Zionism

July 22, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

It is Time to Boycott the Boycotters!

I often write about the danger of the BDS movement. It has officially been going on for 16 years. It was started by Mahmoud Abbas (current leader of the Palestinian Authority), and Omar Barghouti. Abbas and Barghouti didn’t invent the boycott of Jewish people, products or inventions; they simply revived an age-old practice that was used in Europe in the 1930s. In my research and writing about BDS, I usually present a few ideas on how to fight that antisemitic concept. I have told people repeatedly that one of the best ways to fight BDS is to go to their website and buy and support the very products and companies they list as who should be boycotted. They did all the leg work for us, so let’s use their list.

Another way to fight BDS, and a very powerful one at that, is to educate those who are being fooled by its “social justice” agenda. We need to be informed about the real issues plaguing the Middle East and we need to be able to debunk the Palestinian narrative built on a false premise. Israel is not an apartheid state. It is the safest most productive place for Arabs to live in and work from. Israel is not committing ethnic cleansing since there a much more Arabs within the land today than there were prior to 1948 when it was reborn as a modern nation. Israel is not killing Palestinians indiscriminately, but carefully warning Gaza civilians about upcoming attacks on sites that Hamas specifically selected for their civilian population such as schools and hospitals.

Now, allow me to introduce you to one more way to fight BDS. Instead of just buying what BDS proponents say we should boycott–which is definitely a great start to counter BDS–we should seriously consider boycotting the boycotters. The principle is rather simple. Whichever company, organization, or personality supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement against Israel and the Jewish people, should in turn be boycotted by those who support Israel’s right to exist. It is simple in theory but requires three things: Sacrifice, commitment and integrity. Keep in mind that we should always pass everything through the very helpful “3D test” established by Russian refusenik and now in charge of Immigration to Israel, Nathan Sharansky. He posits that antisemitism can be defined by any combination of the three Ds: Demonization, Double-Standard and Delegitimization. He explains, “we must be clear and outspoken in exposing the new anti-Semitism. I believe that we can apply a simple test – I call it the “3D” test – to help us distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism. The first “D” is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel’s actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz – this is anti-Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel. The second “D” is the test of double standards. When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel’s Magen David Adom, alone among the world’s ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross – this is anti-Semitism. The third “D” is the test of delegitimization: when Israel’s fundamental right to exist is denied – alone among all peoples in the world – this too is anti-Semitism.”
Now, let’s look at the need for sacrifice, commitment and integrity:

• Sacrifice
We all have a long list of products, companies and personalities that we support and enjoy. Imagine finding out that your favorite actor or musician supports BDS and shows some serious signs of being anti-Semitic. Maybe your favorite product that you have bought for years is making wrong choices about boycotting Israel. Now you have to decide, should you look the other way, or should you stop sending them your money? This is not a trick question, because I constantly ask myself the same question, and unfortunately, more and more recently.
Take for instance the recent decision by Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream to stop selling their ice cream to the Israeli settlements in Judea/Samaria (improperly labelled the West Bank), or all of Israel if they could. It is entirely within their rights to do so, but it is also entirely within ours to stop buying Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. Is it possible to say that it is also our duty as bible believing followers of Yeshua and supporters of Israel to “defund Ben & Jerry”, to use a term that everybody can relate to? Now, apply that principle to other areas in your own life where BDS is infringing, and we can start making an impact by using the boycott principle where justified. I personally stopped eating their products last year when that went crazy against the police, and I kept it private, but I feel that now is the time to start spending our money more wisely. I could give you more examples of who to boycott, but I do not wish to unnecessarily be accused of character assassination by those who might miss my point. Instead, I will invite any of you to Google a specific brand, organization or personality with the word “boycott” or “BDS” and see the results. It is not complicated for anyone to find out who is against Israel. When in doubt, contact me privately. All this will require commitment on our part.

• Commitment
So, now that you have decided to boycott a product or a personality, you have to remain committed to that boycott, at least until they show that they have revised their position. We cannot boycott a TV channel on Monday through Friday, but look the other way on weekends because our favorite show is running at that time. We cannot boycott an actor or actress on some movies, but not others because they are part of our favorite movie list. We cannot boycott Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream except for one flavor because we cannot live without it. I get it, it would be a lot easier to boycott a brand of water and switch to another than to sacrifice and stop eating our favorite ice cream. We either boycott or we don’t, but there isn’t such a thing as a partial boycott. Once we commit, we commit. I have boycotted every single movie of one of my all-time favorite directors since 1988 when he directed a very blasphemous and offensive movie graphically portraying Yeshua in terrible sexual relationships. He has since come up with many movies that I would have loved to watch, but I am committed. Think before you commit or don’t commit because you will need to proceed with integrity.

