How should we respond to the crisis in the Middle East?

Javid resignation triggered by prayer breakfast sermon

Part 2: Zionism was never founded on racism

Jessica Edwards reviews ‘Israel and the British Empire’ by David Gibson (2020)

Will Britain stand with Israel in the end times?

We mark the centenary of the San Remo Resolution with several relevant reviews

Anna Coxon reviews ‘The Virtue of Nationalism’ by Yoram Hazony (2018, Basic Books)

Part 1: The Balfour Declaration

How the left-wing turned the Jew from hero to villain

How can a self-proclaimed anti-racist and life-long supporter of the underdog find himself encouraging rampant anti-Semitism within his own Party, to the point that it is now splintering apart? Worse, how can he be found guilty of the same behaviour?

Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitism problem is poorly understood by most, but it is key to explaining Labour’s current crisis. To understand it properly, we have to go back in time.¹

The Early Years

19^th Century socialism, trade unionism and the Methodist revivals combined to give the British Labour movement quite a different flavour to the revolutionary socialism of continental Europe. Christian Socialists such as Keir Hardie dominated the Labour Party’s leadership in its infancy at the turn of the 20^th Century, promoting the interests of the working class.

Indeed, it was Labour Party principles that undergirded the development of the British welfare state, with Labour campaigns for better working conditions and social reforms such as free education, free medical treatment and aid for society’s most vulnerable. Whatever the rights and wrongs of these policies from a biblical perspective, Labour was marked undeniably in its early years by biblically-inspired concerns: justice for the oppressed, compassion for the vulnerable, mercy and grace for those in need.

Labour was marked in its early years by biblically-inspired concerns: justice for the oppressed, compassion for the vulnerable, mercy and grace for those in need.

In this spirit, Labour gladly took up the Zionist baton from Lloyd George’s Liberals. The romantic idealism of the Zionist dream chimed strongly with classic Labour ideals: a down-trodden, persecuted people uniting in common cause of collaborative self-determination, pursuing lives of hard manual labour and bearing one another up through a populist culture of co-operation, shared ownership and mutual benefit, manifested most obviously in the kibbutz system.

Labour leader Arthur Henderson published his own version of the Balfour Declaration three months before the real thing was published under Lloyd George in 1917. Labour endorsed Zionism through the 1920s, 30s and 40s, opposing the Conservative Government’s White Paper limiting Jewish re-immigration and re-iterating strong support for Jewish settlers during and after the war years. Despite some back-tracking from Clement Attlee’s administration, this general support for Zionism continued well into the 1950s and was extended beyond this by philo-Semitic Labour PM Harold Wilson.

Promises of Freedom

It was during the 1960s, however, that the broader political context began to change dramatically, as a new age of rebellion and revolution swept in. As prosperity boomed, empires disintegrated and technology connected up the world, the old class-based politics was replaced by identity politics and a new pre-occupation with the global. Across the West there was a cultural shift as an entire generation rebelled against all forms of authority, choosing instead to experiment – politically, sexually, spiritually.

Under the banner of ‘liberation’ from the old order, a whole host of new movements and intellectual theories gathered, including but not limited to:

• The sexual liberation movement
  
• The anti-capitalist movement
  
• The anti-war movement
  
• The radical green movement
  
• Moral/cultural relativism (the idea that there are no absolute rights or wrongs)
  
• Post-structuralism (the idea that it is impossible to understand the world through universally applicable concepts or ‘grand meta-narratives’)
  
• Third World ‘liberation’ movements
  
• Post-colonial theories (the corresponding academic movement re-narrating the West’s history of colonialism as an unadulterated evil)
  

What unites all of these profoundly influential movements is their pursuit of freedom – by any means necessary - from the perceived ‘oppression’ of the old order of Western culture, grounded as it was in Judeo-Christian beliefs and principles.^2,3

This has manifested most notably through a revival of atheistic Marxism, which turns Judeo-Christian principles on their head and which has been mobilised systematically – and often intentionally - to undermine and overturn them. But Marxism, as we well know, carries within it an illiberal spirit of subjugation and control – not the ‘freedom’ it promises, but tyranny.

