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It’s impossible to accurately describe the 75 years of horror that the Palestinian people have been forced to endure. Most of the crimes against humanity inflicted on the Palestinian people have been covered up and unreported. Very few—and I mean VERY FEW—people in the United States and Western Europe have even the slightest heartfelt compassion or intellectual honesty for the unimaginable plight of these suffering souls.
The very best book describing the horrors of Israel’s violent massacres, acts of genocide and sheer terror inflicted upon the Palestinian people over the past 75 years was written by an Israeli historian named Ilan Pappe. His book is called The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
I’ll say this straight out: If you have not read this book, you have no clue as to the truth of what has happened—and continues to happen—in Palestine.
Since war erupted between Hamas and the Israeli military, Pappe wrote an appeal to his fellow Israelis entitled My Israeli Friends: This is Why I Support Palestinians.
It is challenging to maintain one’s moral compass when the society you belong to – leaders and media alike – takes the moral high ground and expects you to share with them the same righteous fury with which they reacted to the events of last Saturday, October 7.
There is only one way to resist the temptation to join in: if you understood, at one point in your life – even as a Jewish citizen of Israel – the settler colonial nature of Zionism, and were horrified by its policies against the indigenous people of Palestine.
If you have had that realization, then you will not waver, even if the poisonous messages depict Palestinians as animals, or ‘human animals.’ These same people insist on describing what took place last Saturday as a ‘Holocaust’, thus abusing the memory of a great tragedy. These sentiments are being conveyed, day and night by both Israeli media and politicians.
It is this moral compass that led me, and others in our society, to stand by the Palestinian people in every way possible; and that enables us, at the same time, to admire the courage of the Palestinian fighters who took over a dozen military bases, overcoming the strongest army in the Middle East.
Also, people like me cannot avoid but raise questions about the moral or strategic value of some of the actions that accompanied this operation.
Because we always supported the decolonization of Palestine, we knew that the longer Israeli oppression continued, the less likely the liberation struggle would be “sterile” – as it has been the case in every just struggle for liberation in the past, anywhere in the world.
This does not mean we should not keep an eye on the big picture, not even for a minute. The picture is that of a colonized people fighting for survival, at a time when its oppressors had elected a government, which is hellbent on accelerating the destruction, in fact the elimination of the Palestinian people – or even their very claim to peoplehood.
Hamas had to act, and quickly so.
It is hard to voice these counter arguments because Western media and politicians went along with the Israeli discourse, and the narrative, however problematic it was.
I wonder how many of those who decided to don the Parliament House in London and the Eiffel Tower in Paris with the colors of the Israeli flag truly understand how this seemingly symbolic gesture is received in Israel.
Even liberal Zionists, with a modicum of decency, read this act as a total absolution of all the crimes Israelis have committed against the Palestinian people since 1948; and therefore, as a carte blanche to continue with the genocide that Israel is now perpetrating against the people of Gaza.
Fortunately, there were also different reactions to the events which unfolded in the last few days.
As in the past, large sections of civil societies in the West are not easily fooled by this hypocrisy, already at full display in the case of Ukraine.
Many people know that since June 1967, one million Palestinians have been imprisoned at least once in their lives. And with imprisonment, come abuse, torture and permanent detention without trial.
These very people also know about the horrific reality Israel had created in the Gaza Strip when it sealed the region, imposing a hermetic siege, starting in 2007, accompanied by the relentless killing of children in the occupied West Bank. This violence is not a new phenomenon, as it has been the permanent face of Zionism since the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Because of that very civil society, my dear Israeli friends, your government and media will ultimately be proven wrong, as they will not be able to claim the role of victims, receive unconditional support, and get away with their crimes.
Eventually, the big picture will emerge, despite the inherently biased Western media.
The big question, however, is this: will you, my Israeli friends, be able to clearly see this same big picture as well? Despite years of indoctrination and social engineering?
And no less important, will you be able to learn the other important lesson – one that can be gleaned from recent events – that sheer force alone cannot find the balance between a just regime on the one hand and an immoral political project on the other?
But there is an alternative. In fact, there has always been one:
A de-zionised, liberated and democratic Palestine from the river to the sea; a Palestine that will welcome back the refugees and build a society that does not discriminate on the basis of culture, religion or ethnicity.
This new state would labor to rectify, as much as possible, the past evils, in terms of economic inequality, the stealing of property and the denial of rights. This could herald a new dawn for the whole Middle East.
Building on Pappe’s open letter, the Israeli military has murdered more than 5 million Palestinians since 1948. Five million! This IS a holocaust—a holocaust where Israel is the oppressor, not the victim. It is the holocaust almost no one dares to acknowledge.
Just the opposite.
The entire Western media spews out the most venomous propaganda against the Palestinians that the world has ever seen. And conservatives—and especially evangelical Christians—believe the propaganda with no questions asked.
I urge you to read the report by Alan MacLeod entitled Propaganda Blitz: How Mainstream Media Is Pushing Fake Palestine Stories.
Extraordinary Claims, Zero Evidence
One case in point is the claim that, during their incursion into southern Israel, Hamas fighters stopped to round up, kill and mutilate 40 Israeli babies, beheading them and leaving their bodies behind.
The extraordinary assertion was originally reported by the Israeli channel i24 News, which based it on anonymous Israeli military sources. Despite offering no proof whatsoever, this highly inflammatory claim about an enemy made by an active participant in a conflict was picked up and repeated across the world by a host of media (e.g., in the United States by Fox News, CNN, MSN, Business Insider, and The New York Post).
