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Israel Apartheid Week Pokes Almighty God in the Eye
Universities around the world are drunk with the wine of anti-Semitism.
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March 5, 2010 - Audio, 17.34 MIN
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This week has been Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) which has infected many universities and colleges around the world – especially in Canada. The putrid propaganda put out by the various organization supporting the IAW is at variance with the Gospel and the will of God.

Welcome to the Bible in the News.  This week has been Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) which has infected many universities and colleges around the world – especially in Canada.  Many campaigns have been going on, supported by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC). The fomentation of hatred has been the result of consorted efforts to demonize Israel.  

The Palestinian BDS national committee stated the following:

Whereas student and youth movements played a key role in ending Apartheid inSouth Africa, IAW is currently one of the most important tools to educate people about the nature of Israel as a colonial apartheid system and to build on the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. We hope that your participation in IAW this year will only be a step forward in your concrete and effective campaigns to pressure apartheid Israel to comply with international law.

Coming to the defense of Israel, Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress stated,

  “We are witnessing a strong and organized anti-Israeli campaign, aimed at delegitimizing Israel in Europe. This campaign is initiated by Muslim and pro-Palestinian organizations and indirectly nations, who seek to use public opinion and political tools, Academic, commercial and union boycotts of Israel on the one hand and the issuing of arrest warrants against Israeli officials are all part of the same campaign.

 Kantor mentioned in particular the “Israel Apartheid Week”, which opened Monday in at universities and colleges around the world, as “just another manifestation of this nefarious operation.”

Israel National news reported, Yehuda HaKohen, the Director-General of the Zionist Freedom Alliance, as stating:

“Those who accuse Israel of practicing apartheid essentially claim that Zionists are European colonialists who came from abroad to uproot and oppress the indigenous Arabs of Palestine.”

There are 40 cities participating in the IAW propaganda campaign, 30% of them are Canadian including universities in Toronto, Hamilton, Guelph, Waterloo, London (ON), Sudbury, Peterborough, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Montreal, Edmonton and Vancouver are participating.

This has prompted some politicians to make a statements. Some see through the blatant anti-Semitic rhetoric, or at least recognize the political fallout of associating themselves with the racial propaganda, as did the leader of Canada’s Liberal party, Michael Ignatieff, who made the following statement:

“On university campuses across the country this week, Israeli Apartheid Week will once again attempt to demonize and undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state. It is part of a global campaign of calls for divestment, boycotts and proclamations, and it should be condemned unequivocally and absolutely.

Apartheid is defined, in international law, as a crime against humanity. Israeli Apartheid Week is a deliberate attempt to portray the Jewish state as criminal.

The activities planned for the week will single out Jewish and Israeli students. They will be made to feel ostracized and even physically threatened in the very place where freedom should be paramount -- on a university campus.

However, not all politicians feel the same way.

INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT AGAINST ISRAEL

It was on 24 November 2008, at the 57th Plenary Meeting on the Question of Palestine that Miguel D'Escoto, President of the General Assembly of the United Nations stated:

I spoke this morning about apartheid and how Israeli policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories appear so similar to the apartheid of an earlier era, a continent away.

I believe it is very important that we in the United Nations use this term. We must not be afraid to call something what it is. It is the United Nations, after all, that passed the International Convention against the Crime of Apartheid, making clear to all the world that such practices of official discrimination must be outlawed wherever they occur….

Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations.

I have attended a great many meetings on the rights of the Palestinian People. I am amazed at how people continue to insist on patience while our Brothers and Sisters are being crucified.

D'Escoto became President of the United Nations General Assembly from September 2008 to September 2009 and spoke on behalf of the General Assembly receiving a warm reception. His “blood libel” reference to the Palestinian people being “crucified” cannot be missed and highlights ancient religious anti-Semetic hatred. His religion?  Roman Catholic, in fact, he is an ordained Roman Catholic Priest. No surprise that D'Escoto warmly embraced President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after his strong anti-Israel and anti-Zionist September 2008 speech to the UN General Assembly.

 INTELLECTUAL AND ECONOMIC BOYCOT

The call for boycotts and demonstrations has been taken to heart and is growing in strength around the world and is especially targeted at the grass roots level. The effort to boycott Israel has been both economic and intellectual. The Guardian Newspaper in Britain reported in December of 2009,

“Britain has acted to increase pressure on Israel over its West Bank settlements by advising UK supermarkets on how to distinguish between foods from the settlements and Palestinian-manufactured goods.

The government's move falls short of a legal requirement but is bound to increase the prospects of a consumer boycott of products from those territories. Israeli officials and settler leaders were highly critical of the decision.

Until now, food has been simply labeled "Produce of the West Bank", but the new, voluntary guidance issued by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), says labels could give more precise information, like "Israeli settlement produce" or "Palestinian produce".

European nations are now distinguishing between products coming from Israeli settlements and Palestinian ones in an effort to discriminate more clearly against Israeli produce.  What will this label look like?  Perhaps a gold star would be appropriate and in keeping with Europe’s traditional anti-Semetic history? Can we not see the themes that led to the holocaust occurring all again?

