MISCELLANEOUS: 5 important articles

Iraq war. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of the war in Afghanistan.

Gatekeepers or fifth columnists?

Given that Fox so eagerly waved the flag of a foreign military power and was a man with dangerous beliefs and demonstrably weak judgement, how could those who appointed him not see that he was unemployable as a minister of the British Crown – unless they were similarly tainted?

When the Werritty relationship came to light Fox jumped before being flung from the battlements. But the good people of North Somerset, in their wisdom, re-elected him at the general election last May. He’s already on the road to political rehabilitation among the Conservative high command.

Gould’s new job as head of the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance (OCSIA) involves giving strategic direction to cyber security and information assurance for the UK. This includes  internet crime, working with private sector partners on exchanging information, and engaging with international partners in improving the security of cyber space and information security. Does it seem right for such a person to be in charge of crucial security matters at the heart of our government? What was in fellow Zionist David Cameron’s mind when he appointed him?

Well, here’s a possible clue. In March of this year Francis Maude, the previous Cabinet Office minister responsible for cyber security, announced three UK-Israel academic collaboration ventures with cyber research funding, the partnerships being University of Bristol/Bar Ilan University, University College London/Bar Ilan University and University of Kent/University of Haifa. They’ll be working together on six specific areas of research:

identity management

governance: regulating cyber security

privacy assurance and perceptions

mobile and cloud security

human aspects of security or usable security

cryptography.

This builds on existing UK-Israel cooperation. Both parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding on digital cooperation in March 2014.

Still sitting comfortably? Only this week the Cameron government was lecturing us on threats to national security and announcing plans to trawl through our personal emails and web browsers in order to “keep us safe”. The question is, who trawls Gould’s private emails

Blair and the other sucker

Posted: 08 Nov 2015 05:09 PM PST 

Undeniably, Saddam was a brutal dictator. But the war, the preceding economic blockade and Netanyahu’s promised “enormous reverberation on the region” are causing more human deaths than Saddam ever did, with a cost of between two to six trillion dollars to U.S. taxpayers. 

By JAMAL KANJ 

I apologize for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong,” Tony Blair told Fareed Zakaria during a CNN interview. The TV interview came ahead of the much delayed British Chilcot – expected now by next summer – report investigating Iraq war.

He also apologized “for some of the mistakes in planning” the war. It didn’t however come clear from the interview what were “some of” the correct decisions made in planning for the war. The war was neither a mistake, nor “wrong” intelligence. It was well thought of by those who cooked the intelligence book and sold it to two suckers named George W Bush and Tony Blair. The plan intended to break up Iraq, destroy the know-how by assassinating Iraqi scientists and to dismantle the Iraqi army. Not because Iraq was a threat to America, but it was an Israeli agenda.

On February 21, 2003, Jeffrey Steinberg wrote in the Executive Intelligence Review that Blair’s infamous dossier on Iraq’s WMD included 11 pages copied “verbatim, from an Israeli journal Middle East Review of International Affairs.” According to Steinberg, the Blair dossier was “cooked-in-Israel propaganda” to drive the US to invade Iraq.

Complementing Blair’s hoax, US Zioncons waged a misleading campaign to influence American public opinion and to deceive officials on the cost of war and its aftermath.

On July 11, 2002, Richard Perle a Pentagon official, who was on Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s payroll in mid-90s, professed the war will end “after the first whiff of gunpowder.”

His ex-boss, Netanyahu, gave a Congressional testimony two months later where he promised America, “If you take out Saddam regime, I guarantee it will have enormous positive reverberation on the region.”

About a month before the war, Israeli firster and American official Kenneth Adelman published an Op-ed in the Washington Post, positing that the war “would be a cakewalk.”

In briefing the Armed Services Committee on February 25, 2003, General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff of the US Army, warned that “several hundred thousand soldiers” would be needed to secure postwar Iraq. Days later, civilian Zioncon Paul Wolfowitz countered: “The notion that it will take several hundred thousand troops are wildly off the mark.”

In his book Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward wrote that Secretary of State Colin Powell used to refer to the Office of Special Plans – war bureau – as “a separate government.” The Office was led by Zioncos: Lewis Libby, Wolfowitz and according to Powell, it was run from Douglas Feith’s “Gestapo” office. Soon following the invasion, Wolfowitz assured the House Appropriations Committee and American taxpayers that the war cost and rebuilding “doesn’t have to be US taxpayer’s money.” We have “a country that can really finance its own reconstruction.” 

