s request. However he said he was “impressed” with the co-ordination of the pro-Israel group, and the way in which they carried out their demonstration.

During the course of the day the group, holding Israeli flags and home-made banners, prayed together, read out scriptural promises for Israel, and spoke to some of the Greenbelt delegates and organisers.

Ms Reaney was exasperated but undeterred after one conversation with someone who said he had grown up in a Palestinian refugee camp. “He asked me, ‘How can Israel be a democracy?’” she said. “’Well it’s not Israel’s fault,’ I told him. ‘It’s the fault of the Palestinian leadership!’ It’s like us [Brits] blaming Spain!”

Len Grates, Director of Development at the ICEJ-UK, addressed the Israel supporters:

“Although we are here to stand with Israel and the Jewish people, more importantly we are here to stand with God, for His name, nature and His word” he said. “It’s in your hands and my hands how God will decide to judge our nation.”

Steven Jaffe who is consultant to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, called Pastor Fryer to express the gratitude of many members of the Jewish community for the stand made against demonisation and bias against Israel at the  festival. Steven echoed the sentiment of Mr Grates, saying:

“You are fighting for the soul of the Church.”'

No Welcome in the Hillside: The War Against Zionism is both Macro and Micro

On 21 July this year the Jerusalem Post carried a humdinger of an article by Welsh-born Shimon Cohen entitled “Would We Say it in Public?”  Inter alia, he called for the pride of Jewish youth in the Jewish State and its achievements to be rekindled.

My own solution to this problem – a partial one, anyway – can be found in my very first blog post, in which I argued that, however high the financial cost, a far worse cost will ensue if Israel fails to establish what’s often been mooted and is long overdue – a satellite television station to counter the remorseless anti-Israel propaganda that is encountered on such channels as BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, and Press TV. The humanitarian endeavours and the medical and scientific breakthroughs that regularly emerge from Israel, yet receive scant attention in a media that prefers to present the Jewish State as an imperialistic militaristic leviathan, would be given the publicity they deserve – and desperately need. This would help to balance the negative images of Israel by a biased media that are influencing and eroding support for Israel among sections of the public, particularly in Britain and other parts of Europe, and to the apathy if not antipathy towards Zionism that we are told engulfs many Jewish young people today.

“Growing up, Israel was at the very heart of my Jewish being”, wrote Shimon Cohen.

”Not identifying as a Zionist was out of the question. My parents and grandparents carried living memories of Jewish statelessness – discrimination, pogroms and ultimately the Holocaust.

As their generations diminish, so does our appreciation of what it was to be a Jew in a world without Israel.

As a child in 1960s Wales, I was inspired by the miracle of Jewish redemption in our ancient homeland.

My bedroom was adorned with posters of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan. Unlike most British Jewish children today, I had never set foot in Eretz Yisrael. But I knew its geographical features and landmarks as well as I knew my local neighborhood.

Its heroes were my heroes. Its achievements were my achievements.

At my Cardiff state comprehensive, I stood out among Huws and Gareths.

Yet with every feat of Israeli audacity, from the raid on Entebbe to Eurovision victories, I was the toast of the school. My pride in Israel was boosted by my non-Jewish classmates.”

Yes, that was in the era when the new kind of Jew envisaged by the Zionist Movement – a Jew deprived of the “ghetto bend”, a Jew with a country to call his own, and a “normalised” status among the nations  was generally lauded – as a heroic figure, a David versus the Arab Goliath. It was before the Keith Kyles and Michael Adamses and Robert Fisks and John Pilgers and Alan Rusbridgers and Orla Guerins and Jeremy Bowens had stamped their poisonous journalistic imprint upon public opinion, and turned Israel into “The Jew among the nations”, scapegoated, persecuted, reviled.

Cohen’s mention of Wales interested me because, as I mentioned in a previous blog, David Lloyd George, whose Cabinet promulgated the Balfour Declaration and who was a lifelong philosemite, was a Welshman (albeit one born in Manchester) and spoke of his knowledge of the Old Testament and of his sense of identity with Jews as fellow-members of a small but ancient people. Indeed, Wales is about the same size as Israel. Moreover, the translation of the Bible into Welsh during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is what saved the Welsh language from extinction, and so closely did the Welsh chapel-goers read the Old Testament that the names of many Welsh people – the Welsh took hereditary surnames later than the English, some surnames not being fixed until the end of the nineteenth century – are identical to Jewish names (presenting a hazard for genealogists and other historians).

