Tag: Palestinians

What Does It Mean to “Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem”?

If you are unfamiliar with something called Christian Zionism, allow me to introduce you to it.

Christian Zionism (CZ) is a kissin’ cousin to the ideology called political Zionism which governs the modern nation-state of Israel. CZ is a similar political ideology that draws from the Bible to defend the Jewish, Zionist conquest of Palestine in 1948 as the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy.

Psalm 122, especially verses 6-9, is commonly cited by CZ folks as setting God’s spiritual goal posts for his future work in the land of Israel. The psalmist says:

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
    “May those who love you be secure.
May there be peace within your walls
    and security within your citadels.”
For the sake of my family and friends,
    I will say, “Peace be within you.”
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
    I will seek your prosperity.

Establishing peace in the literal city of Jerusalem, as the physical capitol of territorial Israel, will be the centerpiece of God’s work of ushering in the New Heavens and the New Earth according to my CZ friends.

I just finished reading an article by a CZ scholar who quotes Psalm 122 while concluding with a plea for the end of conflict in Israel/Palestine — notably, while seeming to assume that the Jewish people will maintain their ethnic domination over resident Palestinians.

Reading this scholar’s quotation reminded me that I was recently interviewed by the good folks at ChristianZionism.org. We had a friendly conversation about the events in my life that led me to write my book, Like Birds in a Cage: Christian Zionism’s Collusion in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People.

Perhaps you will be interested in my story. I also talk briefly about life in a Palestinian refugee camp.

The final question my friend asked me was to explain the meaning of Psalm 122. So I did, applying what I will call the New Testament, “apostolic” method for reading the Old Testament (as I explain in my book).

It comes out very differently than the interpretations offered by my CZ brothers and sister.

You can read my entire interview here.

I have excerpted the interview below by posting my answer to the question, “Scripture tells us to ‘pray for the peace of Jerusalem’ (Ps 122:6). What should that look like?”

I am convinced that this is the proper Christian response to the question:

Psalm 122 is a “psalm of ascent” that was sung by ancient pilgrims as they travelled to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the center of Jewish worship because the city’s temple was God’s earthly residence. The psalmist’s calls for peace and harmony within the city and among God’s congregation of worshipers (verses 6 – 9), visualize the blessings of God’s presence reflected in harmony among God’s people. Christians today understand that our incarnate Savior, Jesus Christ, was the new temple of God’s presence here on earth (John 2:19 – 22; 4:21 – 24), who is now seated on David’s throne (verse 5) inside the heavenly temple at the right hand of God (Hebrews 1:1 – 4). An earthly temple is no longer needed. We now pray for the expansion of God’s peaceable kingdom on earth: for all of God’s people throughout the world to reflect the peace of Jesus Christ as they worship together and work together to extend God’s peace to the world around them. The New Testament vision of “the peace of Jerusalem” extends far beyond the provincialism, territorialism, and ethnic nationalism embraced by Christian Zionists.

As Israel Claims It only Acts in Self-Defense, It Is a Good Time to Remember the Deir Yassin Massacre

Dina Elmuti retells her grandmother’s story of fleeing the massacre by Israeli troops of well over 100 Palestinians in the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin in 1948.

Fatima Radwan on a visit to Deir Yassin in 2015. Photo by Dina Elmuti 

Many Israeli historians insist that the massacre never happened.

Elmuti’s grandmother says otherwise. She is living testament to the inhumanity of war, whether it is a Jewish war against Arabs or an Arab war against Israelis.

Below is an excerpt from Elmuti’s article at the Electronic Intifada. It’s entitled “Deir Yassin Makes a Mockery of Israel’s ‘Never Again” Pledge.”

As Israeli security forces continue to ravage the people of the West Bank, now is a good time to remember what happened at Deir Yassin.

. . . Earlier that same morning, my great-grandmother, Aziza, and her oldest daughter, Rifka who was 13 at the time, went to the village bakery to bake bread. That was something they did each morning as their homes were not equipped with ovens.

