A grave decision

'It is a sad day when international politicians of all stripes can no longer discern between good and evil.'

By MALCOLM HEDDING
Abbas at Arab League meeting 370 (photo credit: REUTERS/Mohamad Dabbouss)
Abbas at Arab League meeting 370
(photo credit: REUTERS/Mohamad Dabbouss)
On November 29, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to upgrade the status of “Palestine” to that of a nonmember observer state, while also endorsing the pre-1967 lines as its borders. This decision gives increased leverage to the Palestinians in their efforts to gain independence at Israel’s expense.
The astute observer will note that this decision to divest Israel of her land and capital took place on the same date as the original UN plan to partition Mandatory Palestine some 65 years earlier.
Now, this august world forum is seeking to bolster a Palestinian nationalist cause whose leaders have waged a relentless war of terror against the Jewish people. This war has not been for a state of their own but for the removal of the Jewish state.
The unaltered PLO charter continues to call for Israel’s destruction. The textbooks in Palestinian Authority schools incite hatred of the Jews. Their public statements in Arabic have ceaselessly called for Israel’s destruction.
Every time Israeli leaders have made generous offers for peace, they have been rejected by the Palestinians, whose leaders have instead launched suicide terror campaigns.
So this recent vote is a disgrace and more of a commentary on the evil that lurks in the corridors of the United Nations than anything else.
The recent war with Hamas in Gaza is part of the same conflict. Having pulled out of Gaza in 2005 with good intentions, Israel was rewarded with over 12,000 missiles that have rained down on her southern towns and villages. No nation would accept this, but once again the international community has bullied Israel into restraint against these terrorists. The charge was led by the new Islamist regime in Egypt, which fully supports Hamas but seeks to consolidate its own power base before moving on to deal with Israel.
It is a sad day when international politicians of all stripes can no longer discern between good and evil. Thus, in the near future, there will be a campaign to rehabilitate Hamas and give it legitimacy. These calls are already being heard.
We are, therefore, witnessing the rise of global anti-Semitism and with it a sustained attack against Israel through two strategies: first, that of warfare and terrorism; and second, by “lawfare” – the smear of apartheid leveled against Israel and campaigns to divest from, boycott and sanction Israel.
Sadly, many mainline churches have given their support to this attack. The goal is to discredit, delegitimize and finally dismantle Israel.
The Israelis are putting a brave face on the recent UN decision, but nevertheless it is a grave development. The UN decision of November 29 has put “wind in the sails” of Israel’s enemies.
For the present, we thank God for the US, Canada and a handful of other nations, which stand with Israel. But we must know that the enemies of Israel will do all that they can to break the ties that exist between America, Canada and Israel.
Seventy years ago, six million Jews were exterminated in Europe while much of the world watched silently.
This must not happen again! Now is the time for Christians everywhere to stand up for Israel. We all have a sphere of influence we can reach.
In doing so, please note carefully the following words of Canada’s foreign minister, John Baird: “In choosing not to stand idly by as the age-old hatred of the Jewish people has been transferred to the ‘collective Jew,’ I have been speaking up against the new anti-Semitism that is so pervasive today in the world. It targets the Jewish people by targeting the Jewish homeland as the source of injustice and conflict in the world. It is perversely couched in the language of human rights. Just as conventional anti-Semitism denied Jews the right to live as equal members of humanity, the new anti-Semitism denies the State of Israel the right to live as an equal member of the international community.
“Worse still, when this new anti- Semitism expresses itself in the call for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people, it is no longer hate speech, it is incitement to genocide. And we have to name it for what it is.”
Rev. Hedding is vice chairman of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem; www.icej.org