Antisemitism, or hatred for the Jews and Israel, has reared its ugly head many times through the centuries. It is a word associated with hatred, abuse, intense suffering, and crimes against humanity. Its past is so ugly that any accusation of being antisemitic carries a stigma, much as the over used word “racist” does. In fact, most people so fear being labeled either racist or antisemitic that it effectively can be used mute criticism and shut down debate. Today, while antisemitism certainly exists, the accusation of it is being leveraged more and more by the leaders of Israel to insulate themselves from criticism for their inhumane actions in Gaza and elsewhere.
For those of us who have dared to question Israel and have encountered the specter of being so labeled, it raises the question, “Is it antisemitic to criticize Israel?”
Going further, is it antisemitic to claim, as does the New Testament, that the Jewish people, except for a remnant, are no longer “God’s Chosen People,” which is a central claim of Zionists of both the Jewish and Christian varieties? Is it allowable to examine how the Bible defines Jewishness from a New Covenant perspective? If not, then the New Covenant is antisemitic, which would be quite odd considering it was primarily written by Jews.
They who seek to manipulate the conversation attempt to control how language is defined and used.
By so doing, they quite often are often able to manipulate us to support, or at least not resist, their agenda. A primary defense is to refuse to allow words to be improperly defined.
Using Language to Oppress
Propaganda experts employ euphemisms to make something evil sound much better than it is or to make something good seem evil.
A great example relates to the issue of abortion. The Bible clearly teaches that God knows us before we are conceived. (Ephesians 1:4) The Holy Spirit filled John the Baptist while he was still in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15), showing clearly that God regards the unborn as people. In order to justify genocide, oppressors almost always try to dehumanize the victims. In this country in the past, we did this to black slaves and Native Americans. Abortionists try to dehumanize the baby by calling it by a Latin term, fetus, which means “little one,” but those who push abortion insinuate that fetus means something not yet human, a mere clump of cells. This is designed to provide some wiggle room to those who wish to end the “inconvenience” of an unwanted pregnancy without having to feel guilty for committing murder. Politically, abortionists attempt to sway people by using the euphemism of calling themselves “pro-choice,” pretending to be on the side of downtrodden women who otherwise have no choice but bear the burden of birthing and raising their child perhaps quite by themselves. Who would be against women having a choice? Using this trickery, they often successfully make people think that abortion is merely giving a woman a choice while completely ignoring the irony of denying the baby any choice at all. One person’s choice is never supposed to eliminate the life of another. Abortionists further euphemistically couch their murderous intent inside such terms us “reproductive rights.” Anyone opposed to the murder of unborn children are thereby cast as rights deniers, even though nowhere does our Constitution provide anyone with the right to murder another human being. Abortionists cleverly support “women’s rights” while completely denying the human rights of the unborn baby. This abuse of language is used to justify a multi-million dollar business of killing unborn babies and sometimes harvesting their body parts, while pretending to occupy the moral high ground. In reality, from God’s point of view, it is murder of the most heinous type – the killing of innocent defenseless babies.
This is how the devil uses language against us. He calls evil good, confuses those whose moral compass is unsettled, condemns any who challenge him, and pretends to be decent and caring while he murders the innocent.
Another way the devil uses language to oppress us is by branding those who oppose him and his agenda as fear-filled haters.
We can see where the devil is at work in a society by discerning what activities and groups are being insulated from any form of criticism.
The devil does not allow us to be against any idea or agenda that he is pushing. A favorite tactic frames our opposition to sin as hatred for the people who practice it. He loves to claim that we are afraid of the people whose activity and agendas we refuse to support. An obvious example is Islam. If I resist the the spoken Muslim agenda to subjugate non-Muslims, I cannot possibly be anything but someone who has an irrational fear of Islam, an Islamaphobe. I am left no middle ground in which I can oppose ideas or practices found in Islam without hating or fearing those who follow that religion.
I grew up as a Roman Catholic, attended Catholic school, was an “altar boy,” and “practiced” that religion. At the age of 19, I heard the real gospel message for the first time. I discovered that I could be “saved” (forgiven by God, made right with him, become one is his children, and receive eternal life) by putting my faith in Jesus and what he accomplished for us on the cross and through his resurrection. As a result, I surrendered my life to him as the Lord and was born again. Thus I began a lifelong discipleship journey as I attempt to follow him and his teachings. Over time it became clear to me that much of what the Roman Catholic Church teaches directly opposes the Bible. I was forced to make a choice between the RCC and the Bible and came down on the side of the Bible. Now, some 55 years later and being conversant in Bible doctrine, I clearly see that many of the teachings of the RCC are a complete distortion of the gospel, “another” gospel as Paul would say. I detest all of the RCC’s false doctrine because it keeps people from knowing the gospel and have written several articles exposing it, but that does not mean I hate Roman Catholics. I absolutely do not.
It is very possible to hate what a group teaches or stands for without hating the people in the group.
I realize that most people in any large group do not know what the leadership of that group is doing. If I confront Catholics about doctrinal errors, often they will admit their ignorance or even disavow believing such things. I am quite sure that many Muslims do not support all the doctrines of the Koran. Likewise, many Jewish people do not support the genocide being perpetrated by the nation of Israel or do they espouse the hatred for Christ and the goyim that some rabbis and the Talmud teach.
