As an American, I support human freedom, the God given unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I view the nation of Israel to be aligned with those values and therefore I support their right to exist and to defend themselves against their enemies who do not embrace those same values. It has nothing to do with Christian Zionism. However, the Netanyahu administration is corrupt in my opinion. What they did during Covid was anti-human. He also tried to gain control of their Supreme Court and subvert their Constitution. It seems obvious to me that October 7 was allowed to happen. That does not get Hamas off the hook nor their Iranian backers, nor those who support Hamas and teach their children to hate and kill Jews. The influence of the Israeli government in US politics is worrisome to me, but also I am concerned about the influence of Qatar and Big Pharma on our politicians, universities, and bureaucrats as well.
I strongly support Israel's elimination of the Arab terrorist group Hamas in Gaza, particularly after the crimes they committed on October 7th, and also in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah, given that Hezbollah rockets have emptied out northern Israel.
I strongly condemn the theft of Palestinian territory and possessions in the West Bank by armed aggressive Israeli settlers - that the IDF is making no effort to halt.
The Israeli government does not get given a blank cheque for their actions, particularly with some rather unpleasant extreme nationalists in the Cabinet. The settler violence in the West Bank are only alienating supportive international opinion against them.
You do know that the “West Bank”, is in fact Judea/Samaria. It was renamed the West Bank, by Jordan, when it invaded in 1949, illegally annexed the territory & gave it the new appellation. It purged the region of its Jews & destroyed their structures including many synagogues. Jews had lived in that area continually for over 3000 years. The Arab population was fine with this - didn’t call the territory “Palestine”, & were extended Jordanian citizenship. By the way, ALL of Jordan was originally allocated as part of the Jewish state. You might want to check how that didn’t work out. It seems fine to take from the Jews, what in fact is their historical homeland. You might want to ask why that’s okay, as well. Israel took that territory back legally under international law in the Six Day War. Again, à fact largely ignored. I mean that their retaking was LEGAL!
According to Jews, saying that Jews need faith in Jesus to be saved is antisemitic. If Christianity is antisemitic there is no point in trying to avoid the term. Just embrace it.
Saying "according to Jews" is meaningless. I can come back thinking of a different group of Jews and say "according to Jews, saying Jews need faith in Jesus to be saved is in no way antisemitic."
While yes, there are many factions among the Jews with differing opinions, on this subject they are fairly consistent. It is the Jewish lobbying groups like the ADL, SPLC, and various Holocaust memorial organizations that tend toward the more extreme view that expressions of Christianity that the Jewish people need Christ are antisemitic. Rather than having a discreet definition, Antisemitism has come to mean anything Jews dislike.
Any term that seeks to create an exclusion zone for critical thought is imposing power upon intellectual and ethical sovereignty. It can only infuriate the enduring human impulse to speak truth to power.
Unless you completely support the Jewish/Israeli, or Israel/Zionist positions, interests, beliefs and demands, then you WILL get called "anti-Jewish" ("anti-Semitic") because you are, obviously, not SUPPORTING them entirely.
Consequently, they - that is, the ones who will use this smear - will see you as "anti-them", and therefore call you "anti-Jewish".
This "smear" confuses a lot of normal people who imagine that it is meant to mean that you "dislike" or "hate" the Jewish people.
But that is not the meaning in which the smear is being used.
It is simply the phrase that they will call you if you do not ALWAYS submit/surrender/abdicate your sovereignty to their position, interest, belief or demand on any particular matter.
It's not any more complicated than that.
The only way to deal with it is to say something like "Well, I certainly don't hate anybody, but I certainly oppose the policy on...(whatever)."
Yes BUT what one often sees is those most critical of Israel are for "Palestine" or the government of Iran or for Islamism, or at least are soft on these three and the like. Those are definitely anti-semites.
Yes, and I appreciate your outspokenness on how Islam is not compatible with the West. I also detest Globalism, which is practically treason against Western nations. But I am probably something of a soft Zionist. I think Israel has the right to exist and Jews have the right to that nation. But then I would say the same about the Irish, the English, the Italians, etc.