Wolfowitz’s statement cost the taxpayers between two to six trillion dollars. 

After the Zioncons WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception) was exposed, Wolfowitz offered a new fallacious assessment. He claimed that removing Saddam would help in the peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Zioncons’ undue influence came under FBI. There were public reports in July 2004 of a probe by the FBI into potential Israeli spies in the Pentagon who might have influenced US decision on the war. The FBI suspected the Israeli mole was a senior analyst closely associated with two senior officials: Zioncons Wolfowitz and Feith. It believed that “highly sensitive information” was passed to Israel via “the pro-Israel lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee.”

The FBI inquiry was quashed and Americans never discovered the Israeli spies who blundered America and Britain’s human and financial resources on a “made for Israel war”.

Hence, Chilcot has an opportunity now to bisect the Israeli “sacred cow” and identify the source of the “wrong” intelligence. It should start by deciphering the palpable link between US Zioncons’ ideologue and Israel. 

Undeniably, Saddam was a brutal dictator. But the war, the preceding economic blockade and Netanyahu’s promised “enormous reverberation on the region” are causing more human deaths than Saddam ever did.

The world might be better with one less Arab dictator, though it would have been a much better place without Bush and his British toady.

The Little Boy and the Goats !

Posted: 08 Nov 2015 11:46 AM PST

Biting on my teeth I got up laming and I was handcuffed, blinded and dragged silently to the “offices”, the hell! They call them the “offices”. A well-equipped block for interrogation. Whatever they need is there; clubs, ropes, cold water, hot water, chairs, hooks, metal chains, electric heaters. (the hell ! they “heated” the leg of one of the children till it was almost burned) whips, handcuffs, blinders

by Sami, The Bedouin

I saw the flicker, the glimmering haze shooting and then hitting the jeep broken, illuminating a strong beam that lit the hill opposite. It was a few minutes after the sunset, almost dark at that late summer day. I knew the whole story then and my heart was full of fear and excitement.

What to do? To run away and leave the goats? There was no time to think, and I herded the goats, almost pushing them to cross that dam road. No time, I had to go home to get the goats feed their awaiting babies and then milk them.

That was a damn day for me that I will never forget, and will keep getting the fresh picture of all what had happened as if I am looking at it now and still living it. “Nothing happened to the goats. We got them home later that night, the problem was what happened to you.” My brother told me later on when I got out of jail.

I had no time to think, I didn’t even think but in one thing; to take the goats home safely. While I was pushing the goats to cross the road horridly they came running heading right at me. I ran away among the goats that were scattered in all direction, I jumped off the road, to the opposite hill, to the same direction from which the flickering koctail molotove glasses hit them. The jeep was flaming and shades of giant soldier ghosts were trying to set it off. Two Zionists soldiers chased me, I shrieked of horror when they came close and fell on the ground: “It is not me! I did nothing!” but before I complete the two of them attacked me beating everywhere. One of them pulled my by the hand, the other hit my leg with the rifle and then, as if I hear something broke, I fell on the ground not able to move. I was dragged to the jeep and each one of the furious shouting soldiers hit me. It was a complete “party”.

The fire was set off and the jeep wasn’t really hurt. I was thrown into the back floor of the jeep and stepped on, kicked and beaten by the soldiers on both sides. I couldn’t cry, I was moaning feebly feeling the pain of my fractured leg.

The goats! What happened with them? Everybody has his own world and I was filled with mine, the goats, as if nothing in the whole world is more important than taking the goats back to their babies at the end of the day.

Soon, I was blinded even before we arrived the jail, and I was dragged and beaten again as we arrived. I was lucky that the blinders almost fell and I remember, it was a wide square full of jeeps and tanks, I was dragged between them dirty and bleeding all over, and when they arrived to the “offices” happily one of the soldiers hailed: “Hey! We got the little terrorist!”

Sometimes it is even beyond crazy to think: ‘what the hell I am doing here, what the hell these ghosts are, where am I, what will happen, the goats, soldiers, tanks’  and all of that I didn’t even got to know the interrogation yet. Smiling officers talking happily to the soldiers and signing papers as if nothing happened to me, as if I wasn’t bleeding … as if the goats didn’t go home to their babies yet. Why in hell all of that? I was too little to think properly, it was a brutal world that I just got to know for the first time at the age of 14; the bloody world of the occupation machine! And why in heavens sake? Just because it happened I was there? No, no I realize it wasn’t that simple; I was occupied and tortured since I was born, but I felt it only then. Am I not a refugee in the first place?

