Welcome to the Bible in the News.

 A few weeks ago the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, stood before the Israeli Knesset and bravely spoke the truth.  We would like to reference a piece of that speech. Canada’s Prime Minister stated,

The understanding that it is right to support Israel because, after generations of persecution, the Jewish people deserve their own homeland and deserve to live safely and peacefully in that homeland.
 Let me repeat that: Canada supports Israel, fundamentally, because it is right to do so….

Those who scorn modernity, who loathe the liberty of others, and who hold the differences of peoples and cultures in contempt. Those who often begin by hating the Jews. But, history shows us, end up hating anyone who is not them….

Canada finds it deplorable that some in the international community still question the legitimacy of the existence of the state of Israel….

Our view that Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is absolute and non negotiable.

Mr. Harper rose to the challenge made by the prophets for the Tarshish nations to be the protectors and supporters of Israel. However, he also made a brave warning about the growing hatred that is arising around the world for the Jews:

Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, we live in a world where that kind of moral relativism runs rampant.

And in the garden of such moral relativism, the seeds of much more sinister notions can be easily planted.

And so we have witnessed, in recent years, the mutation of the old disease of anti-Semitism and the emergence of a new strain.

We all know about the old anti-Semitism.

It was crude and ignorant, and it led to the horrors of the death camps.

Of course, in many dark corners, it is still with us.

But, in much of the western world, the old hatred has been translated into more  sophisticated language for use in polite society.

People who would never say they hate and blame the Jews for their own failings or the problems of the world, instead declare their hatred of Israel and blame the only Jewish state for the problems of the Middle East.

As once Jewish businesses were boycotted, some civil-society leaders today call for a boycott of Israel.

On some campuses, intellectualized arguments against Israeli policies thinly mask the underlying realities, such as the shunning of Israeli academics and the harassment of Jewish students.

Most disgracefully of all, some openly call Israel an apartheid state.

Think about that.

Think about the twisted logic and outright malice behind that: a state, based on freedom, democracy and the rule of law, that was founded so Jews can flourish as Jews, and seek shelter from the shadow of the worst racist experiment in history.

That is condemned, and that condemnation is masked in the language of anti-racism.

 But, this is the face of the new anti-Semitism. It targets the Jewish people by targeting Israel and attempts to make the old bigotry acceptable for a new generation.

Mr. Harper made reference to the boycott of Jewish businesses that began the horror of the holocaust. In the book, The World Must Know, the official publication of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the steps taken in the 1930’s to dehumanize the Jews are outlined:

“Official persecution of Jews began on April 1, 1933. At teno’clock on that Saturday morning, the Nazis initiated a boycott of Jewish businesses and shops in cities and towns throughout Germany. Until then, actions against the Jews had been individual and sporadic. The boycott was the first salvo into a nationwide campaign against the entire German Jewish community.

Storm troopers were stationed menacingly in the front of Jewish-owned shops. The Star of David was painted in yellow and black across thousands of doors and windows. Signs were posted saying: “Germans! Defend Yourselves! Don’t Buy from Jews,” “The Jews Are Our Misfortune,” or simply “Jude” (Jew)….

On March 26, Hitler summoned Joseph Goebbels, now the minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Goebbels described Hitler’s instructions: “We must… proceed to a large-scale boycott of Jewish business in Germany. Perhaps the foreign Jews will think better of the matter when their racial comrades in Germany begin to get it in the neck.” (p17)

This was the beginning. The book continues:

A week later, the government announced the first of a series of laws singling out Jews. The Civil Service Law of April 7, 1933, dismissed all “non-Aryans” from the civil service, including notaries and teachers in state schools. It was the first of four hundred separate pieces of legislation enacted between 1933 and 1939 that defined, isolated, excluded, segregated, and impoverished German Jews.

And so, the seeds of the holocaust began to grow until six million had perished in the gas chambers and death camps of Europe.

The world, especially Catholic Europe, has learned nothing. After repeated judgments brought by God on Catholic Europe, throughout the centuries, the book of Revelation states, “they repented not of their deeds.” (Revelation 16:11). Catholic Europe remains unrepentant.

Canada’s Globe and Mail reported on February 4, 2014:

The international campaign to boycott Israel is gaining strength and already is affecting the Jewish state.

In Europe the boycott of some Israeli products has begun, according to Mr. Lapid, (Israel’s Finance Minsiter)….

Institutionally, there are already numerous examples of divestment. In December, the Netherlands’ largest pension fund decided to withdraw all its investments from Israel’s five largest banks because they have branches in the West Bank, or are involved in financing construction in the settlements.

In January, Norway’s Ministry of Finance announced it would exclude two Israeli firms… from its vast government pension fund due to “serious violations of individual rights … through the construction of settlements in east Jerusalem.”

Beginning this year, Israeli projects seeking EU funding also have to stipulate they operate solely within the country’s pre-1967 borders, and not in east Jerusalem, the West Bank or Golan Heights.

Arutz Sheva also reported:

Two of the largest banks in northern Europe have announced they will boycott Israeli banks because they operate in “occupied territories”, the Walla! … The two banks in question are the Swedish Nordea Bank, which is the largest bank in Scandinavia, and the Norwegian Danske Bank, which is the largest bank in Denmark.

So the old Nazi boycott is being revived across Europe.

One of the policy of the Reich, was to label all Jews with the yellow Star of David so that they could be publically identified. Again, the nations of Europe have repented not.

AFP, the French News Agency reported on February 1, 2014:

Initiatives in Europe to require separate labeling for goods manufactured in the settlements were gathering pace every time Israel announced a new round of construction.

What will the labeling be, a Star of David?

 The issue, Jews living in the Westbank, their ancient and Biblical homeland… how dare they?