I would say nations do not have rights, people do. And we had nations through sheer force and political will. Which is why if we lose the West, it is on us.
Secondly, the Israel of the Bible was primarily a people, not a land. The descendants of Jacob.
But back to your questions. The short answer is yes you can criticise the Israeli government and not be an antisemite - if you have consistency.
Do you criticise the “(alleged) persecution of Christians” but are silent about the massacres of Christians in Nigeria?
Do you criticise the “(alleged) human rights abuses” but are silent about China, Iran and Russia?
Do you criticise the formation of the country as “a colonial project” but are silent about the formation of Pakistan, Syria and Lebanon, or pretty much every other country in the world?
Criticising the Israeli government does not make you an antisemite but ONLY criticising the Israeli government suggests ulterior motives.
I can only wonder at your Scriptural ignorance. Something God has made clear in His Word is that the nation of Israel/ the Jewish people, are irrevocably & eternally tied to that land, because He Himself has ordained it so.
There is so much prejudice in the Church towards the Jewish people & their continued identity as Israel/God’s Chosen, & that is due to something called Supersessionism, which has blinded the gentilized Church to the truth.
Huge swathes of society do not insist that if you fail to - at least implicitly - believe that Russia is a beacon of pax hominibus bonae voluntatis then it means that you want all Russians to be killed.
When Russia was the USSR, nobody imagined that by saying “The USSR is. terrible country and should be shut down” the speaker would mean “all Russians should die or be killed,” but regarding Israel that is the accusation peddled by Zionists.
The more a pernicious falsehood is accepted as truth, the more urgent becomes the need to identify it as false and to criticise it. Nobody normal is saying, “You want to see an example of good brotherly love and virtuous living? Check out Sudan.” But millions of people say such lies about Israel.
So, yes: it warrants more explicit condemnation and more regular criticism.
“More” criticism? Have you been reading socials and watching the news the last 3 years? One thing Israel is not lacking is regular criticism.
And the USSR is not a great comparison. Firstly it wasn’t a country, it was a Russian ruled federation. It literally stands for Union of Soviet Social Republics.
Here’s why that’s important. Calling for a destruction of the USSR doesn’t mean the destruction and death of Russians; it simply means a retreat from the foreign countries the Russian Communists ruled without consent. For the modern state of Israel abolishing it means death to the Jewish population.
Here’s my point. Why does criticism of Israel so often lead to calls of its destruction? No other country has that.
I am a very loud critic of Bibi Netanyahu and his cronies but that doesn’t automatically mean I believe Israel should be abolished. I believe in the theological and moral right of the state of Israel to exist.
My criticism is out of love. Just like when the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isiah criticised Israel they didn’t wish for it to be destroyed. They were demanding it does better as a covenant people, stops the sin and returns to the right worship of God.
Yes, I get to see plenty of Zionist talking points and hasbara. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in another comment, many members of my religion (Judaism) have succumbed to this diabolical worldview which is antithetical to the religion they claim to profess.
your point about the USSR only emphasises my own point: nobody thought calling for the end of the USSR meant that everyone in all those countries should be killed.
Similarly, there is *nobody* (except for people with no influence at all typing from their basements) who is saying that the Jews in Israel should be killed. Make Israel a normal country; not one in which atheists LARP as slayers of Canaanites.
When the British were on the verge of withdrawing from Palestine, after years of terrorism and murder by Zionist (and Arab - but mostly Zionist) groups, the orthodox Jewish community begged the UN not to put the Zionists in charge of the country, saying they wanted to be ruled by the Muslims instead. Today, I'd much rather see Israel run by the Vatican, the UN, Saudi Arabia - almost anyone but Zionists would be an improvement for the entire world.
Another difference with Israel is that it has only ever existed as a manifestation of this supremacist, oppresive, atheistic ideology. Don't let its homonym with the Biblical term fool you. Communist Russia and Nazi Germany had histories to reference after the fall of their bad regimes. Communism and Nazism were bugs, not features, of those countries. Zionism is not a but or feature of Israel - Israel is a feature of Zionism.
