Episcopal Church Dodges Bullet On Israeli War

After deleting a claim that Israel “pursu[es] an apartheid policy against the Palestinian people,” the convention passed resolutions which pinned equal blame on both Hamas and Israel for Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israeli citizens.” Arab Bedouins, hidden victims were attacked by Hamas too.

Delegates removed a reference to the “ongoing genocide by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people.” The bishops also strengthened the criticism of Hamas by referring to the events of October 7 as a terrorist attack, instead of just an attack.

Northern Indiana Bishop Edward Little urged delegates not to upset our Jewish friends and that a measure saying Israel was an apartheid state would “forever end our ability to stand between Israelis and Palestinians as mediators, it would make us advocates of one side of the conflict over the other, and our Israeli and Jewish friends would see us as relentlessly hostile to them.”

Of course, Israel is not at war with Gaza or the Palestinian people; Israel is at war with Hamas, Islamic terrorists known for their profound and unending hatred of Israel and its G-d.

Hamas does not want a two-state solution, it wants one state, a Palestinian state that sees Jews eliminated from the Middle East.

Jerusalem based Anglican Archbishop Hosam Naoum, chief Pastor of the 28 parishes spread through the four political regions of Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, asked delegates to listen to the story of Palestinian Christians who he says are coming under fire from Israeli troops, making life hellish for the minority of Christians in the area. He might be right. But IDF troops might have some difficulty telling the difference between a Palestinian Christian and a Muslim walking down a narrow street in Jerusalem when your own life is on the line.

Israel might be alone on the world stage, but she still has a few friends. As my good friend Ed Weinstein noted, “don’t f**k with Israel, we have a tendency to win when things get really bad and you try to push us over the cliff.” Ed is not known for mincing his words.

PM Bibi Netanyahu again vowed that Israel would achieve its goals in its war against Hamas: returning hostages from Gaza, eliminating Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, ensuring that Gaza will not constitute a threat against Israel and also returning displaced Israeli residents securely to their homes in both the south and the north. Could one be clearer than that?

Sooner or later Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar will be caught or killed, the hostages returned and life will go on. Whatever the day after looks like, it will be free of Hamas and the winners will be the people of Gaza.

A new report from the BBC reveals that Hamas faces growing public dissent as Gaza war erodes support. An academic doctor said; “I had a good life, but we have a filthy [Hamas] leadership. They got used to our bloodshed, may God curse them! They are scum!”

It’s unlikely of course that Jew hatred will die, antisemitism will not mysteriously disappear. In fact, if Israel pulls it off, it might only increase the anger and rage that Jews around the world are experiencing.

The numbers, according to one source, are terrifying. According to the https://global100.adl.org/map website 1.09 billion people harbor antisemitic attitudes in the world.

In the United States, for example, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 8,873 anti-Semitic incidents last year–a 140 percent increase from the number of incidents in 2022, and the highest number on record since ADL began tracking anti-Semitism in 1979. Of those incidents, 5,204 occurred after Hamas’ incursion into Israel.

In Canada, B’nai B’rith documented 5,791 anti-Semitic incidents last year, seventy-seven of which were violent.

In the United Kingdom, the Community Security Trust catalogued 4,103 anti-Semitic incidents last year, a 147 percent increase from 2022′s total and “the highest annual total ever reported to CST.”

Surging anti-Semitism signals societal decay, including increasing intolerance for religious minorities and ideological dissenters. This threatens the West as we know it, says Melissa Langsam Braunstein an independent writer in metro Washington.

The other great lie is that Israel is starving the people of Gaza. For months, Israel has refuted libelous claims of famine in Gaza, as international organizations — especially the UN and the EU, the International Court of Justice and mainstream media alongside NGOs such as Human Rights Watch — pushed the false, malicious narrative that Israel was causing famine in Gaza and even using it as a “weapon of war.” Israel might have saved itself the effort. No one was listening, according to the Gatestone Institute.

In May, the World Food Programme (WFP) of the UN claimed, without a shred of evidence, that there was a “full blown famine” in Gaza.

There was no famine, there is no famine and Israel has not been using hunger as a “weapon of war.” In its report published on June 4, the UN’s IPC [Integrated Food Security Phase Classification] concluded that famine was no longer even “plausible” and had no “supporting evidence.”

By comparison, more than three million children in Sudan are acutely malnourished, and a quarter of a million more are likely to die in the coming months.

The “made-up” famine is just the latest in a long row of fabrications demonizing Israel’s military operations in Gaza, which over the last months have been exposed as lies yet have received zero coverage in the media. The media have not covered the exposure of these lies.

Israelis are increasingly aware that the existential war that Israel is now fighting, a war it needs to win if it is to survive, will not be over any time soon. But Israel will win, of that you can be sure, because no nation on earth can stop it.

END

EPISCOPAL CHURCH DODGES BULLET ON ISRAELI WAR
Peace remains elusive. Antisemitism remains a global problem
The lie about starvation in Gaza

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
July 4, 2024

The Episcopal Church dodged a bullet at its recent General Convention over Israel, pulling back from its suicidal edge by not accusing Israel of genocide and apartheid in its war with Hamas.

This was in stark contrast to pre-convention resolutions labeling Israel as a genocide state in its destruction of Gaza.

Delegates admitted that Hamas might actually be part of the problem (really), and Israel was simply reacting in kind.