My grandmother, nearly 10, and her five younger siblings remained at home.

A tribute to child survivors of the Deir Yassin massacre; Fatima Radwan is pictured in the middle of the top left row. Photo by Dina Elmuti

Inside the bakery, my great-grandmother and great aunt witnessed a horrific scene that continues to haunt me. My grandmother often shared this story with us because she believed it was our responsibility to never forget.

While holding villagers in the bakery hostage, Zionist soldiers ordered the baker, Hussein al-Shareef from the town of Lydd, to throw his son Abdul Rauf into the burning oven. After refusing, the soldiers knocked Hussein to the ground and proceeded to throw Abdul Rauf into the oven while his father watched.

“Follow your son. He needs you there,” said one of the soldiers before throwing Hussein in next.

These are among scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history. Yet, this memory often remains too controversial to share.

Telling it challenges the myths that Israel has manufactured.

Following the gruesome scene, soldiers took the captive villagers and paraded them through the streets of Jerusalem. That is how Zionist forces celebrated their “victory” in Deir Yassin.

Upon returning to the village, the male villagers were lined up against the stone quarry wall and executed. Bodies riddled with bullets were then dumped into a mass grave and set aflame.

Approximately 110 villagers were massacred. Untold hours of human life, gone up in flames. . . 

You can read the entire article here.

How Would You Respond?

The escalating violence instigated by the Israeli military in the West Bank continues unabated.

The numbers of dead, wounded, and arrested Palestinians far exceeds the number of Israeli civilians killed last week in Israel. But this is par for the course.

Israel’s vengeance against the undifferentiated “mass” of neighboring Palestinians always far exceeds the damage done by isolated acts of Palestinian violence.

God intended to curb the ancient urges for Israelite vengeance with his rule of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Modern Israel, however, has kicked that rule to the curb.

Israel now insists on a dead body for an eye, or five of their dead or injured for one of ours.

The two videos below are only a tiny portion of the many available reports that western, corporate media deliberately ignore.

I challenge you to ask yourself, How would you respond to such treatment?

When Will Israel’s Jewish Citizens Uniformly Condemn Their Country’s Institutionalized Terrorism Against Palestinians?

The recent flurry of seemingly random shootings committed by Palestinian men in Israel has spurred a new wave of demands that Palestinian leaders “condemn these acts of terrorism” against innocent Israeli civilians.

Naturally, every Christian should certainly condemn these acts of violence and grieve with the victims’ families.

However, as I mention in my book, Like Birds in a Cage, such attacks are extremely rare. Their rarity is especially noteworthy when we recall that millions of Palestinians are subjected to Israel’s state-sponsored terrorism on a daily basis throughout Gaza and the West Bank.

For those of us who follow this story, it is not unusual to read weekly accounts about Israeli soldiers demolishing Palestinian homes and property, cutting down family olive groves, or  attacking, beating, arresting, and shooting Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and old men.

What amazes me about Palestinians in Israel/Palestine is how docile they remain in the face of Israel’s unrelieved terrorist campaign against them.

Below are excerpts from two recent pieces in Haaretz newspaper written by the Israeli journalists Amira Hass and Gideon Levy. Click on the titles to read the entire articles.

Hass and Levy speak for the small minority of Israeli Jews who faithfully cultivate a humanitarian conscience, seeing Palestinians as fellow human beings equal to themselves.

First, Hass’ article, “For the Palestinians in the West Bank, It’s an Exception, Not a ‘Terror Wave” (all emphasis in mine):

While the Palestinian public understands the attackers’ motives, the vast majority does not choose this path, which does not advance their cause, and has reservations about targeting civilians. But condemnation? Let Israelis first condemn the violence they exercise against Palestinians.

