One for Biased BBC
3 days ago
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
British Christians & Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
This Christmas, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad will give the alternative Christmas message on Channel 4. Damian Thompson writes,
Channel 4’s invitation to Ahmadinejad is by far the most shocking evidence of the pandering of many so-called Leftists to fascism. Thompson describes this as ‘further evidence of the Left’s schoolgirl infatuation with Islamic bigots.’ Ruth Gledhill has also expressed her alarm at Ahmadinejad's Christmas message, reminding readers of the Iranian leader's denial of the Holocaust and threats against Israel.
It will, of course, be interesting to hear how the Church of England and the Evangelical Alliance respond to this news, and hopefully they will condemn Channel 4's decision to give Ahmadinejad a voice (unlike the World Council of Churches, who gave him dinner).
There are, however, Christians in the UK sympathetic to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Rev Stephen Sizer of Christ Church, Virginia Water, visited Iran in October 2007 by invitation of Zahra Mostafavi to speak against Christian Zionism (see photos here and here).
His tour was ‘arranged and facilitated by Dr Javad Sharbaf of the NEDA Institute for Scientific Research in Iran.’ Religious blogger Richard Bartholomew notes Sharbaf and NEDA’s links with Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, and indeed Faurisson’s praising of Ahmadinejad.
Reverend Sizer himself has publicly defended Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Speaking on a radio show in Florida, Sizer said:
Another prominent evangelical scholar who has defended Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Dr Anthony McRoy, a lecturer at the Wales Evangelical School of Theology, who often writes for British newspaper Evangelicals Now.
Speaking to Iran’s IRNA, McRoy criticises Gordon Brown, claiming that:
McRoy, who wrote From Rushdie to 7/7: The Radicalisation of Islam in Britain, does not appear to be particularly concerned himself about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s radical Islamic extremism.
McRoy describes how he met President Ahmadinejad in Iran in 2006 during his time at the Iranian conference on Islamic messianism. Here McRoy moves beyond merely defending Ahmadinejad, fawning praise upon the Iranian President.
McRoy gushes:
You can read Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his own words here.
British Christians who seek to defend Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must not forget that Jesus himself was Jewish, and so pandering to antisemites who deny the Holocaust whilst advocating the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state is most certainly an offence to their own beliefs.
It would also be wise for British Christians to consider Iran's current attitudes towards its own Christian citizens, and consider whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really is the best person to deliver a Christmas message (albeit "alternative").
Last month, Seismic Shock exposed those who use Christmas to propagate the new theological antisemitism. Let's hope that British Christians speak out against the hijacking of Christmas.
“The president of Iran is a Holocaust sceptic who, a couple of years ago, organised an academic conference on the subject at which a neo-Nazi produced models of a concentration camp (complete with toy train set) designed to show that Hitler's gas ovens did not exist.”
Channel 4’s invitation to Ahmadinejad is by far the most shocking evidence of the pandering of many so-called Leftists to fascism. Thompson describes this as ‘further evidence of the Left’s schoolgirl infatuation with Islamic bigots.’ Ruth Gledhill has also expressed her alarm at Ahmadinejad's Christmas message, reminding readers of the Iranian leader's denial of the Holocaust and threats against Israel.
It will, of course, be interesting to hear how the Church of England and the Evangelical Alliance respond to this news, and hopefully they will condemn Channel 4's decision to give Ahmadinejad a voice (unlike the World Council of Churches, who gave him dinner).
There are, however, Christians in the UK sympathetic to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Rev Stephen Sizer of Christ Church, Virginia Water, visited Iran in October 2007 by invitation of Zahra Mostafavi to speak against Christian Zionism (see photos here and here).
His tour was ‘arranged and facilitated by Dr Javad Sharbaf of the NEDA Institute for Scientific Research in Iran.’ Religious blogger Richard Bartholomew notes Sharbaf and NEDA’s links with Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, and indeed Faurisson’s praising of Ahmadinejad.
Reverend Sizer himself has publicly defended Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Speaking on a radio show in Florida, Sizer said:
"I would disassociate myself from some of the ways in which Ahmedinejad's statements have been interpreted from Farsi into English. I believe you'll find he looked forward to the day when Zionism ceased to exist."