For example, before he was identified as a Welsh shepherd lad, Aaron Aaron was counted among the Jewish convicts who sailed to Australia with other British transportees on the First Fleet (1788), and when Welsh fashion designer David Emanuel, with his (Jewish) wife Elizabeth, was selected to design Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding dress, he was eagerly claimed as “one of us” by the Jewish press.

Given the sturdy thread of philosemitism that has existed among the Welsh, it’s unpleasant to see the hostility towards and ignorance about Israel displayed by Jill Evans MEP and certain other members of the Welsh nationalist party, Plaid Cymru; these include politician and Baptist minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas, who in cavalier disregard of the reality on board the Mavi Marmara, states on a Plaid Cymru website for Muslims: “It is frightening to think of the horrific ordeal that humanitarian activists – delivering aid to the region – had to endure during Israel’s unprovoked attack, for which the Israeli Government must face sanctions.”

It’s unpleasant, too, to learn of an apparent instance of anti-Israel bigotry in Gwernymynydd, a village outside Mold in Flintshire. The bigotry has targeted the 40-strong Father’s House Congregation, which meets – or rather met until 30 October – on Saturdays (its Sabbath) at the local Village Centre. This photo shows a service in full swing – note the Israeli flag, which symbolises the congregation’s warm support for the Jewish State.

The congregation’s pastor, former National Crime Squad detective Rev Mike Fryer, who used to be pastorof Mold Christian Fellowship, was in Sderot in 2006 when a Hamas missile landed 200 yards from whe school at which he was staying. He studied at Yad Vashem, is a director of Christians For Zion, and on the board of Israel-based Out Of Zion Ministries, and has written a fine essay called “Christian Anti-Semitism Today” (cfoic.net/addpages.jsp?pageID=219) that I mentioned in an earlier blogpost. Here’s a taste of the congregation’s website www.fathershouse.uk.com/resources/israel.htm

The congregation has used the hall for over a decade, but in May was told in writing of a problem the local council had regarding its activities; in August it was given notice to quit, and now, in November, has been evicted. It seems that the May letter informed the congregation that "There has also been great concern expressed about the content of your web site, and the very controversial views it contains. The Village Centre Committee does not wish to be associated with your views." The chairman of the Centre’s management committee says there had been comments from people in the village "about their extreme views but that has nothing to do with our decision to terminate our agreement with them"; he claimed: "They [Fathers House] operate on a Saturday afternoon and early evening which in effect blocks two sessions.//We have a lot of people who want parties on a Saturday.  They have been given the option of a Sunday."

Rev Fryer is quoted as saying:

"There are obviously individuals on the committee who don't like our views.

We have been there for more than 11 years. We pay more money in than any other group using the hall, and we probably do more for the community than any other group.

We normally meet on a Saturday from 2.30pm until 7pm, but we have said we're happy to meet earlier, and have even cancelled some meetings when necessary.

They wanted us to use the hall on a Sunday, knowing very well that our Sabbath is a Saturday. The committee claims it' is because of a rise in requests to use the hall on a Saturday. But I'm a trustee on the committee and I've asked to see the diary but I've been told I'm not allowed."

The congregation, which has obtained temporary premises elsewhere (outside Flintshire, for fear of similar action against it by other councils in that county), remains defiant. On the Christians for Zion website (http://www.christiansforzion.com/ ) it states:

“Fathers House stands firm in their support of Israel and belief that the land of Israel was given to the Jewish people as an everlasting possession in accordance with the scriptures. Fathers House are not willing to compromise in expounding these scriptures and in making their support for the Jewish people and the establishment of Israel widely known through many mediums including the Fathers House website and the Christians for Zion website. The management of the village centre made it very clear in their correspondence in May of this year that the views expressed in the Church Website were enough of an issue for them to evict the congregation from the Council-owned centre. This is without doubt a case of discrimination under section 45 of the Equality Act 2010.”

It is tempting to dismiss this as a parochial dispute, of no consequence outside the village concerned. To do so is a mistake. For if Rev Fryer is correct, and the congregation has indeed been evicted for its pro-Israel views, this is yet another instance of the demonization of Israel and its champions that is happening across Britain; the anti-Israel bigots within and without the Christian Church must not be allowed to win. Clearly, the war against Zionism (indeed, what some analysts have called today’s “War against the Jews”)  is being waged at both the macro and the micro level.