• Integrity
A good definition of integrity from the Merriam-Webster dictionary is, “firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values” or “an unimpaired condition” or “the quality or state of being complete or undivided.”
Integrity has to do with being consistent according to a set of set values. Taking it to an extreme, we could argue that Hitler had integrity because he was very consistent in following his code of ethics or values which happened to be the destruction of all Jews. To be fair, this is not the way we think of integrity today. It is more related to morality and character. The point of integrity is that once we make a decision based on what we think is the best course of action, we have to be consistent. When I look at those who support and promote BDS, I see a lot of hypocrisy. They are willing to sacrifice for what doesn’t really hurt them, but they absolutely will not boycott what they cannot live without. Let us not be too quick to judge, because we might be partially guilty of the same at times. The idea is that if you accuse Israel of being an occupier, colonizer and apartheid state, and that you call for its complete boycott, then it should be a complete boycott. It’s easy for anyone to stop buying Jaffa oranges or Sabra® hummus, but it is a different story to refrain from using technology that was invented or co-invented by Israelis like cell-phone technology, thumb drives or even the Intel® chip for computers.

Looking at sacrifice, commitment and integrity, we all come to the realization that boycotting is easier said than done. Let the BDS promoters be inconsistent, hypocritical and without integrity, but for those of us who claim to love Israel and the Jewish people, the time has come to sacrifice and boycott the boycotters. If you decide to do so, why don’t you let your Jewish community leaders and synagogues know that you are boycotting the boycotters? That is, of course, after you have taken a minute to email the organization or product that you are boycotting to let them know that they are losing customers and why.

Time to speak up, time to act and time to stop eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!

July 5, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

6 Signs Reveal That We Are Back in the 1930s!

When I started the research in 2000 for my first book on antisemitism, I identified some troubling trends in the new antisemitism that were slowly becoming a reality. Most people looked at me funny when I claimed that what I was observing, appeared to be an ominous return to the 1930s and 1940s in Europe for the Jews. I was even called a conspiracy theorist, but it is only a conspiracy theory if it is not true, and as it turns out, my fears are now confirmed. We are in the 1930s and we haven’t seen the worst yet.

I have identified 6 signs revealing that we are in a 21st-century version of the 1930s. When we remember how that previous era ended for six million Jews, it should bring chills down our spine and it should really motivate people of goodwill in general and Bible-believing Christians in particular, to expose the lies and fight for the truth. The sad reality is that this time, not just the Jews are the target, but Christians as well. This being said, and as history has shown, the Jews are the first to be targeted and they are persecuted the most. There is a reason why antisemitism is often called the longest hatred.

1 – Demonization
Often, the first step in separating a people group from the rest of society is to make people believe that they are different in a negative and even dangerous way. This has been the stigma attached to my people for much of our history, from the Biblical record to the early Church Fathers to the medieval lords to the reformation to the Holocaust. Yet, it didn’t really stop because antisemitism never stops. Antisemitism is on a continuum that constantly reinvents itself to better attract more people towards hating the Jews. The demonization of the Jews is nothing new. We have been accused of crucifying Messiah from the day of the crucifixion to this day, a false accusation that can easily be debunked starting with the Bible in John 10:14-18, where Yeshua speaks of His death as a necessary part of God’s plan, and how He gave His own life for all and was able to take it back at His resurrection. Additionally, we have been called so many things from criminals to wild beasts to poisoners of wells to usurers to little devils to vermin and sub-human. The last two names were part of Nazi propaganda to dehumanize the Jews and facilitate their demonization. Vermin need to be exterminated for the safety of people, thus the Holocaust was thought of, justified, organized and six million times successful.
What about today? Are Jews still being demonized? You tell me. We are called the new Nazis of the Middle East, colonizers, occupiers, guilty of ethnic cleansing. The old antisemitism was going after the Jews in the Diaspora and the new antisemitism is going after them as well as Israelis and the Land of Israel as well. At the 2018 Convention of the Islamic Society of North America, American/Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour said, “if you’re on the side of the oppressor, or you’re defending the oppressor or you’re actually trying to humanize the oppressor, then that’s a problem sisters and brothers and we got to be able to say: that is not the position of the Muslim American community.” I don’t know about you, but when someone tells me that I am trying to humanize someone else, it must mean that they believe that someone else not to be human. If the Jews are not human, they become irrelevant to our society and demonization is ever so easier to commit. Linda Sarsour is closely connected to every member of “the Squad.”