I was thrown into a tight cell, I couldn’t stretch my legs fully and I was given a tattered bed and a half blanket. Did I sleep? Could I sleep? Why? How? I couldn’t believe what I was in, I thought it was just a nightmare and that I was still among the goats playing the flute. Oh, God! Can you believe, I started to pinch my fractured leg, to rub my thighs and to hit my head, and even to pull my ear to keep realizing that it was reality, and it was a reality that I had to face ever since.

I stared at the harsh wall of the cell and felt it with my trembling fingers to restore my lost reality; YES! I am already in jail, the goats and childhood are gone forever. From now on, I am no longer that child, I turned overnight into a man, an old tattered man.

I don’t know why they didn’t take me to interrogation that night, were they busy with others? Or was the interrogator sleeping with his wife and children?

At late night I felt the horror and shrank to the corner of the cell covering myself with the blanket; loud screaming, shrieking, clubbing and shouting. ‘What’s that?’ I though, beating another boy? Was he there? Is it my turn now?

It was stifling hot at that oven of a cell but I was trembling, shivering, feeling the pain in my leg as I pulled it shrinking in the corner. I don’t know if I slept but soon I woke up my head bent over my pulled knees, it was still dark, very dark.

You can imagine how it is sweet to watch the morning rising, I did. First it was an utter silence that is broken every now and then by the clinging of iron gates, or a jeep arriving or departing. Then the birds, Oh, the birds singing. The birds seemed noisily quarreling that morning, I was piled in the cell. Then a voice of somebody saying “good morning”. I didn’t know who was that, the garbage collector, the prison chef, or the interrogator. Oh my gash! They are coming to get me! And I started trembling again.

“Don’t show your pain or fear to others.” I remembered what my mom used to tell me, “Be a man and don’t cry or fear anybody.” I felt the courage as if my mom was there with my right then, and bit on my teeth to feel the inner strength, to hide the pain in my fractured leg, when the door cracked open, and I was shaking inside: “Get up!” an angry jailor ordered. “Where to?” I asked. “Shut up!”

The horror, I know, the horror!

Biting on my teeth I got up laming and I was handcuffed, blinded and dragged silently to the “offices”, the hell! They call them the “offices”. A well-equipped block for interrogation. Whatever they need is there; clubs, ropes, cold water, hot water, chairs, hooks, metal chains, electric heaters. (the hell ! they “heated” the leg of one of the children till it was almost burned) whips, handcuffs, blinders (blinders? Jesus! You don’t know what blinders mean! They were big bags that are put on your head to go down over your shoulders and then are tied on your neck) hooks stuck on the walls, hooks dangling from the sealing! The “offices”? We called it the butchery with the feeling of horror every time we uttered it; the butchery.

Source: Sami, the Bedouin.

Look who’s in charge of UK government cyber security

Posted: 08 Nov 2015 09:04 AM PST 

by Stuart Littlewood 

A chilling remark from a House of Lords debate just caught my eye.

Column GC355 in Hansard, the verbatim report of proceedings of the UK parliament, dated 4 November 2015, said: Lord Mendelsohn: We welcome the appointment of the former British ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, who will have a key role in cyber security inside the Cabinet Office – a very useful and important position.

Sure enough, the UK government’s website confirms that Gould is now director of cyber security and information assurance at the Cabinet Office. “He and his team are focused on keeping Britain safe from cyber attack, through delivering the UK’s Cyber Security Strategy.”

Passionate Zionists

They must think we have very short memories. As Britain’s first Jewish ambassador to Israel, Gould described himself as a “passionate” Zionist and while in Tel Aviv he was instrumental in setting up the UK-Israel Tech Hub. In the words of MATIMOP (the Israeli Industry Centre for Research and Development), the hub was established

to promote partnerships in technology and innovation between Israel and the UK, and is the first initiative of its kind for the British government and for an embassy in Israel. The hub’s creation followed an agreement between prime ministers David Cameron and Binyamin Netanyahu to build a UK-Israel partnership in technology. 