"So we can talk about Ahmedinejad trying to drive the Jews into the sea which we would abhor, but the reality is that Israel is driving the Palestinians into the desert."
Another prominent evangelical scholar who has defended Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Dr Anthony McRoy, a lecturer at the Wales Evangelical School of Theology, who often writes for British newspaper Evangelicals Now.
Speaking to Iran’s IRNA, McRoy criticises Gordon Brown, claiming that:
“It has been mentioned in the press so often that the 'wipe off the map' statement about Israel by Ahmadinejad was a mistranslation, yet Gordon Brown repeated the same mistranslation in his speech to the Israeli parliament.”
McRoy, who wrote From Rushdie to 7/7: The Radicalisation of Islam in Britain, does not appear to be particularly concerned himself about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s radical Islamic extremism.
McRoy describes how he met President Ahmadinejad in Iran in 2006 during his time at the Iranian conference on Islamic messianism. Here McRoy moves beyond merely defending Ahmadinejad, fawning praise upon the Iranian President.
McRoy gushes:
"Those meeting Ahmadinejad commented how intelligent, humble, charismatic, and charming he was"
"Ahmadinejad gives quick, extensive and intelligent answers to any question, mixed with genial humour."
You can read Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his own words here.
British Christians who seek to defend Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must not forget that Jesus himself was Jewish, and so pandering to antisemites who deny the Holocaust whilst advocating the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state is most certainly an offence to their own beliefs.
It would also be wise for British Christians to consider Iran's current attitudes towards its own Christian citizens, and consider whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really is the best person to deliver a Christmas message (albeit "alternative").
Last month, Seismic Shock exposed those who use Christmas to propagate the new theological antisemitism. Let's hope that British Christians speak out against the hijacking of Christmas.
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
The many faces of Rev Stephen Sizer
Last week, Rev Sizer claimed that 'legitimate criticism of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians must not be used as an excuse for racism or attacks against Jewish people.'
This week, Rev Sizer has reproduced on his blog a defence of the legality of attacks on Jewish people in Israel, posting an article that claims, "Recognizing therefore that the Palestinian people have the clear right under international law to resist such occupation by any means provided under international law until they achieve their fundamental human right to self-determination and end the Israeli racist system including its own brand of apartheid."
It is quite simply impossible to know where you stand with Rev Sizer, who we see above changing his mind once again about the right to attack Jews.
Sizer oscillates between repudiating antisemitism, denying antisemitism and seemingly encouraging antisemitism. Sizer moves from condemning violence to encouraging violence, from distancing himself from Holocaust deniers to being associated with Holocaust deniers, from being respectful towards the Chief Rabbi to publicly insulting the Chief Rabbi, from belief in a one-state solution to belief in a two-state solution, from remembering the Holocaust to abusing Holocaust memory, from recognising UN resolutions to ignoring UN resolutions, and from ecumenical liberation theology to conservative evangelical theology.
Rev Sizer has recently seemed to suggest that Israel has an identity crisis, but surely the true identity crisis is Stephen Sizer's!
This week, Rev Sizer has reproduced on his blog a defence of the legality of attacks on Jewish people in Israel, posting an article that claims, "Recognizing therefore that the Palestinian people have the clear right under international law to resist such occupation by any means provided under international law until they achieve their fundamental human right to self-determination and end the Israeli racist system including its own brand of apartheid."
It is quite simply impossible to know where you stand with Rev Sizer, who we see above changing his mind once again about the right to attack Jews.
Sizer oscillates between repudiating antisemitism, denying antisemitism and seemingly encouraging antisemitism. Sizer moves from condemning violence to encouraging violence, from distancing himself from Holocaust deniers to being associated with Holocaust deniers, from being respectful towards the Chief Rabbi to publicly insulting the Chief Rabbi, from belief in a one-state solution to belief in a two-state solution, from remembering the Holocaust to abusing Holocaust memory, from recognising UN resolutions to ignoring UN resolutions, and from ecumenical liberation theology to conservative evangelical theology.
Rev Sizer has recently seemed to suggest that Israel has an identity crisis, but surely the true identity crisis is Stephen Sizer's!
