Robert Stearns
Christians United For Israel will sponsor “A Night To Honor Israel,” Sunday, November 14, 2010 at 7:00 PM at Norwalk Town Hall, 125 East Avenue in Norwalk. Keynote Speakers are Rabbi Dr. Gerald Meister, a former advisor to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and Robert Stearns, Founder of Eagles Wings Ministries.
There is no charge for this event, and it is open to the public.
Israel needs to find a new ally for its own good.
So says Dutch writer Leon de Winter in the Jerusalem Post. Has Mr. Obama’s Cairo speech forced the Israelis to rethink their relationship with America? While the President’s speech was lauded by many, Israelis who listened closely might have felt a chill wind coming out of Washington.
Within this historic speech, Obama couldn’t find words to describe the attack by various Arab armies on Israel the day it was created. He couldn’t describe the terrorist attacks that followed the 1949 armistice. He omitted the growing anti-Semitism in the Arab media, the Arab schoolbooks, Arab radio and TV, in the preaching in the mosques. Twice Obama mentioned the anti-Semitic and anti-Christian Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas: “Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, and to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist.”
Obama didn’t mention the core message of Hamas: the worldwide destruction of the Jews. Ayatollah Khomeini, the instigator of the present Islamist revolution, defined world history, the course of human events, as follows: “From the beginning, the Islamic movement has been obstructed by the Jews. They were the first who developed anti-Islamic propaganda and conspiracies. And this is still the case.”
In other words, opposing Israel, the nation of the Jews, is the driving force of the Islamist revolution, both Sunni and Shi’ite. It is its core. It cannot exist if it would give up its ambition to erase Israel. The destruction of Israel is its ultimate goal, its fuel, its body, its nature, its direction and its destination. Only through the destruction of the cunning, conspiring, obstructing Jews the Islamist revolution can reach its goal: the resurrection of the caliphate.
Mr. de Winter lays out uncomfortable realities which the media do not even mention – much less attempt to explain to an American audience. Who in America even knows, anymore, what the Calpihate was? Or the intention of those who may be working, openly or covertly, to resuscitate it? It is far easier, much less messy to pave over the words of the Islamists. Time, demography, and money are on their side anyway, so why not accomodate them? De Winter continues:
A SMALL NATION like Israel, a single and lonely modern democracy in a part of the world in which autocracies and tyrannies are the norm, cannot survive without a strategic partnership with a major international power that is forced, by the sheer size of its interests, to play the complex fields of the Middle East. It is too soon to create a lasting bond with India, a natural ally for Israel. India will emerge during this century as a major international power, both militarily as economically and scientifically, but it cannot give Israel yet the diplomatic and military backup it needs.
But there is another strategic player in the field who would welcome a partnership with Israel, especially with its cutting-edge electronic industries. Of Israel’s 5.7 million Jews, more than 1 million have Russian roots. Despite the old anti-Semitism in Russia, there has been a strong melancholic bond between the two populations. In Russia, Jews have excelled in sciences and the arts.
Because of its continuous counterbalancing act with America, Russia has been maintaining ties to Iran and Syria, but it needs to diversify and update its economy and reduce its dependence on oil and natural gas income. It could use scientific and commercial ingenuity, qualities Iran and Syria are not able to deliver – Israel is. And Israel could use Russia’s vast resources and the determination of its leader Vladimir Putin, a smart and ruthless leader who understands the cruel rules of the international power game.
Obama’s loyalties, and those of the majority of liberal American Jewry, don’t lie with Israel. So Israel needs to shop for another ally. In his offices in the Kremlin, Putin will receive its leaders with open arms, dark bread, marinated herring and some bottles of Stoli.
Desperation may indeed drive the Israelis into embraces which they earlier might have shunned.
Let’s continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and that our leaders will follow the guidance of God.
The Jerusalem Post reports that he did so during his recent trip to Israel, but I don’t see this reported anywhere else.
In his welcoming address, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger thanked the pope for his announcement, calling it an “historic agreement and, “for us, an immensely important message.”