Judenrein

Judenrein was a policy of the Nazi government in Germany to make Europe “Cleansed of Jews.” This was the purpose of the holocaust, to exterminate the existence of the Jewish race from European soil.

The same policy has been adopted by the Palestinian Authority who would like portions of Israel to be “Jew Free” if they achieve a Palestinian state. The Jerusalem Post, in an article entitled “A Judenrein Palestine?” on January 27, 2014 reported of the PA authorities Abbas:

 While in Egypt and speaking in Arabic, Abbas said something very different: “In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli – civilian or soldier – on our land.” (July29, 2013 – Egypt)

As reported last week, there are now 700,000 Israeli settlers living on the mountains of Israel, known biblically as Judea and Samaria, but today as the West Bank.

Europe is determined to see this area “cleansed of Jews” or “Judenrein” as the Nazi’s used to call it.

Repeating the Errors of the Past

In his opening statement at the commencement of the Nuremburg Trials of Nazi War Criminals such as Heinrich Himmler, Justice Jackson stated:

The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated….

And yet these wrongs are not only being tolerated and ignored, they are being repeated all over the world, especially in Catholic Europe, and again in America.

America’s Catholic Secretary of State John Kerry, while addressing a conference in Munich, Germany, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East, stated the following:

For Israel the stakes are also enormously high. Do they want a failure that then begs whatever may come in the form of a response from disappointed Palestinians and the Arab community? What happens to the Arab peace initiative if this fails?  Does it disappear?  What happens to Israel’s capacity to be the Israel it is today, a democratic state with the particular special Jewish character that is a central part of the narrative and of the future?  What happens to that?

I believe, and you see for Israel there is an increasing deligitimization campaign that has been building up. People are very sensitive to it. There are talk of boycotts and other kinds of things. Are we all going to be better with all of that?

A very different speech from Stephen Harper – who saw international boycott as a reminiscent of the anti-Semetic Nazi policy of years gone by. Instead of repudiating such rhetoric, John Kerry is using it as a pressure tool to threaten Israel.  In fact, Kerry arrogantly states the solution has already been found, it is just a question of how you force the parties to agree to view:

After all of these years, after Wye, after Madrid, after Oslo, after Taba, after Camp David, after everything that has gone on, I doubt there is anyone sitting here that doesn’t actually know, pretty much, what a final status agreement actually looks like.  The question is how do you get there?

Against My People Israel

What we are seeing are the seeds of hate that will fan the flames of the coming conflagration. There are voices in America which see the Administration’s actions as being inflammatory and setting the stage for the eventual invasion of Israel.  Glen Beck in his program“Blaze” clearly indicts the Obama Administration:

They are looking for a justification to get into Israel and deal with Israel themselves. The President has been softening the ground, helping pave the way, his entire presidency for this. All of the people involved? They are all the people who are involved with the boycott. The President has been humiliating Benjamin Netanyahu. He has called for the return to the 1967 borders. He slammed Israel settlements. He has supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the overthrow, which made everything much more unstable. He gave the Muslim Brotherhood, membership, VIP treatment, access to the Whitehouse. He actually had members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Whitehouse. He has members of the Muslim Brotherhood that are touring our homeland security.  It is clear what side the administration is on. It is clear what side of the bed they are crawling in with, and it isn’t Israel. This administration believes that Israel is the problem, and when there is a real global war, whose side do you think this administration will be on?  Israel? Or will we see maybe a new ambassador, Samantha Power, who will convene a new peace keeping force to send into Israel to impose a solution. When the hammer comes down on Israel, and believe me it is going to, it is because this administration is setting up a bogus boycott themselves. This is directly from the Whitehouse again.

Glen Beck’s vision of who will invade Israel in the latter days is out of sync with the scriptures. However, the policies of the current administration are setting the legal and moral pretense for an invasion, it will just be by a Russo-European contingency, not America. America’s roll will have to be reversed once again, because in the end they are one of the protesting nations that make up the Merchants of Tarshish and all the young lions thereof” (Ezekiel 38:13). Beck also pointed out that one of the organizations threatening boycott of Israel is Oxfam, who John Kerry’s wife happens to have donated millions to.

The scriptures clearly state that the battle of Armageddon recorded in Ezekiel 38, Joel 3, Zechariah 14 and other passages is an anti-Semetic attack. It is an attack against “them that are at rest”.  Consider the words of the prophets:

“Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God; In that day when my people of Israeldwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?” (Ezekiel 38:14)

“And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.” (Ezekiel 38:16)

The target of this attack is what God calls “my people Israel”. This is what God takes issue with when we read in Joel 3:

 “For, behold, in those days, and in that time, When I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, And will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, And will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. And they have cast lots for my people; And have given a boy for an harlot, And sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.” (Joel 3:1–3)

The prophets paint a very clear picture of what the nations will do when they come into the land. Life will be very cheep once again…. Jewish life that is. That is Jewish life centered in the West Bank, in the mountains of Israel and around the city of Jerusalem:

“Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, And thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; And the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; And half of the city shall go forth into captivity, And the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, As when he fought in the day of battle.” (Zechariah 14:1–3)

It is at this point in time that the God of heaven will intervene in the affairs of mankind, very visibly.

“And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my fury shall come up in my face.” (Ezekiel 38:18)

God will put an end to the persecution of his people when their king comes to sit in mount Zion, on the mountains of Israel, in Judea, the covenanted land that was promised to Abraham, to Isaac, to Israel and their descendants perpetually:

“The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. (Joel 3:16)

That day cannot come soon enough, when Israel will be redeemed there truly will be peace in the Middle East. Isaiah tells us:

“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:9)

This has been Jonathan Bowen joining you for the Bible in the News.