​Christians, it’s time for a frank, loving dialogue with our Jewish friends

 
Vince Dhimos
 
Recently, Charles Bausman, editor-in-chief of Russia Insider, wrote a landmark commentary titled “It's time to drop the Jew taboo.” It was to many a shockingly frank commentary on the so-called “Jewish question,” focusing on the grievous misdeeds of a people that, at least since the Holocaust, no one had dared to criticize publicly for fear of being called anti-Semitic, being banned from social media, being ostracized, not being elected to public office, even losing one’s job. The commentary itself reflected a certain anger particularly at this PC taboo that shuts down all discussion of Jews that do not show them in a purely positive light. Such anger is justified but must be judiciously channelled.
 
If the dialogue that has been opened as a result of Bausman’s landmark article can be steered in a positive direction, it will bear major benefits for the Western world. Of course, much of the non-Jewish side of the dialogue is, as could be expected, marked by extreme anger at the suppression of honest and informed opinion for many years, which has led indirectly to the barbaric treatment of the Palestinians (over 30 unarmed Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in just one month this year) and unprovoked murderous attacks on Iranian forces in Syria who had made – and continue to make -- an invaluable contribution to the defeat of ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.
 
Since Bausman’s article appeared, there have appeared a plethora of no-holds-barred follow-up discussions, including a treatise titled “Is Israel a psychopath?,” an in-depth psychological discussion by Laurent Guyénot of how mainstream Jews perceive themselves and the rest of the world by contrast.
 
The importance of articles like this is not so much the objective message they convey but rather the liberating message that Jews and non-Jews can and must dialogue, without the PC, notably, the boring old cliché that a frank and open discussion of Israel and the Zionists is always and inevitably anti-Semitic and hence reprehensible and ought to be punished. As if truth could be bad. So bad that you can lose your Twitter, Facebook or YouTube account, for daring to express it in an objective way. Truth is banned in the Land of the Free.
 
But no truths can hurt in the long run, like the words of a doctor telling you you have a serious disease. The doctor’s intent is to heal, not to hurt. The wounds have festered for centuries. It is long past time to lance them and let out the poison. In the end, the person who has the truth wins. Always. But in the Land of the Free, the most important truths are banned. That’s one reason the US never wins.
 
Most importantly: There needs to be an honest, unemotional dialogue between Christians and Jews, based, on the Christian side, on unconditional love, and this is the missing ingredient in most of the follow-up discussion since the publication of Bausman’s landmark treatise. An open war against Jews risks leading to the same kind of results the world experienced in the Third Reich. An open discussion based on love but where no one allows himself to be silenced by the tired old accusations of anti-Semitism will bring long-awaited desperately needed healing. And healing – not revenge – must be the focus.
 
Christians and Jews alike have always misunderstood our Jesus, and this misunderstanding has led to bitterness on the part of the Jews. We think He came to found a new religion and, yes, in effect He did found one. But his teachings are squarely supported on the Old Testament and that is why he was justified in saying through bitter tears in the city of Jerusalem: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!
 
Besides His words “I am come not to abolish the law but to fulfil [a better rendition from the Greek here would be “complete”] the law,” a story about Jesus in the New Testament shows that Christ’s aim was to shift the focus of the Old Testament teachings -- from a purely mechanical and slavish implementation of laws, of do's and don't's, to a living faith based on love, a love that forgives each other for the expressions of our sinful nature and their harmful effects on our neighbours and then, simultaneously applies the law coercively to prevent these expressions from doing unchecked harm.
 
The story I refer to is the following from Luke 10:
 
25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”

27 So he answered and said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’[h] and ‘your neighbour as yourself.’”

28 And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”

29 But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”

30 Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to ericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 

31 Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 

32 Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. 

33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. 

34 So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 

35 On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ 

36 So which of these three do you think was neighbour to him who fell among the thieves?”

37 And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
 
You see? Jesus drew his lesson from the Old Testament, and He wisely chose not to preach or even to express his own personal thoughts. Instead he asked the law expert to tell Him what the Bible said, and being a legal scholar, he answered correctly. Jesus’ teachings were already contained in the Old Testament. Jesus’ mission was to teach them with the proper emphasis.
 
What does this tell us? It tells us that Jesus was a devout Jew but a wise one. And that fact also silenced the sceptics who claimed he was blaspheming against the Old Testament.
 