Three years ago Cameron appointed venture capitalist Saul Klein as the UK Tech Envoy to Israel with the task of promoting the partnership, leading UK technology missions to Israel, bringing Israeli start-ups to Britain, and hosting technology events in both countries.MATIMOP quotes Britain’s National Health Service as an example of successful UK-Israel technology collaboration. The NHS has now formed strong collaborations with Israeli life sciences companies conducting clinical trials in the UK. The cooperation was made as part of the burgeoning partnership between Israel and Britain’s life sciences industries initiated by the UK-Israel Tech Hub. 

Driven by the Israel lobby 

Four years ago Craig Murray, a former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, argued that British policy was being driven in an underhanded fashion by the Israel lobby. He linked Gould with the Fox-Werritty scandal and raised questions about meetings between disgraced former Defence Secretary Liam Fox and Fox’s friend/adviser, Adam Werritty (who was backed financially by Israel lobbyists but had no security clearance and therefore no authorised role) and Gould.

Murray wrote to Gould asking when he first met Werritty, how many times he had met him, and how many communications of every kind had passed between them. He was told these questions would be answered in Cabinet Secretary O’Donnell’s investigation. “But Gus O’Donnell’s report answered none of these questions,” wrote Murray. “It only mentioned two meetings at which Fox, Gould and Werritty were all three present…”

This prompted Murray to dig further. “There were at least six Fox-Werritty-Gould meetings, not the two given by O’Donnell… Matthew Gould was the only British Ambassador who Fox and Werrity met together. They met him six times. Why?”

Murray, with many useful sources from his days as an ambassador, claimed to have serious evidence connecting Gould with a secret plan to attack Iran, but the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Secretary blocked questions. Murray published his story, “Matthew Gould and the plot to attack Iran”, here.  

In it he pointed out that, 

Matthew Gould does not see his race or religion as irrelevant. He has chosen to give numerous interviews to both British and Israeli media on the subject of being a jewish ambassador, and has been at pains to be photographed by the Israeli media participating in Jewish religious festivals. Israeli newspaper Haaretz described him as “Not just an ambassador who is Jewish, but a Jewish ambassador”. That rather peculiar phrase appears directly to indicate that the potential conflict of interest for a British ambassador in Israel has indeed arisen.

He went on to say that Gould stood suspected of long term participation with Fox and Werritty “in a scheme to forward war with Iran, in cooperation with Israel”. The stonewalling by O’Donnell and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office led Murray to conclude that “something very important is being hidden right at the heart of government”.

Labour Member of Parliament Paul Flynn remarked that no previous ambassadors to Israel had been Jewish so as to avoid conflict of interest and accusations of going native. He immediately came under intense flak. Flynn too asked about meetings between Werritty and Gould, as some reports suggested that Gould, Werritty and Fox discussed a potential military strike on Iran with Mossad. “I do not normally fall for conspiracy theories,” said Flynn, “but the ambassador has proclaimed himself to be a Zionist and he has previously served in Iran.”

Fox had earlier made the idiotic claim: “Israel’s enemies are our enemies” and “in the battle for the values that we stand for… Israel’s enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together”. The Jewish Chronicle hailed him as “a champion of Israel within the government”. Furthermore, Fox continually rattled the sabre against Iran which, of course, was no threat to Britain but is regarded by Israel as a bitter enemy. Iraq too was Israel’s enemy, not ours. Yet Fox, according to the theyworkforyou.com, voted “very strongly” for the Iraq war. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of the war in Afghanistan.  

Gatekeepsrs or fifth colimnists? 

Given that Fox so eagerly waved the flag of a foreign military power and was a man with dangerous beliefs and demonstrably weak judgement, how could those who appointed him not see that he was unemployable as a minister of the British Crown – unless they were similarly tainted?

When the Werritty relationship came to light Fox jumped before being flung from the battlements. But the good people of North Somerset, in their wisdom, re-elected him at the general election last May. He’s already on the road to political rehabilitation among the Conservative high command.

Gould’s new job as head of the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance (OCSIA) involves giving strategic direction to cyber security and information assurance for the UK. This includes  internet crime, working with private sector partners on exchanging information, and engaging with international partners in improving the security of cyber space and information security. Does it seem right for such a person to be in charge of crucial security matters at the heart of our government? What was in fellow Zionist David Cameron’s mind when he appointed him? 

