Harry's Place

wow, having Holocaust denier Fred Tobin there does give the game away?

Hubers had what sounds like an absolutely delightful 90-minute chit-chat — “a good time”, no less — with Syrian dictator Mini Eye-Doc Assad in 2003. Hubers, in his own words: “What I wasn’t prepared for was his evident humility, good humor, and perceptive grasp of not only world politics (which would be expected) but church history.” You don’t say.

More of Hubers on Assad:
_______
Having followed Syrian politics in recent years I knew something about the
president, noting that he had recently succeeded his father who died several
years ago. What I wasn’t prepared for was his evident humility, good humor,
and perceptive grasp of not only world politics (which would be expected)
but church history, as well. He began by giving us a brief history of
Christianity in Syria, noting that Jesus taught in the area of Syria now
occupied by Israel (the Golan Heights). What he wanted us to know is that
Christianity had been and continues to be a vital part of Syria’s story both
before and after the rise of Islam. “Pluralism has always been an important
part of who we are,” he said.
________

Rather than gagging at Assad’s notion of “Pluralism”, Hubers listened on…

see: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3

corrected link for above:

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=18553

does anyone know whether israelis are actually fond of christian zionists at all (i’ve got a hunch they’re not – after all they seem to think that in the end the jews will be converted to christianity after all?)
apologies for my ignorance (not very interested in that particular conflict, … and think it might be better if others weren’t as well.. catman to begin with… ah, and hubers of course)

Israeli knowledge of Christian theology is spotty. Israelis are reasonably fond of anyone who isn’t a vulgar antisemite of the Richardson variety or an elite antisemite of the Sizer variety.

But no Israeli is eager to play a bit part in an apocalyptic script, regardless of the scriptwriter.

“But no Israeli is eager to play a bit part in an apocalyptic script, regardless of the scriptwriter.”

and who would?

oh hold on… (just had to think of a long list of antisemites…)

‘do you believe Israel should “get rid of” the Palestinians, doing a thorough and violent cleansing of the West Bank, Gaza strip and Golan Heights?’
There are no Palestinians in the Golan Heights and never have been.
However, there is in the Golan Heights the oldest synagogue outside of Jerusalem, pre-dating both Christianity and Islam.

Maybe the folks at the ISCZ should take a look at what their Hizbollah friends are up to in their spare time:
‘Israeli-Arab terrorist branch of Hizbollah behind failed Haifa massacre’
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5979

I would like to register a complaint.
As a someone who is a Christian Zionist, i.e. someone who is a Christian and a supporter of Israel, I resent the belief often expressed that all Christian supporters of Israel are of the type that do so because it is sign of the coming Armaggedon, etec. Most of us Christian Zionists are not and resent being potrayed as such. Most Christian supporters of Israel do so for a variety of reasons, yes we do believe that God gave the land of Israel to the Jews; that those who favor the Jews are blessed by God and those who curse the Jews are cursed by God; that Israel should be supported as a fellow democracy and a friend among other reasons. We are not cheerleaders of the Apocalypse and deeply resent being potrayed as such.

David All -good point. I guess all of us, Christians, Jews and Muslims, have within our ranks some very vocal people on the fringe who do us all a disservice.
If those of us who stand in the middle can join together, maybe we’ll be loud enough to drown their voices.

Israelinurse: You are right, if all of us who are in middle come together we can isolate and defeat the extremists of whatever strip.

David All -

Absolutely with you. I’m a Christian and an Israel supporter too, and not under the condition that they all convert…I think we need to make a lot more noise though, and also draw off sensible Muslims from the idea that they are compelled to expresss solidarity with their nutcases…

Hi – I hadn’t focused on Hubers but I’ll look into this. On another front, I have investigated Stephen Sizer’s associations a bit. He is a signatory to GAFCON, the dissident Anglican faction headed by Joseph Orombi and Peter Akinola.

GAFCON publicly opposes gay marriage, but I’ve written on another aspect of the group. It appears to be anti-Jewish (see text, below, from a post I did on my website). Orombi’s Ugandan Church is has requested 10 million copies of a viciously anti-Jewish tract called “Manga Messiah,” which repeats, blow for blow almost, the anti-Jewish aspects of the notorious Bavarian Obergammerau Passion Play that Hitler was said to love quite dearly.

Stephen Sizer currently has plans to lead a “pilgrimage” to the 2010 Obergammerau play.

As I wrote in this post : http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/1/22/163837/833

”
In Israel, June 2008, the head of Uganda’s Anglican church, Archbishop Henry Orombi, attended GAFCON, a meeting of a faction of the global Anglican Church which was, according to a sympathetic prominent Anglican website, “organised by anti-gay archbishops of Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, South American and Sydney with evangelical Anglican bishops from the UK and US opposed to the consecration of gay priests.”