The academic boycott of Israel has been spearheaded by the AIC (Alternative Information Center), supported by various Catholic and Christian groups such as the Vatican recognized ‘Community of Pope John XXIII’ Association.  According to the AIC,

A group of Italian professors recently published a letter calling for the academic boycott of Israel “against university and cultural discrimination of Palestinians.” The document—called “Right to study and academic freedom in Palestine”—expressly quotes the AIC bulletin Academic Boycott of Israel and the Complicity of Israeli Academic Institutions in the Occupation of Palestinian Territories.The Italian researchers—mostly belonging to the University of Pisa, one of the most prominent Italian universities and strongly involved in the Israeli apartheid weekactivities and in the BDS campaign.

The growing fomentation in Universities is directed at forming the opinion of youth against the nation of Israel.

GROWING ANTISEMITISM

No surprise that there is a growing anti-Semitism in countries like Canada where this putrid propaganda is supported on campus. The Jewish Tribune reported on B'nai Brith Canada's annual audit on anti-Semitic incidents, stating there was an:

11.4% increase over 2008, and a more than five-fold increase in incidents over the past decade. In addition, a survey of the Jewish community commissioned by B'nai Brith shows Canadian Jews deeply concerned about the rising influence of radical Islamism – an  ideology that paints Jews as the enemy – and security threats to Jewish schools and houses of worship. Anti-Israel campaigns on campus, such as the annual “Israel Apartheid Week” event, are also a source of anxiety according to this poll.

 POKING ALMIGHTY GOD IN THE EYE

These virulent anti-Semitic hate campaigns are symptomatic of the age long struggle between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of men. What most fail to realize is Almighty God has put Israel back in the land, according to the prophecies that were given millennia ago.  He tells the nation of Israel in Jeremiah 3:14, “I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.” John Thomas, when writing Elpis Israel, correctly predicted in 1848,

“There is, then, a partial and primary restoration of Jews before the manifestation [of the Messiah], which is to serve as the nucleus, or basis, of future operations in the restoration of the rest of the tribes after he has appeared in the kingdom.”

Israel’s existence in the land today, regardless of what men might think, is God’s doing. This is especially true of the area of the West Bank.  We read in Ezekiel 38:8,

“After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.”

God hasn’t put Israel there because of any intrinsic righteousness they may have, they are flesh like every single one of us.  However, he states in Ezekiel 36:21-24:

But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went.Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name’s sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.

Let’s get this straight; the nation of Israel has made its mistakes in the past, for which it has greatly suffered. However, because of his Holy Name’s sake God has had pity on this nation and has brought them back into the land. Their existence in the West Bank is by divine decree and will eventually lead to God being sanctified in Israel before the eyes of the Gentiles.  Paul tells us, in Romans 11:28-32:

“…as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ [Patriarch’s] sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”

To be involved in political, academic or economic boycotts is to join the Catholic system in opposition to the work God is doing in establishing the kingdom of God on earth.  It is a poke right in the eye of Almighty God himself, for he states in Zechariah 2:6-9

“Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith the LORD: for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, saith the LORD. Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon. For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. For, behold, I will shake mine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me.

God describes nations and peoples that lift their hand against Israel as poking Him in the eye. He says he will shake his hand upon them. This is in keeping with the promises that were given to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3:

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

If we want to be cursed with the nations of the world who despise Israel – then join them in their cursing of Israel today!  If we want to be blessed with Abraham a different attitude to the nation of Israel must exist amongst us. We should be praying for the peace of Jerusalem, (Psa 112:6), and for their deliverance when the Messiah will come out of Zion as the Deliverer and turn away ungodliness from Jacob (Rom 11:26).

ISRAEL'S FUTURE EXALTED POSITION

Israel’s future is clearly predicted.  Daniel 7:27 clearly states:

And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.

The kingdom which was promised to Abraham extends from “the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen 15:18). This is promised to the people of the saints of the most High.  The saints of the most High are the righteous who will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father (Matt 13:43), constitute the ruling class. Christ promised the disciples in Matthew 19:28

Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

This is extended to those who overcome in Revelation 2:26-28 and Revelation 3:21. The people of the saints of the Most high are the Jews.  They are promised, as the subjects of the kingdom under the divine leadership of Christ and the saints to be given a kingdom. 

Micah 4:8 echos these sentiments:

Thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.

The kingdom or “first dominion” is the area promised to Abraham, while the “dominion under the whole heaven” will extend throughout the entire world, as Daniel 2:44 describes:

“...the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.”

Until then the same sentiment amongst the nations exists which will cause them to speak the words of Micah 4:11-13:

Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion. But they know not the thoughts of the LORD, neither understand they his counsel: for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the LORD, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.

At that point in time, the nations will be silenced as we read in Zechariah 2:10-12:

Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD. And many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto thee. And the LORD shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again.

As far as all these boycotts and rallies against God’s people go… the end of the matter is clearly outlined in v13:

Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.



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