Monday, 22 December 2008
Rev Stephen Coulter: A Thoroughly Modern Vicar!
Earlier this month, The Daily Telegraph reported that Anglican vicar Rev Stephen Coulter had banned the popular Christmas carol ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ because the lyrics “How still we see thee lie” were ‘too far removed from life in Bethlehem’. He ‘said where shepherds once used to watch over flocks by night now security guards watched over the people living there,’ and that ‘the Arab-Israeli conflict had destroyed its population and tourism and that he would not join in the singing of the carol.’
Funnily enough, the Anglican Communion is reporting that Bethlehem is enjoying its best Christmas in years.
The Anglican Communion article, entitled 'Town of Bethlehem rests more peacefully this Christmas', begins:
The article goes on to describe how Christmas will be celebrated in Bethlehem this year. Even George Galloway starts his show on Iran’s Press TV by announcing that:
Galloway also reports that 40,000 visitors are expected in Bethlehem this Christmas.
Rev Coulter claims to have smuggled out a carved nativity scene from the West Bank. However, it seems you can purchase the same 'walled nativity' set that Rev Coulter appears to be holding from the Amos Trust in the UK! (See photos here and here.)
In seemingly trying so hard to be ‘relevant’ and ‘contemporary’, Rev Coulter has banned O Little Town of Bethlehem at a time when the peaceful Christmas of Bethlehem is even being reported on Iranian state TV!
Funnily enough, the Anglican Communion is reporting that Bethlehem is enjoying its best Christmas in years.
The Anglican Communion article, entitled 'Town of Bethlehem rests more peacefully this Christmas', begins:
‘the peaceful images evoked by the Christmas carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem" have not always reflected the current reality in the birthplace of Jesus but this year there are reasons for hope’
The article goes on to describe how Christmas will be celebrated in Bethlehem this year. Even George Galloway starts his show on Iran’s Press TV by announcing that:
‘After eight bleak years, Christmas pilgrims are again returning to Bethlehem and the site of Jesus’ birth. On Monday, a ten metre high tree was lit in Manger Square’ Galloway also announces that the West Bank is ‘relative peaceful’.
Galloway also reports that 40,000 visitors are expected in Bethlehem this Christmas.
Rev Coulter claims to have smuggled out a carved nativity scene from the West Bank. However, it seems you can purchase the same 'walled nativity' set that Rev Coulter appears to be holding from the Amos Trust in the UK! (See photos here and here.)
In seemingly trying so hard to be ‘relevant’ and ‘contemporary’, Rev Coulter has banned O Little Town of Bethlehem at a time when the peaceful Christmas of Bethlehem is even being reported on Iranian state TV!
Avraham Burg: No More Never Again
This is a guest post by Ben Cohen of Z-Word, originally posted in November here. Today on his blog, Stephen Sizer has published an article in support of Avraham Burg's views on Zionism.
There’s a certain irony about the title of Avraham Burg’s forthcoming book, “The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise from its Ashes.” Those very same words could be the motto of the State of Israel itself, given its emergence just three years after the defeat of Nazism.
Burg, however, believes that the Holocaust casts a greater shadow over Israel than God does. And that, he continues, is the key factor behind all the ills of the Jewish state.
A former speaker of the Knesset who was known for his blend of Jewish orthodoxy with peace camp politics, Burg has shifted more recently towards positions that, as David Remnick reported in a New Yorker essay last year, “are far from standard” on the Israeli left. Remnick referred to an exchange in Ha’aretz between Burg and the Israeli writer Ari Shavit, in which Shavit, frustrated by Burg’s complaint that Israel’s apparent Holocaust fixation leads to a distrust of the outside world, accused his interlocutor of being “patronizing and supercilious…You treat the Israeli Jew as a paranoid. But, as the cliché goes, some paranoids really are persecuted. On the day we are speaking, Ahmadinejad is saying that our days are numbered. He promises to eradicate us. No, he is not Hitler. But he is also not a mirage. He is a true threat. He is the real world—a world you ignore.“
If Shavit has read Burg’s latest op-ed in the LA Times, he will doubtless come to the same conclusion. Two points emerge from Burg’s piece: firstly, the claim that public discourse and policy in Israel are monopolized by the Holocaust; secondly that this collective mindset prevents Israel from being a force for justice in international relations.