During the GAFCON conference, at a conference workshop entitled “The gospel and the UK’s cultural context”, as described in notes written up by the Rev. Tim Davies and currently published at GAFCON’s official web site, in the “Resources” section under the heading “Church Planting and Evangelism”, GAFCON attendees were taught that Anglicans are actually “Jews” who, collectively, represent the “true Israel”

”

Note: my original post had several hyperlinks in the text that are missing in the text above.

Just to let readers here know, I’d probably be identified as a secular liberal. But my father was a Methodist minister and I do hold religious beliefs, which I choose to keep private.

Most Christian supporters of Israel do so for a variety of reasons, yes we do believe that God gave the land of Israel to the Jews

The Koran also says the same. So, any Muslim denying the existence of Israel as a Jewish State is an apostate to Islam. Either that or the Koran is an imperfect book of contradictions and lies that Muslims can choose to believe or not – and you know that isn’t the case.

does anyone know whether israelis are actually fond of christian zionists at all (i’ve got a hunch they’re not – after all they seem to think that in the end the jews will be converted to christianity after all?)

I remember Abba Eban once writing that he found fundamentalist ones a bit embarassing, in the way that the Duke of Edinburgh might find certain cargo cults, but that may just have been him.

Israelinurse, David All – point taken. My point was to try and to show that if you take the ISCZ line of all Zionists (Christians, Jewish, armaggedonists, etc) of all being responsible for each others words, the “other side” has a lot to answer for, so it’s hardly a good argument from the likes of Hubers. I agree most Christian Zionists are good-hearted folk and undertand what you’re saying – I’ll try to take more care in future to note this as I’ve done in previous posts. I hope these blog posts though can be of great use to Christian Zionists in countering the Christian anti-Zionist extremists who paint themselves up to be moderates.

“does anyone know whether israelis are actually fond of christian zionists at all”

I think that most Israelis don’t know much about Christian Zionists of any variety. I mean in the political aspect. They know that the US supports them, but, Israelis probably think, because it is a fellow democracy, and not because of its Christian Zionist ideology.
In the cultural aspect, Israelis like any person that likes them. And people in the Israeli left even like persons who don’t like them.

Another reason that people in Israel and the US feel so close is because both states were founded and sustain themselves on an idea of freedom. Freedom from religion in the case of the US, freedom for an oppressed people in the case of Israel. They are both idealistic societies.

Jeremy – thanks for the link. Why am I not surprised!

This is an excellent resource:

Stephen Spector – Evangelicals and Israel: The Story of American Christian Zionism

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/HistoryofChristianity/American/?view=usa&ci=9780195368024

Starting with Mostafavi, what a filthy gang of Jew-hating bastards we have here.

Personaly, I don’t approve of the term anti-Semite, as that might imply that the haters also hate Arabs, as Semites, in general, which is obviously not the case. What they hate in particular is the branch of Semites called Jews. This includes Mr Cohen who runs a DVD shop in Tel Aviv and a Mr cohen who runs a DVD shop in north Manchester. They are one and the same.

Let’s call a spade a spade. They are not anti-Semites: they are Jew-haters, and from when the time it was fashionable for right-wing politicians to hate Jews until now when it is fashionabale for left-wing politicians to do so, there is a seamless way through.

I’m addressing myself to those Labour MPs who stupidy align themselves with Islamist Jew-hater in the UK like the above. You may think that you’ll gain a important edge in your local polls, but you are creating mayhem, and you definitely will not because of it prolong the life of your doomed government.

Seismic Shock -I find all your posts very informative and enlightening. As a non-Christian it’s sometimes a little difficult to understand the different streams within Christianity and the underlying currents and political agendas.
When I first returned to the UK I was very surprised to see anti-Israeli material posted on a local church notice board next to the notices about jumble sales and strawberry cream teas. As an Israeli I’d always regarded Christians as sort of cousins with just one point of amicable disagreement. Time, experience and your posts are helping me understand my naivety.