Well, here’s a possible clue. In March of this year Francis Maude, the previous Cabinet Office minister responsible for cyber security, announced three UK-Israel academic collaboration ventures with cyber research funding, the partnerships being University of Bristol/Bar Ilan University, University College London/Bar Ilan University and University of Kent/University of Haifa. They’ll be working together on six specific areas of research: 

identity management
governance: regulating cyber security
privacy assurance and perceptions
mobile and cloud security
human aspects of security or usable security

cryptography. 

This builds on existing UK-Israel cooperation. Both parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding on digital cooperation in March 2014.

Still sitting comfortably? Only this week the Cameron government was lecturing us on threats to national security and announcing plans to trawl through our personal emails and web browsers in order to “keep us safe”. The question is, who trawls Gould’s private emails

now that I have set aside my bias, and been willing to consider the facts as they are, I realize I can’t support Israel and still be faithful to Jesus. 

A Letter to an Israeli: Kindness and Postage Stamps are not Enough

Posted: 07 Nov 2015 01:13 PM PST 

by Iman Najjar-Annab 

Dear on-the-fence-about-the-Occupation, two-state-solution Israeli,

Please stop posting warm fuzzy photos and articles that show moments of kindness between Israelis and “Arabs”. Please, do not post that Belgian postage stamp showing the beginning of a bad joke, a priest a rabbi and an imam. Please stop pontificating about Arab/Muslim extremism being the root of the Arab-Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Please do not laud Yitzhak Rabin as a good man who would have achieved peace had he not been assassinated. He was a murderer and signed the removal and dispossession of over 700,000 Palestinians and the death warrant of hundreds.

Please do not talk about Palestinian leadership being weak because those in power now do not represent us. Our young lions, men and women both, are either behind bars or on the streets risking death so others may have a chance at a dignified life. They resist with stones against the fourth most powerful army in the world with little hope.

Do not. DO NOT. Do not talk about dialogue with the Palestinians. We have nothing to negotiate with. We live under the boot.

Do not. Please, for the love of God, do not say that Arabs have 22 countries and Jews have just one. You insult me and millions of others when you reduce our diversity to “Arab”. From Syria to Morocco to Sudan we are all different, our spoken Arabic is different, dialects and vocabulary, cultures and customs as diverse as the universe. We are also Jews, Christians, Muslims, Agnostics and Atheists.

Would you ever ask a Brazilian to move to Argentina because they are anyway all Latin American?

What stands in the way of peace is the Occupation and your clinging to the racist idea of a state for Jews. Israel is a colonial project no less violent than any other because violence is the very fabric of colonial projects.

Palestinians are kind people and you will most often encounter kindness. I would like to believe the average Israeli is kind too.

But kindness and postage stamps are not enough.

For real change its time to put the IDEA of a Jewish state down, humanely, and opt for a pluralistic, secular democracy based on human rights for all inhabitants of historic Palestine, including you if you wish to be part of such a society.

Please do not say that Israel today is just that, a secular democracy. It isn’t. It is a Judeo-supremacy. Please do not say Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East because it has much work to do.

Please do not say that Israel is a beacon of light amongst oppressive “Arab” states. Israel is just as oppressive against Palestinians. If you cannot acknowledge this, it means you are still on the fence about human rights and you need to get off on the right side of history.

________________________________

About the author

Iman Najjar-Annab a second generation Palestinian in exile, was born in London and lived most of her life in Europe and the Middle East. She is a professional researcher interested in community engagement and an activist for Palestinian human rights in the Occupied Territories. Iman is currently based in Toronto where she is completing an M.Ed in Social Justice Education. She hopes to return to Palestine to educate young people on matters of social justice.

5 Reasons Why I’m A Christian Who Stopped Supporting Israel

Posted: 07 Nov 2015 02:48 AM PST

by Benjamin L. Corey

Growing up conservative Evangelical, we loved Israel as much as we loved America– probably even more.

And why not, right?

We truly believed that among the world’s nations, God actually has a favorite– and that he will curse anyone who doesn’t blindly support his team.

When you sincerely believe that, there’s little room left for actually thinking, because anything you see is filtered and given meaning by the narrative we were given at church. This false narrative we’re told about Israel makes it almost impossible to see the situation fairly or clearly, because we become victims of confirmation bias– we’re only willing to consider evidence that verifies the narrative we were taught.

