A FOURTH KIND OF ANTISEMITISM.
ORIGINAL THINKING FROM BARRY SHAW.
Roger Cukierman, the president of the French Jewish
community organization, CRIF, in his article “Fighting three kinds of
AntiSemitism,” (Jerusalem Post, October 20, 2013) spoke of three types of
Anti-Semitism - the far Right, BDS campaigns, European Muslim immigrants, but
there is a fourth kind. It is 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.
Why is the Methodist-led boycott an act of Anti-Semitism?
Anti-Semitism is anti-Jewish behavior in all its forms. Their one-sided boycott campaign attempting
to inflict damage on Israel applied exclusively and discriminatorily against
the Jewish state, 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.”
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, adopted at the UMC
General Conference of 2012, is a long screed of sympathy and support for the
Palestinian cause. It fails to give one word of understanding or support to
Jewish and Israeli suffering at the hands of Palestinian violence, terror, and
rejectionism. The Methodists boycott Zionism and replace it with Palestinian
land. They have sold their birthright for no gain and no glory. 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
including 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 increasingly 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.”
The Kairos
Document,authored by Anglican cleric Naim Ateek through his Sabeel Centre in
Jerusalem, demonizes Israel using ancient anti-Semitic imagery.
Ateek
wrote, “Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians
around him.” He envisioned “hundreds of thousands of crosses throughout
the land, Palestinian men, women, and children being crucified”.
The
Kairos Palestine 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, for it is this
Covenant that promises to Israel eternal ownership of the land of Canaan.” For some Christians, “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 their
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 and the
expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of
Jews during the crusades and, ultimately, the Holocaust. Brown pivots the Spanish Inquisition as the
Catholic replacement theology Holocaust of the Jews in the Middle Ages 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 events of 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 and the gospel about Jesus.” Some saw the resurrection of
Israel out of the ashes of the Holocaust as a vision of biblical promise, while
others sought 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 via the Crusades, the Inquisition, the
Holocaust, and recent Replacement Theology.
The World Council of Churches, the Lutheran Church in
America call the Kairos Palestine Document as “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, does not forget the Nakba,” 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.
The Palestinian Authority calls for a future state that will
be “Judenrein” and refuse to acknowledge Israel as the national home of
the Jewish People. In parallel, Hamas refuses to recognize Israel in any form,
and its Charter calls to kill Jews. The Kairos supporters apparently have no
problem with this, certainly not to the point of publicly objecting to it, or
calling for sanctions against Palestinians until they adopt a language of
compromise. 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 yet
champion Palestinian rights to the land.
When concern for Palestinian rights comes with denial of Israel’s
rights by any religious body, this is the fourth kind of Anti-Semitism. It doesn’t matter if 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
delegitimization, they add up to the same thing – Anti-Semitism.
Anti-Zionism
and secondary anti-Semitism often overlap when comparisons are made between Nazis
and Israeli politics or between Holocaust victims and the Palestinians.
Dr. Manfred
Gerstenfeld, in his new book, “Demonizing Israel and the Jews,” refers
to “humanitarian racists” describing people or groups who criticize Israel “but
remain silent about the Islamofacist character of 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. You can call
it recycled."
Unquestionably the Spanish Inquisition was one of the
greatest acts of Christian anti-Semitism. It began with the Catholic Church expelling
the Jews of Spain and Portugal. It quickly led to two centuries of persecution
and slaughter. The Spanish Inquisition was greater in its global reach, and much
longer in its timeframe, than the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany.
Replacement theology reflects a Christian thinking that
includes malignant anti-Jewish hatred. This has been the case throughout the
history of the church.
In “An Analysis of Neo-Replacement
Theology,” Michael J. Vlach writes, “ Replacement Theology have been
seriously affected by two twentieth-century developments—the Holocaust and the
establishment of the modern state of Israel. According to Irvin J. Borowsky,
‘Within Christendom since the time of Hitler, there has existed a widespread
reaction of shock and soul-searching concerning the Holocaust.’”
Vlach asks what Christian
replacement theologists make of the persistence of the Jewish people? What of
Israel’s land and state? The existence
of Israel becomes a bone of contention in a theological sense. Do the misery
and suffering of Israel in the past and present prove that God’s doom has
rested and will rest upon her, as has been alleged time and again in so-called
Christian theology? Or is Israel’s resurrection and existence God’s finger in
history, that Israel is the object of His special providence and the proof Israel’s
future that was foretold by Israel’s ancient prophets and the Bible?
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 conversion, 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.
Barry Shaw is the Special Consultant on Delegitimization
Issues to The Strategic Dialogue Center at Netanya Academic College.
