A belated Happy 60th, Israel (part 1)

Let’s not mince our words

 “Israel shouldn’t have taken land that didn’t belong to them. “Thou shalt not steal”

 “[The Jews] displacement of the people in Palestine was real, cruel and wrong…[and the Arabs] were removed by violence.”

 “[The Jews instigate] collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza, which contravenes the Geneva convention.”

 “The Jews took the land by force. They did it with some viciousness….I think the West is becoming less supportive of Israel [because the Jews have caused] the dreadful conditions imposed on the state of Palestine, the overkill of many Israeli reprisal attacks and the assassination campaigns that also caused civilian casualties and…it is hard to justify the way Israel came into being…and the US kow towing to Israel’s demand….Israel has a right to exist insofar as…nothing can [now] be done about it. But, until it owns up to the atrocities it has perpetrated in doing so I will refrain from being overjoyed about its birthday.”

 “[The Jews caused] the Gaza blockade and the collective punishment of the 1.4 million citizens of Gaza [and caused] raw sewage [to pool] in the streets.”

One could be pardoned for thinking that the above represented the typical “incontestable facts” a Green Left Weekly tout spits at you when challenged about Israel. They could even be understood as one of those Leninist-inspired reinventions of history that a tenured Political Science lecturer drones on about at a Peace and Conflicts’ meeting. It’s a hoary and familiar line: Denying all the time that they are racist, they hold up Israel as the world’s number 2 bad boy and that these awful Jews upset the region’s peace and stability by invading and stealing the Arabs’ land. For 2,000 years, the polemic implies, not a Jew in sight and all those happy-chappy Arabs were growing the world’s best oranges and actually, if asked, could promptly produce the deeds to all that land.

Imagine, then, how surprised I was when recently checking the Sydney Diocese’s website to read the above anti-Semitic rants. And who were the interlocutors responsible for this bilious swill? It’s the same old gang of heretics who periodically leave the safe haven from behind their mothers’ skirts and venture over to this site to try and score a few self-righteous points and who, not arrogantly satisfied with beating up on Moses, are now zealously committed to taking up the cudgels against all Jews (the exceptions being the self-loathing Jews, like Antony Loewenstein, who for reasons known only to themselves and their psychiatrists, routinely betray their Jewish culture). On earlier posts I’d stated that the Anglicans’ liberal postmodern understanding of Genesis exposes a deeply-rooted anti-Semitism (“Well, just because Moses talked to the Creator doesn’t necessarily mean he’d have a clue about the age of the Earth, would it! It just wouldn’t be an important issue for him. In any case, we know far more about the universe than Moses did.”); and so now that it has come to the surface can I say, I told you so?

From its beginning this blog explicitly communicated that it was dedicated to exposing the parlous state of the Sydney Anglican Diocese’s creation theology, if indeed they even possess one. Before long we were accused of being one-topic wonders, as though this criticism summarily negated our arguments and was sufficiently robust to challenge our love of truth for truth’s sake. These anti-Semitic attacks require a response but nevertheless, its rise is unsurprising. As our Lord said, “Wherever there is a dead body, there the vultures will flock”

Before I rebutt these Anglican anti-Semites’ pseudo-arguments I want to present an analogy.

During the 80’s I lived in London for 3 years. In all that time I never paid a penny in rent as I squatted properties owned by the Crown, local councils or housing which was plainly abandoned. Not once did my friends and I consider ourselves the actual owners of the property. We fully understood the concept of an absent landlord. That is not to say that we didn’t argue our case in court when we thought, for example, the Crown was being unfair to kick us out of a house that they had bought from a private owner in order to demolish and that the plans for this had been shelved.

Another thing we didn’t do was to attack the returning owners with knives and rocks, plant bombs in their places of entertainment and recreation or fire rockets at the schools where their children attended. And, most importantly, we didn’t cry, “God is great!”, “Praise be to God” or “Death to the owner of this house!”

Let me not be misunderstood: I am unequivocally stating that the Muslims’ demand for this Jewish land is the moral equivalent to my arguing that I had a right to live permanently in the squatted houses in London.

Let’s blame the victim.

One of these Anglican anti-Semites, Gordon Cheng (Remember him? He’s our armchair naturalist, the creationism-can’t-be-true-because-koala-pouches-are-poorly-designed-so-much-so-that-baby-koalas-are-falling-out-of-trees-all-over-the-place-and-therefore-God-couldn’t-have-designed-them guy!), believes that these Arab Muslims have been hard-done by. He states that the Jews “shouldn’t have taken land that didn’t belong to them”, citing the 8th commandment to make his case watertight. So what moves these Anglicans to express such wicked ideas? It could be they are what they are, anti-Semitic and are consequently inexcusably immoral. However, judging by how factually vapid their posts are, I tend to think that they are intellectually lazy and can’t be bothered to pursue a moderate amount of historical investigation. What follows is a snapshot of Jewish history in the Levantine, the Jewish place of origin and homeland.