I was a teenager when the Yom Kippur war broke out in 1973. I watched the news and read news paper reports. I didn't feel the need to take to the streets and wave a flag in support of either side. I remained neutral for 30 years or so, until the Iraq war.
Before the war, many people thought that once the dictator Saddam was gone, Iraq could prosper like Germany after WW2. In the event, there was soon a Sunni-Shia war going on with Al Qaeda/Isis on the Sunni side and the Iranian regime supporting the Shia.
They set off car bombs in crowded streets, kidnapped and tortured people and sent suicide bombers into mosques. There would have been a bloodbath if Western soldiers hadn't very actively identified and attacked the jihadists. I saw one former SAS man on a videoclip saying he had taken part in over 1000 "kick the door in" missions against bomb factories and terrorist safe houses.
All this led me to a study of islam, and that led me to the realisation that islam is the most evil ideology ever devised. It's much worse than fascism - after all, the Nazis didn't mutilate their own daughters or encourage their own children to become suicide bombers.
Once you realise what Israel is up against, you can no longer be neutral.
Oct 7 was no some aberration or mistake; Israel's enemies live only to engage in mass murder, gang rape and torture. They are completely obsessed.
Israel's critics fall into two groups. Those who don't understand Israel's enemies and those who do know what Israel faces and suppport the barbarians anyway.
The first group may be regarded as useful idiots. The second group are clearly evil.
Yes. So too can an American be critical of America, without being unpatriotic.
Of course you can! I do quite a lot and I’m a Zionist.
As an American, I support human freedom, the God given unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I view the nation of Israel to be aligned with those values and therefore I support their right to exist and to defend themselves against their enemies who do not embrace those same values. It has nothing to do with Christian Zionism. However, the Netanyahu administration is corrupt in my opinion. What they did during Covid was anti-human. He also tried to gain control of their Supreme Court and subvert their Constitution. It seems obvious to me that October 7 was allowed to happen. That does not get Hamas off the hook nor their Iranian backers, nor those who support Hamas and teach their children to hate and kill Jews. The influence of the Israeli government in US politics is worrisome to me, but also I am concerned about the influence of Qatar and Big Pharma on our politicians, universities, and bureaucrats as well.
I strongly support Israel's elimination of the Arab terrorist group Hamas in Gaza, particularly after the crimes they committed on October 7th, and also in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah, given that Hezbollah rockets have emptied out northern Israel.
I strongly condemn the theft of Palestinian territory and possessions in the West Bank by armed aggressive Israeli settlers - that the IDF is making no effort to halt.
The Israeli government does not get given a blank cheque for their actions, particularly with some rather unpleasant extreme nationalists in the Cabinet. The settler violence in the West Bank are only alienating supportive international opinion against them.
You do know that the “West Bank”, is in fact Judea/Samaria. It was renamed the West Bank, by Jordan, when it invaded in 1949, illegally annexed the territory & gave it the new appellation. It purged the region of its Jews & destroyed their structures including many synagogues. Jews had lived in that area continually for over 3000 years. The Arab population was fine with this - didn’t call the territory “Palestine”, & were extended Jordanian citizenship. By the way, ALL of Jordan was originally allocated as part of the Jewish state. You might want to check how that didn’t work out. It seems fine to take from the Jews, what in fact is their historical homeland. You might want to ask why that’s okay, as well. Israel took that territory back legally under international law in the Six Day War. Again, à fact largely ignored. I mean that their retaking was LEGAL!
According to Jews, saying that Jews need faith in Jesus to be saved is antisemitic. If Christianity is antisemitic there is no point in trying to avoid the term. Just embrace it.
Saying "according to Jews" is meaningless. I can come back thinking of a different group of Jews and say "according to Jews, saying Jews need faith in Jesus to be saved is in no way antisemitic."
While yes, there are many factions among the Jews with differing opinions, on this subject they are fairly consistent. It is the Jewish lobbying groups like the ADL, SPLC, and various Holocaust memorial organizations that tend toward the more extreme view that expressions of Christianity that the Jewish people need Christ are antisemitic. Rather than having a discreet definition, Antisemitism has come to mean anything Jews dislike.