Did this really happen? If so, this would be interesting in a number of ways. Perhaps one of our fine readers can illuminate us.
I was disturbed to read an interview recently conducted by pundit Michael Medved. His interviewee? Jimmy Carter. Mr. Medved’s concern was the former President’s naïveté concerning Hamas and that group’s less than charitable intentions vis-à-vis Israel.
But that wasn’t what caught my eye. Buried in the conversation was the revelation that Mr. Carter has fallen for the canard that Evangelicals are awaiting (perhaps with some relish) the wholesale slaughter of the Jews in connection with the prophesied Second Coming of Christ. Notice this exchange, in which MM stands for Michael Medved:
Carter: —I’m not going to try to defend the Hamas Charter any more than I would try to defend the PLO charter, because it calls for the destruction of Israel—
MM: —It calls for the murder of individual Jews. It calls for the murder of all Jews so that judgment day can come. It says, “The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realization of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said, “The day of judgment will not come about until Muslims kill the Jews (and the passage adds: “When the Jews will hide behind stones and trees, the sones and trees will say, O Muslim, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”)
Carter:–If you want to talk about ancient history, Christians believe that in the second coming, Christ can’t come back to the Holy Land until all Jews are either dead or become Christian.
There’s plenty here which is interesting, but Carter’s take on what Christians believe is simply untrue. Far be it from me to argue with a Sunday School teacher, but as someone who’s taught a bit of Sunday School himself, I feel compelled to point out a few things.
First, in the interest of fairness, it should be said that many Christians’ presentation of prophesied “end times” events is, well, graceless. Perhaps we can be excused for not always knowing how to talk about the end of the world – a serious topic, to be sure – but a little tact is in order. Christians who read their Bible literally believe that Jesus Christ will physically return to the earth after a period of terrible wars and cataclysms. Believers argue about a lot of the details, and how it all fits together exactly, but one point of agreement is that it will be horrific.
So, in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, Jesus says, “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved…” So Christ is speaking of a time so terrible that, unless God intervened personally, no one would survive it. It will be that bad.
Second, Christians point to prophecies in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) indicating that a great many Jews will be killed through anti-Semitic persecution during this time. Most notable here would probably be Zechariah 13:8, which says, “And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.” However, while many Christians believe this will literally happen, they are not in any sense “rooting” for it to happen, nor should it ever be compared to the Islamic belief that Jews must be killed by Muslims in order for their own apocalypse to come to pass. In the Christian end times scenario, the Jews are indeed victims of war and victims of persecution at the hands of the figure known as the Antichrist. Mr. Carter should know better than to insinuate an equivalence between the two.
Finally, Christian teaching is clear that Christians then living will also suffer persecution from the Antichrist. Indeed, abundant Christian martyrdom is an expected part of the last days scenario. Jews and Christians are thus suffering together from the Antichrist’s pogrom or Holocaust.
Christians should not be faulted for believing that Christ will come again and that, when he does, Jews will take him as their Messiah. They are entitled to believe that, just as Jews believe the Christians are wrong about that. But Christians should not be smeared as though they believed something other than what they do believe. Such irresponsible distortions have the effect of dissolving the unity that can exist between Christians of goodwill and Jews of goodwill as they work together against their common enemies, of which there are many.
The following video shows protesters in Hartford, mostly supporting Hamas if we are to judge by appearances.
What is truly appalling is the reaction of a woman (named Levy, no less) who apparently says there was no point in Jews having survived Hitler’s concentration camps to come out into the world and behave in this fashion. Watch for this at 2:00 into the video. I had to watch this several times to be sure I saw what I saw.
