Zionism is like cancer and an “obscenity of Judaism and the Christian religion,” stated a female audience member during a March 11 film screening event at Bethesda, Maryland’s St. John’s Norwood Episcopal Church. Her comments typified the sentiments of this year’s Voices from the Holy Land film series (VFHL), an annual series bringing together rabid Israel-haters in the Washington, DC area.
The audience member, who declared that “we must recognize Zionism as an enemy, and then we love this enemy” as Jesus loved his enemies, was in sympathetic company at St. John’s Norwood. Father Sari Ateek, who introduced himself to this author during the event, presides over the congregation and is the son of the Palestinian Anglican priest Naim Ateek, a leader of the anti-Israel Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. Ateek Senior was notable for his anti-Semitic rhetoric against Israel, as manifested in his drafting of the 2009 Kairos Palestine declaration; his son correspondingly belongs to Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA).
Other Episcopalians, such as Thomas Johnson from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC’s Companion Diocese Committee—Jerusalem (CDCJ), one of the VFHL organizers, also attended. He noted that several Christians, including himself, were members of another organization involved in organizing the VFHL, the Washington, DC chapter of the not-so-Jewish but radical Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). A non-Jew from this organization known for “Jew-washing” antisemitism against Israel, Liana Smith, moderated the event and stated that in JVP “we always try to put Palestinian voices first.”
Another CDCJ member, James C. Cobey, an orthopedic surgeon who shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for his work to ban landmines, wore his Palestinian flag lapel pin. Episcopalian Steve France, who like Ateek is also in Washington, DC’s FOSNA chapter, compared Black Liberation Theology with Palestinian Liberation Theology. With respect to American racism, white American oppressors are morally the “Israeli Zionists in that picture and we are doing the same thing all over again with the Palestinians,” he slanderously claimed.
One of the documentary screenings, Gaza: A Gaping Wound, about Israel’s 2014 military campaign against the Hamas terrorist organization ruling the Gaza Strip, elicited similarly shocking bias. One audience member asked if a house destroyed by Israeli aircraft shown in the film had contained anti-Israeli “resisters,” while another audience member condemned American aid to Israel. She stated that the “blood of the Palestinian people is on our hands, because we enable this to happen,” and called for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Imam Tarif Shraim from Potomac, Maryland’s Islamic Community Center, who gave the event’s opening invocation, shared similar pro-BDS sentiments.
The opening of the April 14 screening of Jews Step Forward in Washington, DC’s National Cathedral was no better. A woman’s fact-free introduction erroneously claimed that “present day Israel-Palestine is the birthplace of all three major Abrahamic religions.” This absurdity ignores that Arab Islamic invaders in the seventh century conquered the Holy Land; the ancestral homeland of the Jews, where Christianity has indigenous Jewish roots.
Echoing prior VFHL comments, she stated that “our tax dollars support the obviously imbalanced status quo.” Additionally, for Palestinians, “life under occupation is hell.” Yet under Israeli military rule following the 1967 Six Day War, they experienced enormous development and one of the world’s highest growth rates.
The woman introduced Reverend Ben Trawick from Springfield, Virginia’s Grace Presbyterian Church and noted that his brother Robert is in the Israel/Palestine Mission Network (IPMN) of the dying Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA). Reflecting PCUSA’s animus, IPMN has a vicious history of antisemitism, including promotion of Hezbollah, and once received an endorsement from the American white supremacist David Duke for IPMN’s screed Zionism Unsettled.
Like Steve France previously, Trawick in his invocation placed the Jewish state of Israel and its self-defense in the context of long series of historic evils. People have “placed our faith in boundary walls and border walls, in tribalism, nationalism, militarism, sectarianism, in segregation, separation, suppression, repression, and oppression,” he stated. He claimed that this was an
atavistic error in every nation, every location, every generation, a fresh iteration: the apartheid of South Africa, the Trail of Tears, the trees of the American South with their strange fruit, the German concentration camps, the Japanese internment camps….We should recognize by now both symptoms and sins as we do in the present conflict in Israel-Palestine.