While the Cold War seemingly dealt a death blow to communism, the Marxist concept of life as a power struggle between oppressed and oppressor, resolvable only through radical system-change and the forced imposition of a new order, was being re-fashioned in the halls of the Western intelligentsia as a socio-cultural (cf. economic) theory. This eventually became the new guiding ideology for most Western educators, politicians and journalists – and it remains so today.

It was, therefore, the 1960s, 70s and 80s and the gradual rise to prominence of ‘cultural Marxism’ under the guise of social ‘progressivism’, that gave us victim culture and identity politics, the doctrine of multi-culturalism, political correctness and the policing of speech and thought, and the extension of coercive state power into every sphere of life, for ‘the greater good’ of enforced equality.

This era saw the re-organising of Western political and legal systems around a new morality marked by permissiveness, boundary-pushing and a lack of respect for the sanctity of human life. It also saw the entry of Jeremy Corbyn into left-wing activism and politics.

The Marxist concept of power struggle was re-fashioned as a socio-cultural theory which eventually became the new guiding ideology for Western educators, politicians and journalists.

Zionism Inverted

Under this new system, Zionism was inverted: it was no longer a socialist dream for the pursuit of national self-determination by an oppressed people fleeing Western persecution (and with every historical and legal right to return to their homeland), but an oppressive outpost of Western colonialism, with the real victims being the Palestinians. Followed through, this thinking has entrenched on the left the belief that the Israeli state is a racist, colonialist, fascist endeavour that has no right to exist.

White Western Jewish immigrants enjoying increasing economic and military success could not (even despite the Holocaust) possibly attain to the level of powerlessness and victimhood claimed for darker-skinned, Muslim Arabs. The former, as oppressive occupiers, could do no right. The latter, as oppressed victims, could do no wrong.

And this is the nub of the problem: because of its a priori ideology, left-wing progressives see the world and its problems through a particular grid of assumed power relationships that dictate who is right and who is wrong, who is righteous and who is evil, before the evidence is even considered. Reality is then contorted to fit this picture.

Appeal to Labour

That the British Labour Party bought into this utterly inverted worldview shouldn’t be entirely surprising. After all, cultural Marxism mobilises emotive, virtuous-sounding concepts that seemingly run close to traditional Labour values, such as the plight of the oppressed and justice for the most vulnerable.

However, concepts of oppression, vulnerability, freedom and equality here are twisted and inverted to serve a very different ideology than the one which motivated Keir Hardie – one which strips God, his boundaries and ethics, from the picture entirely.

And it is this secular humanist, ‘progressive’ version of social justice (really the French Revolution in new clothes), to which Jeremy Corbyn subscribes more ardently and consistently than most of his colleagues.

From Anti-Zionism to Anti-Semitism

Palestinian flags at the 2018 Labour Party Conference. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/PA Images.

And so we arrive at today’s situation, where the current Labour leader’s antics place fourth on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s ‘Top Ten Global Anti-Semitic Incidents’ of 2018. Corbyn makes common cause with Islamist terrorists who overtly seek Jewish genocide while refusing to meet with Israelis, defends and celebrates terror attacks on Israeli Jews and allows anti-Semitic chants to be sung at the Labour Party Conference.

He fails to defend Jewish MPs in his own party as they are singled out for torrents of verbal abuse and death threats, and targeted internally for unseating. He also refuses to recognise that the Party even has an anti-Semitism problem (let alone apologise for it), while his supporters dismiss the allegations as a vicious smear.

Rife within Momentum are Holocaust denials and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that seem more at home on the far-right (indeed, the far-left is blind to them for this very reason). References to ‘Zio-Nazis’ or to ‘apartheid’ Israel degenerate quickly into age-old anti-Semitic tropes, from blood-sucking, baby-killing Jews to Jews as evil masterminds manipulating the world. Israel is singled out uniquely and disproportionately for distorted, ideologically-motivated criticism.

