The Vulture Has Landed

Well, it’s come to America.

Of course.

The “Christ at the Checkpoint” conference, which promotes the PLO view of the Arab-Israeli conflict, has grown beyond its Bethlehem-based borders.

In October, 2018, the group will come to…Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

My old hometown. Middle America. The Heartland.

This is very smart on the part of the CATC, with its odious political statement reflected in the use of the name of Jesus Christ. For years, I’ve researched groups like this, and it is dismaying that the wider Evangelical community in America lets it happen. Where are the voices of leadership in opposition?

The fact is, leftist ideology has infested the Evangelical community. As I’ve been saying for a very long time, when famous leaders like Bill and Lynne Hybels, World Vision, and now others like Jonathan Merritt and Ann Voskamp give sympathy to causes like this, we end up with a virulently anti-Israel group in our midst.

It’s not 1975 anymore, for sure.

The pricey registration ($300) is curious. Surely, Mahmoud Abbas could earmark some money to help—if he weren’t paying the murderers of Jews.

The 1^st national conference of CATC will meet from October 15-18, at the Tower Hotel. Not surprisingly, a United Methodist group is helping. Rev. Darrell Cates, a UMC elder who now works for the United Methodist Oklahoma Foundation, like his friends, cannot bring himself to say “Jews” or “Israel”:

“In more than twenty years of leading groups to experience the land of the Bible, I’ve discovered a community of Jesus followers seeking to live out a vital and faithful witness who are largely discounted and forgotten. Christ at the Checkpoint USA is an effort to tell their story.”

They’re telling their story, all right. It is the Palestinian Narrative. This will no doubt be another left-wing confab featuring a litany of speakers claiming to be “pro peace.”

True pro-peace would be dismantling the PLO/PA and repenting of blaming Israel for everything.

Cates is director of conference and church relations. I hope Bible-based pastors in Oklahoma will oppose this loud and long.

Please avail yourself of the online literature with regard to CATC, and let Rev. Cates know how you feel.

From its website, this “CATCUSA” group describes itself this way:

“We are a community of evangelical Christians who believe that following Jesus with integrity means that our lives are formed by our love for God, the teaching of the Bible and a fearless life of discipleship in the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We believe that one of the first hallmarks of discipleship is love for both our own community and for our enemies. We wish to find Jesus at the center of everything we do and to make his life our life. Which means finding courageous love for Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews alike.

“We also believe that our discipleship requires a prophetic voice. We feel compelled to address the injustices that have taken place in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, particularly the Palestinian lands under occupation. We gather with many communities from around the world to say that our present circumstances are intolerable and do not reflect the righteousness of the Kingdom of God. We abhor violence. And we believe that standing up nonviolently to injustice is an acceptable expression of our faith.

“We do not condemn the Jewish people and we reject any forms of anti-Semitism. In fact, there are many Israeli Jews who believe that the present Israeli treatment of the Palestinians does not reflect the deeper moral values of Judaism itself. We simply wish to find a life in the entire Holy Land that is free of discrimination and injustice, where each person can live without prejudice toward their race or religion. This also means we reject theologies that lead to discrimination or privileges based on ethnicity. Worldviews that promote divine national entitlement or exceptionalism do not promote the values of the Kingdom of God because they place nationalism above Jesus.

“Since 2010, under the leadership of Bethlehem Bible College and led by Palestinian Christians, an international conference has been held every other year exploring the obstacles to peace in our world and the opportunities for peace-making that spring from our Christian faith. We join with this effort by holding a similar conference in the US. We pray that we are faithful to Jesus and regularly confess our shortcomings when we fail to exhibit Jesus’ highest call to love. We also call upon evangelical Christians everywhere to join us in the hope that we can build a better world where goodness and truth reign free and where the love and fairness of God are common.

“We invite you to join us in October, 2018 in Oklahoma City, OK. We hope you will join Christians from all over the United States from a wide diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints. We believe that the conversations that begin in these gatherings will result in the hope we need in our world.”

Here is the group’s “manifesto”:

THE CHRIST AT THE CHECKPOINT MANIFESTO 

1. The Kingdom of God has come. Evangelicals must reclaim the prophetic role in bringing peace, justice and reconciliation in Palestine and Israel. 

2. Reconciliation recognizes God’s image in one another. 

3. Racial ethnicity alone does not guarantee the benefits of the Abraham Covenant. 

4. The church in the land of the Holy One has borne witness to Christ since the days of Pentecost. It must be empowered to continue to be light and salt in the region, if there is to be hope in the midst of conflict. 