Christian Friends of Israel – and Christian Foes

They’re really pulling out all the stops these days – those perverse Christians who seem to detest the existence of Israel. Last week the Quakers’ headquarters in Manchester hosted both Israel-basher Gideon Levy of Ha’aretz and – like so many Christian places of worship up and down the British Isles – Rod Cox's notorious Israel-demonising exhibition of children’s drawings from Gaza. "Greenbelt", a four-day musical festival at Cheltenham Racecourse that began this past weekend, organised by Christian groups with a pro-Palestinian agenda including Christian Aid and – fresh from their June call to boycott produce from “illegal” West Bank settlements – the Methodists, asks the 12,800 people attending to “confront the stark contrast” between the festival and the “day-to-day life” of Gazans.

Replacement theology and Successionism is undermining Israel, and many Christians have been seduced by Naim Ateek, founder of the Palestinian Christian organisation Sabeel, who denies that the “Old Testament” justifies Zionism and has made conflicting statements regarding Israel’s right to exist. Churches have produced one-sided reports about the situation in the Middle East that depict Hamas as a charitable organisation, completely overlooking its terrorist credentials and its antisemitic genocidal Charter. There’s even a tendency in some quarters to twist reality for political purposes and depict Jesus as a Palestinian rather than as a Judean. In London both the Bloomsbury Baptist Church and St James’s Church, Piccadilly, hold carol services in conjunction with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign with the words to well-known carols altered to demonise Israel.


And so on.

Yesterday, I blogged about how certain Welsh politicians are aiding and abetting with gusto the Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch in Wales, and although I hope to blog in the future about Christian philosemitism and Christian pro-Zionism generally, today I’ll remain within the Principality (yes, there are still some of us who call Wales by that correct term, even if the BBC long ago instructed its journalists to avoid the term for fear of offending anti-monarchists!) since the behaviour of leading clergymen in the Church in Wales (the Welsh Anglicans ) is really quite outrageously biased against Israel.

David Lloyd George, that famous Manchester-born Welshman who presided over the Cabinet that promulgated the Balfour Declaration in 1917, once noted that "I was brought up in a school where I was taught far more about the history of the Jews than about the history of my own land. I could tell you all about the kings of Israel. But I doubt whether I could have named half a dozen of the kings of England and not more of the kings of Wales .... On five days a week in the day school, and ... in our Sunday schools, we were thoroughly versed in the history of the Hebrews."

Like other members of his Cabinet, Lloyd George was a philosemite. Although he joked that "Acetone converted me to Zionism" (a reference to Chaim Weizmann’s discovery of that substance, which so crucially aided the British war effort), Lloyd George’s receptivity to the idea of a restored Jewish Homeland in Eretz Israel was embedded in his religious upbringing. Of the Jews, he said:

"You belong to a very great race which has made the deepest impression on the destinies of humanity .... Your poets, kings and warriors are better known to the children and adults of Wales than are the names of our own heroes!... You may say you have been oppressed and persecuted – that has been your power! You have been hammered into very fine steel, and that is why you can never be broken."

To Lloyd George, the Balfour Declaration was ‘"a charter of of equality for the Jews.... They belong to a ... race that has endured persecution which for the variety of torture – physical, material, and mental, inflicted on its victims, for the virulence and malignity with which it has been sustained, for the length of time it has lasted, and, more than all, for the fortitude and patience with which it has been suffered, is without parallel in the history of any other people. Is it too much to ask that amongst them whose sufferings are the worst shall be able to find refuge in the land of their fathers made holy by the splendour of their genius, the loftiness of their thoughts, by the consecration of their loves, and by the inspirations of their messages to mankind?"

Another Welsh philosemite, the Calvinistic Methodist minister Rev. John Mills, whose book The British Jews (1862) remains an invaluable historical resource, was among the small group of Jews and non-Jews who in 1852 founded the Association for Promoting Jewish Settlement in Palestine. They aimed at establishing a self-administering Jewish colony between those sacred cities, Safed and Tiberias, with livestock and equipment funded by public subscription. In seeking such support, they remarked that "whilst Palestine has such significance in the eyes of the Christians, with how much greater interest must it be regarded by the Jew? ... towards it he yet gravitates as to his natural centre." And at a meeting of Welsh ex-pats held in London in 1854, Mills declared: "To speak my whole heart, I believe Palestine belongs to the Jews. The Almighty promised it to Abraham of old ... and have it they shall."

Fast forward to our own day, and although I’m sure that Wales still has pro-Zionists a-plenty, some very disturbing developments are gathering pace in that section of the Anglican Communion known as the Church in Wales.