The three acts of murder-suicide perpetrated by four Palestinians — from both sides of the Green Line — in less than two weeks only highlight the absence of a leading political Palestinian body, employing a single, clear and unifying strategy. The attacks reflect internal divisions and the painful awareness of Palestinian weakness and inability to act in the face of Israel’s might. On the other hand, the fact that so few choose this route, despite its availability, indicates a broader political understanding that such attacks do not further the Palestinian cause.

The vast majority is voting with its feet: it knows that individual wolf attacks driven by despair or revenge have not, are not and will not achieve a thing. They won’t change the balance of power. The Palestinian public in the West Bank understands this without being thus directed from above, without open public discourse on the topic and while its political organizations, mainly those of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, are at their lowest point in terms of power and public confidence — and are in conflict and competition with one another more than ever before.

Every Palestinian, on both sides of the Green Line, has many reasons to wish that Israelis feel pain, because it’s they and not only their government that are responsible for the Palestinians’ predicament. It’s likely that this was the desire of the four suicide-murderers — regardless of their background, family circumstances or individual character. Israelis immediately know, since there is an entire apparatus disseminating such information, which attacker had been arrested previously, after which attack candy were handed out and next to which assailant’s house young people celebrated (with total disrespect for the family’s pain). But Israelis, on the whole, are not interested in the extent to which Israel, and they themselves, as its citizens, constantly and for many decades have been harming Palestinians, as individuals and as a people.

This huge gap between specific knowledge and willful lack of knowledge is sufficient to explain why the Palestinian public in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is indifferent to the recent attacks by individuals, whether committed by Israeli citizens or West Bank residents, and is not obeying Israeli demands to condemn the murders. What is noteworthy is not that the attackers have escaped the Shin Bet’s attention, but that despite their understanding for the assailants’ motives, the vast majority of Palestinians do not choose to take this route.

Thousands of Palestinians without a work permit openly enter Israel every day through the multiple gaps in the separation fence. This has been going on for years, with the full knowledge of the army and police. As everyone knows, there are ample weapons and ammunition among the Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank. These two facts could have engendered many more revenge attacks by individuals that could not be discovered in advance, both by Palestinian citizens of Israel and by West Bank residents. Even if copycats crop up in the coming weeks, like the screwdriver attack on Thursday, for Palestinians, the number of these attacks pales in comparison to the extent of the injustice Israel inflicts on them, and its systematic nature.

Every Palestinian has good reason to desire cracking the false normalcy enjoyed by Jewish citizens, who by and large ignore the fact that their state is acting tirelessly, day and night, to dispossess more Palestinians from their lands and their collective, historical rights as a people and society. In order to achieve this goal, Israel maintains a continuous regime of oppression. 
Second is an excerpt from Gideon Levy’s piece entitled “The Palestinian Perspective on the Terror Attack.”
Raad Hazem was born on Kaf Tet B’November, 1993 – November 29, the date of the 1947 United Nations vote to partition Mandatory Palestine. He was born into the hope of the Oslo Accords and grew up in the catastrophe of Operation Defensive Shield. He was nine when the Israeli tanks invaded his refugee camp, destroyed its center and killed 56 of its inhabitants. This boy saw in the streets bodies that could not be buried until the army left, tanks that crushed the homes and cars of residents whose lives were wretched and a bulldozer that flattened the camp and “turned it into Teddy Stadium” – the home field of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team, whose most vocal supporters are the notoriously anti-Arab La Familia group – as the digger’s driver bragged.

“Raad” means thunder in Arabic. On Thursday evening he sat on a bench on Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street for 20 minutes before he stood up and began shooting at people around his age who were enjoying happy hour at Ilka Bar. In the picture that was posted later he looks handsome; in a different picture, in which he clutches two rifles, he appears enraged and frightening. Hazem killed Tomer Morad, a mechanical engineering student; Eytam Magini, a computer science, psychology and neuroscience student; and Barak Lufan, a former Olympic athlete and the head coach of Israel’s national kayak team. All of them, like him, were young men.

