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National
Prayer Network
CRITICIZE ISRAEL, BLESS ISRAEL
By Rev. Ted Pike
6 July 10
In 2006, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu paid special tribute
to Irgun, the Jewish terrorist organization. He dedicated a plaque
at the rebuilt King David hotel, which Irgun had bombed in 1946, killing
91, primarily British. In 1948 Irgun slaughtered more than 100 innocent
Palestinian men, women, and children. Zionists then drove 800,000 panic-stricken
Arabs out of Israel to eventually inhabit concentration camps in Lebanon,
Gaza, and the West Bank. Netanyahu made it clear the terrorists’ blood
flowed in his veins. Irgun made the Jewish state possible and he was
profoundly grateful. By authorizing Israel's recent terrorist attack
on the Free Gaza flotilla, Netanyahu showed his likeness of spirit.
Yet as a result of unprecedented international criticism of Israel,
we are seeing the first hints of a tempering of Israel's reflexive
repression, even violence, toward the Arabs.
- Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan is emerging as an eloquent and
high-minded disciplinarian of Israel. Turkey is a NATO member and
has enjoyed friendly relations with Israel. After Israel's attack
on the flotilla, Erdogan castigated Israel more harshly than anyone—even
perhaps Ahmadinejad. He has severed much of the former economic and
military relationship with Israel, banning Israeli military flights
over Turkish air space. This is so uncomfortable to Israel that a
secret meeting was held last week between Israel's Industry, Trade
and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu. This was evidently Netanyahu's initiative. Yet,
Israel's hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (the same who
described the flotilla as "violent propaganda") was furious
that such a possibly conciliatory gesture could be made without his
knowledge or permission. He says Israel will never give the apology
and financial compensation to victims which Erdogan demands.
Clearly,
there are divergent points of view, even among hawks, in the government
of Israel. They are emerging largely as a result of the beneficial
influence of worldwide criticism.
- Netanyahu's conception of a commission of inquiry into the flotilla
attack is floundering. Earlier he made it clear he wants no "biased" international
probe into Israel's attack. Israel's inquiry, he has said, will
be limited to justifying its actions according to Israel's interpretation
of international law. It will also cast aspersions on IHH, organizer
of the flotilla and other allegedly pro-Hamas participants.
Only Israel's top-ranking military leadership will be allowed testimony.
Yet even the head of this kangaroo
commission, Supreme Court Judge Jacob Turkel, is disgusted with its
transparent intention to only whitewash Israel's actions. He says
he will resign unless given broader powers of inquiry. On Monay,
Israel's cabinet announced the scope of the inquiry will be broadened.
It is still a sham, excluding testimony from soldiers involved in
the flotilla raid, as well as survivors. Nevertheless, such mild
accomodation by the government of Israel is only happening because
of worldwide outrage.
- Israel's tentative lifting of the quarantine on supplies for Gaza
still remains so restrictive it lays bare the extent of Israel's
cruel, capricious, and arbitrary collective punishment of the people
of Gaza. Over the past several weeks, Israel has periodically announced
that, in addition to increase of trucks into Gaza, certain ludicrously
non-strategic items (such as ketchup, candy bars, etc.) will be allowed
in. Why were they ever banned? A big angst for Netanyahu recently
has been whether impoverished Gazan farmers should be allowed to
sell flowers and strawberries to the outside world. He is standing
firm that they should not. He says such would end Israel’s
last vestige of control over Hamas! Last week Israel allowed in a
little wood, such as in furniture, but not a single 2x4 which might
help build a bunker for Hamas -- or rebuild thousands of homes devastated
by Israel's bombardment of “Cast Lead.” On Monday, perhaps
to soften the visit of 5 EU foreign ministers to Gaza, Israel decided
to allow construction materials - if the Palestinian authority will
certify that their uses are non-military.
For years, human rights
groups have struggled to convince a skeptical and indifferent world
of Israel's punitive cruelty to the Gazans. Now Israel’s own psychopathic hardness is persuading us. Because
Israel has drifted light-years from any compassion to the Palestinians,
it does not know how to express mercy - even under international pressure.
Clumsily, Israel again opposes itself by dramatizing to the world’s
press the lifting of a few more unnecessary restrictions on the necessities
of life to the Gazans. It insanely believes it will be perceived as
generous. The opposite is true. The EU and parliaments throughout Europe
(the latest was Germany) unite in demanding Israel stop this pernicious
nonsense and decisively end oppression of the Gazans.
Such loosening
of Israel's chokehold can only be happening as a result of worldwide
indignation.