Meanwhile, the front pages of the United Kingdom’s largest newspapers were festooned with the story, the press outraged at the atrocity and inviting their readers to feel the same way.
Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence, and a story like this should have been met with serious skepticism, given who was making the claim. The first question any reporter should have asked was, “Where is the evidence?” Given multiple opportunities to stand by it, the IDF continually distanced itself from the claims. Nevertheless, the story was simply too useful not to publish.
The decapitated baby narrative was so popular that even President Biden referenced it, claiming to have seen “confirmed” images of Hamas killing children. This claim, however, was hastily retracted by his handlers at the White House, who noted that Biden was simply referencing the i24 News report.
The story looked even more like a piece of cheap propaganda after it was revealed that the key source for the claim was Israeli soldier David Ben Zion, an extremist settler who had incited race riots against Palestinians earlier this year, describing them as “animals” with no heart who needs to be “wiped out.”
Manipulating the U.S. public into supporting the war by feeding them atrocity propaganda about mutilating babies has a long history. In 1990, for instance, a girl purporting to be a local nurse was brought before Congress, where she testified that Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein’s men had ripped hundreds of Kuwaiti babies from their incubators and left them to die. The story helped whip the American public up into a pro-war fervor. It was later revealed that it was a complete hoax dreamed up by a public relations firm.
The report goes on. Please read it.
The thing that galls me the most is the way evangelical Christians are among the most rabid anti-Palestinian people in the entire world. They are cursed with the venom and hatred of Benjamin Netanyahu and his fellow Zionists.
In the last week, I’ve heard “Christians” calling for the annihilation of Damascus, Syria. I’ve heard “Christians” call for nuclear bombs to be launched against Iran. I’ve heard “Christians” call for the “complete eradication” of the Palestinian people.
Never mind that there are untold thousands of Christians living in Palestine, Syria, Iran and every other Arab country. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ that “Christians” in America want to slaughter. I guess they are considered to be “collateral damage.” Not to mention the blood of innocent Arabs of whatever faith that would be dripping from the pulpits and pews of America’s evangelical churches should this “Christian” bloodlust be realized.
Then, those same “Christians” will go to church on Sunday and preach about the “love of Jesus” and raise their hands and bounce up and down in celebration of “the love of God.” Then they shed tears when someone gives an appeal to send missionaries to a lost world. Anyone see just a little bit of duplicity here?
By the way, it is the Muslim countries of the Arab world that are currently witnessing some of the greatest growth of Christianity of any region on earth—and for the most part, it is happening without the help of the evangelical churches in America.
These pro-Israel “Christians” are bewitched! (See Galatians 3:1.) They are bewitched by Zionism; they are bewitched by the Zionist notes contained in the Scofield Bible; they are bewitched by the false prophecy doctrines of dispensational futurism; they are bewitched by John Hagee, Robert Jeffress, Franklin Graham, Jesse Duplantis, Hal Lindsey, John MacArthur, David Jeremiah, Greg Laurie and most Baptist/“Bible” and Charismatic/Pentecostal churches in America.
All told, approximately 80% of America’s evangelicals are bewitched by the pro-Israel agenda. Never mind that the Zionist State of Israel is an atheistic, antichrist state that is the archenemy of genuine Christianity, freedom, basic human morality and all things “Goyim.”
To learn the truth about Talmudic Judaism that confirms everything I said about Zionist Israel in the previous paragraph (and more), Michael Hoffman’s book Judaism’s Strange Gods is must-reading.
None of that matters! Israel is the fulfillment of Bible prophecy—so they believe. In fact, most evangelicals are deeply entrenched in Israel-based prophecy, not Jesus-based prophecy. They have no concept of Jesus’ Second Coming without Israel. To them, the omnipotent, resurrected Christ is totally dependent upon Netanyahu’s Zionist state to usher Him back. Think about it! I’ll go even further: They have no concept of faith without Israel. Take Israel [the Old Covenant] out of their faith, and they have no faith.
They are ignorant of the New Covenant that was so plainly and passionately taught in the Books of Romans, Galatians, Hebrews and, yes, Revelation. The Book of Revelation is not primarily a Book about prophecy; it is the final divinely inspired Book explaining Christ’s New Covenant.
Evangelicals are still living in the Old Covenant. They think Aelia Capitolina, excuse me, Jerusalem, is still the City of David. They think God’s “chosen people” are determined by race. They think the Old Covenant Promised Land is now reserved for Ashkenazi (European) Zionists.
So, who is going to apologize to the Palestinian people on behalf of all the bewitched Christian Zionists, whose hands and hearts drip with Palestinian blood? How can 75 years of Israeli ethnic cleansing, genocide, apartheid and holocaust facilitated and fawned over by Christian Zionists in America ever be reconciled?
The Palestinian people are not only the victims of Israeli genocidal atrocities; they are also the victims of global media propaganda, human heartlessness all over the world and evangelical hypocrisy—especially in America.
P.S. I strongly encourage readers to obtain my latest message DVD entitled Is The Hamas/Israeli War Fulfilling Bible Prophecy?
This message may be but a drop in an ocean of falsehood, but it is a drop of TRUTH.
Buy this DVD for your evangelical friends and loved ones. If the eyes of one person are opened to the truth, it will be worth it.
Order the message DVD Is The Hamas/Israeli War Fulfilling Bible Prophecy? here.
© Chuck Baldwin
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