It’s hard to imagine better casting for this story. No one can know for sure what went through his head, but we can assume that Hazem wanted to live the lives of his victims. He didn’t have even the smallest chance. He, too, would have wanted to study neuroscience or mechanical engineering, or to coach kayaking. He too would have wanted a happy hour. He would have wanted to serve in the military, like them, maybe even in an elite unit whose members boast about it. But he was born into a reality from which it’s impossible to escape into the worlds of his victims on Dizengoff. He couldn’t even get to Dizengoff the direct way, imprisoned as he was in his refugee camp, prohibited from entering Israel. He probably never saw the sea, and certainly not a kayak. Instead, he saw soldiers invading his camp almost nightly, mistreating and humiliating its residents, and members of his parents’ generation fighting and dying with courage and determination that have become iconic. There is no place as militant, armed and brave as the Jenin refugee camp.
The bench on Dizengoff was removed by security forces after the attack, in order to collect physical evidence of the man who had sat on it, when he was still unknown. But no DNA analysis can tell his story, just as a thousand police officers couldn’t find him when he was on the adjoining street. Police, Border Police, Shin Bet security service, Sayeret Matkal, Shaldag, Yamam, Yasam, Lotar and all the other military forces will never extinguish the fire of this struggle. All of these organizations, which train for years for exactly this moment, whose budgets exceed those of the health and education systems together, are no match for one resolute descendant of refugees in the moment of truth.

It was a mirror image that could have been from a movie. Young people from the same country, sitting across from each other: the so-called stranger on the public bench, tense and agitated, facing locals in a bar on Thursday evening. In the days preceding the terrible night friends of the guys in the bar, soldiers and Border Policemen, killed five young people in his refugee camp, and now he sets out to kill them indiscriminately.

The people facing him are the characters he would like to be, with the life he would like to live, the freedom and the opportunities he too would like to have. He wants to make his existence known and say: If I don’t have that life, those rights, you who sit in the bar facing me will also never have them. That’s the whole story. On top of it one can build piles of intelligence and weapons, punishment and deterrence, theories about bloodthirstiness and moral judgment, about murder and killing, war plans, operations and fences. In the end, that’s the story. This and no other. Nothing can beat it.

How Israel Steals Palestinian Land

The massacre of Palestinian villagers at Tantura in 1948 was one of many similar horrific, criminal acts committed by the Israeli military during the founding of modern Israel.

Professor Ilan Pappe

The Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has documented an additional thirty-one confirmed massacres of unarmed Palestinian civilians, including women and children, with the possibility of another six needing further investigation.

This video from the Middle East Eye focuses on the Tantura massacre. Pappe describes the Israeli killing spree in some detail in his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, pages 133-137. As many as 230 villagers were executed at Tantura, lined up and shot in the back of the head.

 

 

 

Why Israel’s “Peace” Negotiations Have Always Been a Farce

Future Israeli Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, recently announced, “When I am prime minister, we still won’t hold negotiations with the Palestinians.”

In one sentence, Lapid brazenly let the proverbial cat out of the bag. For the truth is that Israel has never been an honest negotiating partner in the Palestinian/Israel peace process.

Israel’s Likud party, which has been the nation’s dominant political party since the time of Menachem Begin (Israel’s sixth Prime Minister, 1977 – 1983), has it written into its party platform that Israel’s eastern border must extend to the Jordan River denying any possibility of a Palestinian state.

You can read the Likud party platform here in an article by Jonathan Weiler. Items one and three in the platform declare:

a. “The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel.”

c. “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”

So much for all the gibberish we have heard over the decades about Israel’s willingness to “exchange land for peace.”

Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy

Gideon Levy’s new article in Haaretz discusses the real world consequences of Israel’s historic hostility towards peace with the Palestinians. His piece is entitled “The Truth Will Set You Free.”

