The old lie
22 April 2021
A weekly reflection on current global affairs concerning Israel and
the Jewish people from a Biblical perspective.
Former US Ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Moynihan in the 1970’s called the UN a “dangerous place” for liberal democracies. And so it was.
That was at the time of the infamous “Zionism = Racism” resolution adopted in the UN General Assembly on 10th November 1975 (72 votes for, 35 votes against and 32 abstentions). Moynihan delivered a blistering speech condemning the resolution, stating "[The United States] does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act ... A great evil has been loosed upon the world."
Much water has passed under the bridge since then. The “Zionism = Racism” resolution was repealed in 1991. The Arab world has accepted that Israel exists, and that it is here to stay. Israel has entered into peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, and more recently “normalization” agreements with UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Israel and the PLO have entered into the Oslo Accords, in an attempt to reach a peaceful resolution of their dispute.
And yet, the age-old lie that Israel is a racist state has not gone away.
The definition of Anti-Semitism published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) includes "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor". In a recent letter, 123 leading Palestinian intellectuals wrote, in response -
“To level the charge of antisemitism against anyone who regards the existing state of Israel as racist, notwithstanding the actual institutional and constitutional discrimination upon which it is based, amounts to granting Israel absolute impunity. Israel can thus deport its Palestinian citizens, or revoke their citizenship or deny them the right to vote, and still be immune from the accusation of racism. The IHRA definition and the way it has been deployed prohibit any discussion of the Israeli state as based on ethno-religious discrimination. It thus contravenes elementary justice and basic norms of human rights and international law.”
The writers forget to mention that the Jewish people are a people, not a race. They ignore the fact that 20% of the Israeli population is non-Jewish, that all Israeli citizens have equal rights, and that the only reason the Arab Palestinians do not have their own state is because they reject the right of the Jews to a homeland.
It is alarming that the Zionism=Racism lie will again be raised in the UN coming September. The UN plans to commemorate the 20thanniversary of the Durban Conference on Racism (1991). That outrageous conference, from which many nations walked out, ended in an orgy of anti-Jewish slander and calls for boycotts, sanctions and divestment (BDS) against the Jewish State of Israel.
In an important recent article, Prof. Anne Bayefsky calls out the new US Administration for supporting this event, at which the UN will again condemn Israel for being a racist state.
The Editorial team
Israel & Christians Today
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The old lie: “Israel is a racist state”
Prof. Anne Bayefsky writes in JNS: “Abandoning 20 years of strong bipartisan concern about anti-Semitism, President Joe Biden’s State Department has taken the lead in embracing the U.N. hate-fest held in 2001 in Durban, South Africa… Durban IV needs to be publicly shunned immediately—not recalled, reaffirmed, celebrated, commemorated or fully implemented.”
> Read more..
Big brother is watching: labelling of products from Judea and Samaria
The Israel Products Center in Netherlands is being forced to pay a fine after labeling wine from Hebron ‘product from an Israeli village in Judea and Samaria’ instead of “product from an Israeli settlement in the West Bank”. The EU thinks that it can decide what words consumers must use. This is Big Brother - “Newspeak”, which George Orwell warned us about.
> Read more..
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God is testing | In the Footsteps of Abraham with Johannes Gerloff
We do not like the pressure, the uncertainty of the outcome, our own tendency to fail. But God tests those whom He loves. The whole of Abraham’s journey with God was a series of tests.
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SCRIPTURE FOR THE WEEK:
2 Timothy 3:1-9
3 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires,7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses,so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. 9 But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
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The Palestinians: Myths and Martyrs
Johannes Gerloff (journalist and theologian) has lived in Israel for the past 25 years. His many and varied contacts among Israelis, Arabs and Palestinians at all levels of society, have given him unique access to the hearts and minds of the people as well as deep insight into the issues they are dealing with.
Besides excellent historical background and insight into the political developments in the Middle East, you will hear real testimony from people on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as well as amazing personal experiences from Johannes himself.
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