- In a recent video alert on the Anti-Defamation League
website, ADL national director Abraham H. Foxman says anti-Semitism is
growing explosively worldwide, especially during the last year. It is also
"invading the mainstream," says ADL.
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- We are going to hear a lot about anti-Semitism in the
months ahead-not only from ADL but from ADL's Dept. of Anti-Semitism in
the US State Department. President Obama recently appointed the State Department's
US Envoy on Anti-Semitism, Hannah Rosenthal. She is charged with helping
subdue what Foxman describes as perhaps the worst global anti-Semitism
outbreak he has witnessed in his 22-year tenure as head of ADL.
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- Exactly what is anti-Semitism?
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- In its latest report to Congress, the Office of Global
Anti-Semitism says "classic anti-Semitism" is the New Testament
assertion that Jews masterminded the crucifixion of Christ 2,000 years
ago. (See "http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/usgovtalmudmocknt.htm"
U.S. Government, Talmud Mock New Testament) ADL says it is harsh criticism
of Israel and any visual or verbal comparison of Nazis to Israel, its leaders,
or military. Webster's New 20th Century Dictionary-owned by Jewish publishing
house Simon and Schuster-defines anti-Semitism to include "fearing
Jews or Jewish things." Israel is quintessentially a Jewish thing.
Thus, fearing Israel, its leaders, or its military is, according to this
authority, anti-Semitic.
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- Are Christians a part of what ADL, and our government,
portrays as a terrifying scourge that governments worldwide should suppress?
Stan Mooneyham is president of World Vision International, an evangelical
Christian relief organization. Consider his following observations in World
Vision Magazine describing the aftermath of Israel's 1982 bombing of refugee
camps in southern Lebanon which killed at least 19,500. Does it contain
strong criticism or fear of Israel? Is it "anti-Semitic?"
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- Some say there was two hours notice. Others insist there
was none. In a camp of 60,000, it's not easy to get the word around, even
when warning leaflets are dropped the first planes came at 5 o'clock in
the evening; from just after midnight until eight the next evening the
bombing was continuous. For three days the pounding went on. Everybody
here has friends who died in the attack. A woman makes a chopping motion
across the knee of a baby another woman is holding, saying she saw a baby
at Ein-el-Hillweh who had both legs blown off.
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- There is no Ein-el-Hillweh anymore. Never before have
I seen such total destruction, not even in Minagua, the earthquake-stricken
capitol of Nicaragua. If the world's war-makers and peacemakers want to
see what saturation bombing looks like, they should look here. Israel,
a country skilled in making the desert blossom like a rose, knows also
how to turn rose into desert.
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- Block after block of crumpled wreckage is all that's
left. Plus the unknown number of bodies. There must be hundreds down there
underneath the rubble-the permeating odor of decaying flesh tells you that
much. Refugees who escaped say that as many as 8,000 died. The Red Cross
puts the number at 1,500. Either way, it's one of the major massacres of
modern times.
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- Mooneyham then describes the Israeli attack on Sidon
in the darkness of the early morning:
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- at two-thirty Monday morning, June 14, an aerial bomb
slices into Kineye School. It rips bodies apart, strews arms and legs and
pieces of what a second before had been living, breathing human beings.
The concussion takes the rest.
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- No more running. No more crying. Now they sleep.
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- Now here I am three weeks later, where no observer is
supposed to be, seeing what no observer is supposed to see. The bodies
and pieces of bodiesKineye School is a charnel house; body fluids, creeping
across the basement floor from the stacks of bodies, are ankle-deep in
places. It is possible to count fifty or so bodies. The rest are piled
atop each other, hurled there by the blast that took their lives. We are
told there are 255 in the helter-skelter pile. (September 1982)
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- Lest We Forget
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- In 1982, ADL was Israel's PR bulldog as it is today.
ADL and the Israeli government downplayed the casualties and damages at
Sidon as well as Beirut. Yet Mooneyham, who managed to penetrate the area
much sooner than other Western observers, reported: "If the Israeli
figure of 165 killed in Sidon is accurate, I saw all but 10 of those bodies
in one school basement still unburied three weeks after the invasion. That
says nothing about the township of Ein-el-Hillweh just outside of Sidon
which had a normal population of 60,000 and was obliterated by saturation
bombing."
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- As the head of an international relief organization bringing
$400,000 of medical and relief supplies to victims of this modern Holocaust,
Mooneyham was astonished at the refusal of Israeli conquerors to allow
distribution of such necessities, even after fighting ended and the area
was secure.