Rich Forer, one of the Jews who appeared in the film, addressed the audience after the screening with his one personal story of how he abandoned Zionist Jewish self-determination for a John Lennon vision of the Middle East. “As soon as I recognized that I had been dehumanizing the other, my own humanity was restored,” Forer stated concerning the Palestinians, the “biggest relief I ever experienced.” He agreed with VFHL organizer Paul Verduin, a local FOSNA and IPMN member, who advocated that “anti-Zionist or post-Zionist advocates of human justice” seek a “democratic one-state solution” for Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land.
Forer claimed that there was no justification for Jewish self-defense measures against jihadist threats such as Israel’s security barrier. This simply “enables Israeli propagandists to paint Arabs or Palestinians as demons.” Israeli children “are taught that there are people on the other side of the wall that you never see, they want to kill us,” he stated as if this barrier had not saved lives from real terrorist dangers.
For the Holocaust-inverting Forer, Palestinians were the real victims who suffered under Nazi-like Jews. An American Jew in the audience argued that Washington, DC’s Holocaust Museum had “not recognized the parallels with the Palestinians that this film would bring out.” Forer responded: “The Jewish community would go crazy right now if the suffering of the Palestinians was integrated into the Holocaust museum.” The Jewish community, he charged, “even makes the Holocaust a religion; they are just not emotionally prepared for recognition of the suffering of the Palestinians.”
Forer accordingly noted how he appeared to be the very embodiment of anti-Semites’ self-hating Jew:
I have gotten emails from a number of people saying that I changed their life. Sometimes they say I was an ant-Semite until I listened to your interview or I read your book, you showed me that I can’t judge, put all Jews in the same basket.
The next day, about eight people gathered in the basement common room of southwest Washington, DC’s Westminster Presbyterian Church for another Sunday afternoon film screening. Near baskets filled with condoms proclaiming the church’s LGBT-affirming adherence to the “rubber revolution,” Cobey introduced the event in by noting a table with Palestinian olive oil for sale. This oil is “nutritious and makes you more Palestinian,” he stated, and observed that he always inserted in the Prayers of the People in his Episcopal Church services a prayer for the “Palestinians to be free of the apartheid government of Israel.” At the end of the event, he gave this author a “Free Palestine/Boycott Israel” bumper sticker.
A Muslim imam gave an invocation including the claim that the “Holy Land has been invaded, occupied, and colonized by European Zionists. The sacred place is disrespected and violence has been waged.” He added that “Palestinians are now facing existential threat and going through genocide.” Like the VFHL literature, he listed the radical, Hamas-supporting group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) among groups such as Code Pink and JVP as struggling for Palestinians, for “apartheid is sinful.”
Thomas Getman, Cobey’s fellow CDCJ member who has joined FOSNA’s advisory board after heading the Jerusalem office of the anti-Israel Christian charity World Vision, clearly rejected the Jewish state. In response to this author’s questions following the film, Getman implied that all of the former British Palestine Mandate should be one state of Arabs and Jews, and then “if it’s one person, one vote, as it should be, it can no longer be a Jewish state.” He added: “A Jewish state is a violation of church and state,” as if the Jewish national home were a theocracy and the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment were a universal law.
Despite numerous peoples having nation-state homelands around the world, Verduin likewise considered a Jewish state “very anachronistic.” He explained: “A one God-state, or a one-race state, or a one-ethnicity state, it just doesn’t fit very well, does it, in our 21st century world,” ignoring the numerous Muslim Arab states that fit this description. Denying Jewish roots to Israel, he added that the “settler project of Israel is clearly a manifestation of good-old fashioned Western colonialism.”
The following Sunday, April 22, Westminster Presbyterian Church screened Censored Voices, in which Israeli Six Day War veterans make unsubstantiated accusations of Israeli atrocities during that war. Anti-Israel playwright Pamela Nice introduced the film with the myth that the book text that formed the film’s basis suffered 70 percent censorship when the book appeared immediately after 1967. Verduin noted that Palestinian-American Jamal Najjab, who, like Johnson, is a “member of Jewish Voice for Peace, although not Jewish,” would lead with Nice the discussion following the screening.