I once had a rather strange experience with a group of American evangelicals from somewhere in the deep South.
On the day America & Britain went into Afghanistan I happened to be on a Lufthansa flight from Tel Aviv to Frankfurt as my father had just died and I was trying to make my way to the UK on a patchwork of flights for the funeral.
Most of the plane was full of very chatty evangelicals returning from a pilgrimage to Israel and I ended up sitting slap bang in the middle.
They immediately began investigating my life story, and upon discovering that I am part British went into raptures over our common military objectives. When they discovered that I had sons in the army the whole plane errupted!
‘Martha! This lady’s sons are soldiers in the Israeli army!’
Their enthusiasm was touching, but a bit embarassing too.
They then proceeded to recount the details of their trip to Israel and told me how they’d all bought chauffers in Jerusalem.
Now I really wasn’t clear on this purchasing a driver thing, but I was so tired, having been en route for 8 hours already before the plane even took off, that I didn’t ask for clarification. Instead I smiled and nodded politely and pretended to sleep.
Upon arriving at Frankfurt they got their luggage out of the overhead compartments and I saw that each one of them was carrying a very large Shofar!

divine fiat

That’s what I used to call my first car! That and [with an Ulster accent] ‘The Fiat worse than death’.

“Let’s call a spade a spade. They are not anti-Semites: they are Jew-haters”

???

antisemitism is a subspecies of jew-hating – it’s jew-hating at its most dangerous. because it’s developed from racist prejudice into a quasi-religious world-view. some jew-haters may be content to rid their neighbourhood of jews, antisemites can’t be content until there is not jew left on the planet.

… which is to say that most of the above-mentioned are both: jew-haters and antisemites

Israelinurse says she has sons in the IDF and the plane erupts. Can you not imagine a similar effect if she had not been on a flight from Israel but from somewhere in Pakistan and had said she had sons in the Hamas or the Hezbollah jihadis?

Don’t we need a concept of something like the the opposite of what Muslims call the ‘ummah’ to help us defend ourselves against embracing Jew hatred?

Not all of those names are on the green flyer – you can see the names at these links though:
http://www.voiceofpalestine.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59&Itemid=38

http://www.islammuhammadi.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=372

(Also here: http://www.mail-archive.com/ppiindia@yahoogroups.com/msg62652.html)

One of several excellent articles on Harry’s Place today.

I sincerely thank Harry’s for its excellent job in fighting loony-leftism (including the loony-left’s distinct and distinctly insane anti-Semitism, Islamophilia, and enthusiasm for “creeping dhimmitude”.)

Those of us in the more moderate leftist mold (including support of soft-socialist economics) are left in depsair by the loony-left’s quite absurd – and dangerous – social agenda.

Thanks, Harry’s.

IsraeliNurse – LOL!!!

Seismic,

Here’s another author who has published excellent work on Christian Zionism: David Brog.

He’s a former assistant to US Senator Arlen Specter.

Israelinurse – thanks for your comments. that sounds extremely surreal! There are some very sensible Christian Zionists out there, and I’d imagine most just want everyone to get on and Israel to be safe and secure. Problem is that the Christian anti-Zionist extremists frequently paint all Christian Zionists up to be worse than Nazis.

Here’s one particularly joyless example recently published, inviting an Christian anti-Zionist Crusade on the Holy Land:

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=31171

Philo-Semite – thanks, I’ll check out the links and read up on him.

Colin -

“anti-Semite” MEANS “Jew-haters”. It has never meant anything else.
There is no such thing as “Semites”, and the term does not cover Arabs for that reason.

But I am happy with “Jew-haters”. Well, not happy, but you know what I mean.

Oh, and that’s for Matzvar too.

“And people in the Israeli left even like persons who don’t like them”

And some of them dislike people who like Jews too much.

Israelinurse: Thanks for telling about the American Evangelicals and their Shofars, a real LOL!.

It seems in Britain and Western Europe, being against Israel for those who considers themsevles on the Left and being socially trendy is the same as thirty years being against apartheid South Africa and what was then Rhodesia was. Here in the US, fortunately, despite the presence of anti-Israeli activists, at the headquarters level of the more liberal Protestant denominations including my own Presbyterian Church, the rank and file are still very much pro-Israel and will, I believe, remain so.

About those American Christian Evangelists you encountered on the plane, they remind me of my Jewish high school classmates, who are the beginning of the school year, would crowd around the kids who had been to Israel over the summer and asking them all sorts of questions about their experience and listen admiring to their answers. (Note, several of my classmates have made aliyah over the years, hope they are all doing well.)

About Christians visiting Jerusalem. From time to time there is a problem with Christian visitors going crazy during their stay in Jerusalem. They start acting messanic and imagine themsevles to be John the Baptist, the Prophet Elijah, King David or even Jesus. A group of Israeli tour guides specialize in handling such people. Usually if these folks can be coaxed down to more seculiar Tel Aviv or Haifia, they will regain their sanity, though some have to leave Israel entirely before they return to reality.
Have not hear about any Christians flipping out on visits to the Sea of Galilee and trying to walk on the water, etec. Still that might happen one of these days.

Seismic Shock: Thanks for all your links, especially the one to Steven Spector’s book on Christian Zionism. It sounds awfully interested.