5. Any exclusive claim to land of the Bible in the name of God is not in line with the teaching of scripture. 

6. All forms of violence must be refuted unequivocally. 

7. Palestinian Christians must not lose the capacity for self-criticism if they wish to remain prophetic. 

8. There are real injustices taking place in the Palestinian territories, and the suffering of the Palestinian people can no longer be ignored. Any solution must respect the equity and rights of Israeli and Palestinian communities. 

9. For Palestinian Christians, the occupation is the core issue of the conflict. 

10. Any challenge to the injustices taking place in the Holy Land must be done in Christian love. Criticism of Israel and the occupation cannot be confused with anti-Semitism and the delegitimization of the State of Israel. 

11. Respectful dialogue between Palestinian and Messianic believers must continue. Though we may disagree on secondary matters of theology, the gospel of Jesus and his ethical teaching take precedence. 

12. Christians must understand the global context for the rise of extremist Islam. We challenge stereotyping of all faith forms that betray God’s commandment to love our neighbors and enemies.

I’m surprised all this wasn’t drafted in the Kremlin. Let’s look at a few things from the CATCUSA descriptions:

• They describe themselves as “evangelical Christians.” By identifying with mainstream, rank-and-file evangelicals in America, they present themselves as part of the Fam. One of us. This is a way to burrow-into evangelical churches.

It forces some of us to find another way to self-identify, other than “evangelical.”

• Notice that they refer to “Palestine.” Such a place does not exist; to use the term is to tip your hand that you are a political tool of the Left. And anti-Israel.

• Allegedly, the “occupation” is the source of problems in the Middle East, not Arab intransigence and anti-Jew hatred.

• They don’t “abhor violence,” or they would demand an end to the PLO/PA.

• Notice the gobbledygook about rejecting anti-Semitism. I’ve never heard one of these people lament the murder of Jewish men, women, and children in the Land of Israel. The mentors of the CATC are the most anti-Semitic people on the planet.

• Christians must understand the global context for the rise of extremist Islam!

This is shocking, and dangerous. The “global context” is that Islam itself seeks to dominate and enslave, all for the false god, Allah. That self-described evangelicals peddle this dhimmi attitude is grotesque.

The organizers of this unholy conference are either dupes, suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, or complicit in the evil of the PLO.

I call on Christians United for Israel, The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, Bridges for Peace, and Friends of Israel—along with pro Israel churches and individuals—to publicly oppose this conference.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

Silver Anniversaries, Silver Linings

Later this year, the international political, diplomatic, and religious Establishment will celebrate the monstrous Oslo Accords, signed on the White House lawn. Bill Clinton, who had probably put his pants on five minutes before putting his arms around Rabin and Arafat, presided over a deal that marked thousands of Israelis for death and mayhem.

The data shows us that from 1949 to 1992, Arabs murdered 1,176 Israeli Jews. The next set of “statistics” will make you really sick.

Since 1994, another 1,538 have been murdered by terrorists. Did you catch that? Since the Oslo deal was signed, putting a new suit on the ghastly PLO and turning it into the “Palestinian Authority,” still led by the serial killer Yasser Arafat, more Jews were murdered than in the previous 44 years!

This is on the West. George Herbert Walker Bush felt he had the political capital to spend after the First Gulf War, so he forced the Israelis to the negotiating table with their sworn enemy.

That’s no. 1.

Next, Clinton was barely out of the watermelon patch down in Hope when he continued the smooth transition to damaging Israel’s deterrence. And think of the secretaries of state—the whole bumbling lot of them (Warren Christopher, the mendacious James Baker, Madeleine Albright, etc.)—that coddled the PLO.

Empty suits, all.

Then you factor-in the diplomats like Martin Indyk and Dennis Ross, and you see the pattern: cool, urbane elites (theoreticians) dictating to the heroic Israeli people.

Ichabod was stamped above the House of American Diplomacy long, long ago.  They are partly responsible for 3,000 Israeli funerals.

Also complicit are the religious groups that have fawned over the PLO fiends. From the United Methodist leadership, especially in the ‘90s, to mainstream evangelicals like Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention…either they openly identify with the Arabs (UMC), or they bash friends of Israel like Trump (Moore). Further, Moore’s thirst for the world’s approval and his Reformed friends within Evangelicalism cause him to be “cool” to Israel.