Yes.
Do you think they will let you?
No, you can not under any circumstance criticize Israel and not be called an antisemite.
That is how they set up narrative
Absolutely. It is a feature, not a bug.
Any term that seeks to create an exclusion zone for critical thought is imposing power upon intellectual and ethical sovereignty. It can only infuriate the enduring human impulse to speak truth to power.
Unless you completely support the Jewish/Israeli, or Israel/Zionist positions, interests, beliefs and demands, then you WILL get called "anti-Jewish" ("anti-Semitic") because you are, obviously, not SUPPORTING them entirely.
Consequently, they - that is, the ones who will use this smear - will see you as "anti-them", and therefore call you "anti-Jewish".
This "smear" confuses a lot of normal people who imagine that it is meant to mean that you "dislike" or "hate" the Jewish people.
But that is not the meaning in which the smear is being used.
It is simply the phrase that they will call you if you do not ALWAYS submit/surrender/abdicate your sovereignty to their position, interest, belief or demand on any particular matter.
It's not any more complicated than that.
The only way to deal with it is to say something like "Well, I certainly don't hate anybody, but I certainly oppose the policy on...(whatever)."
Yes.
Canada's antisemitism or hate speech laws have a capital punishment . I was the only one who was warning . https://youtu.be/DQORRZ3VKeA
In theory? Yes. In practice? No, because the accusations has been weaponised.
Which will be darkly funny once the inevitable “boy who cried wolf” moment arrives.
Reason guided by prudence.
Yes BUT what one often sees is those most critical of Israel are for "Palestine" or the government of Iran or for Islamism, or at least are soft on these three and the like. Those are definitely anti-semites.
Interesting. Not in my circles. I am against Hamas and Israel. Against Islam and Judaism. Against Zionism and Globalism.
I am for Christian nations. ✝️
Yes, and I appreciate your outspokenness on how Islam is not compatible with the West. I also detest Globalism, which is practically treason against Western nations. But I am probably something of a soft Zionist. I think Israel has the right to exist and Jews have the right to that nation. But then I would say the same about the Irish, the English, the Italians, etc.
It is a consistent argument.
I would say nations do not have rights, people do. And we had nations through sheer force and political will. Which is why if we lose the West, it is on us.
Everything by the Grace of God, of course.
What about nations founded and defined by the Father?
We need to de-couple several things here.
First, the Israeli Government is not “Israel”.
Secondly, the Israel of the Bible was primarily a people, not a land. The descendants of Jacob.
But back to your questions. The short answer is yes you can criticise the Israeli government and not be an antisemite - if you have consistency.
Do you criticise the “(alleged) persecution of Christians” but are silent about the massacres of Christians in Nigeria?
Do you criticise the “(alleged) human rights abuses” but are silent about China, Iran and Russia?
Do you criticise the formation of the country as “a colonial project” but are silent about the formation of Pakistan, Syria and Lebanon, or pretty much every other country in the world?
Criticising the Israeli government does not make you an antisemite but ONLY criticising the Israeli government suggests ulterior motives.
Do you never refer to “China” when referring to the current regime?
Not really, I say CCP.
I can only wonder at your Scriptural ignorance. Something God has made clear in His Word is that the nation of Israel/ the Jewish people, are irrevocably & eternally tied to that land, because He Himself has ordained it so.
There is so much prejudice in the Church towards the Jewish people & their continued identity as Israel/God’s Chosen, & that is due to something called Supersessionism, which has blinded the gentilized Church to the truth.
I’m genuinely confused what any of this has to do with Father Calvin’s initial question. The existence of Israel or its merits wasn’t the topic.
I am curious though, when you say “make Israel a normal country” what do you mean
Huge swathes of society do not insist that if you fail to - at least implicitly - believe that Russia is a beacon of pax hominibus bonae voluntatis then it means that you want all Russians to be killed.