A claim that “the Jews are cowards” made on the Church in Wales’s Jubilee Fund website in 2002 remained there for a year despite innumerable objections, including a complaint from Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, himself a Welshman, about the “deplorable” and “inflammatory language about Jews”. In brazen contrast, complaints regarding the publication of an “Irish joke” in a parish magazine was followed by an official apology from the vicar of the parish concerned. And when the Church in Wales’s Welsh-language magazine carried a cartoon offensive to Muslims, the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, gathered up all available copies himself and went on television to apologise to Muslims. But when the same magazine printed a questionable spoof concerning Jews no such action was forthcoming.

Despite the suffering that terrorist Arafat inflicted on Israelis, Archbishop Morgan declared that he’d remember the dead leader for his perseverance and resolve. For the Church in Wales, Israel’s use of force to defend its citizens is “revenge violence” and excuses are made for Palestinian attacks on Israelis. When, during Operation Cast Lead, a mobile dental health clinic paid for by the Church in Wales and supporters including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign was destroyed, Morgan took it for granted that the IDF was deliberately inhumane: "We find it incomprehensible and tragic that any armed forces anywhere in the world would want to destroy such a building, let alone the State of Israel with all its historic memories of oppression and genocide.... It does raise questions about the credibility of Israel’s values and purposes."

Then there was the Christmas message that year from Dominic Walker, Bishop of Monmouth: "God so loved the world that he sent Jesus to be born in Palestine”. Indeed, in a series of short films made in Wales and the Holy Land in 2009 by St David’s Diocese for use in a teaching course, the word “Israel” appears only once, Arabs – not Jews – are prominently featured, and major Biblical figures, including prophets and disciples, are not identified as Jews.

This month, Canon Robin Morrison, a member of the Church in Wales’s Strategic International Affairs Group, inspired, it seems, by Prime Minister David Cameron’s description of Gaza as a “prison camp”, came out all guns – or rather computer keys – blazing, with a long denunciation of Israel (Western Mail, 4 August 2010).

“Any critical voice from the churches is condemned as anti-Semitic,” he thundered, “ and this ploy has dangerous implications for the Jewish community throughout the world. It equates all Jews with present Israeli policy and forgets that Jews aren’t the only people with a Semitic background.” Deftly done – this “the Arabs are Semites too” business; we hear it from foes of Israel, who should know – especially when they are well-educated senior clergymen – that the term antisemitism (the hyphen is frowned upon these days) was coined by a German Jew-hater specifically in relation to Jews, and to Jews alone. (Perhaps we should all prefer the term judeophobia, so that the canon and his ilk cannot resort to that particular “ploy”.)  I suppose this is what over-reliance on Sabeel's narrative does to these clergy.

He concedes that “Security, of course, is a legitimate matter for Israel and is indivisible in the wider region” but then descends into claptrap: “But, ironically, by isolating their security needs from other countries’, they decrease their chances of long-term stability and security and appear arrogantly insensitive to other people’s needs.”

And then comes the malevolent, politically charged crux of his message:

'The blockade of Gaza, which continues, despite recent adjustments, is still defended as necessary for Israel’s security. But the argument was used to prevent the import of cement to rebuild the very buildings Israeli tanks destroyed in their last massive invasion of Gaza! If Israel continues to use this argument, there is a serious risk of moral hypocrisy. If Israel asserts its rights to prevent arms getting to Gaza, then the international community and the Palestinians should assert their rights to blockade Israel to prevent American arms arriving there. It is these weapons that not only threatened and killed thousands in Gaza and the Southern Lebanon but destroyed crucial infrastructure. Israel always asks international commentators to be even-handed. The just and fair logic of this implies we should now call for an international blockade of arms into Israel or those manufactured there.

This would include any nuclear weapons Israel has and we should call on the international WMD inspectors to now visit Israel. We should ask for even-handedness and justice. If the West objects to Iran’s development of nuclear weapons capability, they must equally object to Israel’s. Being a “democratic” country, of course, Israel should welcome such inspectors and such discussion.'

(They just don’t get it, do they – or perhaps they do – that Israel is under existential threat, that Israel has a right and an obligation to defend itself?)

And then there’s this, with a snide reference to the Shoah for added effect – is this what the canon preaches from the pulpit, one wonders – this mean-spirited message?