Fuller accounts of Labour’s anti-Semitism problem can be found easily elsewhere. Suffice to say that, in the span of a generation, the Labour Party has completely inverted its position on Israel, and that this has triggered a drastic rise in anti-Semitic attitudes. The inevitability of this slide into anti-Semitism can be argued from both a biblical/spiritual and a philosophical perspective (though many would undoubtedly disagree).

Left-wing progressives see the world and its problems through a particular grid of power relationships that dictate who is righteous and who is evil before the evidence is even considered.

Conclusions

With the whole of the 20^th Century in view, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Jeremy Corbyn is not a freak accident, but an extreme, outlying example of a general trend: the shift of British politics towards the extreme secular left, in rebellion against our former commitment to biblical ethics and ideals. In the words of Melanie Phillips, “Corbyn is not the cause of left-wing Jew hate – he’s the result”.⁴

The roots of this issue lie in our cutting ourselves loose from our spiritual and ethical moorings in the Judeo-Christian scriptures, a move being described by some as cultural suicide. It is no coincidence that this has brought with it a volte-face regarding Israel and, from there, the Jewish people.

From a biblical perspective, the situation is quite simple. An embrace of God’s word produces not only a love of God’s ethics, but also a respect for all that he has marked as his own – whether land or people. Rejection of his word induces a hatred of all who are connected to it - all who bear his name.

This hatred, in turn, results in a cursing (Gen 12:3) which the Labour Party – despite its honourable beginnings – may even now be experiencing, and from which it may never recover.

Notes

1 What follows is a necessarily potted history. For a lengthier comment on this whole topic, I recommend ‘The Left’s Jewish Problem’ by Dave Rich (2016, Biteback Publishing). Also 'It backed Israel before Balfour: Corbyn stance is stark shift from early Labour' by Robert Philpot for The Times of Israel, 17 April 2018.

2 These movements gained a lot of momentum by piggy-backing on worthier causes, such as the civil rights movement in the USA and the anti-apartheid movement for South Africa (though both of these also had their more violent, revolutionary elements).

3 Read more about this in Melanie Phillips’ book ‘The World Turned Upside-Down’. That these movements cohere around a reaction against the Judeo-Christian West means they find common cause with a variety of other movements with the same agenda (e.g. radical Islam).

4 Jeremy Corbyn is not the cause of left-wing Jew hate, he’s the result. Melanie Phillips, 21 October 2018.

Windfall used to aid God’s great plan for the Jewish people

When a young barrister came into a great fortune over 200 years ago, he did not spend it on himself but instead used it to turn the key that would eventually unlock the fulfilment of numerous biblical prophecies.

Lewis Way must have been dumbstruck when, for no obvious reason, he became the main beneficiary of a friend’s will, the only stipulation for which was that the money should be used “to the glory of God”.¹

The inheritance was worth £300,000 – a colossal amount at the time representing at least £12 million in today’s money.

An Eton-educated ‘mover and shaker’ in influential circles, Lewis sought the Lord in prayer and duly felt the call of God to devote his time, energy and recently acquired wealth towards helping Jewish people to a knowledge of their Messiah and restoring them to the land of Israel.

He was particularly stirred by what has been dubbed his ‘Exeter Road encounter’ when, in 1811, he passed the home of two sisters who had also inherited a fortune and was reminded of how one of them was said to have planted a row of oak trees over which she had prophesied that they would stand until the Jews were back in Palestine.

“The spirit of that story really inspired him,” Rev Alex Jacob told an audience this week. “He knew at that moment that the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral home would be his chief cause for the rest of his life.”

Joining with Wilberforce

So he pursued this task with great zeal and became active with the Church’s Ministry among Jewish people (CMJ), co-founded in 1809 by his close friend William Wilberforce and dedicated to investing in Israel’s spiritual rebirth.