Jewish Defense League Unleashes Campaign of Violence in America

By Donald Neff
It was 29 years ago, on Aug. 29, 1970, that the Soviet government newspaper Izvestia protested repeated attacks by members of the Jewish Defense League against Soviet diplomats in New York and demanded better U.S. protection.1

A series of harassments, demonstrations and physical attacks against Soviet offices and personnel in New York had been launched by the JDL at the end of 1969 and continued over the next two years. The militant JDL actions included forcefully occupying some offices, spray painting Hebrew slogans proclaiming “the Jewish nation lives,” disrupting public meetings and even bombings and shootings. JDL co-founder Meir Kahane, a rabid Jewish activist from Brooklyn, later publicly admitted the JDL “bombed the Russian mission in New York, the Russian cultural mission here [Washington] in 1970, the Soviet trade offices.”2

The aim of the campaign was to draw attention to the 2.1 million Jews living in the Soviet Union. Unknown to the public was the fact that the anti-Soviet actions were being orchestrated by several militant Israelis, including the Mossad spy agency; Yitzhak Shamir, later Israel’s prime minister, and Guelah Cohen, a leader of the extremist Tehiya Party and member of the Knesset. The Israelis persuaded Kahane to wage the anti-Soviet campaign. The goal was to strain U.S.–Soviet relations, calculating that Moscow would ease the strain by allowing increased numbers of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel.3

A 1985 FBI study of terrorist acts in the United States since 1981 found 18 incidents initiated by Jews, 15 of the acts by the JDL.4 In a 1986 study of domestic terrorism, the Department of Energy concluded: “For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States….Since 1968, JDL operations have killed 7 persons and wounded at least 22. Thirty-nine percent of the targets were connected with the Soviet Union; 9 percent were Palestinian; 8 percent were Lebanese; 6 percent, Egyptian; 4 percent, French, Iranian, and Iraqi; 1 percent, Polish and German; and 23 percent were not connected with any states. Sixty-two percent of all JDL actions are directed against property; 30 percent against businesses; 4 percent against academics and academic institutions; and 2 percent against religious targets.”5

The JDL was suspected in two high-profile murders over the years. One came in 1972 when a bomb exploded in impresario Sol Hurok’s Manhattan office on Jan. 26. The explosion killed his receptionist, Iris Kones, 27, while Hurok and 12 others were injured. The JDL was suspected because Hurok was bringing Soviet performers to the United States.6

The next year, Jerome Zeller, an American JDL member, was indicted on charges of planting the bomb at Hurok’s office. He had since moved to Israel and his extradition was requested. Israeli authorities arrested the American expatriate but released him on $1,200 bail. He later was wounded in the 1973 war. Afterwards, the U.S. again requested extradition, but the response was, said U.S. Attorney Joseph Jaffe, who prosecuted the case, “You can…hold your breath until you die cause you ain’t going to get him because he’s a national hero.” Zeller was later reported living in the occupied West Bank among militant settlers.7

Kahane became an outspoken advocate for the “transfer” of all Palestinians.
The other high-profile murder came in 1985, on Oct. 11, when Alex Odeh, 37, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) in Santa Ana, California, was killed by a bomb planted at his office. Odeh had appeared the previous night on a television show and called Yasser Arafat a “man of peace.” The Jewish Defense League praised the bombing but denied involvement, its usual practice in such incidents.8

One of the suspects was Robert Manning, 36, of Los Angeles, a JDL member. He and his wife, Rochelle, moved to Israel, where he joined the Israel Defense Forces. FBI agents said Manning and others were also suspected of being involved in a year-long series of violent incidents in 1985 including the August house-bomb slaying of Tscherim Soobzokov, of Paterson, N.J., a suspected Nazi war criminal; the Aug. 16 attempted bombing of the Boston ADC office in which two policemen were severely wounded; the September bombing at the Brentwood, Long Island home of alleged Nazi Elmars Sprogis, in which a 23-year-old passerby lost a leg, and the Oct. 29 fire at the ADC office in Washington, DC, which was called arson.9

By December 1985, FBI Director William H. Webster warned that Arab Americans had entered a “zone of danger” and were targets of an unnamed group seeking to harm the “enemies of Israel.”10

Manning and his wife lived in the radical Kiryat Arba settlement in Israel’s occupied West Bank until March 25, 1991 when, after two years of pressure, Israel acceded to U.S. extradition demands.11

The case caused critics to charge U.S. media bias against Arabs, noting that a week earlier the killing of American Jew Leon Klinghoffer aboard the hijacked Achille Lauro received heavy media coverage. They pointed out The New York Times devoted 1,043 column inches to Klinghoffer while devoting only 14 inches to Odeh’s death.12