Westminster Presbyterian’s homosexual Reverend Harry Stock completed the event introduction with an invocation praising multicultural relativism. He prayed that “we ask your forgiveness, divine God,” for “we divide ourselves in so many ways, especially by our religions,” as “some call you as Allah, Yahweh, Buddha, Christ, Gaia, Goddess, Great Spirit, or Creator.” Yet “we have learned that a universal theology is impossible, but we believe that if we come together as one people, honoring and nurturing all faith journeys, a universal experience of peace and love is not only possible, but necessary.”
Yet Jews would have felt little love in the post-film discussion. One first-generation Arab-American woman audience member stated that “I feel as heavy, sad, angry, and so many other emotions seeing this as I do whenever I see a film about the Holocaust.” After this defamatory equivalence between Israelis and Nazis, another audience member falsely claimed that Israelis have recently engaged in “indiscriminate shooting of the Palestinians” in Gaza. With equal ignorance, Johnson stated that in “every one of these conflicts, Israel has been on the offense, has been the aggressor, has jumped into using war as the way, or armaments, as the way to get ahead of the game.”
Only Najjab offered a touch of realism that did not demonize Israel. For Palestinians after 1967, “it was sort of a benign occupation in the beginning, it wasn’t that bad,” he noted. Only after Israeli land confiscations began under Prime Minister Menachem Begin in the late 1970s did the Palestinians protest Israeli rule.
Zionists of all backgrounds should be aware of these events in the hallowed halls of Washington, DC’s houses of worship. Particularly troubling is the Episcopal Diocese, where Ateek, Cobey, France, Getman, and Johnson appear to go unchallenged in their desire to destroy Israel. Thinly veiled hate against long-persecuted Jews, not interfaith harmony, is what these churches are preaching.
mortimer says
How many times does Israel occur in the New Testament?
A: The words ‘Israel’ and ‘Israelite’ occur 77 times in the New Testament.
How many times does Jerusalem occur in the New Testament?
A:Jerusalem occurs 146 times in the New Testament and its synonym ‘Zion’ occurs 7 times.
How many times does Jerusalem occur in the Old Testament?
A: Jerusalem (and its alternative Hebrew names “Zion”, City of David, City of the Great King, Salem) appear 850 times in the Old Testament. This frequency reveals that Jerusalem is of supreme importance as the homeland of the Israelites.
Moreover, the phrase ‘from Dan to Beersheba’… which refers to all the territory contained in Israel … occurs 9 times in the Old Testament.
How many times is Jerusalem mentioned in the Koran?
A:Jerusalem is not mentioned one single time in the Koran. The Koran has no concern whatsoever about Jerusalem. The focus of the Koran is the ‘Forbidden Mosque’ and its location is never named. The Umayyads tried (unsuccessfully) to change the religious center from Mecca/Medina to Jerusalem. No Arab thought Jerusalem was importance to the Arabian cults.
How many times is Israel mentioned in the complete Bible?
A: Israel is mentioned by name 52 times in the complete Bible.
How many times is ‘Israel’ mentioned in the Koran?
A: The name ‘Israel’ is mentioned 46 times in the Koran.’The Children of Israel’ are mentioned 20 times in the Quran. In other words, in every instance in the Quran in which the word “Israel” occurs, it means only the ‘Land of the Jews’, proving that the Koran indeed deems Israel the divinely appointed territory of the Jewish people, their rightful inheritance and sacrosanct property as decreed by Allah. The name ‘Palestine’ occurs ZERO times in the Koran. That is food for thought for those fighting to create a brand new country called Palestine, since the ‘eternal, perfect, complete’ book of Allah does not do that and mentions ‘Israel’only. Not only that, but Allah specifically bestows the land to Moses and his people and then specifically commands the ‘Banu Israil’ to ‘dwell in the Land’. (Koran 5:20–25) And remember, Allah makes NO mistakes or omissions and his words are valid for all time.
How many times is Palestine mentioned in the Koran?
A: Palestine is not mentioned one single time in the Koran. The author of the Koran seems only refers to ‘Israel’.
Did the qibla (direction of prayer) ever face towards Jerusalem?