Below is an excerpt (all emphases are mine):

. . . This item [Lapid’s statement] didn’t make big headlines, which isn’t surprising, since there is nothing new here – aside from the spectacle of a minister telling the truth, if

Yair Lapid said he will not negotiate with the Palestinians when he is Prime Minister. Credit. Gil Eliyahu

only for a moment. Lapid deserves credit for revealing something that has long been known: There is no Israeli partner. No Israeli partner for ending the occupation, no Israeli partner for any solution, nor even an Israeli partner for negotiations. In truth, there never was, but now official Israel, for the first time in its history, is acknowledging as much. The explanation, as usual, comes from internal politics. “The coalition agreements prevent progress in this channel,” the prime-minister-in-waiting explained. . .

If an Israeli foreign minister had said something like this years ago, the sky would have fallen. No negotiations? None? The Americans would have issued condemnations, the Europeans would have been furious, the UN would have passed a resolution, Labor and Meretz would have threatened to quit the government. But now – no one bats an eyelid.

Lapid spared us all of that. He announced the end to the peace process ritual that has facilitated the many years of occupation. No one really thinks that Israel will get a more moderate government than this one in the coming years, and anyway the 50 years of moderate peace governments should have been enough to make us see that there is no one to talk to in Israel, no matter who is in power. Lapid is advancing one small but important step towards recognition of this fact. Now it needs to really sink in: There will be no solution, definitely not a two-state solution.

The possibility that the Palestinians will be doomed to another hundred years of apartheid cannot be dismissed. In fact, it is the most likely possibility. For who is going to extricate them from this apartheid, and how exactly can they extricate themselves from it? They’ve tried everything already. Now they at least understand, and the world too, that there is no chance of them having a partner, because Israel has coalition agreements.

The Americans won’t keep bugging us with their special envoys, the Europeans won’t keep issuing hollow statements of condemnation, nor will the UN, and the Quartet will die too. World leaders will no longer have to waste their time and honor on pointless talks about the Palestinian issue; for there’s no one to talk to about that in Israel. . . 

For anyone is interested in learning more about the reality of past “peace negotiations” and the dishonest coverage they receive in western media, here are a few good books to read:

Seth Anziska, Preventing Palestine: A Political History from Camp David to Oslo.

Naseer H. Aruri, Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine.

Rashid Khalidi, Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East.

Clayton E. Swisher, The Truth About Camp David: The Untold Story About the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process.

Zalman Amit and Daphna Levit, Israeli Rejectionism:  A Hidden Agenda in the Middle East Peace Process.

Israel Presents Zero Evidence to Justify Its Accusations Against Six Palestinian, Humanitarian Groups

Perhaps you are aware that the Israeli government recently accused six Palestinian humanitarian organizations in Israel of providing money-laundering services for terrorist organizations.

Naturally, the official announcement offered no substantiating evidence but promised to produce it later.

Well, now we have it.

As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports, the “evidence” presented to the US Congress has nothing to do with the six organizations in question but a seventh, entirely different group all together!

Below is an excerpt from the article entitled “In Congress, Israel Justifies Palestinian NGO Terror Tag with Evidence on Unrelated Group“:

The Shin Bet representative tasked with briefing U.S. Congress on Israel’s designation of six Palestinian civil society NGOs as terrorist groups presented evidence on an unrelated organization.

The document had previously been presented to European diplomats in May in an attempt to convince them to stop funding the organizations. Sources who were shown it at the time said it did not convince them. According to sources, additional evidence was presented to the U.S. State Department and other officials with higher security clearances. 

The document discusses a total of seven organizations: Six are the civil society organizations that Defense Minister Benny Gantz designated as terrorist organizations last week. The seventh, the Health Workers Committee, was designated as an unauthorized organization affiliated with the PFLP in January 2020. 

The Health Workers Committee is at the center of a trial in an Israeli military court that will begin in a few days. Israel is charging four of their employees with membership in the PFLP and inflating receipts to divert donor money for the organization’s benefit.

Read the entire article here.