Israeli police finally arrested the Mannings on March 24, 1991. Although strongly suspected in the Odeh murder, they were charged in a separate suit involving the 1980 letter-bomb murder of California secretary Patricia Wilkerson.13 Robert Manning, but not his wife, was eventually extradited to the United States on July 18, 1993, and was found guilty on Oct. 14, 1993, of complicity in the Wilkerson murder.14

On Feb. 7, 1994, Manning was sentenced to life in prison.15 His wife died of a heart attack on March 18, 1994, in an Israeli prison while awaiting extradition.16

Meanwhile, Kahane had moved to Israel in 1971 and immediately became an outspoken advocate for the “transfer” of all Palestinians. His unabashed public voicing of a subject that Israelis had spoken about only privately for so long earned him instant popularity among the most radical of Israelis. He founded the Kach Party. Kach in Hebrew means “Thus!” and Israelis understood that the party’s name referred to the use of violence to ethnically cleanse the land. By 1984 Kahane was popular enough to win a seat in the 120-seat Knesset under the Kach banner.17

At the same time Kahane retained his U.S. passport, which he used frequently to keep in touch with his followers in the JDL in America.18

In October 1985, the State Department declared Kahane was no longer a U.S. citizen based on his acceptance of a Knesset seat and his statement that he had retained his citizenship only as a matter of convenience.19 However, Federal Judge Leo I. Glasser ruled in 1987 that Kahane could not be deprived of his U.S. citizenship since Americans are allowed dual citizenship.20

When Kahane appeared in the Knesset to take his oath, 2,000 demonstrators protested and a number of lawmakers denounced him.21 Within a year, however, Kahane was described by The New York Times as the most talked-about political figure in Israel whose popularity was soaring, especially among young voters.22A September 1985 poll showed that Kahane’s popularity had increased to the point that if elections had been held at the time, his party would have received 10 seats in the Knesset, making Kach a significant political force.23

Such popularity of Kahane’s racist views was disturbing to liberal Israelis, and particularly to their U.S. supporters, who for so long had portrayed Palestinians as racists out to get rid of Jews. Now Kahane was giving Zionism’s critics powerful proof that Israel was a racist state. On Oct. 17, 1988, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that Meir Kahane’s political party was ineligible to take part in elections because it was “racist” and “undemocratic.”24 It was the first time in Israel’s history that a political party had been outlawed. Polls at the time showed that Kach would have likely received three to four seats in the coming November elections.25

Kahane’s end came in 1990 at the age of 58. He was shot dead on Nov. 5, 1990 in New York City in a midtown hotel.26 The suspect was El Sayyid A. Nosair, 34, an Egyptian-born Muslim who was a naturalized American living in Cliffside Park, N.J. He was a graduate of Egypt’s Hilwan University and worked as an air conditioning repairman for New York City. Police said Nosair had been under psychiatric care and taking anti-depressant drugs.27

Nosair was acquitted by a Manhattan jury on Dec. 21, 1991, but on Jan. 17, 1996 he was sentenced to a life term after he was convicted in a new trial of involvement in the assassination and also of conspiracy to commit terrorism with Egyptian Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the alleged mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing.28

As many as 30,000 mourners attended Kahane’s funeral in Brooklyn on Nov. 6, 1990, hailing him as “a pillar of Zion” and “a prophet who has fallen for the sacred land.” They carried placards reading “Death to all Arabs” and “Revenge.” Said Sol Margolis, president of Kach International, the U.S. arm of Kahane’s party in Israel: “There will be revenge. We believe in revenge.” 29

The next day in Jerusalem, on Nov, 7, some 15,000 persons held a four-hour funeral procession, shouting “death to the Arabs.”30

In mid-November, 10 persons received letters threatening violence in revenge for Kahane’s death. They included Columbia University Professor Edward Said, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and Clovis Maksoud, former U.N. ambassador of the Arab League.31

Kahane’s supporters in Israel also vowed revenge, adding: “Whoever thinks that Kahane and the Kach movement have been destroyed has made a great mistake.” Said Kach member Yoel Ben-David: “I promise you there will be a river of Arab blood.”32

During his years, Kahane had succeeded well beyond most expectations in changing the political landscape of Israel. New York Times correspondent John Kifner reported that Kahane had been successful in the sense that many of his ideas “had crept into the mainstream” in Israel. Dr. Ehud Sprinzak, an Israeli expert on far right activities in Israel, wrote: “Where he has succeeded is in changing the thinking of many Israelis toward anti-Arab feelings and violence. He forced the more respectable parties to change. In the 1970s Kahane was in the political wilderness, but by the 1980s the center had moved toward Kahane.” Today Kahane’s policy of “transfer” is openly discussed as never before and one political party, Moledet, with one Knesset seat, has ethnic cleansing as its single issue. Observed the Jewish Telegraph Agency: “Rabbi Kahane could die satisfied that his message has impacted deeply and widely throughout Israeli society.”33

anon, that is a beautiful post about JDL – that ends in 1990 – nearly 20 years ago. Could you do one on Mohammed’s conquests and slaughters in the Middle East or the PLO of the ’70’s?

