The Mis-Education of a Young Evangelical

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Anglican Friends of Israel

By Dexter Van Zile

For the past year, audiences of Christians in the United States and Great Britain have been treated to an anti-Israel extravaganza, With God on Our Side. Produced by Rooftop Productions in 2010, this 82-minute movie purports to be a documentary about Christian Zionism and its impact on the prospects for peace between Israel and its adversaries in the Middle East.

The movie fails as an honest documentary about the Arab-Israel conflict but as piece of propaganda, it succeeds spectacularly. Not only does it portray Israel as born in original sin and singularly responsible for the Arab-Israeli conflict, it provides a model by which young Evangelical Christians in the United States can break ranks with their faith community which is largely pro-Israel and ignore Islamist hostility toward Israel in good conscience.

The centerpiece of the movie is its narrator, Christopher Harrell. Harrell, a twenty-something graphic designer (and recent film school graduate), plays the role of an ersatz Dante as he is led by various Virgil-like commentators through the hellish aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In his journey, Harrell is purged of his juvenile and unreflective support for the Jewish people and the modern state of Israel – which he got from his family. In Harrell’s first few scenes, he is shown undergoing a dark night of the soul, struggling with his conscience and incomplete understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict with a stained glass window in the background or while sitting in a pew.

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The Days of Awe… Al Chait Shechatanu

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Anglican Friends of Israel

by Gerald A. Honigman

Jews began the “Ten Days of Awe” this year on Wednesday evening, September 28th (days are counted Biblically, a la the evening and the morning were the first day). Due to the lunar nature of the Hebrew calendar, the dates fall out differently each year on the Western calendar.

The High Holy Days start with Rosh Hashanah and end with Yom Kippur each new year, with a confession of sins (Al Chait Shechatanu) committed in the eyes of G_d. Additionally, it is required that transgressions committed against fellow human beings be addressed separately as well. Without a true turning of the heart in attempts to rectify both (t’shuvah), the confessions and fasts associated with the High Holy Days remain meaningless.

In terms of Arab-Israeli politics, Jews have been accused of countless sins by much of the rest of the world. As is noted in terms of yet another Jewish holiday–Passover–Jews consider it regrettable that any hardship has to be suffered by anyone–even enemies sworn to their destruction.
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Mahmoud Abbas and the Arafatian Jesus

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Anglican Friends of Israel

by Gerald A. Honigman

On September 23, 2011, Mahmoud Abbas officially demanded that the United Nations create Arab state # 22–the second, not first, Arab state within the original 1920 borders of the Mandate of Palestine. Jordan was carved out of some 80% of the total area after 1922.

Among other fictions Abbas included in his speech was his purposeful neglect to mention any historical Jewish figures connected to the land. While mentioning Muhammad and Jesus, he deliberately left out the people of whom Jesus was a part of. This was no accident; indeed, it is part of a pattern Arabs have displayed for quite some time now. You see, airplanes are not the only thing that Abbas and his earlier Arafatian predecessors have sought to hijack. Follow me closely below to see what I mean…
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The downgrading of the Palestinian UN bid

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Anglican Friends of Israel

Herb Keinon, writing in the Jerusalem Post, suggests that Israel is not as isolated as it sometimes seems.

Distinct similarities are beginning to emerge between the “freedom flotilla” that was supposed to set sail for Gaza from Europe this summer with “1,500 activists in 15 ships,” and the Palestinian’s unilateral statehood bid that PA President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to launch Friday at the UN.

Both were accompanied by sound and fury and expectations of what these “dramatic, historic” steps would signify.

Both were accompanied by nightmare predictions, here and abroad, of the damage that would be caused to Israel, and of how it would further isolate our already badly isolated country.

Both were held up as evidence of this country’s impotence and the failure of its diplomacy. Both were used to strike fear into the hearts of the populace that things have rarely been worse.

In the end, the vaunted flotilla ended with a whimper as the Greeks prevented it from setting sail, and only one vessel with a motley handful of radical leftists and journalists took to the seas, easily intercepted by the navy.

And while the Palestinian UN gambit is still a work in progress, there, too, the buildup is shaping up as being much greater than the climax.

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Palestinian incitement against Israel

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Anglican Friends of Israel

A briefing from Beyond Images:

What is Palestinian incitement against Israel?

Palestinian Arab incitement against Israel takes several forms.  For many years Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has published reports chronicling this incitement, which are based on Palestinian primary sources such as the media, state bodies, mosque sermons, and schoolbooks.  See the PMW website at www.palwatch.org.  PMW places incitement into the following categories (among others):

  • Denial of Israel’s right to exist
  • Depiction of all of modern Israel as part of Palestine
  • Demonisation of Jews and Israelis via words and images
  • Denial of Jewish and Israeli history and of connection to the land
  • Portrayal of children as legitimate combatants
  • Glorification of past Palestinian suicide bombings
  • Maps, photographs and cartoons which erase Israel altogether
  • Depiction of suicide bombing ‘martyrs’ as role models for Palestinians
  • Naming of summer camps, schools and public squares after terrorists
  • Refusal to acknowledge and educate about the Holocaust

These are commonplace in Palestinian society: not just in Hamas-run Gaza, but in the Fatah-controlled West Bank.

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