2 – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
The BDS movement has officially been going for 16 years now. It was started by two men, one of whom we all know well, Mahmoud Abbas (current leader of the Palestinian Authority), and Omar Barghouti from Qatar, who incidentally received the Gandhi Peace Award in 2017 for his efforts towards peace in the Middle East. Boycott, in and of itself, isn’t bad; it all depends on who or what one is boycotting, the reasons they do so and of course the integrity of the boycott. Abbas and Barghouti didn’t invent the boycott of Jewish people, products or inventions; they simply revived an age-old practice that was used in the 1930s. Not long after coming into power, the Nazi leadership started to boycott Jewish businesses and Jewish professionals. On April 1, 1933, they decided to station stormtroopers in front of Jewish stores and paint yellow stars of David on storefront windows. The boycott officially lasted only one day, and many Germans ignored it. Nevertheless, it was the start of a campaign of ostracization that would lead to more boycotts and confiscation of Jewish property.
The modern BDS movement relies on the ignorance of those it targets as recruits. Being in the entertainment industry, on the political scene, in academia or even in various Christian denominations, BDS influences people who have blindly bought the Palestinian victimhood narrative. The very fact that Omar Barghouti received the Gandhi Peace Award in 2017 for peace efforts, shows the hypocrisy and lack of understanding of the facts in the Middle East. It is so sad to see so many people infatuated with a false narrative cloaked in the attractive garment of social justice. The BDS movement continues to tighten its grip on Israel and Jewish products, inventions and people (with much hypocrisy as they only boycott what is convenient to them), and financed by liberals like George Soros.

3 – Pogroms
The first pogroms occurred in Eastern Europe in the mid to late 1800s. They mostly occurred within what was known as the Pale of Settlement. The Pale (1791-1913) included about 20 percent of European Russia and much of present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine and parts of western Russia, for a total of about 1,000,000 square miles. About 90 percent of Russian Jews lived inside the Pale, growing from 1.6 million in 1820 to 5.6 million in 1910. Life was very difficult, and additionally, the pogroms (Russian for “devastation”) of the 1870s through the 1910s created a very hostile environment that exacerbated the miserable conditions in which the Jews lived. The first pogrom might have been as early as 1821 in Odessa, Ukraine. The official reason given for the hundreds of subsequent pogroms was the assassination of Alexander II in 1880, for which some blamed the Jews. Pogroms became government-sponsored riots against the Jews, and they claimed the lives of many in the little Jewish shtetls (hamlets) of the Pale. They included looting, rape and murder.
While today’s pogroms might not be government-sponsored, they are mostly ignored by the authorities. To be sure, we are not seeing major destruction of Jewish property and lives like in the 19th-century pogroms, but today’s new antisemitism is expressed in ways that come very close. Consider the destructive attack on Jewish neighborhoods in conjunction with the murder of George Floyd. Jewish businesses were attacked and looted in the Fairfax area of Los Angeles where many Jews live. Graffiti such as “Free Palestine” and “F…Jews” were spray-painted on walls. What this has to do with George Floyd still escapes me.

4 – Blood libels and other accusations
While the world is still trying to recover from the pandemic that changed everything, to some people, the Jews are to blame for the virus. This is nothing new for the Jewish people, but more of a repeat of what took place in the 14th century. By the mid-1300s, with the advent of the “Black Death” or “Black Plague”, the legend of the poisoning of the wells of Europe had found fertile ground. It was the most devastating pandemic in the history of mankind, responsible for the death of about 75 million people worldwide (25 million in Europe alone) from 1347 to 1350. It was four years of horror for the Jewish communities of Europe. As the rest of the continent appeared to be on its way to total extinction, people started to look for a cause and it was not long before the Jews were once again used as the convenient “scapegoats of humanity”. Jewish people also died during the “Black Death”, but generally in lesser numbers. The Kosher laws Jewish people followed forced them to maintain stricter hygiene and thus resulted in fewer infections and fewer deaths than the communities around them. The Jews also lived in separate communities and the liturgical washing of hands before meals also kept them from being as sick or dying from the Black Death. However, even with these known facts and traditions, it didn’t stop the masses from destroying – slaughtering – over 200 Jewish communities.
So, today, and around the world, some are blaming the Jews for creating the virus to benefit from the sales of a vaccine; which is a combination of the poisoning of the wells of Europe and the myth of the greedy Jew. They come from the left, the right and religious groups worldwide. Some even claim that the Jews are more dangerous than Covid-19 and should be eliminated. Social media is the big culprit in allowing antisemitic rhetoric to go unchallenged and unpunished. More than 17,000 occurrences of the phrase “Hitler was right” have been found on various platforms and very little has been done to stop it. Recently, a Twitter post by ex-congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) resurfaced where she claimed that Jews were behind 9-11

5 – Killings
Tragically, Jew-hatred rarely stops at the defacing of property or online threats. We have now entered a phase where Jews are being killed again. The Holocaust was the most devastating, organized genocide in the history of mankind. It was also the only of its kind where Jews were brought back to their death after they fled, making it incredibly unique. While the new antisemitism is not claiming the lives of Jews in the same manner and comparable numbers, just the idea that Jews would be massacred again should send chills down our spine. Perhaps France, more than any other civilized country, has seen the death of Jewish people in the last decade, and it is very alarming. This is why I believe beyond the shadow of a doubt that antisemitism has once again morphed into a more voracious beast: End-Times antisemitism.
The 2017 killing of Sarah Halimi in Paris, when she was thrown out the window of her apartment was one of the worst acts of antisemitic killing in recent years, and it is only one of several in 2012, 2015 and 2018. To add insult to injury, her killer was allowed to walk free without a trial because he had been found high on cannabis. This sets a precedent for the killing of Jews in France, and this should also be a wake-up call for French Jews. France is no longer a safe place for Jews. Let’s also not forget the Pittsburg Synagogue massacre and the one in San Diego. Jews worldwide now live in constant fear for their lives. It is not safe to walk outside with a yarmulke on your head or a star of David around your neck. They used to be potential targets for verbal abuse, but the abuse is now turning physical. It is not only on the streets that Jews are at risk. Just days ago, a bullet was fired at the window of a Brooklyn synagogue.