When Russia was the USSR, nobody imagined that by saying “The USSR is. terrible country and should be shut down” the speaker would mean “all Russians should die or be killed,” but regarding Israel that is the accusation peddled by Zionists.
The more a pernicious falsehood is accepted as truth, the more urgent becomes the need to identify it as false and to criticise it. Nobody normal is saying, “You want to see an example of good brotherly love and virtuous living? Check out Sudan.” But millions of people say such lies about Israel.
So, yes: it warrants more explicit condemnation and more regular criticism.
“More” criticism? Have you been reading socials and watching the news the last 3 years? One thing Israel is not lacking is regular criticism.
And the USSR is not a great comparison. Firstly it wasn’t a country, it was a Russian ruled federation. It literally stands for Union of Soviet Social Republics.
Here’s why that’s important. Calling for a destruction of the USSR doesn’t mean the destruction and death of Russians; it simply means a retreat from the foreign countries the Russian Communists ruled without consent. For the modern state of Israel abolishing it means death to the Jewish population.
Here’s my point. Why does criticism of Israel so often lead to calls of its destruction? No other country has that.
I am a very loud critic of Bibi Netanyahu and his cronies but that doesn’t automatically mean I believe Israel should be abolished. I believe in the theological and moral right of the state of Israel to exist.
My criticism is out of love. Just like when the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isiah criticised Israel they didn’t wish for it to be destroyed. They were demanding it does better as a covenant people, stops the sin and returns to the right worship of God.
Yes, I get to see plenty of Zionist talking points and hasbara. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in another comment, many members of my religion (Judaism) have succumbed to this diabolical worldview which is antithetical to the religion they claim to profess.
your point about the USSR only emphasises my own point: nobody thought calling for the end of the USSR meant that everyone in all those countries should be killed.
Similarly, there is *nobody* (except for people with no influence at all typing from their basements) who is saying that the Jews in Israel should be killed. Make Israel a normal country; not one in which atheists LARP as slayers of Canaanites.
When the British were on the verge of withdrawing from Palestine, after years of terrorism and murder by Zionist (and Arab - but mostly Zionist) groups, the orthodox Jewish community begged the UN not to put the Zionists in charge of the country, saying they wanted to be ruled by the Muslims instead. Today, I'd much rather see Israel run by the Vatican, the UN, Saudi Arabia - almost anyone but Zionists would be an improvement for the entire world.
Another difference with Israel is that it has only ever existed as a manifestation of this supremacist, oppresive, atheistic ideology. Don't let its homonym with the Biblical term fool you. Communist Russia and Nazi Germany had histories to reference after the fall of their bad regimes. Communism and Nazism were bugs, not features, of those countries. Zionism is not a but or feature of Israel - Israel is a feature of Zionism.
I was a teenager when the Yom Kippur war broke out in 1973. I watched the news and read news paper reports. I didn't feel the need to take to the streets and wave a flag in support of either side. I remained neutral for 30 years or so, until the Iraq war.
Before the war, many people thought that once the dictator Saddam was gone, Iraq could prosper like Germany after WW2. In the event, there was soon a Sunni-Shia war going on with Al Qaeda/Isis on the Sunni side and the Iranian regime supporting the Shia.
They set off car bombs in crowded streets, kidnapped and tortured people and sent suicide bombers into mosques. There would have been a bloodbath if Western soldiers hadn't very actively identified and attacked the jihadists. I saw one former SAS man on a videoclip saying he had taken part in over 1000 "kick the door in" missions against bomb factories and terrorist safe houses.
All this led me to a study of islam, and that led me to the realisation that islam is the most evil ideology ever devised. It's much worse than fascism - after all, the Nazis didn't mutilate their own daughters or encourage their own children to become suicide bombers.
Once you realise what Israel is up against, you can no longer be neutral.
Oct 7 was no some aberration or mistake; Israel's enemies live only to engage in mass murder, gang rape and torture. They are completely obsessed.
Israel's critics fall into two groups. Those who don't understand Israel's enemies and those who do know what Israel faces and suppport the barbarians anyway.
The first group may be regarded as useful idiots. The second group are clearly evil.