- The Turkish relief organization IHH, which orchestrated the flotilla,
has
published a 40-page summary of Israel's attack. It confirms
dozens of testimonies from survivors. It emphasizes that Israel launched
the attack on the largest vessel, the Mavi
Marmara, while actively shooting live ammunition from attack
boats and helicopters. Also, as Israeli commandoes descended to the
lower deck they were shooting into portholes and killing as they
came. It details that the more than 700 passengers taken captive
by Israel were treated despicably. Some were injured so badly by
the Israelis that they had to be hospitalized in Israel.
The testimony
of this respected Turkish relief organization (with more than 90
charity projects worlwide) is widely believed by European leaders
and parliamentarians and tens of millions. This pressures Israel
to subject itself to a thorough international investigation.
- Finally, criticism of the flotilla attack is indirectly helping
preserve freedom in Europe. The head of the European Jewish Congress,
Moshe Kantor, says
the situation of European Jewry is at its worst since the end of World War II. "Jews are afraid to walk the
streets with Jewish signs. Synagogues, Jewish schools, and kindergartens
require barbed-wire fences and security, and Jewish men, women, and
children are beaten up in broad daylight." Zionist defenders
of Israel, like this group and the Anti-Defamation League, routinely
exaggerate the magnitude of the anti-Semitic threat. (The World Zionist
Congress reported only six assaults on Jews in Russia in 2009). Violence
against Jews by Gentiles, like violence by Israel against Arabs,
is always contemptible. Yet Kantor's recommendation of how to end
anti-Semitism is also unfortunate. He does not encourage Israel to
cease hateful, violent behavior toward the people of Gaza. Instead,
he wants more hate crimes laws to be passed worldwide, criminalizing
with harsh penalties those who criticize matters Jewish!
That may not be so easy any more, especially in eastern Europe
and the former Soviet Union. In the annual report of its 56-member
hate crimes bureaucracy in Europe (the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe), the Anti-Defamation
League says that no less than 23 nations no longer respect their promises to pass
new hate laws and provide hate statistics to ADL. Nine nations "reported fewer than 10 hate
crimes and, in some cases, 0 hate crimes." ADL/B'nai B'rith are
being mocked, largely by nations of the former Soviet Union.
It is clear that the hate law enthusiasm ADL elicited in
European countries five years ago is declining. I believe it results
from at least two causes that work together. Since "Operation Cast Lead" 17
months ago, levels of "anti-Semitism" throughout Europe have
skyrocketed. (In Spain criticism of Jews and Israel exceeds 80 percent.)
This in itself would not be enough to alienate European nations against
hate laws. What is alienating is that many Parliamentarians and leaders
have now had time to observe the freedom-stealing fruits of hate laws
throughout the world. Such awakening has been assisted by the world's
premier educational website against hate laws, www.truthtellers.org.
Over the past five years, I have given over 700 internet and radio
interviews and truthtellers.org has
sent out at least 400 articles by myself and Harmony Daws, largely
against hate laws - always identifying ADL/B'nai B'rith as their architect.
At least 40 percent of the audience for my six hate law videos, broadcasts
and e-alerts exists in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Now,
with international anger at Israel at an all-time high, many of the
inhabitants, and probably leaders, of these nations know that Israel
and its PR rep ADL are the same. They know that to support ADL hate
laws is also to support an essentially Zionist global agenda to end
freedom.
Thus, again, worldwide criticism of Israel, plus at least five
years of uniting ADL with hate crime laws in the minds of Europeans,
is preserving freedom.
The Bible says: “rebuke a wise man and he will love you,” but “he
that hates reproof is brutish.” (Proverbs 9:8, 12:1) The evangelical
movement over the past century, by unconditional blessing and support
of Israel, has foolishly ignored Solomon's wisdom. As a result, Israel
has become the arrogant, violent, spoiled brat not only of the Middle
East but of the world.
In 1982, after Israel saturation-bombed 19,500 Palestinian refugees
into oblivion, Prime Minister Menachem Begin (who authorized the 1948
Deir Yassin massacre) said, “ Israel does not need to answer
to others, only to itself.” Time has shown, however, that as
a result of rejecting Jesus and His ethics of turning the other cheek,
Israel does not possess the necessary moral compass or compassion to
guide itself. The rest of the world, through enlightened and constructive
criticism, must help out.
Don't hesitate to really bless Israel with the healing balm
of salty Biblical reproof. All the prophets, including Jesus, did so.
True friends of the Jews do not seek the peace of Jerusalem by cursing
Israel with flattery and silence.
Rev. Ted Pike is director of the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative
watchdog organization.
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