6- Apathy
As if all these signs weren’t enough to sound the alarm, there is one more aspect that must be brought up, and that is the apathy of the general public. For the most part, people don’t care about Jewish people being the victims of antisemitism. If they are not affected, they move on. This tragically is reminiscent of the Holocaust era when many looked the other way when trains overfilled with Jews passed through their towns. Even worse, as Erwin Lutzer documents in his book, When a Nation Forgets God, the story he heard from an eyewitness telling him how people would sing louder in church when they heard trains go through, packed with Jews in cattle cars: “I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. We heard stories of what was happening to Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it because what could we do to stop it. A railroad track ran behind our small church and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance, and then the wheels coming over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by. We realized that it was carrying Jews like cattle in the cars. Week after week the whistle would blow. We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to a death camp. Their screams tormented us. We knew the time the train was coming, and when we heard the whistle blow, we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church, we were singing at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more.”

The apathy of yesteryear is still contagious today. I am not surprised when people who do not believe in God act selfishly, but I am disgusted when people who call themselves Christians either denigrate the Jewish people or reenact the Holocaust era scenario and ignore the tragedy befalling my people today. The bystanders of the 1930s and 1940s are part of history, and please don’t go trying to cancel that! My disgust is with the bystanders of today; the apathy within and without the church is a clear sign that the Jews have very few friends who will come to their rescue in time of need. Incidentally, American Jews being oblivious to these signs is another mystery to me. How much do my people need to go through to accept the fact that we are back in the 1930s and 1940s?

May 29, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Time For Faith In Action: I Am Not A Bystander!

Only eighty years ago, the world was taken by surprise by the evil agenda of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. The intensity and frequency of the horrors inflicted upon European Jews was a shock to many and it was even hard to believe that such a country as Germany could descend so low in committing evil against fellow humans. The players in WWII can be identified as the perpetrators/collaborators (Nazis, French Vichy government, Fascist Italy), the victims (many minorities, handicapped, religious sects and of course, the Jews), the rescuers (many of whom became “Righteous Among the Nations”) and the bystanders (the many who looked the other way, and did NOTHING).

With resilience and by the grace of God, the Jewish people regrouped and grew again out of the ashes of Auschwitz, crying out to the world “NEVER AGAIN” as a testimony to the innocent victims and a commitment to never let it happen again. For a brief period of respite, the world believed that it would never happen again, but unfortunately, the global events of the last few decades have proven us wrong. Not only have we been proven wrong, but the morphing of racial antisemitism into anti-Zionism turned out to be the biggest lie that people are willing to buy. By renaming themselves anti-Israel or anti-Zionist, they believe that they are switching from anti-Semitism to social justice warriors or human rights advocates; thus, eliminating any sense of guilt they may have had in the past. The new narrative has grown very deep roots in the Western culture from the seed planted by Yasir Arafat and the PLO and watered by all the foes of Israel – including some within the evangelical world. The weed keeps growing as it continues being watered and even fertilized by the many. The victims are still the Jewish people and the perpetrators are all those who hate them in thoughts, words, or deeds.

There are still two groups left: the rescuers and the bystanders. As to the rescuers, I strongly believe that they will be what I call the “New Righteous Among the Nations”. Additionally, I believe that they should look at the prophecy of the goats and the sheep in Matthew 25:31-46 when Yeshua explains that during the Tribulation, those who will become believers will turn out to be rescuers of persecuted Jews. I do believe, however, that at the time of the Rapture, all believers will be taken prior to the Great Tribulation (also known as the Time of Jacob’s Trouble), there will be those who turn to Yeshua during the tribulation. Out of these believers, hearts will turn toward the Jewish people and they will aid in their rescue and protection. This is a very powerful model of love and service that we should ALL pay attention to today – Yesterday, for that matter!

You have always had those who turn in the innocent for their own benefit or what they are convinced is for their own good – all for selfish reasons. However, the bystanders scare me the most. Eighty years ago, Europe was plagued by Nazi antisemitism and collaborators like the French Vichy government. Those were the perpetrators that were transparent about their agenda; they were after the Jews at any cost. What about those who stayed in their apartments and peeked behind the blinders when the Gestapo came to take my grandfather away from his wife and daughter (my mother)? Were they scared? Did they feel powerless? Did they feel unconcerned because they were not Jewish – or they simply could not have cared less? Maybe it was a combination of some of these reasons or even all of them. However, the end result was a very large group of colleagues, neighbors and even friends who could have helped the Jewish people. Instead, they chose to look the other way and became co-perpetrators. I have said this for a long time: a bystander who does nothing only facilitates the crime of a perpetrator. In other words, doing nothing is still doing something.