A: No, never. All the early mosques face only towards PETRA in southern Jordan and never towards Jerusalem. The idea that Mohammed prayed towards Jerusalem is not confirmed by any external or archaeological evidence. It is clear that Arabs prayed towards their pagan holy city of Petra where there were kept their holiest idols of Dhu Shara (the war god) and of Allat (the Arabian mother goddess). Mohammed’s tribe worshipped ‘ALLAT’ (Kora=Greek for ‘maiden’). The Koraysh tribe was named for the MAIDEN-GODDESS it worshipped at Petra, NOT at JERUSALEM.
When did Jerusalem take on any importance to Muslims?
A:Jerusalem only took on interest to Muslims when the infamous Nazi Mufti Mohammed Amin al-Husseini promoted the genocidal 1920s myth that “Jews are destroying Al Aqsa”, thus taking Jerusalem out of the shadows of irrelevance where it had been for centuries. The Mufti was a friend of Hitler, Himmler and Adolf Eichmann. Husseini encouraged the genocidal extermination of Jews and used the Dome of the Rock as an issue to motivate Arabs to hate Jews.
JERUSALEM and ZION? Not JEWISH? They appear 850 times in the Bible as such. The Bible is in fact a very Zionist book and our Lord revealed himself in it as a patriotic Israelite.
The Anglican Church was modelled on the patriotism that Anglican Reformers found in the Bible. If you don’t like ISRAELITE PATRIOTISM, Anglicans, you are not reading the Bible as the Anglican Reformers understood it and you have deviated from Anglicanism.
Linnte says
Geeze! You just wrote all the stuff I wanted to say! Excellent comment! And my favorite video documentary? “The Sacred City”, by Dan Gibson, who’s work has destroyed Islam. I want to do a happy dance thinking about the Islamic Umma finally learning they have been doing it wrong for 1400 years! HAHAHAHHAHA! https://youtu.be/qOnGvzVceVo Here’s the Sacred City documentary in case anyone has missed it. ENJOY!
Karlee says
Great comment.
And LINNTE: Thanks for the video clip.
BC says
These people may call themselves Christian but they certainly are not!
KJW says
Bukhari’s Hadith says they faced Jerusalem in prayer: “The Prophet prayed facing Jerusalem but he wished that his Qiblah would be the Ka’aba at Mecca so Allah revealed a Quran…” V6B60N13
There are at least two others and inTabarj VII 24. I’m just saying that there are a bunch of traditions about it so Muslims believe that. Of course that diesn’t mean it’s true considering Bukhari’s Hadith was about 300 years after Muhammad’s death.
J D S says
I would caution any protestant , Catholic or for that matter any of the other so called religions specifically the Muslims so called religion Islam, that to reject the Jews, Jerusalem, the Holy Land etc. is to commit religious suicide……Even though way back then…. and God knows, it appears they have suffered for that, the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah and as far as I can find out still do, These people’s are special to God.
Now I haven’t seen God doing very much for the so called Christian nations, really not since about 1949. Around that time we in America began our downward spiral…….about the same more or less in other Christian nations…I’ll give one example…….We have not really won a war since WWII……Well one could say we won the Gulf War….but like the Children of Israel in their match to the promised land, we didn’t finish the job……May The God of the universe forgive us….we know not what we are doing.
infidel numero uno says
Thank you, Mortimer, for all your highly educational posts. You have greatly enhanced my knowledge and understanding of the evil cult known as islam. Thank you.
gravenimage says
+1
Bev says
Are these people allowed to vote, hold a job, and exist along with the rest of us. Do these people really know their Christian religion. The Israel’s have tried for decades to get along w/the Palestinians. Palestinians are so hate driven in their Islamic ideology that they teach their children to hate and kill. Hamas spends their money, mostly financed thru Iran, to pay the families of suicide bombers. Hamas doesn’t care about the people at all, that’s why they use them as human shields. When you’re a member of a death cult, the most glorious thing you can do is die for Allah.
Garfield says
Are people who can’t understand these facts stupid or evil? How can so many people have such ignorant twisted ideas in their heads? And no amount of facts seems to get thru to them. You (Israel) can’t live peacefully next to neighbors (Palestinians) that despise you!