 Romans invaded Judea in 63 B.C.
 Romans put down Jewish independence revolt in 135 AD leading to deaths, expulsion or slavery of Jewish population from in and around Jerusalem
 Muslims invade in and steal all the land from Jewish owners in 638 AD
 In 1917 the Balfour Declaration signed by English promising the right to Jews to set up a state for themselves in the Middle East.
 Israel is again an independent country in 1948, the only human rights’ based, democracy in the region

There you have it: Jews owned the land; dispossessed by a European colonial power; moved back in, again disposed by another colonial power, albeit a local one; reasserted their ownership of the land after 1300 years of Islamic squatting.


A Judea without Jews

The anti-Semite gang over at Anglo-land tacitly perpetuates the myth that the “country” of “Palestine” was productive and had had generations of the same Arab families living in it, working the land and exporting its goods to the world. Then these rascally Jews invaded and just took over all those highly efficient farms and factories. Apparently it had never entered these guys’ minds that the Jews may have even bought land from Arabs very willing to accept cash for quite unfertile land. I guess this is why Jordon’s King Abdullah once remarked that “the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in…weeping [about it].” Benny Morris, one of the darling of the Left, revisionist historians, stated that “[h]istorians have concluded that only ‘several thousand’ families were displaced following land sales to Jews between the 1880s and the late 1930s.” As John Lewis Burkhardt stated in the earliest part of the 19th century, “[f]ew individuals…die in the same village in which they were born. Families are continually moving from one place to another…in a few years…they fly to some other place, where they have heard that their brethren are better treated.”

One important fact that the Anglican anti-Semites are unaware of is that the majority of the land before 1948 was "owned" by wealthy, absent Arab landlords living in Damascus or other major cities in the Ottoman Empire. Most of the land was farmed by Arab serfs or tenants. They weren't the actual "owners", so when the Jews bought land they bought it from the "owners" outside of what's now Israel.

Apparently it never occurred to these anti-Semites that Jews may have lost land and valuables far exceeding that of the Arabs when they were thrown out of Arab states after the establishment of Israel. Have Jews anywhere, at any place, asked for compensation? (Several years ago one estimate of the loss was set at $US30 billion!)

This Anglicans’ anti-Israel stance and the arguments supporting it are not dissimilar to the Left’s. It recalls Maxime Rodinson’s perspicacious insight that “the anti-colonial left, whether Christian or not, often goes so far as to sanctify Islam and the contemporary ideologies of the Muslim world…Understanding has given away to apologetics pure and simple.”

So what is the alternative?

The mantra of the Left is the right of return. The Anglican anti-Semites probably know very little about this, judging by their wholesale ignorance of Middle Eastern history. Nonetheless, cerebrally it takes little effort to see what that would lead to: Israel would no longer be Israel but would become just one other undistinguished, underdeveloped, corrupt, backward Muslim state. (Here’s a quick quiz I usually give to anyone dumb enough to support Israel’s enemies: Take a look around the room you’re in and point out one object that was actually invented by a Muslim, one which significantly improved modern living. And please, don’t say algebra – the Babylonians were doing quadratic equations in three unknowns more than 1000 years before Muhammad. Nor mention 0 as this was most likely an Indian “invention” but it took Venetian accountants to put it to its best use.)

So what would Israel look like if it were no longer a country that could guarantee the safety of its Jewish (and non-Jewish!) citizenry? Well, we know what it would be like. 1400 years of living under Sharia leaves remarkable testimony to the barbarism of these societies. But first a word from our sponsor, Muhammad:

 ‘Fight against such of those who have been given the Scriptures as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the religion of truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.’ (Sura 9:29)
 'That is because they [i.e. Jews] say: We have no duty to the Gentiles. They knowingly speak a lie concerning Allah.' (3:75)
 'And of the Jews: listeners for the sake of falsehood, listeners on behalf of other folk.' (5:41)
 ‘[The Jews] distort the Scripture with their tongues, that ye may think that what they say is from the Scripture, when it is not from the Scripture.' (3:78)
 'If a lucky chance befall you, it is evil unto them [Jews], and if disaster strike you they rejoice thereat.' (3:120)
 'And of their taking usury when they were forbidden it, and of their devouring people's wealth by false pretences.' (4:161)
 'Some of those who are Jews change words from their context and say: We hear and disobey; hear thou as one who heareth not, and Listen to us!, distorting with their tongues and slandering religion. If they had said: We hear and we obey; hear thou, and look at us, it had been better for them, and more upright. But Allah hath cursed them for their disbelief, so they believe not, save for a few.' (4:46)
 'They restrained not one another from the wickedness they did. Verily, evil was what they used to do!' (5:79)
 'Ye [Muslims] are more awful as fear in their [the Jews'] bosoms than Allah. That is because they are people who understand not. They will not fight against you in a group save in fortified villages or from behind walls. Their adversity among themselves is very great. Ye think of them as a whole whereas their hearts are diverse.' (59:13-14)
 'And thou wilt find them [Jews] greediest of mankind for life and (greedier) than the idolaters.' (2: 96)
 'Or have they even a share in the Sovereignty? Then in that case, they would not give mankind even the speck on a date stone.' (4: 53)
 And certainly you have known those among you who exceeded the limits of the Sabbath, so We said to them[the Jews]: Be (as) apes, despised and hated.” (2.65)
 Therefore when they revoltingly persisted in what they had been forbidden, We said to them: Be (as) apes, despised and hated. (7.166)

Thank you, Muhammad, for your candidness and clarity of purpose. Let’s now see if your contemporaries and later followers carried through with your message.

* Ibn Taymiyya, the famous and influential 14th century legal scholar, wrote that “[e]ven when the Muslim conquest was achieved through surrender and a peace treaty resulting in the Jews and Christians being allowed to retain their places of worship, nevertheless even then Umar laid down the condition that new ones were not to be erected in the conquered territories, and certainly not in the cities founded by Muslims. In the case of lands that had been conquered by force and in which the Muslims have built cities, they are even empowered to remove the synagogues and churches already standing, so that no more synagogues and churches would remain, unless authorities had been granted by a contract.”

* Ibn ar-Rijal, writing in 17th century Yemen, stated that “[i]f the Jews ignore these conditions and conduct their funeral processions in broad daylight and embellish and beautify their synagogues..they must be humiliated by the destruction of their synagogues…it is a principle to destroy synagogues, so that the only trace of them is to be found in their books of history.”

* In Persia a little more than a 100 years ago Jews were “forbidden to leave their houses when it rains or snows [to prevent the impurity of the Jews being transmitted to the Shiite Muslims].

These are not isolated instances but form the quintessential history of Islam because of the Koran’s and hadiths’ calls to transform the Jew to dhimmi status, a second-class “citizen”. And these Anglican anti-Semites want the Jews to share the land with these guys. Have these anti-Semites had a corporate lobotomy?

God no longer keeps a covenant with Israel

The Anglican’s anti-Semitic argument runs something along the line that since modern Eretz Israel was founded upon a secular basis, then they, the Jews, have no legal or religious right to the land because God was not involved. Armchair philosophers, like these anti-Semites, always have problems relating the real world to the ideas in their own heads. Conversely, we realists have a real problem relating their ideas to the real world. So, consider the following:

• When I was living in Israel for the second time, some 16 years ago, one Jewish Christian mentioned to me that it was estimated that of the 15 million or so Jews in the world, at least 150,000 were Fulfilled Jews, that is, Jews who believed Jesus was ha-Meshiach.
• Several of my Israeli friends were Fulfilled Jews and they often spoke about the secret network of FJs in Eretz Israel
• The ultra-orthodox in Israel fought to ban FJs from the land, particularly the Russian ones who were then flooding into Israel as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Bloc
• Last Saturday two of my secular Israeli friends and I ate pork at Cabramatta (heavy emphasis on ‘secular’!). One of them, unprompted, mentioned how another Israeli secularite acquaintance of his, reported, without any malice, how he’s been noticing just how many Messianic Jews there are in Israel lately.
• Sure, the Bible is mentioned on the Anglican Forum and various verses are thrown up in support of their racist worldview that God can’t be behind Israel’s contemporary existence, an appearance 2000 years after a European colonial power forcefully removed Jews from Eretz. Yes, what was nothing more than a Jew’s perfunctory petition to heaven, now, in these end days, against ALL odds, we witness Jews from inside and out gathered together and now run their own country. And this is what is so manifestly obtuse about these Anglican anti-Semites: If God is the God of history and God has his finger, so to speak, in everything, are these lads actually implying that against God’s will, these Jews somehow, miraculously, out-witted God and established a return of worldwide Jewry? Well, are they?
• Much has been made out of the secular nature of modern Israel and how this ipso facto indicates that God can’t be behind this “evil”. So, in other words, God can’t use an “evil” to bring good! Ever heard of the cross, you anti-Semites over there at Anglo-land? It’s because Israel is secular that Christians can go there and can establish missionary work. Maybe if you’d go and live in Israel, you anti-Semites, you’d learn something. If the Muslims or the ultra-religious Right were in charge you’d never be able to step a foot there.
• Following from this, religious Jews have previously tried to establish a religious Israel and failed. For example, the Maccabeans tried but were eventually ousted. And this is why quite possibly Israel today was founded as a secular state.
• Given what the message of Sura 9:29 is and what Christians would expect under a country run along Islamic jurisprudence, the security of Christians within Israel is guaranteed by the fact that there is a secular society there.