The tones of Burg’s op-ed are quite moderate when compared to his conversation with Shavit in Ha’aretz. In that discussion, Burg described the Law of Return as a “mirror image of Hitler,” and said that Israel had already arrived at a “fascist debacle.” In many ways, he was repeating the views which earned him the adulation of Tony Judt, who, in his 2003 New York Review of Books piece urging a “binational” state, quoted Burg thus: “After two thousand years of struggle for survival, the reality of Israel is a colonial state, run by a corrupt clique which scorns and mocks law and civic morality.”
Fault for that lies with the Holocaust. “Of course, memory is essential to any nation’s mental health,” Burg writes in the LA Times. “The Shoah must always have an important place in the nation’s memorial mosaic. But the way things are done today - the absolute monopoly and the dominance of the Shoah on every aspect of our lives - transforms this holy memory into a ridiculous sacrilege and converts piercing pain into hollowness and kitsch. As time passes, the deeper we are stuck in our Auschwitz past, the more difficult it becomes to be free of it.”
One detects the echo of Norman Finkelstein, among others, in these lines. Israel has elevated “Shoahbusiness” into a form of statecraft. “Army generals discuss Israeli security doctrine as ‘Shoah-proof,’” says Burg. “Politicians use it as a central argument for their ethical manipulations.”
Of all the nations in the world today, comparatively few have been though a genocide. But examine those nations which have experienced genocide - some of whom, like the Cambodians and the East Timorese, have their own states, some of whom, like the Kurds and the Roma, do not - and you will find that the memory of attempted eradication is overwhelming. Even in Bangladesh, where there has been a concerted attempt to encourage identification with the Muslim ummah across national boundaries, the 1971 genocide carried out by Pakistan retains its centrality. One reason why Iraqi Kurds want to avoid a Sunni-dominated state is because they painfully recall Saddam Hussein’s brutal Anfal campaign. Is that, in Burg’s parlance, an “ethical manipulation,” or is it the standard response of a nation bent on survival?
Despite articulating global justice ambitions, these real world parallels do not seem to intrude upon Burg’s rather parochial thought process. Indeed, he mentions them only to be spiteful, as when, in the New Yorker piece, he makes the insulting claim, “We did not allow anybody else to call whatever suffering they have ‘holocaust’ or ‘genocide,’ be it Armenians, be it Kosovo, be it Darfur.” For Burg, these other genocides become sticks with which to beat Israel, rather than tools to understand that Israel’s internalization of the Holocaust is not unique, but unremarkable.
That’s because Burg, in common with a certain type of Jewish anti-Zionist outside Israel, has a problem with what my co-writer Eamonn McDonagh calls “Jews behaving normally.” Whereas other nations carry the weight of genocide in their daily deliberations, Jews are supposed to ignore it. Indeed, in suggesting a list of alternative historical experiences for Israelis to home in on, Burg does not seem to realize that three of them - the birth of Zionism, the founding of Israel, the 1967 war - would not have been possible without the Holocaust or modern antisemitism more generally.
In his introduction to the writings contained in “The Zionist Idea,” Arthur Herzberg correctly observed that “[W]hat marks modern Zionism as a fresh beginning in Jewish history is that its ultimate values derive from the general milieu. The Messiah is now identified with the dream of an age of individual liberty, national freedom, and economic and social justice - ie, with the progressive faith of the nineteenth century.”
And just as Jewish nationalism reflected the spirit of that age, so the Jewish state reflects the pressures of an international state system fundamentally based upon power, in which diplomacy and strategy bear the scars of a past without power.
Indeed, the internal arrangements of states reflect, to a great extent, the degree of conflict or cooperation with their neighbors. In that sense, one can marvel at just how democratic Israel is, instead of highlighting its democratic deficit. But that doesn’t fit with Burg. As Shavit cleverly points out, what stands out is that he ignores the real world, seemingly content to play the part of a “scourge” of the Jewish state. Anthony Julius describes this phenomenon well: “The ’scourge’ is a kind of moraliser…Moralising provides the moraliser with recognition of his own existence and confirmation of his own value. A moraliser has a good conscience and is satisfied by his own self-righteousness. He is not a self-hater; he is enfolded in self-admiration.”