David All -the baptism site at the bottom of the Sea of Galillee is not far from my home and I pass it quite often. Groups come from all over the world to be re-baptised there; not only Americans but Greek Orthodox, Brazilians, Africans, to name a few. They seem to get very emotional and there’s usually lots of sobbing going on, but I’ve never heard of anything akin to ‘Jerusalem syndrome’.
We who live there take these places very much for granted as they are part of our daily landscape, but I think it’s great that people can come from all over the world, maybe having saved up for years, and see the actual places with which they are so familiar from the scriptures. It can’t really be anything other than a profound emotional experience.
As for walking on water -if we don’t get some decent amounts of rain next winter, that might become a little easier!

If my suburb got sprayed with phosphorus bombs, I think I would somehow sense it was time to leave.

“one political party, Moledet, with one Knesset seat, has ethnic cleansing as its single issue”

Bollocks. “Ethnic cleansing” is a euphemism for genocide. Moledet does not have a genocidal agenda.

Israelinurse, thanks for your beautiful comment about Christians from around the world coming to be re-baptized in the Sea of Galillee.

David All, there may be a rather sinister underlying vision behind the re-baptisms : they may believe that they are in fact ‘Jews’.

Since you asked I thought I’d pop by and answer your questions which have nothing to do with what I wrote (a ploy I’ve often noticed with those who wish to simply dismiss the danger posed by Christian Zionists to a legitimate peace process), so here goes.

You asked:

So, John Hubers, do you believe that: the Holocaust never happened, if it did the Jews deserved it, Hitler was a good man, it is acceptable for children to become suicide bombers in a jihad against the Zionist Entity, attacks by on the Royal Navy is fair game if they attempt to stop the smuggling of arms into Gaza, it’s okay to kill Jews around the world, the ushering in of a global Islamic caliphate will be preceded by a genocide of the Jews, and according to the Quran Israel will be destroyed in 2022?

My answers:

The holocaust never happened?

Only an idiot would claim this (recognizing here that the world is full of idiots). It’s one of the things that fuels my passion towards situations where a marginalized people are put upon by those who believe they have the right to do whatever they want to them. (thus my question about ethnic cleansing). I’m committed as I assume you are to making sure that anything even remotely approaching the holocaust never happens again. Its is the 20th century’s greatest, most horrific horror story.

The leap of imagination relating suicide bombers to Hitler.

Hitler was a man who had the power of an army behind him. He was able to do what he did because of it. The power equation is reversed in Israel/Palestine at the moment. Those who engage in suicide bombings do so because they believe (wrongly, I believe) that this is the only weapon they have against a much more powerful enemy. As I am a pacifist by nature I deplore both the practice of suicide bombing and the fanaticism of any belief system that justifies it. But I understand the mentality as it’s found in many other parts of the world where people have been driven to despair by a much more powerful enemy.

Justified to stop smuggling arms?

I would say so, but that was hardly the issue here. The issue was a blockade of goods and transport of peoples that were driving the Gazans to near starvation. It’s interesting how you choose to ignore this fact (and totally ignore what lies behind the army rabbinate’s statement which is, in fact, a disturbing call for wanton destruction and death. Kudos to the IDF soldiers who called them out on this! They, as well as the refusniks who represent the true heroes of the Israeli military). My question to you in return is whether or not you think the Rabbi was right to urge these soldiers on to kill as many palestinians as they chose to kill to drive them off the land.

It’s okay to kill Jews around the world,

No. Neither is it OK to kill Palestinians. Killing is wrong period.

the ushering in of a global Islamic caliphate will be preceded by a genocide of the Jews, and according to the Quran Israel will be destroyed in 2022?

Interesting bit of paranoia you’re trotting out here. Clear evidence that you are clueless about the power equation in Israel/Palestine or the belief system of the vast majority of Muslims around the world (who are by no means a collective mass as you wish us to believe).

I am curious as to where these Qur’anic verses are. Certainly not in any Qur’an I’ve read. . . . .