And lest you think I detest Arabs, I don’t. I detest murderous Arabs. Had the Israelis been able to work with the likes of Lebanon’s Bashir Gemayel (assassinated on the orders of Assad the Elder), and perhaps a reasonable Palestinian leadership, then any deal would have been better than no deal.

(An aside: I also detest the Right’s refusal to fight. This ranges from our “elected officials” to the weak-kneed Evangelical “leadership,” which is almost thoroughly corrupt in America.)

Twenty-five years after the disaster on the White House lawn, Israelis are still being murdered by the murderers emboldened by the weak West.

From the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:

“On March 18, 2018, an Israeli civilian was killed in a stabbing attack in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was the eighth significant terrorist attack during the first two and a half months of 2018. Four of the eight attacks resulted in the deaths of Israeli civilians and soldiers. The high degree of lethality of popular terrorism attacks (what Mahmoud Abbas refers to as ‘the peaceful popular resistance’) continues the trend of popular terrorism attacks carried out in 2017. In 2017 there was a sharp decline (about 42%) in the scope of popular terrorism attacks compared with 2016 but there was no decline in the number of Israelis killed in the attacks: 18 in 2017 and 17 in 2016.

“What makes popular terrorism attacks in 2017 and the beginning of 2018 more lethal? In ITIC assessment it is primarily a result of an increase in the operational capabilities of the lone wolf terrorists and the terrorist networks carrying out the attacks. Those who have carried out the attacks have sometimes abandoned the element of spontaneity that characterized the wave of popular terrorism in its first year. The age of some of the terrorists carrying out lethal attacks seems to be higher than in the past. Apparently one aspect of the increasing operational capabilities is the surveillance of the Israeli security forces’ routine activities on the ground, carried out to expose their weak spots, especially in order to carry out vehicular and stabbing attacks, which are the most lethal. Another aspect of the improving of the terrorists capabilities is the success some of them have had in fleeing the scene of the attack and hiding from the Israeli security forces for a number of weeks.”

From this assessment we move to the human side of the equation:

“On March 18, 2018, an Israeli civilian was mortally stabbed and died in the hospital. The attack was carried out on Hagai Street in the Old City of Jerusalem. The stabber was a 28 year-old Palestinian from the village of Aqraba, southeast of Nablus. He had a permit to enter Jerusalem to look for work.”

I’ve walked there many times. Now notice the location of the terror nests:

“Another aspect is that three of the lethal terrorist attacks of the first two and a half months of 2018 were carried out in the Nablus-northern Samaria region. The fourth lethal attack in the Old City of Jerusalem was carried out by a terrorist from the village of Aqraba, southeast of Nablus. That is in contrast to 2017, when the Jerusalem, Ramallah and Hebron regions were the leading regions for popular terrorism attacks. The appearance of the Nablus region as a hub of terrorist attacks in 2018 is new (although it is also possible that eventually the statistics will even out and show that in 2018 the Jerusalem, Ramallah and Hebron region played a central role in popular terrorism).

“Abd al-Hakim ‘Asi, the terrorist who carried out the stabbing attack in Ariel (February 5, 2018) was detained on March 18, 2018, in Nablus, after intensive security forces’ activities and intelligence efforts. Ahmed Nasr Jarar, one of the terrorists who carries out the shooting attack at the Havat Gilad Junction (January 9, 2018) was killed by the Israeli security forces in the village of Yamoun in northern Samaria on February 6, 2018, in a joint Israeli security force activity what required an intensive intelligence effort.”

I would flatten that village, and I would flatten Nablus. From the air.

My view is not popular, and of course invites harsh criticism, because, after all, how can a Christian advocate that kind of violence?

We have different definitions.

I believe our toleration of murder of our friends in Israel (and now the murder of our fellow citizens by jihadists) is a failure to defend our own. It is violent. That is my first priority.

More than 1,500 murdered since Western elites hitched Israel to Oslo.

Our Jewish friends are targets in the same war that targets us Christians. As Raymond Ibrahim so aptly put it:

“The Western elements that are forever protecting and empowering Islam—and which operate under various names, “Liberals,” “Leftists,” “Marxists,” etc.—ultimately care little about Islam; rather, Islam is for them a tool to combat their real and much closer enemy: Christianity, and the mores and civilization borne of it and culminating in the West.”

I loathe the murder of Jews and I loathe the murder of my fellow citizens. That is my moral compass.

Are there any silver linings? I think the fact that many are waking up to these threats is a big silver lining. If our enemies win, their victory will be so costly they will not enjoy any fruits of their victory.

And my King is coming, and coming soon.

Push on to final victory.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com