There is nothing complicated about this idea and yet….
Why don’t people who cry for Palestinians ever do any research and compare THE IDEOLOGIES of death cult Islam and that of Judaiam?
Why can’t people see that while Jews are a tiny percentage of the population, they are being targeted like it’s 1939?
no, they ignore rising antisemitism and instead choose to feel so sorry for vicious barbarians calling for murder.
R Russell says
The end time apostate church is alive and growing in numbers. May YHWH God grant them repentance before it is too late.
Linnte says
Amen Russell, amen. Maranatha!
Elisha says
“May YHWH God grant them repentance before it is too late.”
Huh? God grants forgiveness of sin. Repentance is our choice ENTIRELY.
Wyldeirishman says
“Command what You would, and grant what You would command ” – St. Augustine
ann says
I got a new T-shirt a month ago which says, in big white letters on black, This is what a Zionist looks like. I’m not Jewish, but I am a Zionist, and I love wearing it, to show people that even middle-class Anglo women can be Zionist and support Israel to the hilt. A counter-narrative to this lethal, dishonest nonsense.
gravenimage says
+1
revereridesagain says
If they are like the Unitarian church in my town, they will post a sign saying “LOVE THY NEIGHBOR” on their lawn next week. And they’ll have a lesbian minister, who could not visit a Muslim country with her “wife” without risking injury or death, and who will also declare her parish all about “LOVE”.
The Episcopal church isn’t any better. The United Church of Christ — which invited a notorious imam 3 weeks after 9/11/01 to lecture us about the evils of Monica Lewinsky — is even worse.
But then, I’m atheist so I’m a Bad Person who doesn’t care about imaginary people like “Abraham” or “Mohammed” or believe that a “Loving God” stands ready to scoop his favorites up into the sky so they can celebrate watching “Him” destroy all the rest of us in the “End Time”.
And I just happen to love Israel because it is the freest, most productive, and closest to rational state in a part of the world where it is surrounded by murderous fanatics of a warlord religion. The Left gives its own ambitions away by celebrating the latter against the former.
R Russell says
The Unitarians do not believe that Jesus is God as well as man.
It is evident in both the Hebrew and the Greek that Jesus is totally divine, and totally man. He is our mediator: representing us to the Father, and representing the Father to us.
R Russell says
There are many people like you who, not believing there is a loving God, still love God’s chosen people.
I cannot speak about Mohammed, for so many think he may be a compilation of several people, embellished to try to ensure unity of purpose etc. I can try to speak about Abraham. The Bible has never been proved wrong. In fact although not a science book, it contains so much accurate science from long before it was ‘discovered’ by scientists.
The journey of Abraham from his home in Ur can be verified archaeology. He bought land in which to bury his wife. It is there to this day.
Then there are his sons 2 of which have been in conflict ever since it was prophesied about them. Abraham and Sarah his wife were childless, yet God had promised he would have many descendants. When the promised son was slow in appearing and Sarah past the menopause, she thought she would help God out and suggested Abraham sleep with her maid and get a son that way. Thus Ishmael, the father of the Arabs was born. Not the promised son, but blessings were to be his too. He would also fight against the promised son, Isaac who was born about 13 yrs later.
It can be interesting following evidence for Abraham and his descendants in archaeology. From the Exodus to the promised land – which is nowhere near what we call Sinai to even further back to Joseph in Egypt with his bones being taken with Moses and the Israelites to the promised land where his tomb still exists.
I am rambling on. I am so glad you support Israel. Thousands of Arabs in Gaza this weekend have been trying to melt the border fence with burning tyres so they can invade Israel. Sadly some of the invaders had to be shot. Their families will get $3000 for each death and the martyr promised entry into Muslim heaven for trying to kill Allah’s enemies the Jews.
So obvious Allah is different from from YHWH God. No doubt we will meet again!
Jack Dillon says
These apostate Christians should know that God’s land covenant with the Jews was unconditional and everlasting. Can someone get them reading glasses before it is too late for them to get clued-in?
mortimer says
The Koran doesn’t mention JERUSALEM one single time. But the Koran commands Jews to live in the Land of Israel.
somehistory says
Those who are truly Christian, do not hate Israel, nor gather to agree with those people who do.