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Fast forward to 2021, Israel was at war with Hamas for 11 days and much of the world watched in horror how the IDF was going after “innocent” Palestinians. The Palestinian narrative (read: propaganda) has been pushed through the media and various government agencies around the world with the advent of Arafat, it is now believed as truth. No fact-checking necessary. Those in media and government want Israel to feel alone and isolated. However, the Jewish people have the undeniable right to exist and to do it in their own ancestral, Biblical land that predates the Palestinian narrative by several millennia.

Evangelical Christians have had a history of support for Israel. After all, if you read your Bible correctly using a grammatical/historical method and paying attention to the context, it becomes extremely hard to deny the fact that God has a very special plan for Israel and the Jewish people whom He calls the “Apple of my eye” in Zechariah 2:8. Promises and covenants were made between God and Israel, and all of them but one, the Mosaic Covenant, were unconditional and eternal. This means that they are still in effect today and that God unconditionally promised certain things to the Jewish people. They are based on God’s character and not on Israel or the Jewish people’s performance. That history of support and love for Israel, which once was known as “Christian Zionism”, is eroding, especially with the newer generation of young evangelicals, as it drastically declined from 75% to 33% in just three years.

This still leaves us with a large group of Christians who genuinely love Israel and the Jewish people but allow me to be blunt: loving Israel doesn’t mean a trip to the Holy land, eating hummus and falafel and praying for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6.) Don’t quote me wrong, prayer ought to be at the foundation of all we do as modern-day followers of Yeshua, but it cannot stop there, especially today. Israel and Hamas are now experiencing a ceasefire, and I truly do not know how long it will hold. I would say at least until some tunnels in Gaza are rebuilt and the Hamas arsenal is somewhat replenished with rockets and missiles ready to be launched again on Israeli civilians. The ceasefire is in place in Israel, but there hasn’t been a complete ceasefire between Jews and their foes for the last 2000 years. Anti-Semitism is the conflict of all conflicts against the Jews. It is the longest and deadliest pandemic of all mankind, and right now it is picking up momentum like we’ve not seen or experienced since the Holocaust. It is global, it is vicious and it shows no signs of stopping.

I am somewhat encouraged by the various organizations getting involved to expose the lies, teach the truth and voice their outrage. They help educate people and hopefully call them to action. A call to action is exactly what I am praying I can do. I want to reach as many Christians as possible and challenge them to put their faith into action. Let’s see Genesis 12:3 come to life, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

I have designed a logo available on my Facebook page that reads: “I AM NOT A BYSTANDER, Genesis 12:3.” My hope is that people get ahold of it and post it everywhere on the net. Some people have already approached me to make signs, T-Shirts and hats…That’s great! What I really want you all to do beyond flooding the net with this image of support, is to call your Jewish Community Center, Synagogue or any other Jewish organization and tell them RIGHT NOW, when they need it the most: “Hello, my name is ________________ and I am not a bystander.” Let the Jewish community know that you are a Bible-believing Christian and that you have their back. Make yourselves available to help if Jewish property is defaced or destroyed. It is always the right time for prayer, but we all need to kick it up a notch because it is time for our faith to be in action. Some people even believe that the war against antisemitism has been lost. If it is true, and I certainly hope it is not, we have even more reasons to get involved in the lives of our Jewish friends and become the New Righteous Among the Nations. #iamnotabystander

April 1, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Jesus the Palestinian…Really?

Saying that Yeshua (Jesus) was one of the most controversial figures of all time is not an exaggeration. He was a revolutionary, a rebel and a rabbi. His existence is seldom put into question by anyone, even those who don’t believe in God. Another aspect of Yeshua that until recently was never argued was His human origin. He was born of human parents–a human mother to be exact, and an adoptive father. His ethnicity is also a slam dunk. Since His mother was Jewish, He was Jewish. Well, I wish it was that simple, but unfortunately, He has recently been painted as a Palestinian. Let us look at how and why such a claim is made and if there is any validity to it.

First, let me start by defining the meaning of Palestine. While the exact origin of the name “Palestine” is still debated, there are aspects of the word’s meaning that we can know for sure. It once possibly described a people group known as the Philistines, but that people group was in no way connected to the current era Palestinians – not ethnically, not linguistically, not historically and not culturally. In A.D. 132, the Jewish Bar Kochba revolt took place against the Romans. Things didn’t end well for the Jewish people; and in addition to a bloodbath of gigantic proportions, Israel was renamed Palaestina by the Romans. The rebranding of the land with the name of their enemies, the Philistines, was an effort to undermine Jewish history and humiliate the Jewish people further. Jerusalem was also renamed Aelia Capitolina by emperor Hadrian. The name Palestine stuck and continued to be used after that time. It is nowhere to be found in the Bible.