Scourges do not make for good politicians, so it is not surprising that Burg’s political career has foundered; it is hard to imagine that anyone who presents the Iranian nuclear threat as a discursive construct based upon the exploitation of Holocaust fears will get very far in Israel, particularly when the rest of the world agrees that the threat is a real one. However, scourges - particularly those who target the Jewish state in the name of a higher morality - can expect a glittering career on the small-scale lecture circuit. That would seem to be Avraham Burg’s destiny.
There’s a certain irony about the title of Avraham Burg’s forthcoming book, “The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise from its Ashes.” Those very same words could be the motto of the State of Israel itself, given its emergence just three years after the defeat of Nazism.
Burg, however, believes that the Holocaust casts a greater shadow over Israel than God does. And that, he continues, is the key factor behind all the ills of the Jewish state.
A former speaker of the Knesset who was known for his blend of Jewish orthodoxy with peace camp politics, Burg has shifted more recently towards positions that, as David Remnick reported in a New Yorker essay last year, “are far from standard” on the Israeli left. Remnick referred to an exchange in Ha’aretz between Burg and the Israeli writer Ari Shavit, in which Shavit, frustrated by Burg’s complaint that Israel’s apparent Holocaust fixation leads to a distrust of the outside world, accused his interlocutor of being “patronizing and supercilious…You treat the Israeli Jew as a paranoid. But, as the cliché goes, some paranoids really are persecuted. On the day we are speaking, Ahmadinejad is saying that our days are numbered. He promises to eradicate us. No, he is not Hitler. But he is also not a mirage. He is a true threat. He is the real world—a world you ignore.“
If Shavit has read Burg’s latest op-ed in the LA Times, he will doubtless come to the same conclusion. Two points emerge from Burg’s piece: firstly, the claim that public discourse and policy in Israel are monopolized by the Holocaust; secondly that this collective mindset prevents Israel from being a force for justice in international relations.
The tones of Burg’s op-ed are quite moderate when compared to his conversation with Shavit in Ha’aretz. In that discussion, Burg described the Law of Return as a “mirror image of Hitler,” and said that Israel had already arrived at a “fascist debacle.” In many ways, he was repeating the views which earned him the adulation of Tony Judt, who, in his 2003 New York Review of Books piece urging a “binational” state, quoted Burg thus: “After two thousand years of struggle for survival, the reality of Israel is a colonial state, run by a corrupt clique which scorns and mocks law and civic morality.”
Fault for that lies with the Holocaust. “Of course, memory is essential to any nation’s mental health,” Burg writes in the LA Times. “The Shoah must always have an important place in the nation’s memorial mosaic. But the way things are done today - the absolute monopoly and the dominance of the Shoah on every aspect of our lives - transforms this holy memory into a ridiculous sacrilege and converts piercing pain into hollowness and kitsch. As time passes, the deeper we are stuck in our Auschwitz past, the more difficult it becomes to be free of it.”
One detects the echo of Norman Finkelstein, among others, in these lines. Israel has elevated “Shoahbusiness” into a form of statecraft. “Army generals discuss Israeli security doctrine as ‘Shoah-proof,’” says Burg. “Politicians use it as a central argument for their ethical manipulations.”
Of all the nations in the world today, comparatively few have been though a genocide. But examine those nations which have experienced genocide - some of whom, like the Cambodians and the East Timorese, have their own states, some of whom, like the Kurds and the Roma, do not - and you will find that the memory of attempted eradication is overwhelming. Even in Bangladesh, where there has been a concerted attempt to encourage identification with the Muslim ummah across national boundaries, the 1971 genocide carried out by Pakistan retains its centrality. One reason why Iraqi Kurds want to avoid a Sunni-dominated state is because they painfully recall Saddam Hussein’s brutal Anfal campaign. Is that, in Burg’s parlance, an “ethical manipulation,” or is it the standard response of a nation bent on survival?
