There is a fourth kind of anti-Semitism

ANT KATZ

Roger Cukierman, the president of the French Jewish community organization, CRIF, in a Jerusalem Post article “Fighting three kinds of Anti-Semitism,” missed a fourth kind of anti-Semitism, writes Barry Shaw.

Cukierman identified The Far Right; BDS; and European Muslim Immigrants says Shaw in a new blog published on sajr. “But there is a fourth kind.” Says Shaw, “Christian anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism exemplified by a recent British Methodist Church/BDS Movement’s anti-Israel boycott survey and by statements by church leaders in countries like South Africa.”

Barry Shaw is Israeli and is the special consultant on delegitimisation issues to The Strategic Dialogue Centre at Netanya Academic College. He is also the author of ISRAEL: RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE and working on a new book entitled ‘G-d Supports Israel. Do You?’ – and a regular global speaker, including in SA.

In his new “ORIGINAL THINKING” blog Barry asks: “Why is the Methodist-led boycott an act of Anti-Semitism?” And he answers, too: “Anti-Semitism is anti-Jewish behavior in all its forms. Their one-sided boycott campaign that damages Israel is applied exclusively and discriminatorily against the Jewish state, and is a clear act of anti-Jewish behavior.”

See how far the Methodist Church has strayed from its founding ethics. Based on the teachings of John and Charles Wesley, Methodism is grounded in biblical scriptures that believe in the ingathering of the Jewish people to the Holy Land. Read one of Charles Wesley’s hymns;

“O that the chosen band might now their brethren bring
And gathered out of every land present to Zion’s King. 

Of all the ancient race not one be left behind
But each impelled by secret grace his way to Canaan find! 

We know it must be done for God hath spoke the word
All Israel shall their Saviour own to their first state restored. 

Rebuilt by His command, Jerusalem shall rise
Her Temple on Moriah stand again, and touch the skies.”  

Churches turning away from Zion’s King

The Methodist Church today, and other churches, have turned away from Zion’s King and adopted the Kairos Palestine Document.

The United Methodist Kairos Response, at their 2012 UMC General Conference,  doesn’t give any understanding of Israeli suffering at the hands of Palestinian violence and terror. Methodists boycott Zionism, replacing it with Palestinian land. It says less about Israel and more about the fatal drift of the Methodist Church from their founding faith into the arms of those calling for Israel’s destruction. 

Other European Christian bodies isolating Israel for their wrath include the Swedish Lutheran Church, the Catholic Sacred Heart College in Belgium, the Irish Catholic Troicaire, the Church of Scotland, the Dutch Interchurch Organization, Christian Aid, the Quakers, and the Church of Sweden. In South Africa, the Council of Churches has been dogmatically anti-Israel.

In “Demonizing Israel and the Jews,” Manfred Gerstenfeld wrote “Christian anti-Semitism is far from dead. The current external appearance of that anti-Semitism is mainly that of anti-Israelism. You can call it recycled and redirected Christian anti-Semitism.”

Read more about BARRY SHAW on www.sajr.co.za
and more of his many blogs by CLICKING HERE.

Anglican cleric Naim Ateek demonized Israel in the Kairos Document with anti-Semitic imagery.  “Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him… and children are being crucified”.

The Kairos Document calls for boycotts against Israel, and denies the Jewish historical connection to Israel. As such it is inconsistent with efforts to reach a two-state solution.  It was adopted by the World Council of Churches, the Presbyterian Church of the United States, and the United Methodist Church, and the South African Council of Churches.

Replacement theologists found salvation in the Kairos Palestine Document which removes biblical references to Jewish rights in the Holy Land, including Old Testament references to the Jewish people and the land, replacing Jewish Israel with Arab Palestine.

As Reverend Malcolm Hedding of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem wrote, “Replacement theology rests chiefly on the idea that the whole or part of the Abrahamic Covenant has been abolished. Replacement theology removes from Israel a national destiny in the land of Canaan because of her rejection of Jesus’ Messianic credentials.”