What is sadly ironic here is that Hitler’s Final Solution was worsened through the instigation of a man we might nowadays call a radical jihadist, Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
Who was al-Husseini? He was a godfather of the modern pan-Islamic movement which seeks to destroy Israel (and Jews) today – and did so long before 1967, or 1948. Few are aware of the Nazi-Islamic connection during World War II. Al-Husseini was known to have personally urged Hitler and his underlings to liquidate the Jews. Evidence is abundant as to this fact and even Wikipedia has published a picture of a 1943 telegram from Himmler to the Grand Mufti in which he lauds the Mufti’s efforts:
‘To the Grand Mufti: The National Socialist [Nazi] movement of Greater Germany has, since its inception, inscribed upon its flag the fight against the world Jewry. It has therefore followed with particular sympathy the struggle of freedom-loving Arabs, especially in Palestine, against Jewish interlopers. In the recognition of this enemy and of the common struggle against it lies the firm foundation of the natural alliance that exists between the National Socialist Greater Germany and the freedom-loving Muslims of the whole world. In this spirit I am sending you on the anniversary of the infamous Balfour declaration my hearty greetings and wishes for the successful pursuit of your struggle until the final victory.’ Reichsfuehrer S.S. Heinrich Himmler
Yugoslavia sought to indite the Mufti as a war criminal for his role in raising 20,000 Muslim S.S. troops to kill Jews in Central Europe.
A convicted and executed Nazi war criminal was quoted as saying:
The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and advisor of Eichmann and Himmler in execution of this plan…He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz.
It is time for people to realize what they are really doing when they support Hamas: they are supporting an ideology that wishes to replicate the tactics – and the results – of al-Husseini… and Hitler.
This video was taken in Fort Lauderdale yesterday and is notable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the young woman at 3:25 yelling at the Jews to go into a big oven. We can only expect to see more of this as the relative influence of the American Muslim community grows.
It’s out of fashion to say it out loud but nonetheless true that there will be no permanent peace in the Middle East (or anywhere else) until we have the actual presence of the Prince of Peace with us. We believe that a king, Messiah Jesus, will reign in righteousness and that this reign will be personal, literal, and physical. (Acts 1:11) Having said this, I want to be quick to say that Christians are called to be at peace with others (Romans 12:18) and to make peace. Christians should imitate God by upholding and working for justice for all people. This being the case, how should we assess the current conflict between Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza?
In Connecticut, we have a blog, which I won’t dignify with a link, which refers to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni as Israel’s “Blond Bitch of Belsen.” Besides being crude, the moral equation between the Holocaust and Israel’s own right of self-defense is offensive in the extreme.
The Arab-Israeli wars have long been a David-and-Goliath scenario, but the Left has skillfully transformed the public’s perception such that Israel, vastly outmanned and tiny in territory has been transformed into the Goliath. The issues are of course complex, but the simplistic thinking is not to be found among Biblical Christians, as the media would have us believe.
How should we begin to think about Gaza?
First, it would be irrational to separate this conflict from the larger context of the Jihad which is being waged against Israel and other Western nations by Muslim radicals. To say this is not to agree with or support everything that the Bush Administration has done, but it would be foolhardy not to take the statements of the jihadists at face value – something the U. S. has seldom done, at least publicly. Christians must recognize that radical Muslims do not believe their own apocalyptic vision can unfold properly until there is effective war against the Jews. Not enough people understand that Muslims are expecting their own Messiah, called the Mahdi, whom they believe will subjugate the world with the help of none other than Jesus, called Isa by Muslims. Many are now noting that the Muslim “end times” seems to present us with a dark mirror of the biblical apocalypse in which their Messiah seems to fulfill the deeds and functions of the Biblical Antichrist. In any event, there can be little doubt of coordination between Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and others.
Second, the world’s prejudices are never more on display than when Israel makes a military move. Someone has cleverly pointed out that if Israel were to make a “proportional response,” it would have to fire off 2,000 rockets unannounced into Gaza and rejoice by handing out candies when there were casualties. Only Israel is held to such a standard, which is designed solely to hamstring it, pure and simple. When Jews are killed for being Jews, no one cares.
Third, Christians are no longer in agreement that the land of Israel belongs to Israel by Divine grant. The persistent, malicious name-calling of the Left has ensured that anyone holding such a position is referred to as a “Christian Zionist” and his opinions are therefore to be dismissed out of hand. Yet Christians do well to remember the anger of God against those who divide the land, and would deny Israel even a sliver of the Middle East.
If ever in doubt as to how to pray, Christians should pray for his Kingdom to come, and His Will to be done!