Further to the above, the Jews had always hated the Samaritans based on a complex history of perceived betrayals. The Samaritan in this story can be compared to the Palestinians. Or the Iranians. It is no longer necessary in Neocon circles to explain why “patriotic” Americans should hate the Iranians. It is a settled fact, a fait accompli, that Iran or Palestine is bad, just as it was an established “fact” in ancient Israel that Samaritans were bad. If you are a Neocon or Zionist, there are a million and one excuses why you should hate the Palestinians, eg, the fact that Palestinians were never a bona fide nation. As if you need to belong to an officially recognized nation to be accepted as a human being with all the rights attending human status. Another excuse is that the Palestinians don’t create things while Israelis do, and therefore it is just for Israel to seize their homes and land and kick them out on the street, and jail or even beat and shoot them if they resist. You see the iron-clad logic: All of us who own property but are not creative can be evicted from the property and have it seized by people who are creative. This is justice à la Likud.
 
The US has also been allowing Israel to dictate which countries the US must attack and destroy. This idea is based on the Yinon Plan and the notion of a Greater Israel, based on a misinterpretation of the scriptures that has been generally accepted by “Christian” Zionists. The Zionist teaching is that God gave the land to Israel. However, they forget that He also took it away for disobedience. The scripture cited by “Christian” Zionists (Deuteronomy 29-30) as proof of an “unconditional covenant” between God and the Hebrews does not contain the word “unconditional” and in fact lists numerous infractions that, if committed by the Hebrews, will be grounds for permanent eviction. More importantly, these 2 chapters do not constitute the covenant, which is contained – including the conditions most pastors claim do not exist –
in chapter 28. The problem is, most pastors base their interpretation of the Bible not on their own minds but rather, they borrow the minds of others, which include numerous biases – the most powerful and enduring one is the Zionist idea.
 
The Christian message to the Jews should be that Jesus was not a renegade who denies Jewish law but was in fact one of them. The only difference was that He emphasized the love aspect of this law and essentially, for that they killed him, claiming that he was a dangerous blasphemer. Wrongly so, because a Jewish legal expert, under skilful questioning, admitted that love was the key to Jewish law, not just Christian teachings.
 
I never make predictions, but I must say that if Christians cannot or will not begin their dialogue with Jews on this basis (rather than a false teaching that Jesus somehow wanted his followers to support a secular Jewish state), showing that Jesus was a devout Jew and not the creator of a new religion – just as He taught in this famous exchange with a Jewish lawyer cited above – and that He loved them, and that faithful followers of Jesus also love them enough to tell them the unvarnished truth, then there will never be reconciliation between Christians and Jews, and I will go so far as to say that under these circumstances, the US-waged wars throughout the world will never end. Never ending wars and the attendant dangerously erosive and increasing unpayable debt and social unrest are, in fact, the just desserts for our unwillingness to be courageously honest and to spread the teachings of Jesus to the Jews.
 
Relevant:
Putin showed how to speak to Jews in Christian love but without the PC. He told them that 80% of the Bolsheviks who imposed communism on Russia were Jews. But he said that they were atheists who persecuted Christians and Jews alike. Although his brutally straightforward approach is virtually banned in the West, it is precisely what the West needs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6p1zxKnDeM
 
For those who managed to miss our frank 3-part discussion of “Christian” Zionism, it is linked below. The difference between New Silk Strategies and most other sites that discuss the Jews frankly, warts and all, is that we are not anti-Jewish but we use an in-depth and specific analysis of the scriptures to show what is wrong with Zionism, including “Christian” Zionism. Others simply say or suggest that religion itself – rather than a misreading of the Bible – causes wars. This is an ineffectual approach because the audience we peacemakers need to reach is the largest US voting bloc, ie, Christians who have been indoctrinated to believe that Christ would want Christians to support a secular Jewish state both militarily and politically. So that when Israel insists that Iran wants to destroy it, the US must help it bomb Iranian facilities and kill Iranians, including, absurdly, those who have supplied the boots on the ground in the fight against terrorism – which the US pretends to be fighting. Well over 50% of US Christians polled have said they support Israel, and by that they mean they agree with its policies, including –  unbeknownst to them – of shooting people, including children, who resist their illegal occupation of the Golan Heights, Gaza, the West Bank, and any other territory the government says is Israeli. This is all based on the false claim that God has given “Israel” these territories. Yet the God of the Bible has made it clear that the occupants of the land in question were evicted for disobedience and there is no Biblical provision for their return. The ignorance of these Christians is precisely why the US is always at war.
 
http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/culture/the-worlds-most-dangerous-cult-its-not-wahhabism
 
http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/culture/the-worlds-most-dangerous-cult-its-not-wahhabism-part-ii
 
http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/culture/the-worlds-most-dangerous-cult-its-not-wahhabism-part-iii