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- Early delivery attempts were thwarted on several occasions
by Israeli blockadescausing costly delaysIsrael refused all relief agencies
access to occupied areas for more than 10 days of the worst need when quick
action could have saved many lives. The Red Cross ship S.S. Anton, carrying
World Vision relief supplies, was refused permission on security grounds
to land critically needed supplies to Sidon two weeks after the invasion,
although our people in the city reported total security, with people fishing
on the docks. (August 1982)
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- Mooneyham's viewing of Lebanon prompted an ominous comparison:
"The sheer magnitude of this one visible piece of the Israeli war
machine is incredible. David seems determined to become Goliath."
(September 1982)
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- Is Mooneyham's account "anti-Semitic?" According
to ADL and Webster's New 20th Century Dictionary, it is. It is rife with
strong, harsh criticism of Israeli national policy, her leaders and military.
It also expresses "fear of Jewish things" - warplane pilots,
generals such as Ariel Sharon who ordered the attack, and the Jewish military's
homicidal hatred of Arab refugees and indifference to their sufferings.
(Israeli General Rafael Etan described the refugees during the bombardment
as "cockroaches in a bottle.")
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- Mooneyham did not compare Israel in 1982 to Nazis. He
compared Israel to Goliath. But he easily could have. In 1939, German forces
unjustly bombed the daylights out of Poland to make a path eastward to
destroy what they described as "Jewish communism," (which did
indeed pose a threat to their national survival). In 1982, largely to end
sporadic rocket fire into northern Israel (with virtually no casualties),
Gen. Ariel Sharon bombed refugee camps into oblivion in southern Lebanon.
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- Whose was the greater wrong? You decide. But it's hard
to deny that Israel's actions in 1982 were remarkably Nazi-like.
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- In 1982, ADL argued that, considering Israel's "right
to defend herself," her military response of saturation bombing was
necessary, just, and proportionate. I closely monitored western response
at the time and to my knowledge no evangelical leader, except Mooneyham,
disagreed. In fact, virtually all politicians in Congress, Democrat and
Republican, as well as Christian and conservative leaders were fully aware
of Israel's devastation of refugee camps; yet they were either silent of
praised and defended Israel. William Safire and Georgie Ann Geyer were
virtually the only nationally-syndicated columnists I was aware of with
the courage to criticize Israel.
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- Similarly, after "Operation Cast Lead" in Gaza
last year, evangelicals agree with ADL that Israel's "right to exist"
was challenged by sporadic rocket fire from Gaza and that Israel's bombardment
and quarantine have been appropriate.
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- According to ADL, the west responded correctly in 1982
but is now reacting very wrongly. Its uproar of strong criticism of Israel's
leadership and military is anti-Semitic.
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- Ever-Broadening Definition of Anti-Semitism
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- True, historic anti-Semitism is the racist belief that
all Jews, because of heredity, are subversive, degenerate and corruptive.
Hitler believed that and taught it to a generation of Germans. But it is
not anti-Semitic to protest what you believe is grievous injustice on the
part of Israel's leadership. All the Hebrew prophets, including John the
Baptist and Jesus Christ, did that. In fact, it was always the false prophet
majority who spoke blessings on ungodly Jewish leadership as do most
evangelicals over the past century.
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- If you listen to any critics of Israel today in the western
or even Moslem world, you will find them complain of what they allege constitutes
monstrous human rights abuses by Israel toward the Palestinians. They say
the Palestinians have been driven to fanaticism and terror by Israeli oppression.
Whether you agree, such criticism can't be properly termed "anti-Semitism."
Yet billions of such dissidents are now labeled by ADL and our US State
Dept. as anti-Semitic.
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- In addition, ADL's Dept. of Global Anti-Semitism concludes
in its latest report to Congress that hundreds of millions of evangelical,
Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and other Christians are "classic anti-Semites"
for believing the New Testament account of Jewish complicity in the crucifixion.
Tens of millions of evangelicals still support Israel unconditionally and
inherit a 20th century pro-Zionist tradition to which Israel owes the bulk
of its nationhood and success. But they are now, incredibly, viewed by
our State Department and Israel's public relations arm, ADL, as anti-Semitic.
They are already regarded by Canada as potential "anti-Semitic hate
criminals." (They are "potential" as long they keep quiet
concerning agreement with the New Testament. If Christians speak boldly
from the pulpit, press, or radio, they become actual anti-Semitic hate
criminals. Penalty: $5,000 fine and prison if the offense is repeated.)
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- Additionally, billions of people worldwide are "anti-Semites"
when they make "strong" or "harsh" criticism of any
action of Israel, its leaders or military-past or present-or makes any
Nazi comparisons.
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- Who remains free from possible suspicion of anti-Semitism?
Only people with no opinion at all, or those too cowardly to open their
mouths. At the rate ADL is going, an "anti-Semitic hate criminal"
will be anyone who does not slavishly support whatever Jewish leaders or
the state of Israel do-even if it is outrageously evil.
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