Summer 2008, Issue 233

“See no evil?”: Israel, anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, and British evangelicals.

Evangelical Christians should be well-placed to stand against anti-Semitism. Not only do they have a Biblical mandate against anti-Semitism (Romans 11), they are also – uniquely – indwelt by God’s Spirit to enable them to obey His Word. Yet in recent years, as theological and political anti-Zionism has pervaded much of the church, features of classic anti-Semitism have entered evangelical discourse: tropes of Jewish wealth and power; conspiracy theories; even Holocaust revisionism. How should we in the BMJA respond?

They said what?
“Six million Jews in the USA have an influence that is out of all proportion to their numbers in the total population of 281 million. Through wealth, education, skill and single-mindedness over many years they have gained positions of power in government, business and the media. It is widely recognised, for example, that no one could ever win the presidential race without the votes and the financial support of substantial sections of the Jewish community.” 1

“… in the 1930s the German Zionist Federation, the Stern Gang and Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of revisionist Zionism, were all sympathetic towards fascism, or collaborated with the Nazis.” 2
“For allegations of Israeli complicity in the 9/11 tragedy, see…” 3

The above quotes come not from the Iranian media or from a neo-Nazi rag, but from the pens of two British Christian anti-Zionist writers, Colin Chapman and Stephen Sizer. Are they voicing legitimate criticism of Israeli policies, or are they straying into anti-Semitism? And, if the latter is true, how are their fellow British evangelicals responding?

Criticism of Israel or anti-Semitism?
Both Chapman and Sizer carefully condemn anti-Semitism. 4 Sizer, in particular, has taken pains to emphasize that he is a mere “critic of Israel”, and not an anti-Semite. 5 Certainly, no-one should ever argue that legitimate criticism of Israeli policies is anti-Semitic. Yet nor should anti-Semitism be construed as mere “criticism of Israel”. Suggesting that Israelis were complicit in 9/11, or that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis, can scarcely be construed as mere “criticism of Israel”. When Sizer refers to supporters of Israel as “people in the shadows” (echoing, whether intentionally or otherwise, the language of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion), this seems to have little to do with merely “criticising Israel” 6. Nor does the use of some highly questionable sources.

Questionable sources
Both Chapman and Sizer approvingly cite Norman Finkelstein 7. Yet Finkelstein’s 2003 book The Holocaust Industry has been described as “not a courageous expose by a marginalized dissident but a toxic stream of defamations, falsifications and fabrications aimed at his fellow Jews.” 8 Finkelstein supports Hezbollah and hosts anti-Semitic cartoons on his website.

In an article on his website responding to Melanie Phillips, Sizer cites Noam Chomsky, Israel Shahak and Uri Davis. 9 Sizer describes them as “leading Jewish academics”. Yet Chomsky wrote the foreword to a book by Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson. 10 Shahak’s works can be found on Nazi websites; he once wrote that “A pious Jew arriving for the first time in Australia, say, and chancing to pass near an Aboriginal graveyard, must - as an act of worship of 'God' - curse the mothers of the dead buried there” and that “All modern studies on Judaism, particularly by Jews … bear the unmistakable marks of their origin: deception, apologetics or hostile polemics, indifference or even active hostility to the pursuit of truth.” 11 Davis, as well as being an observer member of the PLO, helped to promote the anti-Semitic 1980s play Perdition, which alleged that Zionist leaders collaborated with the Nazis in perpetrating the Holocaust. 12

If Chapman and Sizer insist they are not anti-Semitic, why are they citing such dubious sources, without any qualification whatsoever?

Omitting context
Both Sizer and Chapman broadly approve of the UN’s notorious 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution and its 2001 Durban Conference against Racism. 13 The 1975 resolution was passed shortly after the UN General Assembly had applauded an anti-Semitic speech by Idi Amin, and is described by Paul Johnson as "the greatest triumph" of "professional anti-Semites" within the Soviet and Arab blocs in the UN. 14 In 2001, Syrian representatives reputedly issued statements denying the Holocaust, 15 while copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and literature glorifying Hitler were made openly available. 16 Neither Chapman nor Sizer, their purported opposition to anti-Semitism notwithstanding, gives any of these important contextual details whatsoever.

Evangelical plaudits
If it is concerning that Chapman and Sizer are making such claims and using such sources, it is no less concerning that both are warmly admired by some leading British evangelicals. Steve Motyer and Peter Riddell of London School of Theology gave sympathetic editorial assistance to Chapman. The foreword to Sizer’s Christian Zionism was written by David Peterson, former Principal of Oak Hill College. The book was published by IVP, a reputable evangelical publisher, and drew plaudits from various British evangelical leaders including John Stott and Dick Lucas. IVP invited Sizer to write Zion’s Christian Soldiers? for a wider readership: though in some ways more moderate, this book nevertheless casts the Union of Jewish Students as an opponent of intellectual freedom and draws on various anti-Semitic sources. 17 The book is again endorsed by various influential evangelicals, including Terry Virgo, leader of New Frontiers International, and the evangelist Rico Tice. None, to my knowledge, have condemned (or even noticed) the use of dubious sources and terminology, nor the mutilation of historical context. Sadly, it seems that some leading British evangelicals are blind to the evil of anti-Semitism – at least when it comes wrapped up in anti-Zionism.