That there are Muslims who make such claims I don’t doubt. That this is as ridiculous a stretch of interpretive fantasy as is John Hagee’s eschatology or the eschatology of militant messianic Jews is certain. What you need to do is give some proof that there is a significant enough group of Muslims who are actively engaged in seeing this reading of the Qur’an brought to fruition that its worthwhile even talking about it.

That there are Christian Zionists who believe that Israel should engage in violent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from land that they believe belongs to Israel alone is worth exploring as it lies behind many of the statements they make . . and these people have a lot of clout. This is what lies behind what I wrote.

So I return a question to you: are you an ethnic cleanser? Are you, in fact, proposing a “final solution” for Palestinians?

PS – If you read carefully you will recognize that I have not implicated all Christian Zionists either here on in the past to which you refer. It’s the “reading carefully” part you apparently don’t get.

So what was the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism ding at that conference? You say only an idiot would say the Holocaust never happened, but nevertheless your representative gladly shared a platform with people who did deny it, and signed a joint declaration with them condemning Israel.

Or have you not read Holocaust denier Fred Tobin’s report on the Jakarta conference?

http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/newsletters/n392.htm [WARNING! link to Far Right site]

Read it carefully!

So, will you publicly apologise for this?

P.S. don’t forget to comment here:

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/03/11/fundamentalists-and-crazy-end-times-prophecies/

Several things: Stephen Sizer does what he does on his own. The fact that he chose to attend that conference was entirely his choice. You’ll have to take up that issue with him. This blog, however, was addressed to me. I answered your questions, but noticed that rather than dealing with the issue raised in my blog you chose to engage in character assassination. I have no idea why you chose to do that, but I’m not going to assume that its because of the people you associate with. I’m assuming that you made the choice on your own to do this.

Now back to the issue at hand. It was entirely appropriate to make the link I did as one of the defining motifs of Christian Zionism is the belief that the land which is currently under dispute between Israelis and Palestinians belongs to Jews. This is not open for discussion with them. This is a matter of faith. At the third International Biblical Congress on Christian Zionism, which was endorsed by the fourth, they were even more explicit in saying that all of the land belongs to Israel, including Gaza, the West Bank and Golan Heights.

When the army rabbinate made this statement it was, in this sense, a reflection of a tenet of the Christian Zionist faith. There was a direct link. My question, therefore, was whether or not those who signed on to these statements, as well as people who have been publically forthright in supporting Israel’s right to the entire land using biblical borders (a map including in Hagee’s Jerusalem Countdown shows the “Royal Land Grant” which includes not only this land but all of Jordan, parts of Iraq and Saudi, most of Lebanon and Syria.

So it was, indeed, legitimate to ask: “do you believe, as the rabbi does, that the land should be “cleansed” of “gentiles?” This is, in fact, the crucial issue for Christian Zionists. If Israel has a divine right to this land and there are several million Arabs living on it who are not planning to move anytime soon, the only logical conclusion is that they believe Israel has the right to force them off the land.

As for my trip to Syria where the leaders of our church were hosted by the leaders of the Christian Arab community in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, which included a visit to the president of Syria at the behest of the General Secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches who was at the time a Syrian Protestant pastor, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue I have raised. I would hope that you actually attempt to deal with the issue at hand rather than engaging in ad hominem attacks which only in the end show the weakness of your own point of view.

Let’s try (I know this may be hard for you) to have a logical, thoughtful discussion here. I’m assuming you are capable of that?

John Hubers: you made this comment for the website http://www.christianzionism.org, which represents as I understand The Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism. I thus consider you as a representative of this body. Much more as you co-founded the group with Stephen Sizer and others.

Sizer was not merely in Jakarta in a personal capacity, he represented The Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism in Jakarta.

He admits it himself here:
http://stephensizer.blogspot.com/2008/05/lost-in-transit-on-road-to-jakarta.html

More details on the Voice of Palestine conference here:
http://seismicshock.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/stephen-sizer-responds-to-criticism/

I find it astonishing to believe that Stephen Sizer has represented your organisation without your knowledge, and allowed ISCZ to be associated with Fred Tobin’s Adelaide Institute.

Here you can read the Voice of Palestine aims, which include the dismantling of the state of Israel:
http://voiceofpalestine.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=6

I suggest your organisation withdraw from Voice of Palestine and publicly apologise for its participation in the event. Sharing platforms with militant Islamists and Holocaust deniers who openly promote genocidal policies towards Jews is hardly a good way to promote peace in the Middle East.

You make an interesting assumption here, that whatever Stephen Sizer does is done as a representative of our organization. This would be a legitimate assumption to make if, indeed, the institute had promoted this conference on its website, in which case you could say that the Institute endorsed it. You could also make the assumption that the views you find unacceptable that were represented at this conference represent the views of our Institute if we had promoted them on the website. In fact you will find nothing like this on the site.