Unlike today, it was quite fashionable – even politically correct – to be linked with such an organisation, especially with the Duke of Kent (Queen Victoria’s father) as patron…until he resigned because the mission was “too evangelical”.

Lewis became active with CMJ, co-founded by his close friend William Wilberforce and dedicated to investing in Israel’s spiritual re-birth.

There was an irony, too, in that the Way family had in earlier years acquired their wealth through slavery, yet now he was teaming up with an abolitionist! Rev Jacob, CMJ’s UK chief executive, explained that the Jewish emancipation and anti-slavery movements were two sides of the same coin.

And when, in 1815, CMJ hit a financial crisis, Way stepped in with a significant gift, without which CMJ would have been a footnote in church history.

Pleading with the Czar

A great networker, he then set up a successful work in Poland, where many Jews came to believe Jesus as their Messiah.

In 1817 he had an audience with Czar Alexander I of Russia, pleading with arguably the most powerful ruler of the time that the Jewish people should have their own homeland. And on 13 October the following year, with the Czar’s backing, he put the case for the issue – and for Jewish emancipation² generally – to the European Congress.³

His meeting with the Czar is said to have significantly advanced the Jewish hope for returning to their ancient land and eventually led to the issuing by the British Government of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which paved the way for the modern state of Israel.

Way was accompanied on this trip by an ex-Muslim Arab (his translator) and a former Jewish rabbi who embraced each other as they worked together in the cause of Christ and of Israel.

The briefcase Way used for the occasion has survived to this day and was actually displayed alongside the podium at which Rev Jacob spoke at CMJ’s Nottinghamshire headquarters.

Way and the Czar developed a bond as brothers in Christ and, after addressing the Congress, the Englishman wrote to his wife Mary: “Certainly, such an appeal for the Jewish people has not been made since the days of Mordecai and Esther.”

Way’s meeting with the Czar significantly advanced the Jewish hope for returning to their ancient land.

Storing up Treasures in Heaven

There is no doubt that Way’s sacrificial exploits greatly contributed to the cause of Zionism and the return to the Holy Land of Jews dispersed to every corner of the globe by the Romans almost 2,000 years ago.

His ultimate purpose, however, was not just in helping them back to their land but, more importantly, to their Lord. And he will have been thrilled to see the proliferation throughout Israel today – and in other parts of the world including the UK – of Jewish congregations worshipping Yeshua (Hebrew for Jesus).

Lewis Way's family chapel, renovated in 1804 to include a stained glass window referencing the Jewishness of the faith. See Photo Credits.

The bi-centenary of Way’s presentation to the European Congress is being marked tomorrow (Saturday) with a special event at Stansted Park in Hampshire, once Way’s family home. It will be held in the historic St Paul’s Chapel, situated within the Park, from 11am to 4pm with access to tearooms and a farm shop. Dr Richard Harvey, Rodney Curtis and Rev Jacob will give talks titled From Russia with Love, The Forgotten Way and Money, Money, Money respectively. It is free of charge; just turn up.⁴

The chapel happens also to contain a unique stained glass window designed by Way while carrying out renovation work in 1804. It is the only window in a Christian place of worship which is wholly Jewish in design and symbolism.⁵

Recently restored with help from CMJ, this beautiful window is based on Genesis 9:13: “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

Despite his immense earthly wealth, Way successfully stored up his treasure in heaven, as Jesus advises us to do (see Matt 6:19-21).

Notes

1 It is suggested that his benefactor and namesake John Way (no relative) would have been hugely impressed by his friend’s integrity for, when he offered him an arranged marriage with a woman of high status, he turned it down, preferring to ‘marry for love’.

2 Jews throughout Europe had their rights restricted in many ways, such as being denied access to various professions.

3 Set up following the collapse of the Napoleonic empire as a kind of precursor for the League of Nations in a bid to help re-shape the map of Europe.

4 Find out more here.

5 Click here for a picture of the window.