As an adult at seminary studying theology and international culture, I finally broke free from the confirmation bias that had caused me to support Israel and ignore Palestinian suffering. As such, I now see the Israel and Palestinian conflict in a completely different light– one where my Christian faith itself dictates that I cannot stand with Israel and still be faithful to Jesus.

Here are 5 reasons why I stopped supporting Israel:

I realized that loving Jewish people was completely different from supporting the modern, secular state of Israel.

Many quickly confuse loving Jewish people with supporting Israel– but areligion/people group and a secular nation state are not the same thing. For example, one can be opposed to US policy without being “anti-American.” In the same way, one can look at Israel and say, “Wow, this is absolutely wrong” without being anti-semitic (though that’s the first thing you’ll be accused of).

I love the Jewish people because as a Jesus follower, I love all people. But I do not– I cannot– support Israel as a nation, precisely because I love all people.

I realized Israel was a violent military occupation, much like the one Jesus lived under.

I used to think the Israel was a peaceful nation who just wanted to mind their own business but couldn’t because those darned Muslims wouldn’t leave them alone, but that’s not the case at all. Israel is a violent military occupation, with no end in sight.

Where Palestinians once lived in peace and security, they now live under military rule by a foreign military that controls nearly all aspects of their daily lives.  Their access to water is tightly restricted, their movement is restricted, and they are denied security in their homes by military forces who often stage middle-of-the-night raids under the accusation of “rock throwing.”

Furthermore, children are often Israeli targets and are imprisoned and tortured by Israeli solders. There have even been cases of Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinian children for sport. How a Christian can support this is literally unfathomable to me.

I realized Palestinians weren’t terrorists, but a frustrated people living under apartheid.

Imagine it this way: what if you woke up one morning and world leaders had given the Southern United States to Russia, to be a country for displaced Russians? The Russians arrive, kick you off the land that’s been in your family for generations, confiscate your homes and possessions, burn your farms, and put everyone into refugee camps or segregated into ghettos, which are then policed by the Russian military.

Would it not be understandable that once in a while you’d attack the Russian soldiers? In fact, if that were in America, most conservatives would call it self defense.

While I am against all violence, it’s important to understand why violence happens, and in this case it is quite understandable that such an oppressed people would resort to violence against the oppressors. However, this violence is not about Muslims hating Jews– it’s about people being tired of an occupying army taking their homes, their land, and harming their children. Truth be told, as wrong as I believe it is, I’d be tempted to throw a few rocks too.

I realized Israel continues to steal land and violate international law.

I once thought that Israel just wanted to peacefully exist, but the truth is they are on a violent conquest to take all the land they can get– even though it is a total violation of international law.

Day by day new Israeli settlements crop up on land that still belongs to Palestinians. Quite often the Israelis will burn down Palestinian crops  before harvest (this is in the news often), and try to take Palestinian land by terroristic force. Illegal settlers have firebombed Palestinian homes, most recently burning a baby and mother to death. Settlers recently even attacked a Rabbi who had previous work with Christian Peacemakers, showing they’re willing to not just attack Palestinians, but even their own peacemakers.

This reminds me of someone who once said, “Oh Jerusalem! You who kill the prophets and stone those God sends to you.” (That was Jesus, BTW.)

Until Israel stops violently and unapologetically violating international law by their conquest for more land, they could never have my support.

I realized Christians were being persecuted and oppressed, and I choose to stand with them.

One of the ways Evangelicalism continues selling support for Israel is by painting this as a Muslim vs Jew situation– but that’s not reality. This is a situation of a violent, secular nation state, who is oppressing a group of people that include Christians.

Palestinians include both Muslims and Christians, and Christians are being just as persecuted as the rest of Palestinians. Israel has targeted Christian schools while Christians in the West remained silent. Christian churches and institutions have a long history of being burned and vandalized by the Israelis. Furthermore, Christians have lamented that the Israelis spit on them as they walk down the street, with many Christians ultimately accepting that being spat on in Israel is part of daily life. (Can you imagine if it were the Muslims doing that? Conservative leaders would be calling for war.)

And this is perhaps the top reason why I no longer support Israel: to do so would be acomplete betrayal of my Christian brothers and sisters who suffer under anti-Christian persecution in Israel.

So, your pastor growing up taught you to support Israel.

I get it. Mine did too. As a result, I blindly supported Israel for many years– even to the point of voting for candidates I thought would be the most pro-Israel.