Further evidence of Britain’s betrayal of the Jews

Shortly after my harrowing visit to north London (see Life from the Dead), my thoughts once again return to the capital in response to news of a massive UK terror plot uncovered four years ago, but only now revealed to the public.

It involved Iran-sponsored terror group Hezbollah, who were reportedly stockpiling more than three tons of explosives (ammonium nitrate) in north-west London but were foiled thanks to a tip-off by Israel’s national intelligence agency Mossad.¹ It is suspected that the incident was kept under wraps in order not to interrupt the Iranian nuclear deal being negotiated at the time.

Kept in the Dark

Christians United for Israel have been warning the British Government for some while, through their Operation Mordecai campaign, of the dangers both to Israel and the UK of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Their executive director Des Starritt, asking why the public have been kept in the dark about the plot, said: “It is unbelievable that, only months after the UK signed the Iran deal, Britain seemingly ignored this new evidence and continued to support it.”

Further asking why it took the Government another three-and-a-half years to apply an outright ban on Hezbollah, he added: “It meant that it was possible for people within the UK to openly support Hezbollah without any consequence whatsoever…”²

And all this on top of a claim by a former leading official of the International Atomic Energy Agency (referred to last week) that Tehran could be as close as “six months away from an atomic bomb”.³

Quite apart from the obvious danger posed to British citizens by our evident appeasement of Iran, it also amounts to further betrayal of the Jewish people, who have most to lose from a nuclear-armed Iran that has repeatedly trumpeted its intention to wipe Israel off the map.

It is suspected that the 2015 incident was kept under wraps in order not to interrupt the Iran nuclear deal being negotiated at the time.

Wasted Opportunities

As I write, I am aware that today (Wednesday, 12 June) should have been the 90th birthday of Anne Frank, the brave German-born Dutch girl whose life was cut short aged 15 by Nazi butchers, and whose poignant diaries have since helped to keep alive the reality of Jewish suffering.

It was at least two years before her death in early 1945 that news of the mass murder of European Jews had reached the UK and elsewhere, and a poll was taken indicating a clear majority (78%) of public support for the admission of Jewish refugees.

According to my friend, Pastor Mike Fryer of North Wales, “the Nazis had made it clear that should the British and American governments be willing to allow them entry, they would be released from Nazi control”.⁴ But at a meeting to discuss the crisis, a British delegate referred instead to a “vociferous minority” supporting Jewish immigration. And the opportunity to rescue millions of Jews was thus, shamefully, lost.

Has anything changed? Britain today is awash with anti-Semitism. When a Jewish lady attending a Palestine Solidarity Campaign meeting in Liverpool four years ago asked a question, someone turned around and said: “Why don’t you get back to the camps?” She reported this ‘hate crime’ to the police, but nothing was ever done about it.

My friend Mike, a former police officer, said he had attended two Israel Advocacy events during the last two years where demonstrators chanted anti-Semitic abuse. But nothing was done at the time either to record or act upon complaints. Mike also gave evidence to the recent enquiry into anti-Semitism within the Labour Party conducted by Baroness Chakrabarti, but again nothing was done about it.

Replacement Theology

Adding further fuel to the fires of Jew-hatred are so-called Christians who have somehow re-invented Jesus as a ‘Palestinian’ and either removed or ignored Israel from their view of the Bible – quite a task when you consider that Israel is mentioned 2,581 times in the Scriptures.

But the students of Dr Mitri Raheb, a Palestinian Arab Christian lecturer from Bethlehem who recently spoke in North Wales, are led to believe that “Israel is neither a valid scriptural or political entity”, according to Mike.

Has anything changed? Britain today is awash with anti-Semitism.

Ring any bells? It’s what many Western church leaders also seem to believe. But as Mike points out, Dr Raheb and many like him don’t say much about the persecution in the Middle East of their fellow Arab Christians.

So who’s agenda are they following? It is instructive to recall that the Nazis worked closely with Islamists who were committed, like they were, to the destruction of the Jewish race.

It’s time to shine a light on the darkness, to come clean on our history of betrayal and once more become those who bless the seed of Abraham (see Genesis 12:3).