The fact is, Stephen Sizer decided to attend this conference by his own decision, following the dictates of his own conscience. That this is the case with all who are members of our Institute (which includes pastors, students, university professors, lay persons, and a Conservative Rabbi from LA) is born out by the fact that we all have our own lives. Our institute, in fact, exists only as an educational, informational network of individuals concerned by the threat Christian Zionism poses to peace in the Middle East, not to mention its distortion of orthodox Christian belief. This can be checked (should you be interested) with the State of Illinois where we are registered which states clearly that we have no function outside of an educational one. We are not, like CUFI, a political action committee. We are not in any way involved in political advocacy. We exist simply to make available to the public through our website (which I created and run) information about Christian Zionism, both as a theological and political phenomenon.

We have no funding. We run no conferences. We send no representatives anywhere as there is nothing to represent. Stephen Sizer represents himself, which is certainly understandable as he is a recognized author and preacher, accepting invitations to various events to promote his books, etc. I don’t know what he preaches on Sunday morning, nor what he says at conferences. I have put some of his material on our website. He does the same with material from our website. We have, in other words, a common interest in challenging Christian Zionism. If, however, he asked me to promote holocaust denial on our website (which he won’t because he does not hold these views nor promote them), I would not accept this. If you read the purpose statement of the website you will see that it has nothing whatsoever to do with this. But then I’m not holding my breath as what is becoming clear is that you are less interested in discussing issues than in destroying peoples’ reputation with innuendo, ad hominem attacks and suggestions that keep any opinions other than your own from being heard.

So I’ve answered your questions. At this point you are free do do whatever you like. I would prefer, however, that if you have anything further to add about the issues you have raised that you take them up with Stephen Sizer himself. I know he would welcome a discussion as he is a very intelligent person who is actually quite able to handle his own business.

One final note: next time when you have something you wish to discuss with me please be so kind as to drop me an email using the “contact us” button on the website. The fact that you didn’t do this, choosing instead to use ridicule and innuendo, tells me that perhaps you really aren’t interested in discussing issues in a reasonable way, preferring instead to try to silence those whose opinions are different from your own. And thus my need to move on.

John,

I am very grateful that you are distancing ISCZ from the Jakarta Nakba conference. It is most encouraging. Nevertheless I think to avoid further confusion you should really make sure not anyone can use your group’s name as they see fit.

Otherwise it is confusing – you claim you’re not a political advocacy group yet your group was represented at a political conference in Indonesia.

c.f. your comment:

“You make an interesting assumption here, that whatever Stephen Sizer does is done as a representative of our organization. This would be a legitimate assumption to make if, indeed, the institute had promoted this conference on its website, in which case you could say that the Institute endorsed it.”

http://stephensizer.blogspot.com/2008/05/lost-in-transit-on-road-to-jakarta.html

“Participating organisations and NGOs included the Centre for Middle East and Islamic Studies, University of Indonesia; the International Union of NGOs defending Palestinian Rights (Iran); Neturei Karta International – Orthodox Jews who oppose Zionism (USA); the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism (me); The United Ulama Council (South Africa); the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt); Bethlehem Bible College (Palestine); Innovative Minds (UK) together with other speakers from Norway, Lebanon, Australia and Switzerland. Members of the Indonesian parliament and various Middle East ambassadors mingled with journalists, reporters, students and faculty from the university”

I’m more than willing to remove this article from the Seismic Shock blog (and here if possibe) if your group will agree publicly to clear up this controversy. Fred Tobin is most likely under the impression that the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism is an ally of the Adelaide Institute, and says so on his site. I hope you’ll realise how serious this is.

You’re more than welcome to challenge Christian Zionism, but please would you take steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Actually, I am not “distancing ISCZ from the conference,” as ISCZ had nothing to do with the conference. What I am doing is encouraging you to speak directly to Stephen Sizer to allow him to discuss the issues as it was his decision to go. This kind of attack by innuendo without allowing people to actually explain themselves is my biggest issue with your approach.

I also would be interested to ask whether or not you have taken a stance against the statement made by the Army Rabbinate. I don’t see evidence that you have. Thus I can assume that you agree with ethnic cleasing. I also don’t see anything on your site protesting the illegal settlements or any abuses in which the Israelis have been engaged in their war of attrition against Palestinians. Until you are willing to take a stance against human rights abuses on all sides of the issue I can’t see where you have an ethical leg to stand on.

In the meantime, do contact Stephen. As I said he is a very intelligent person who is more than willing to discuss the issues with you.

And this will be my final communique.