When the British were in control from 1922 to 1948, the area was governed under what was known as the British Palestine Mandate. In the original text of the Mandate itself, dated 1922, we can read: “Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”

We should not have an issue calling Israel “Palestine” as long as it is a description of the landmass of Israel prior to 1948. Up to that time in history, the term “Palestine” simply described a piece of land in the Middle East. Even after Israel became a State in 1948 and the name Eretz Yisrael started being used, the word “Palestine” was not an issue for anybody; it was more or less an outdated name for the land of Eretz Yisrael. It is after that time, and under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, that the definition for Palestine went from geographical to political, in an attempt to describe a displaced people group named “the Palestinians”, in need of an “ancestral” homeland. Before the 1960s, historical documents were replete with descriptions of Israel as Palestine, such as the British Palestine Mandate already mentioned. Israeli stamps, coins and newspaper said “Palestine”, and nobody cared. Palestine was always synonymous with Israel, the Jewish State. Arabs in neighboring countries never called themselves Palestinians, but rather Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Egyptians, etc. Most Arabs in the early 1900s would have argued that Palestinian Arabs were simply Syrians as Mitchell Bard documents in his well-researched book Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. He writes: “Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted: We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.”

God used different names for the Land of Israel such as “The Land of Canaan” (Genesis 17:8), “The Promised Land” (Genesis 50:24), or even “The Land” (Exodus 6:8), nowhere in the Bible is Israel ever called Palestine even once. Even the Qur’an (Sura Maida 5:21-22) mentions the “Holy Land” in the context of Moses and the spies preparing to enter the Land of Canaan; but never does it call it Palestine. Jerusalem isn’t even mentioned by name in the Qur’an.

Today, nobody questions the etymology of the word “Palestine” and that is a shame. What is really sad, is that the Arab refugees who were forced by their own countries to remain in Israel post-1948 ended up having children who then had children. These innocent subsequent generations have been labeled “Palestinians” for political gain. They are real people who deserve a real home and a decent life. Backtracking to pre-1948 “Palestine” would connect them all with one or another of the neighboring Arab countries, but that doesn’t serve the current antisemitic agenda of Israeli occupation, colonization and ethnic cleansing, does it?

This would be bad if it stopped there, but it doesn’t. To garner more support from Christians who might not check the accuracy of what they are told, there is now a movement to paint Yeshua as a Palestinian and not a Jew. This is part of what can be called Christian Palestinianism.

In his book For Zion Sake, Dr. Paul Wilkinson writes about the grave danger posed by Christian Palestinianism: “Christian Palestinianism is an inverted mirror image of Christian Zionism. All the basic elements of a Christian Zionist eschatology are reversed so that the Bible is seen to be Christian, not Jewish, the land of the Bible is Palestine, not Israel, the son of God is a Palestinian, not a Jew, the Holocaust is resented not remembered, 1948 is a catastrophe, not a miracle, the Jewish people are illegal occupiers, not rightful owners, and biblical prophecy is a moral manifesto and not a signpost to the Second Coming.”

To some, this might sound like an exaggeration that nobody will take seriously. I wish it were true, but there are groups of Christians who actually buy into that lie. Such a group is SABEEL. While I honestly understand the desire of such a group to minister to Arab Christians, I strongly disagree for it to be done at the expense of historical truth. Another venue where “reconciliation” between Jews and Arabs who believe in Yeshua is claimed, is Christ at the Checkpoint. That venue seems to preach a reconciliation that looks a lot like a one-way street towards complying with antisemitism and Christian Palestinianism.

Additionally, Yeshua was born in Bethlehem, Judea (Micah 5:2), not Bethlehem, Palestine, and it would be another 700 years before Arabs would get to the Promised Land and invade it. At the time of His crucifixion, Yeshua had a sign nailed above His head that read, Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm meaning “Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews” in Latin. It never said King of the Palestinians.

Victimhood and social justice go hand in hand, and if we can lead some people to believe that the Messiah was a Palestinian, it would go a long way to help further the myopic Palestinian agenda. To that end, in 2013, Mahmoud Abbas declared in a Christmas message that “Jesus was a Palestinian messenger who would become a guiding light for millions.” Linda Sarsour, who describes herself as a Palestinian-Muslim-American, tweeted in 2009 that Jesus was a Palestinian from Nazareth. It is important to note that neither Abbas nor Sarsour cares about what Yeshua represents as they both claim to be Muslims. Even if Yeshua is mentioned in the Qur’an, He is never recognized as Messiah. Fortunately for them, from a public relations standpoint, “Jesus the Palestinian” sells well!