‘There is something extraordinary about this level of moral hypocrisy. Given all that Jewish people have experienced through the Holocaust, oppression and injustice, it is hard to understand how the State of Israel has become so insensitive. More, too many statements by recent prime ministers of Israel, and their ambassadors, have included racist language about Israel as “founded for the Jews” in an exclusive way. This would be unacceptable in other democratic countries and goes against the values of multiculturalism and diversity, regardless of religious background....In any other situation, this would be named as “racism”. Israel knows how difficult it is for us to use such a word, because they were victims of Nazi racial ideology.

Yet the facts are the facts. Israel claims to be and is supported by America as being the only democratic country in the region, but democratic countries do not normally build walls, occupy other people’s territory and do not lock up people in barbed wire barriers, checkpoints and blockades. Where they do, there is usually international condemnation.

....The last invasion of Lebanon, where thousands were killed and displaced, and the airport and major infrastructure destroyed, was Israel’s reaction to the kidnapping of a few of its soldiers. It was Israel that created the conditions for Hamas to appear, and yet Israel apparently is blind to the hostility it creates by its “disproportionate” actions, creating enemies not allies in the region. British political leadership has, in recent years, refused to utter the word “disproportionate”. ...Israel is a secular state with many different shades of Judaism within it. If secular Zionism still claims a right to the land, over the Palestinians, then it should take the morality in its history more seriously. The possession of the land “flowing with milk and honey”, achieved through the conquest and destruction of other peoples, came from a sense of promise, calling and responsibility combined. It is that responsibility “to be a light to lighten the nations” which the actions of modern Israel has so discredited.’

At several locations online there’s an impressive essay on Christian antisemitism written in 2009 by Mike Fryer, a sterling pro-Israel clergyman from Mold, Flintshire, and I’d like to quote you a few paragraphs from it (but do read it all), as they capture so well what is transpiring:

‘Many in Christendom today are using charity and good works to re-enforce in the minds of many Muslim fundamentalists that Islam has the right and even a duty to take land from the Jewish people and establish a homeland for themselves. They are referring to land, which the Jewish people by right, by international law and by religion are entitled to possess.

“Christian” organizations such as Sabeel and Christian Aid speak openly in favor of a Palestinian homeland and use terms such as an “oppressive Israel regime” and “Israeli Occupation”; Church denominations such as the Church in Wales, the Anglican Communion, Methodists and Presbyterians have all spoken of divestment of Israel and support the Palestinian cause to create another state within the confines of the land of Israel. These and many other church organizations, such as the Vineyard, are encouraging governments to negotiate with terrorists ... [and] have eagerly moved away from the term antisemitism and now use the term anti-Zionism. What is the difference? By using the former you can be called a racist and prosecuted but the term anti-Zionism is not perceived in the same way and although it means the same it is, in this current political climate, “acceptable”.'

He continues:

‘In the town in which I live an anti-Israel play was performed at our local theatre. I led some other Christians for Zion supporters as we stood at the door to the theater and gave out leaflets, not criticizing anyone but stating facts. Many local church leaders and Christian groups attended the play and were obviously opposed to our stance. We found it difficult that many who teach from their pulpits that we are always to seek truth actually ignored the truths in our message….

Three years ago I attended a meeting at which a Church in Wales canon was speaking about the situation in Israel. There were a number of clergy present, none of whom knew me. I listened to lie after lie encouraging the audience to sympathize with Islam and the Palestinian people, and to see Israel as an aggressive regime, hell bent on persecuting the Palestinian people. At the end of the presentation there was a time for questions. At the conclusion of a stream of pro-Palestinian questions, I asked some pertinent questions which showed that the speaker was aware that he was not telling the truth about the actual matters he was referring to. The meeting was immediately stopped and worried clergy, thinking I was a journalist surrounded me in an effort to find out what the purpose of my attendance was.’

Luckily, there are those engaged in a fightback, including that splendid organisation, Anglican Friends of Israel, which has issued a ringing denunciation of Canon Morrison’s shameful outburst and which itemised the church’s shenanigans in a report dated 18 January this year, entitled “A Purged Jesus in the Church in Wales?” “The Scriptures themselves say that 'Salvation comes from the Jews', the report concluded, “and senior figures in the Church of Wales might reflect on whether they are in danger of uprooting Jesus from the Jewish soil which bore Him.” “We cannot afford to stand by in our churches and allow Israel to be ignored, abused or opposed by a twisted or misinterpreted theology,” says the Rev. Fryer. “We cannot stand by whilst ministers in Christian churches or Christian organisations encourage and fund a concerted effort to destroy Israel and those who support her.”