Despite articulating global justice ambitions, these real world parallels do not seem to intrude upon Burg’s rather parochial thought process. Indeed, he mentions them only to be spiteful, as when, in the New Yorker piece, he makes the insulting claim, “We did not allow anybody else to call whatever suffering they have ‘holocaust’ or ‘genocide,’ be it Armenians, be it Kosovo, be it Darfur.” For Burg, these other genocides become sticks with which to beat Israel, rather than tools to understand that Israel’s internalization of the Holocaust is not unique, but unremarkable.
That’s because Burg, in common with a certain type of Jewish anti-Zionist outside Israel, has a problem with what my co-writer Eamonn McDonagh calls “Jews behaving normally.” Whereas other nations carry the weight of genocide in their daily deliberations, Jews are supposed to ignore it. Indeed, in suggesting a list of alternative historical experiences for Israelis to home in on, Burg does not seem to realize that three of them - the birth of Zionism, the founding of Israel, the 1967 war - would not have been possible without the Holocaust or modern antisemitism more generally.
In his introduction to the writings contained in “The Zionist Idea,” Arthur Herzberg correctly observed that “[W]hat marks modern Zionism as a fresh beginning in Jewish history is that its ultimate values derive from the general milieu. The Messiah is now identified with the dream of an age of individual liberty, national freedom, and economic and social justice - ie, with the progressive faith of the nineteenth century.”
And just as Jewish nationalism reflected the spirit of that age, so the Jewish state reflects the pressures of an international state system fundamentally based upon power, in which diplomacy and strategy bear the scars of a past without power.
Indeed, the internal arrangements of states reflect, to a great extent, the degree of conflict or cooperation with their neighbors. In that sense, one can marvel at just how democratic Israel is, instead of highlighting its democratic deficit. But that doesn’t fit with Burg. As Shavit cleverly points out, what stands out is that he ignores the real world, seemingly content to play the part of a “scourge” of the Jewish state. Anthony Julius describes this phenomenon well: “The ’scourge’ is a kind of moraliser…Moralising provides the moraliser with recognition of his own existence and confirmation of his own value. A moraliser has a good conscience and is satisfied by his own self-righteousness. He is not a self-hater; he is enfolded in self-admiration.”
Scourges do not make for good politicians, so it is not surprising that Burg’s political career has foundered; it is hard to imagine that anyone who presents the Iranian nuclear threat as a discursive construct based upon the exploitation of Holocaust fears will get very far in Israel, particularly when the rest of the world agrees that the threat is a real one. However, scourges - particularly those who target the Jewish state in the name of a higher morality - can expect a glittering career on the small-scale lecture circuit. That would seem to be Avraham Burg’s destiny.
Saturday, 20 December 2008
"Those who like Chicken Little cry 'anti-Semitism'"
This week on his blog, Reverend Dr Stephen Sizer PhD finally acknowledges that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are linked. In a review of Denis MacShane's Globalising Hatred, Sizer writes:
Whilst Sizer here claims to repudiate attacks on Jewish people, elsewhere he has appeared to lend legitimacy and credibility to those who do advocate killing Jews. Sizer has previously explained how he came to realise that 'Palestine needed to be liberated from the Jews.' Moreover, he has spoken alongside a supporter of IRA terror at a conference about Palestinian liberation theology, expressed his wish to have met the leaders of Hamas at a conference of Palestinian politicians, and justified suicide bombings on Iranian TV (watch for yourself here).
For all this, Rev Sizer has still not apologised.
Whilst Rev Sizer claims that 'the new antisemitism is unacceptable and must be repudiated unequivocally', Sizer is named by the Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism as an anti-Zionist who is prominent in the revival of replacement theology and the new antisemitism both here and here. He also sent an email about unintentional antisemitism from the notorious Jeff Rense, which claimed:
For all this, Rev Sizer has still not apologised.
Sizer gives a glowing review to the writings of Denis MacShane, who chaired the inquiry of the Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism. Yet Sizer is not completely innocent himself. A government report from 2004, entitled Terrorism and Community Relations, includes a memorandum from UJS which notes that:
For all this, Rev Sizer has still not apologised.
Sizer has also managed to use openly antisemitic language in a national newspaper whilst belittling those who are genuinely concerned about antisemitism, and publicly insulting the Chief Rabbi. In this article, Sizer refers to opponents of the Synod boycott of Caterpillar as 'the people in the shadows', and writes:
Does this sound like a man concerned with antisemitism?