Worse yet, Philip Weiss at Mondoweiss uncovers Israel’s real tactics and

Philip Weiss, journalist

motivation behind its attacks against these six NGOs in particular.

First, spurious “confessions” were obtained through torture.

Second, all six organizations have cases pending before the International Criminal Court accusing Israel of crimes against humanity.

Weiss writes:

Israel acted against the groups because they have been giving information to the International Criminal Court– whose prosecutor began a criminal investigation of Israel this year under a complaint filed by Palestine five years ago.

But surely, this must be a coincidence…

My New Book, Like Birds in a Cage, Is Now in Print and Available

I am happy to announce that my new book, Like Birds in a Cage: Christian Zionism’s Collusion in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People (Cascade, 2021), is now available.

So place your orders now (please!) and share what you learn with your family and friends. Just click this link.

Rather than talk about my own book, allow me to share a few of the recommendations the book has received from other scholars in this field:

A keenly reasoned, comprehensive, full-frontal critique of Christian Zionism. Equally at ease interpreting St. Paul, critiquing ideologies of privilege, deconstructing Israel’s discriminatory legal regime, and narrating scenes of unarmed, tear-gassed villagers, David Crump mounts a formidable case against the troubling logic, and deadly deployment, of ethnocracy and territorial exceptionalism. This prophetic call to walk not where Jesus walked, but as Jesus walked, is more urgent now than ever.

Bruce N. Fisk, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East

This new volume by David Crump may be the most comprehensive critique of Christian Zionism by an evangelical author to date. As a former ‘insider,’ his unique perspective has delivered a tour de force by combining scholarly biblical exegesis of key texts the incisive theological analysis. His solid grasp of the relevant political and historical context of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle adds context and texture to this wonderfully written book. I hope this volume will be widely read and reviewed across the evangelical spectrum by pastors, biblical scholars, students, and perhaps most urgently, evangelical politicians.

Don Wagner, author of Anxious for Armageddon

Like Birds in a Cage is destined to become a standard text on Christian Zionism in the USA. With devastating precision, Dave Crump exposes the cancerous nature of this deviant theology. For Evangelicalism to survive with any credibility, it must repudiate the justification of apartheid and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Crump’s book provides not only the diagnosis but also the cure.

Steven Sizer, Founder and Director, Peacemaker Trust

This book is quite unique in the way that it combines a sound grasp of the history of Zionism, careful interpretation of the Bible, and first hand, recent experience of everyday life for Palestinians living under occupation on the West Bank . . . My hope and prayer is that this book will help American Christians of all kinds to wake up to the very significant ways in which Christian Zionism has contributed — and continues to contribute — to this tragic conflict. They might then be more able to challenge their government’s policies.

Colin Chapman, author of Whose Promised Land?

Tell Your Senators That You Do Not Want to Pay $1 Billion for Israel’s “Iron Dome”

The US provides Israel with $10.5 million per day in military aid.

Yep, Israeli military might is primarily the product of US arms sales and foreign aid. We hand over approximately $3.5 billion to Israel every year. That’s more assistance than we give to any other country in the world, including the entire continent of Africa.

On Monday the Senate will vote on whether we should give Israel an additional $1 billion for its Iron Dome project. (Yep, that’s another billion on top of the $3.8 billion they already received in 2020!)

Rockets from Gaza and Iron Dome anti-missile rockets from Israel

Israel’s so-called Iron Dome is a “defensive” anti-missile system developed with US funding and expertise.  The record is conflicted over how effective it really is, but it figures prominently into Israel’s public messaging about its need to defend itself against rockets shot into Israel from Gaza.

How often do we hear this message: Israel has a right to defend itself!

But there are many problems with this picture.

First, let Israel spend its own money “defending” itself. Why not? The US has spent $300 million each day over the past 20 years on our foolish, destructive ventures in Afghanistan. More war mongering overseas is the last thing I want my tax dollars going to.

Let the Israelis pay for their weapons systems by themselves. They can afford it.