“Kairos” is a Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment. It enables Anti-Semitic Christians to find their way out of the shame and guilt of the Holocaust to, once again, openly espouse anti-Jewish dogma in anti-Zionist terms.

In his book “Our Hands are Stained With Blood,” Dr. Michael Brown states that replacement theology was among the primary theological and ideological foundations of the Spanish Inquisition, the slaughter of Jews during the crusades and, ultimately, the Holocaust.  Brown pivots the Spanish Inquisition as the Catholic replacement theology Holocaust of the Jews with the Nazi Holocaust which granted replacement theologists further ‘proof’ that G-d had abandoned the Jews as His Chosen People.

Theologian researcher, Kendall Soulen, commenting on the Holocaust and the establishment of the Jewish state, writes, “Under the new conditions created by these events, Christian churches have begun to consider anew their relation to the God of Israel and the Israel of God in the light of the Scriptures.”

Some see Israel’s resurrection out of the ashes of the Holocaust as a vision of biblical promise, while others found an opposite interpretation which was given to them in the Kairos Document.

The Simon Weisenthal Center called the document “a revisionist document of hatred for Israel and contempt of Jews.”

Reverend Todd Baker argues against the Christian anti-Semitic interpretation of Matthew 27:25 that view the Jewish People as permanently guilty and condemned in the eyes of G-d. “His blood shall be upon us and on our children.” Misinterpretation, he claims, has helped spawn Christian anti-Semitism of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and recent Replacement Theology.

The World Council of Churches, the Lutheran Church in America calls the Kairos Document “the word of truth.” Had they studied this “truth” they would see that it calls for the return of Palestinian refugees to all of Palestine, including Israel.

They support the Palestinian BDS National Committee which continues to reject the UN Partition Plan of 1948, calls for the return of Palestinian Arabs “to their original home,” and states “this land is our land and it is incumbent upon us to defend it and reclaim it.”

People like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the South African Council of Churches have a black liberation theology in which they falsely position Palestinian Arabs as ‘black’ and Israeli Jews as ‘white.’ Nothing can be further from the truth. Anyone who visits Israel, or knows anything about Israel, appreciates it as the Rainbow Nation of the Middle East, but grievous South African policy decisions and damaging official statements are based on this form of replacement theology.

Replacement theologists need to believe Palestinian lies and tales of victimhood. It locks into their dogmatic belief system. Simply put, they deny the Jews their biblical heritage, while championing Palestinian rights to the land.  When these rights accompany the denial of Israel’s rights by a religious body, this is the fourth kind of Anti-Semitism.  Whether it’s the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, allying with Hitler for the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem in the Middle East, or Christian groups allying with the BDS Movement or Israel Apartheid Week desiring the elimination of Israel by non-violent delegitimisation, it’s Anti-Semitism.

Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld’s, new book, “Demonizing Israel and the Jews,” describes groups who criticize Israel “but remain silent about Hamas who call for killing Jews, and the glorification of murderers of Israelis by the Palestinian Authority. Christian anti-Semitism is far from dead. The current external appearance of that anti-Semitism is mainly that of anti-Israelism.”

In “An Analysis of Neo-Replacement Theology,” Michael J. Vlach writes, “Replacement Theology have been seriously affected by the Holocaust and the establishment of State of Israel.”

Existence of Israel bone of contention in Christian theology

Vlach questions what replacement theologists make of the persistence of the Jewish people, and Israel’s land and state?  The existence of Israel becomes a bone of contention in Christian theology. Did the suffering of Jews in the past prove that God’s doom has rested on them? Or is Israel’s resurrection proof of His special providence as foretold in the Bible?

Irvin J. Borowsky explained, “Within Christendom since the time of Hitler, there has existed a widespread reaction of shock and soul-searching concerning the Holocaust.”

A seismic rift has taken place within Christianity between those that acknowledge biblical teachings and those who dogmatically hold firm to replacement theology.

Whether by murder, expulsion, or hate, the Christian denial of Jewish rights and Jewish existence, has been the constant threat to the Jewish people. It continues today in the name of anti-Zionism.