For all this, Rev Sizer has still not apologised.
Startling evidence of Rev Sizer's attitude towards antisemitism can be seen in this email. Yes, Stephen Sizer has been in contact with extreme antisemite Israel Shamir. Shamir had been outed as an anti-Semite years before Sizer asked to co-operate with him.
For all this, Rev Sizer has still not apologised.
Can anyone take him seriously when he claims to repudiate antisemitism?
"While MacShane does not address the correlation between Antisemitism and anti-Zionism, or with criticism of Israel's policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, at least not in the Newsweek article, the two issues are clearly linked. But legitimate criticism of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians must not be used as an excuse for racism or attacks against Jewish people. What ever the causes of the rise of the new Antisemitism, it is totally unacceptable and must be repudiated unequivocally."
Whilst Sizer here claims to repudiate attacks on Jewish people, elsewhere he has appeared to lend legitimacy and credibility to those who do advocate killing Jews. Sizer has previously explained how he came to realise that 'Palestine needed to be liberated from the Jews.' Moreover, he has spoken alongside a supporter of IRA terror at a conference about Palestinian liberation theology, expressed his wish to have met the leaders of Hamas at a conference of Palestinian politicians, and justified suicide bombings on Iranian TV (watch for yourself here).
For all this, Rev Sizer has still not apologised.
Whilst Rev Sizer claims that 'the new antisemitism is unacceptable and must be repudiated unequivocally', Sizer is named by the Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism as an anti-Zionist who is prominent in the revival of replacement theology and the new antisemitism both here and here. He also sent an email about unintentional antisemitism from the notorious Jeff Rense, which claimed:
"Today, evangelicals reflexively honor the code that, no matter how true an unflattering fact or opinion about Jews may be, it will not be repeated."
For all this, Rev Sizer has still not apologised.
Sizer gives a glowing review to the writings of Denis MacShane, who chaired the inquiry of the Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism. Yet Sizer is not completely innocent himself. A government report from 2004, entitled Terrorism and Community Relations, includes a memorandum from UJS which notes that:
"A number of speakers, including Rev. Stephen Sizer... have been openly anti-Semitic and demonised or dehumanised Jews and Israelis."
For all this, Rev Sizer has still not apologised.
Sizer has also managed to use openly antisemitic language in a national newspaper whilst belittling those who are genuinely concerned about antisemitism, and publicly insulting the Chief Rabbi. In this article, Sizer refers to opponents of the Synod boycott of Caterpillar as 'the people in the shadows', and writes:
"At last, Synod has had the courage to stand up for Palestine and refuse to be intimidated by those who like Chicken Little cry "anti-Semitism" whenever Israeli human rights abuses in the occupied territories are mentioned."
Does this sound like a man concerned with antisemitism?
For all this, Rev Sizer has still not apologised.
Startling evidence of Rev Sizer's attitude towards antisemitism can be seen in this email. Yes, Stephen Sizer has been in contact with extreme antisemite Israel Shamir. Shamir had been outed as an anti-Semite years before Sizer asked to co-operate with him.
From Stephen Sizer, the vicar of Virginia Water, England
Dear Israel ,
Please give this wide circulation if you can. We might create a revolution and paradigm shift in Episcopal/Anglican circles and beyond...
Yours
Stephen
For all this, Rev Sizer has still not apologised.
Can anyone take him seriously when he claims to repudiate antisemitism?
Wednesday, 17 December 2008
Amos Trust and the Anti-Zionist Christmas Carol Concert
Ruth Gledhill reports on the anti-Zionist carol concert here and here. You can also read reports from Haaretz and Ynet News.
See Irene Lancaster's commentary, the Harry's Place article, and David Hirsh's opinion piece for more.
Last month, Seismic Shock exposed the origins of the 'anti-Zionist carol':
Amos Trust and the New Theological Antisemitism.
See Irene Lancaster's commentary, the Harry's Place article, and David Hirsh's opinion piece for more.
Last month, Seismic Shock exposed the origins of the 'anti-Zionist carol':
Amos Trust and the New Theological Antisemitism.
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