References

1 The Telegraph, 9 June 2019; United with Israel, 11 June 2019.

2 Christians United for Israel, 12 June 2019.

3 World Israel News, 5 June 2019.

4 www.fathershouse.wales – see also Dr Louise London’s book Whitehall and the Jews. 

The Church has remained silent on Israel for too long

As Jews the world over next week mark a feast they have celebrated annually for the past 2,500 years, it presents a perfect opportunity for the Church to step into the breach on behalf of God’s chosen people.

The feast of Purim recalls the time when a beautiful young orphan queen known as Esther saved her people from annihilation in ancient Persia.

Her identity as a Jew was a secret at the time of her accession to the throne, as the potential for anti-Semitism was so great that the Bible’s account of her heroics only mentions God in code.

But when her guardian, Mordecai, alerted her to Haman’s genocidal plot against all the Jews in an empire stretching from India to Egypt, he challenged her with these words: “If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Est 4:14).

Esther knew it would be dangerous to approach the king without being summoned but, just as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego risked the fiery furnace rather than compromise their faith, Esther too bit the bullet, defiantly declaring: “If I perish, I perish” (Est 4:16).

Modern Threats

Is it not time for the Church to stand up for the Jews as Esther did? The Church in Germany were, for the most part, silent as they watched Hitler’s anti-Semitic cancer spread.

Thankfully, para-church organisations like Christian Friends of Israel, representing thousands of individual Christians, have until now played the part of Mordecai in their attempt to alert the Church to the dangers.

One of them, Christians United for Israel, has actually launched a campaign called 'Operation Mordecai', warning of the danger posed by Iran (modern-day Persia) to Israel and the West, and is encouraging churches to nail their colours to the mast by showing corporate support for Israel rather than leaving it to individual believers.

Is it not time for the Church to stand up for the Jews just as Esther did?

Israel’s existence – and by extension that of the Jewish people – is threatened once again. First Pharaoh tried to obliterate them, then Haman, followed by Herod and Hitler. Now the likes of Hamas are inflicting their murder and mayhem on Israel’s southern borders while, in the north, Hezbollah have some 120,000 missiles hidden among Lebanon’s civilian population.

At the same time, a harrowing new wave of anti-Semitism is sweeping across Europe and America, while in Britain we are witnessing an unholy alliance between hard-left Labour and the far-right - including Islamists - viciously persecuting innocent Jews.

Time to Stand Up!

The Tory Government has made a start in repenting of past sins committed against the Jews. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has apologised for Britain’s blocking of those trying to escape the Nazi butchers and for its holding of others in detention camps like Atlit, near Haifa, during the 1940s. And Home Secretary Sajid Javid has finally pronounced a full ban on Hezbollah.

But the Church in Britain – as a whole – has badly neglected the Jews. We are not only responsible for the scourge of social engineering now blighting our beloved country, but also for the disgraceful scandal of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party.

Where have the strong Christian voices of support for Israel been over the years? Do we really think God has reneged on his promise of everlasting love for the Jews (Jer 31:3)? Do we realise that such misguided belief gives carte blanche to the sort of unbridled hatred for Israel pronounced by many of those seeking to wrest power from the Conservatives?

Jeremy Corbyn and his close allies – like terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas – believe Israel has no right to exist. It’s time to make amends for our indifference by taking on the role of Esther – intervening on behalf of an endangered people, both in prayer and action.

The Tory Government has made a start in repenting of past sins committed by Britain against the Jews. But the British Church – as a whole – remains silent.

Cursing Turned Around

In modern Persia, the ayatollahs are determined to wipe Israel off the map, using nuclear weapons if necessary. But the tables were turned on the anti-Semites of ancient Persia. Haman literally made a rope on which to hang himself and the evil scheme he had devised came back on his own head. Those who dare to stand against the Jews or their Messiah will surely come to ruin!

Indeed, the tables were turned on Germany, and it all came back on their own heads as their cities were reduced to rubble – Darmstadt, for instance, had its own 9/11 when, on 11 September 1944, the city was destroyed, leaving 12,000 dead and many more homeless.

Similar devastation awaits those who touch the apple of God’s eye today (Zech 2:8).