The Rising Tide of Anti-Christian Attacks in Europe

Analysing the shocking results of a recent survey on discrimination against Christians in the UK

Tom Lennie reviews ‘Christians in The Firing Line 2: Inspiring Faith Stories of the Individuals Behind Key Legal Cases and How their Faith Stood up Under Trial’, by Richard Scott (2023)

Last week, global 'Israeli Apartheid Week' was celebrated in cities across the UK. Charles Gardner helps dismantle the hype surrounding this increasingly common vilification of Israel.

As British cities took part in 'Israeli Apartheid Week', which rallies people to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel and which has been gathering momentum year on year, hundreds of London Underground trains were plastered with ads depicting Israel as a vile apartheid state. They turned out to be illegal fly-posters and were duly removed - but not without the intervention of authorities alerted by the Israeli Embassy.¹

Because the issues surrounding Israel are highly complicated and controversial, some are frightened off taking any view at all, while others fall for the temptation of over-simplifying things, which is why those determined to vilify Israel latch on to the emotive 'A' word.

Israel Not Perfect

Of course Israel is far from perfect, and there are areas of discrimination - like restrictions on land access for Palestinian citizens. But as Benjamin Pogrund wrote in The Guardian last year, the situation in Israel cannot and should not be compared to apartheid South Africa – and he should know, since he was a correspondent there for 26 years, and has been living in Israel for 17 years.

"The Arabs of Israel are full citizens", he wrote. "Crucially, they have the vote and Israeli Arab MPs sit in parliament. An Arab judge sits on the country's highest court; an Arab is chief surgeon at a leading hospital; an Arab commands a brigade of the Israeli army...Under apartheid, every detail of life was subject to discrimination by law...Israel is not remotely like that."²

Because the issues surrounding Israel are complicated and controversial, people often over-simplify things, with those determined to vilify Israel latching on to the emotive 'A' word.

Elsewhere, South African Olga Meshoe, daughter of African Christian Democratic Party president Rev Kenneth Meshoe, has called designations of Israel as an 'apartheid' state "an absolute lie" which "trivialises" what happened in South Africa.³ She is now campaigning worldwide for Israel to be treated more fairly and intelligently.

Discrimination – or Self-Preservation?

Much of what is perceived as discrimination in Israel is driven by the need for security. For example, the disputed West Bank (still known to Israelis as Judea and Samaria and claimed as their biblical heartland) is not part of modern-day Israel; so when people cross over into Israel, they are effectively crossing an international border, where you would normally expect checkpoints.

But in the case of Israel, such controls are doubly necessary due to the constant threat of terrorism. I was stopped at a checkpoint myself while travelling with friends up the Jordan Valley to Galilee. And when armed Israeli soldiers asked for my passport, I was unable to oblige, having left it behind at a Jerusalem guesthouse. But after some anxious moments, my driving licence was deemed sufficient and we were waived through.

The security fence was erected after nearly 1,000 Israeli civilians were killed by suicide bombers in the five-year period to 2005. And it has worked. Even Palestinian terrorists have admitted it is a deterrent.⁴

Arab Palestinians visit Israel for work every day from the PA-controlled West Bank and are searched, as you would naturally expect on passing through customs. However, there are some Palestinian areas from which Jews are altogether banned!

Distorted Narrative

While acknowledging that Israel isn't perfect, Pogrund concludes that her critics "exaggerate and distort and present an ugly caricature far distant from reality". Many want more than an end to the occupation; they want an end to Israel itself, he says, asking: "Why is Israel the only country in the world whose very right to existence is challenged in this way?"⁵

Much of what is perceived as discrimination is driven by the need for security. The security fence was erected after nearly 1,000 Israeli civilians were killed by suicide bombers between 2000 and 2005.

It's worth pointing out that apartheid in South Africa finally collapsed when the structure upon which it was built – a false understanding of the scriptures – fell apart. This happened when leading Afrikaner clerics confessed that they had been wrong.⁶ In fact, the Church as a whole played a leading role in ensuring a relatively peaceful transition from white minority to black majority rule. In matters of politics in other parts of the world, we still need the Church to lead with this kind of repentance and wisdom, which can only come from God.

I'll let America's legendary civil rights leader Martin Luther King have the last word. In a letter to a friend who claimed to be 'merely anti-Zionist', not a Jew-hater, he thundered:

Let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews...Anti-Semitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind...And what is anti-Zionism? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa...⁷

This article is an extension of our current 'Israel Q&A' series.

Notes

1 Anti-Israel Ads Plaster London's Underground. Bridges for Peace, 26 February 2016.

2 Pogrund, B. Israel has many injustices. But it is not an apartheid state. The Guardian, 22 May 2015.

3 BDS claims make mockery of SA struggle, says Olga Meshoe. Gateway News, 3 March 2016.

4 David Soakell, Watching Over Zion newsletter. Christian Friends of Israel, 18 February 2016.

5 See note 2.

6 A key influence in this was evangelist Michael Cassidy, whose biography you can read here.

7 This I believe: selections from the writings of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, New York, 1971, pp234-235. Thanks also to Saltshakers, the website of author Steve Maltz.