Dispensational Lies Provide the Basis of Christian Zionism
The false doctrine of Dispensationalism teaches that Israel and the Jews are still “God’s Chosen People,” whom Christians must support unconditionally or risk coming under the judgment of God. During the early years of my discipleship journey, this is what I believed because it was all I knew, not realizing that for most of church history this was how Christians viewed things. Eventually I discovered other eschatologies (doctrines of the end times) and have come to the conclusion that the New Testament clearly teaches that, by disavowing any allegiance to Christ, the Jewish people biologically descended from Abraham are no longer considered to be authentic Jews, spiritually speaking. Instead, those who do place their faith and allegiance in Christ, both Jew and Gentile, have become the true children of Abraham and the Israel of God.
Jesus is the promised “seed” to whom God referred in his promises to Abraham and David. Our Lord is the one to whom the who Bible points.
And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Luke 24:27 (NKJV)
Biblical Israel was privileged to be the vehicle that God used to steward God’s Word and the promise and bring the Messiah into the world, but the Jews were never intended to become the focus of what God was and is doing. That honor belongs to Christ.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. Ephesians 1:7–10 (NKJV)
Dispensationalism declares that Christ’s work on the cross was ineffective because it refuses to acknowledge that our Lord destroyed the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile and has not made both into one. It is an alien gospel.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, 15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, 16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. 17 And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. 18 For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Ephesians 2:14–18 (NKJV)
When one understands that the “chosen people of God” are the elect who believe in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, it undermines the false doctrine of Dispensationalism that those who are descended from Abraham or who have adopted the Jewish faith are “God’s Chosen People” who must be supported unconditionally and uncritically in all of their geopolitical aspirations and activities.
Jewish Zionism Distorts What It Means to Be Jewish
Just as Dispensationalism, the framework behind Christian Zionism, is a distortion of the gospel; so Jewish Zionism corrupts the meaning of Jewishness.
According to Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, the nation state of modern Israel has stolen the identity of the Jews in order to garner support. By so doing, it has commandeered the idea of what it means to be Jewish and transformed it from being a religious people into being merely a people who claim Jewishness and are occupying the ancient land of Israel, even though many do not even believe in God. The following interview with Rabbi Shapiro illustrates this more eloquently than I can.
He even says that Jewish Zionism is antisemitic.
Whereas Jesus came to establish a heavenly kingdom, Jewish Zionists in Israel, with the misguided and ardent support of Christian Zionists, are working to enlarge and strengthen an earthly kingdom. Jesus uses spiritual means, but Israel uses violence, intrigue, and any means possible.
The Truth about Modern Talmudic Judaism
Since the Jews formally renounced Christ and still do, except for a remnant, that religion is basically “antichrist” in its widest sense and, therefore, anti-God. The apostle John, a Jewish member of the early New Covenant church, clearly taught that, if we reject Christ, we also reject God the Father.
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. 1 John 2:23 (NKJV)
Jewish teaching in the Talmud insists that Christ is a blasphemer who is boiling eternally in excrement for his sins. His name is held in disrespect and antipathy by the Jews. There is no commonality of belief between Christian and Jews at this most fundamental level regarding who is our Lord Jesus the Messiah.
Despite claims to the contrary, we are not able to walk or work together in any deep sense because we are not agreed on the most critical point.
Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? Amos 3:3 (NKJV)
The Talmud teaches that Gentiles have a lower kind of soul than do Jews and that it is okay to kill, steal, and lie to the goyim as a means to further the ends of Israel and the Jews. This is not my opinion. It is what the Talmud teaches.
The Talmud is the most important book in modern Judaism, being held in higher esteem than the Torah.
Leveraging the Accusation of Antisemitism to Shut Down the Truth
I am quite sure that many who watch the above video will immediately assume that its producer is an antisemite and its content is antisemitic, but that is not the case. If the truth is antisemitic, we are in trouble. The following interview features Daniel Klein, who grew up in Israel on the West Bank and later converted to Christianity. His insights and experience corroborate Peter Boland’s statements above.
Daniel Klein affirms that it is very difficult to go against the accepted narrative in Zionist Israel, even if one is a resident and Jewish. In our country, as soon as someone points out the horrible things found in the Talmud or the inhumane activities of the nation of Israel, the accusation of antisemitism is soon heard. This is a tactic to shut down the truth.
We must be allowed to critique Jewish doctrine and the activity of the nation of Israel without being labeled antisemitic or censored.
Will antisemites use such material to justify their hatred of Israel and the Jews? Certainly. Does this make the material antisemitic? No. It is the truth. The truth is a double edged sword which can be used for good or evil. I am not responsible for how haters use the truth. We cannot afford to censor the truth in order to avoid its being used by haters. That would be like forbidding anyone to have a car because some people will drive while drunk.
We cannot strip the majority’s free speech rights to protect against a minority of haters.
Free speech, the exchange of ideas without censorship, was enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We must not allow anyone to strip us of that right, no matter how righteous sounding the reason. If we do, tyranny will descend upon us very quickly.
We who follow Christ need to know the truth about the modern nation of Israel and the teachings of modern Judaism so we can properly pray for and share the gospel in the hope that Jewish people will also believe in and declare allegiance to our Lord Jesus. This is what it means to truly love them. It is not loving or godly to promote the falsehood that the Jews are still God’s chosen people who have an inside track to God. The only way for anyone, Jew or Gentile, to be saved is through faith in our Lord Jesus.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. John 14:6 (NKJV)