JM says
Nothing is more dangerous than conscientious stupidity and willful ignorance.
These people are hopelessly brainwashed. Even if Israel caved in to Palestinian demands, it would never be enough until it was wiped off the face of the earth. At that point, the virtue-signaling Leftard Christian apostates would shrug their shoulders with insincere gloom and mumble “Stuff happens.” Deep down they might even be delighted. Sick people.
Garfield says
+1
Northern Virginiastan says
Given that I live in the Washington DC metro area, it’s disgusting to learn about these events. I take comfort in the fact that the Episcopal Church is no longer a mainline church, but a sidelined church.
I visited St. John’s Norwood Episcopal Church website, https://stjohnsnorwood.org/, and saw that upcoming events are a concert to support the United Palestinian Appeal’s Emergency Relief Fund (May 6) and an evening with the Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, the “father of Palestinian Liberation Theology” (May 16).
R Russell says
At the beginning of 2017, the Episcopal church in Glasgow, invited Muslims to take part in their Epiphany service.
The Muslims chose a Koran reading stating that Allah had no son. Blasphemy seems to be spreading in the Anglican/Episcopal churches.
gravenimage says
Yep.
Lydia Church says
Most denominations have become apostate by now.
Just read the Bible, preferably the KJV.
Elizabeth says
Islamic eschatology demands genocide of Jews before the end comes::
[SEE http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/stop-ignoring-islam-antisemitic-doctrine-bronx-bomb-plot-reminds-core-religious-problem-article-1.411335 ]
“Both Shiite and Sunni Muslims invoke the infamous hadith attributed to Muhammad: ‘The last hour would not come UNLESS the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: ‘ “Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.” ‘ Each Friday this genocidal hadith is quoted in sermons across the Islamic world, including among U.S. Muslim communities.”
ploome says
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Sizer
Yokel says
Another one who doesn’t understand that if Christianity does not acknowledge its Jewish roots then it is nothing.
hammar says
There should be no islam allowed in The State of Israel period. The phony religion
brings nothing to the table but no cohesion for normal people of Jewish or Christian faith.
Nothing, absolutely nothing.
Granddaddy says
I guess the far Left has its own church now. Let us all bow to the most merciful, all-knowing LGBTQ god and sing another white-hating, man-hating, Jew-hating, everyone-who-doesn’t-agree-with-me-hating hymn.
Bernice says
KEEP TALKING, DIMWITS. EVERY WORD YOU SAY RAISES MY DONATIONS IN SUPPORT OF ISRAEL.
Terry Jacob says
There is a fabulous Yiddish word to discribe these people…dreck
gravenimage says
Jews, Christians and Muslims Gather in Maryland Episcopal Church to Hate Israel
…………………
Seeing this in an Episcopal Church is especially painful. *Ugh*.