It doesn’t help when UNESCO decides to call the Temple Mount only by its Muslim name. So, the Kotel or western wall is called al-Buraq wall, and the area in front of it the al-Buraq plaza. It is also claimed that the Al-Aqsa mosque on top of the Temple Mount is the mosque that is referred to in the Qur’an (17:1). There it talks of a journey Muhammad made at night from the Sacred Mosque (Mecca) to the “Farthest Mosque”. Muslim scholars have later identified “The Farthest Mosque” with Jerusalem, but there was no mosque in Jerusalem at that time. Additionally, the al-masjid Al-Aqsa mosque was built in AD 705, which happens to be 73 years after the death of Muhammad. Here we have a historical anachronism conveniently ignored.

Setting the record straight from the Jewish Bible, Yeshua is from the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10). Judah was one of the twelve sons of Jacob who was not a Palestinian. Yeshua is from the line of King David, one of Israel’s most famous biblical kings (2 Samuel 7:14). David was never called the king of Palestine. Yeshua was born in Bethlehem, Judea (Micah 5:2), long before the world bought into the concept of the “occupied territories” that I prefer to call the “disputed territories”. Yeshua was also to be a prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15-19), and Moses was not a Palestinian prophet. Yeshua was also circumcised (Luke 2:21) on the eighth day, per Jewish law (Exodus 12:48; Leviticus 12:2-3).

History, geography and archeology all testify to the Jewishness of Yeshua. Anyone trying to cancel his Jewish roots is ignoring it all and is guilty of historical revisionism. Unfortunately, in the age of canceling anything and anyone that might be offensive to the current politically correct agenda, making Yeshua into a Palestinian doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Calling Him a Palestinian will not change who He was and who He continues to be. It will only lead people astray from the true Yeshua and His simple message of redemption and salvation, as well as encourage anti-Semites to further cancel anything Jewish in order to ostracize and demonize our people.

By the way, I have often received criticism from my own Jewish people for being a follower of Yeshua, but NEVER because He was a Palestinian. Just sayin’!

January 29, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

BDS directly affects Israel but should concern all of us!

Boycotts, censorship and cancellations have become very popular words in 2020. From “Cancel Culture” to “Social Network Censorships” to “Boycott, Divestment & Sanction (BDS)”, people are being exposed to what it means to have our civil liberties reduced, altered, or even revoked. We are being exposed to the danger of such actions and the repercussions they will have on us and the next generations. Of all of these attempts at crippling our freedom, the BDS movement is most likely the least of them when it comes to affecting Americans. Outside of a certain segment of the evangelical community–vocally and militantly pro-Israel–the rest of the Church and most Americans either don’t care or don’t know about BDS. If you are one of my subscribers, this might only be a refresher, but this bears repeating.

BDS isn’t an invention of the Church, but it has become increasingly attractive to many Evangelicals, where some believe that it is a valid, yet a peaceful, way to protest against Israel. There are several problems with that train of thought, but let us first look at the source of the BDS movement. You might be surprised by what you discover.

It is ironic that most of the people taking such a political stand have very little knowledge of how it got started and by whom. This movement was started on July 9, 2005, by the Palestinian civil society and orchestrated by the current leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian BDS National Committee. Omar Barghouti is co-founder of and the main spokesperson for BDS. His organization claims that Israel must meet three obligations for BDS to stop:
1.   Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall;
2.   Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3.   Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

Too often, there is an unspoken expectation from the Palestinian side. Much of the “not-so-hidden” agenda of the Palestinian Authority is focused on the destruction of Israel and the Jews. At the time that the Palestinian people were invented in the mid-1960s, the problem of refugees didn’t exist. The Jewish people abandoned the use of the term Palestine when Israel was declared a State in 1948. The word became exclusively descriptive of the Arab side and was adopted by Arafat when he created the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization).

The creation of a Palestinian narrative that has been purported over the last 50 years of historical fabrications has helped the world turn on Israel. However, the Palestinian Authority doesn’t really care about the well-being of even their own “citizens”. If they did, they would never use some of their own people as human shields or use schools and hospitals to store weapons and explosives. They are obsessed with the demonization of Israel, the turning of David into Goliath! If they succeed, they are just one step closer to appearing justified when they attempt to annihilate Israel. It is actually quite scary to see how much the West has been swayed towards the Palestinian agenda over the last few decades. Although, some of the Palestinian agenda has been pushed back recently by the signing of the Abraham Accords and the additional countries joining ranks in establishing formal relations with Israel.

The Palestinian Authority takes great pains to misinform, or simply not inform, the people they are trying to influence with the facts surrounding their standoff with Israel. The proper word for it is “propaganda”! The hope is that most people would accept their lies and historical revisionism simply as facts, and too often they do! UN Resolution 194 contains one short paragraph out of 15 on compensation to refugees – not even Palestinian refugees in particular – but refugees in general. People truly need to verify statements before they buy them and then sell them back as facts. Interestingly enough, the only specific identifying term used in that resolution is “Palestine”, and within the context of that 1948 document, it is clear that it refers to the geographical area known as Israel, not a people group.