Move over Jew: We have taken your place in Abraham

Some of these Anglican anti-Semites even have the chutzpah to argue for some sort of covenantal replacement theology in which the Church is the real Israel. This of course self-righteously presumes that Jews no longer seek the Messiah.
A warning against your hubris.
“Now a word to you who are Gentiles. I should like you to know that I make as much as I can of my ministry as "God's messenger to the Gentiles" so as to make my kinsfolk jealous and thus save some of them.
“For if their exclusion from the pale of salvation has meant the reconciliation of the rest of mankind to God, what would their inclusion mean? It would be nothing less than life from the dead! If the flour is consecrated to God so is the whole loaf, and if the roots of a tree are dedicated to God every branch will belong to him also.
“But if some of the branches of the tree have been broken off, while you, like shoots of wild-olive, have been grafted in, and don't share like a natural branch the rich nourishment of the root, don't let yourself feel superior to those former branches. (If you feel inclined that way, remind yourself that you do not support the root, the root supports you.) You may make the natural retort, "But the branches were broken off to make room for my grafting!" It wasn't quite like that. They lost their position because they failed to believe; you only maintain yours because you do believe. The situation does not call for conceit but for a certain wholesome fear. If God removed the natural branches for a good reason, take care that you don't give him the same reason for removing you.
“You must try to appreciate both the kindness and the strict justice of God. Those who fell experienced his justice, while you are experiencing his kindness, and will continue to do so as long as you do not abuse that kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off from the tree. And as for the fallen branches, unless they are obstinate in their unbelief, they will be grafted in again. Such a restoration is by no means beyond the power of God. And, in any case, if you who were, so to speak, cuttings from a wild-olive, were grafted in, is it not a far simpler matter for the natural branches to be grafted back onto the parent stem?
“Now I don't want you, my brothers, to start imagining things, and I must therefore share with you my knowledge of God's secret plan. It is this, that the partial insensibility which has come to Israel is only to last until the full number of the Gentiles has been called in. Once this has happened, all Israel will be saved, as the scripture says: 'The deliverer will come out of Zion, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob, for this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins'.”

A last word

You may have asked yourself why I am so harsh in tone against these Anglican anti-Semites. Martin Luther King expressed it well:

"You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth.
"Antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently antisemitic, and ever will be so.
"Why is this? You know that Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land. The Jewish people, the Scriptures tell us, once enjoyed a flourishing Commonwealth in the Holy Land. From this they were expelled by the Roman tyrant, the same Romans who cruelly murdered Our Lord. Driven from their homeland, their nation in ashes, forced to wander the globe, the Jewish people time and again suffered the lash of whichever tyrant happened to rule over them.
"The Negro people, my friend, know what it is to suffer the torment of tyranny under rulers not of our choosing. Our brothers in Africa have begged, pleaded, requested--DEMANDED the recognition and realization of our inborn right to live in peace under our own sovereignty in our own country.
"How easy it should be, for anyone who holds dear this inalienable right of all mankind, to understand and support the right of the Jewish People to live in their ancient Land of Israel. All men of good will exult in the fulfilment of God's promise, that his People should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land.
“This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less.
"And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is antisemitism.
"The antisemite rejoices at any opportunity to vent his malice. The times have made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the antisemite must constantly seek new forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new masquerade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just 'anti-Zionist'!
"My friend, I do not accuse you of deliberate antisemitism. I know you feel, as I do, a deep love of truth and justice and a revulsion for racism, prejudice, and discrimination. But I know you have been misled--as others have been--into thinking you can be 'anti-Zionist' and yet remain true to these heartfelt principles that you and I share.
“Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--make no mistake about it."