Richard Forer says
Andrew,
Your comments with regard to what I said at the screening of Jews Step Forward are unfair and extraordinarily shallow. I suspect that when you came to the film you did not do so with an open mind or an interest in possibly learning something from any of the 24 Jewish Americans who discuss their transformation from blind support for Israel to support for all people equally, Palestinians and Israelis alike. I never said I “abandoned Zionist Jewish self-determination for a John Lennon version of the Middle East.” What I pointed out was that when I found the courage to question my beliefs I discovered I had been dehumanizing Palestinians simply because they were not Jews and because they happened to be living in a land the Jews claimed for themselves. As Jabotinsky and Ben-Gurion both knew, oppressing an indigenous people will always cause conflict. I also never agreed that “’anti-Zionist or post-Zionist advocates of human justice’” seek a “’democratic one-state solution’” for Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land.” Some do but some do not. I would never categorize all so-called anti or post-Zionists in that manner. In fact, I rarely use labels such as Zionist, anti-Zionist, post-Zionist etc. I simply refer to people who support Israel’s occupation and people who oppose it. Also, your comment about the “Security barrier” is also a distortion of my position as well as of the facts. I never said there is “no justification” for Jewish self-defense. My position is that the wall was built to intrude into what remains of Palestinian territory in order to annex illegal Jewish settlements into Israel proper and that by creating a barrier so that neither side can see the other, both sides end up concocting demonic images of each other based on their respective belief systems. If you want to know more you can read my book, but aside from the wall’s blatant illegality, even the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College has said, “Reliance on perimeter control as through barriers has, along with years of constricting movement, curfews, and land acquisition policies, led to a terrible apartheid-like separation of the population and threatens any coherence to the West Bank. It may be impossible to convince Israel to dismantle the security fence, known as the Wall. But there would be a great benefit to doing so. The Jewish and Palestinian populations do not need to be herded into separate areas – they need to be reacquainted with each other, as segregation has bred hatred and fear.” Also, accusing me of Holocaust inversion is likewise dishonest and self-serving on your part. Your other comments were also distortions of my position that fit into your narrow perspective. If you really cared about Jewish people as much as you care about being right, rather than libeling the views of sincere advocates of peace, you would take a serious and impartial look at the history of modern-day Israel and the policies it has carried out to dispossess the Palestinians. Holding onto false and self-serving narratives can only lead to a rise in anti-Semitism whereby the Jewish people will be associated with character assassination, contempt for human rights and for international law, and a selfish disregard for the lives of people who are not both Jewish and Israeli.
Andrew Harrod says
If Richard Forer or any else wants to listen to a recording of the discussion, I have it. Paul Verduin, as the article notes, used these exact words quoted with reference to “anti-Zionists” and “post-Zionists,” without any demurral from Forer.
Forer ludicrously indicated that the Security Barrier was somehow responsible for creating Jewish negative images of Arabs, with no recognition of the all too real violence still coming today from places like the Gaza Strip.
Forer’s suggestions, prompted by an audience member, that the Holocaust Museum treat Palestinians as an example of genocide were shocking. No wonder anti-Semites like him.
Richard Forer says
Andrew,
We both know that you have taken my comments out of context, but that is your objective because you are not interested in getting to the heart of the matter, only in being right. I ]f you had the decency and honesty to investigate the issue perhaps you would actually recognize the right of all people to self-determination.
gravenimage says
You can’t just say that something is taken out of context–you have to actually say what the context was. I notice that Richard Forer does not do this.
Andrew Harrod says
Palestinians indoctrinated in jihadist ideology are not interested in peaceful self-determination for all.
Andrew Harrod says
This “context” argument is laughable. The entire event was a love-fest for Israel-haters.
gravenimage says
So Richard Forer does not believe that Israelis should have been able to build the wall to protect against Jihadists attacking and murdering them. That pretty much says it all.
Richard Forer says
Gravenimage, your statement has nothing to do with me. It is fiction. Everyone has a right to defend themselves, but the primary purpose of the wall, as Tipi Livni admitted, was to annex illegal settlements. I would also say, and I know you would disagree with this, that if Israel made peace (and I assume that you think, in spite of the evidence, that Israel has always wanted to make peace) they would have greater security. By the way, do you care about the lives of Palestinians? Are you aware that many Palestinians have been murdered and what do you think of the fanatical settlers who terrorize and sometimes kill Palestinians, including infants? Are they jihadists or are they just defending themselves?
Andrew Harrod says
These settlements are not illegal, as even United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 recognizes that Israel cannot go back to the 1967 lines. Besides, Jews still have rights to settle these disputed territories stemming from the League of Nations mandate.
gravenimage says
Actually, the wall–and its checkpoints–have foiled numerous Jihad terror attacks, as you must know.
You must also know that for both Fatah and Hamas the only making peace that would be acceptable from Israel is utter surrender. Both Fatah and Hamas have the full and utter destruction of Israel in their constitutions. They will accept nothing less.
And of course I care about the lives of Palestinians–I think that being taught hatred and murder in the name of their faith is a terrible, terrible thing.
As for the idea that Jews are targeting babies, it seems that this is projection–Palestinian Muslims celebrated the slaughter of Jews like the Fogel family and their children, which included a three-month-old baby.
gravenimage says
True, Mr. Harrod.