BDS was born out of a Palestinian desire to enroll otherwise unengaged and apathetic people in their fight against Israel. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas’ goal might be the total destruction of Israel, but that is not a good marketing technique to recruit supporters for their agenda. Creativity calls for other means of striking the Jewish people.

What if they could get support from different groups of people? This would greatly advance their agenda, wouldn’t it? BDS does just that and it does it well, in the government, the entertainment industry, the universities, and even some Christian denominations such as The Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) whose General Assembly voted in the spring of 2014 to divest from three companies engaged in business within Israel (Caterpillar Inc., Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions). This is the same PCUSA that unsuccessfully tried to blot out the name Israel from their prayer and hymn books in 2014, leading to a split within the denomination.

Originators of BDS count on the altruistic feelings associated with boycotting for a social justice issue. It becomes easy for anyone to feel good by refraining from buying Israeli products. This seems like a peaceful and worthy protest that could (from their perspective) make a difference and force Israel away from occupation, apartheid and crimes against humanity. Of course, the current BDS supporters are plagued with decisions to boycott that force them to be very inconsistent at best. Divestment is usually a matter of reinvesting your funds elsewhere, and there are plenty of opportunities for such a move. When it comes to boycotting, it is a bit trickier, especially if you want to be consistent and do it with integrity. People will easily stop buying Jaffa® oranges or Osem® cookies from Israel, but don’t ask them to stop using the Intel® chip in their personal computers or their mobile phones altogether (both originated from Israeli ingenuity). The boycott crosses into academia and entertainment as well as business.

BDS proponents often nip the pro-Israel narrative in the bud by loudly condemning Israel, which has become the hip, liberal mantra du jour, even though their own narrative is flawed and biased. Christians don’t want to be labeled as “haters”, especially of Jews. What they may do is find an easier way to participate in BDS rather than an all-out boycott. Divestment can be done silently. When sanctioning comes, they will have to make a choice – and I pray it is a decision based on biblical insight.
• BDS uses a false premise of Israeli occupation and apartheid policies. It is our responsibility to expose their lies and educate those who don’t know BDS or who believe that it is a cause worth fighting for.
• BDS proponents are inconsistent in their boycott and need to be made aware of their hypocrisy or ignorance about Israel’s contribution to the modern world (and the list of those contributions keeps growing every day), not to mention all the everyday products used by millions.
• BDS sends the wrong message to a lot of people thinking that they are helping to make the world a better place when in fact they are supporting anti-Israel, anti-Semitic terrorists.
• BDS counts on people’s ignorance and natural desire for justice to sell their falsified agenda of Palestinian victimhood.

BDS is dangerously infecting the masses with the wrong idea about Israel. It is evident that Israel isn’t “100% squeaky clean” when it comes to politics, but they are a far cry from the picture that BDS is painting. People might have different opinions on how antisemitic the BDS movement is, or if it even is, but one must wonder why BDS aims at stopping Israel from their “crimes” against Palestinians, and yet, they are turning a blind eye to all the other countries where real crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansings are taking place. What an obvious case of a double-standard!

BDS becomes very dangerous when it reaches the political realm and can turn into official policymaking and even bills and laws. Recently, the Biden administration picked Mr. Maher Bitar as the Senior Director for Intelligence on the NSC. The NSC or National Security Council describes itself as follows, ” The National Security Council (NSC) is the President’s principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his or her senior advisors and cabinet officials.” Maher Bitar’s résumé includes a very long list of anti-Israel involvement, BDS support, radical Islamist terrorism, and plain and simple antisemitism. Shouldn’t the Senior Director for Intelligence on the NSC be an unbiased intelligence professional?

BDS might be only aimed at Israel with its destructive agenda, but it is the symptom of a much greater threat to Western civilization. We can and must expose it, denounce it and fight against it.

Additionally, another thing we can do is to make sure that we do our best to buy Israeli products in the USA to beat the BDS proponents at their own game. There are sites offering a partial list of what BDS wants you to boycott. While the mentioning of this list doesn’t mean that this author endorses all of it, you will undoubtedly find plenty of brands that you already support; just review them, keep at it, and tell others. This would be a strong application of Genesis 50:20 when Joseph proved to his brothers that what some want to use for evil, God can turn around and use for good: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.”

What BDS proponents, by commission and omission, too often have in common is a lack of a biblical approach to Israel and the Jewish people. Biblical truth provides a solid foundation for Israel. It describes a people created by God through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the twelve Tribes of Israel as well as precise land boundaries starting early in Genesis 12 and continuing through chapters 15, 17, and following. Zionism isn’t this evil colonialism feeding on Arab blood, yet without a biblical backbone, Zionism lacks the strength to fight the hypocrisy, hatred and double standard of the BDS campaigns around the world. BDS relies on the Bullying, Delegitimizing and Slandering of Israel and does it on a foundation of lies that can be debunked. If truth really matters, let us speak up! So instead, let’s Buy, Defend and Support Israel, Israeli products and corporations.

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