Second, yes, you read me correctly. I did write war mongering. The Iron Dome may be called a “defensive” weapons system. But a good many western visitors to Gaza have come away describing it as the largest open air prison in the world. In fact, others like the Jewish historian Norman Finkelstein have even compared it to a concentration camp.

I fully agree with folks like Dr. Finkelstein, in which case the Israeli military must be seen as the largest collection of concentration camp guards in the world.

So, here is my question: Do concentration camp guards have the right to defend themselves against prisoners who resist their abuse?

Think about it.

Would the guards at Auschwitz have had the right to shoot and kill the emaciated, dehumanized, Jewish prisoners starving to death around them had those prisoners revolted against their imprisonment?

The answer is, No.

Today we celebrate the stubborn, Jewish prisoners who revolted against their
German guards in the Warsaw ghetto. They are seen as heroes.

So, what makes Jewish concentration camp guards today any different from those German concentration camp guards in the past?

Nothing, my friends. Absolutely nothing.

Why, then, are American politicians asking US tax payers to finance the superior weaponry used by Israeli guards against the dehumanized and embattled people imprisoned within the Gaza concentration camp?

According to International Law, the Palestinians in Gaza have every right to resist their inhumane subjugation and strike back, even when that resistance includes rocket fire.

The truth of the matter is that the people of Gaza should have the US construct a Palestinian Iron Dome to intercept the innumerable rockets, bombs, missiles, and fighter jets that Israel launches against them on a regular basis.

Naturally, there is much more to be said about this situation. But I have already given reason enough for you and me both to call our senators in D.C. (either today or Monday morning) and insist that they NOT APPROVE another $1 billion for Israeli weapons systems.

Please click here and respond. The Palestinian prisoners will thank you.

Thanks.

Two New Publications Exposing the Many Failures of Christian Zionism and the State of Israel

The Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer

The Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer is an acquaintance of mine (I would call him a friend, yet we have only chatted on Facebook) who has written two very fine books about the dangers of Christian Zionism and the many injustices that Zionist Israel inflicts on the Palestinian people.

After receiving his MA in theology from Oxford University he became a long-time vicar in the Church of England at Christ Church, Virginia Water, in Surrey, England. He retired from parish ministry in 2017.

He is now the director of the charitable organization Peacemaker Trust.

Dr. Sizer’s two books are Zion’s Christian Soldiers? The Bible, Israel and the Church, and Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon?

Both books arise from Dr. Sizer’s doctoral research into the histories of dispensational theology (to which Christian Zionism has always been a favored handmaiden), the emergence of political Zionism in
Europe and Israel, and the relationships between the them.

I am very happy (and somewhat proud) of the fact that the publisher of my forthcoming book on Christian Zionism is also the publisher now reissuing both of Dr. Sizer’s important works.

Let me say again that I highly recommend them both!

Zion’s Christian Soldiers? is available for order HERE from the Wipf & Stock publications website. The second book, Christian Zionism Road-map to Armageddon?, will also become available from Wipf & Stock in the near future. So, keep your eyes open.

So why are Dr. Sizer’s books being reissued?

Both books were originally published by Inter-Varsity Press in the UK. Dr. Sizer quickly became public enemy #1 for the Israel Lobby and other pro-Israel, pro-Zionist apologists who immediately set their sites on him as their next target.

Consequently, he has been viciously slandered and attacked by people who care less about facts than they do about winning.

I suspect that the publisher, IVP-UK, came under great pressure to withdraw these books from their catalogue. I know that Dr. Sizer endured a tremendously savage campaign of pro-Zionist opposition, including all manner of slander and false accusations.

While I confess that I have not been privy to the details, I strongly suspect that, in the end, profit margins proved more important than principle to the publishing powers at IVP-UK.

Which now makes it all the more important that Dr. Sizer’s work is being reissued by Wipf & Stock in the USA. Hip hip hurrah!

As the voice of the Holy Spirit once said to St. Augustine, “take up and read.”