Over at the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism (ISCZ), John Hubers comments on complaints from Israeli soldiers about the Israeli military rabbinate framing the recent conflict in Gaza as a religious war.
Hubers writes:
The army rabbinate’s literature could, in fact, have been written by John Hagee or Mike Evans or any number of Christian Zionists who have always claimed that the land upon which the ancient Israelites built their state continues to belong to the world’s Jewish population by divine fiat; all of it, including Gaza.
And, John Hubers has some questions for the Christian Zionists:
It’s time to call Christian Zionists out on this, to ask the obvious question: do you believe in ethnic cleansing or not? A simple yes or no answer is all that is required here. John Hagee, Mike Evans, Joel Richardson, Pat Robertson: do you believe Israel should “get rid of” the Palestinians, doing a thorough and violent cleansing of the West Bank, Gaza strip and Golan Heights? Do you or don’t you? If you don’t – please let us know what you do believe. Remember what the Bible says about fence sitters??
Now, I’ve no doubt that there are plenty of people out there who advocate violent and genocidal policies towards Palestinians, and indeed there will be some who are looking forward to all-out nuclear warfare in the Middle East when “things will get interesing,” spelling doom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
There are people who do teach with perhaps a little too much zeal about their vision of Armaggeddon, whether they have a pro-Zionist worldview like Tim LaHaye or an anti-Zionist worldview like Anthony McRoy.
Now, John Hubers is right to suggest that people should be forthright in their views. Yet it is interesting how he seamlessly links together the words and theology of the Israeli military rabbinate with American Christian Zionist leaders.
So, based on Hubers’ tacit assumption that the words of your political allies implicate your group by association, there are some questions which the Christian anti-Zionists over at the ISCZ need to answer.
The Institute for the Study of Chrstian Zionism (ISCZ) was founded by Hubers, Gary Burge, Donald Wagner and Stephen Sizer. In May 2008, Sizer represented the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism at an anti-Zionist ‘Nakba’ conference in Jakarta; an event which turned out to be rather antisemitic.
Here are some of the other participants in the conference:
Dr Zahra Mostafavi – daughter of Ayatollah Khomeini; wrote a letter to Hassan Nasrallah in praise of Hezbollah, imploring children to become suicide bombers.
Rima Fakhry – only female member of Hezbollah: a terrorist group that murders Jews around the world.
Khalid Meshal – chairman of Hamas, whose charter claims that the end of the world will come when the stones and trees will say “O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
Mohammed Habib – second highest-ranking official in the Muslim Brotherhood, whose expressed aims include establishing a global Islamic caliphate.
Sayid Abdillah Hosseini – South African Islamic theologian who teaches that Israel will be destroyed in 2022 according to prophecies in the Quran.
Dr Frederick Tobin – Holocaust denier; runs the Adelaide Institute. Big fan of Adolf Hitler. Read his report on the Jakarta conference here. [WARNING: links to far right sites]
Daud Abdullah – prominent Muslim Council of Britain cleric in the headlines recently for advocating attacks on the Royal Navy and for signing this document.
Aharon Cohen and Dovid Weiss – Neturei Karta representatives who have sent congratulations to Hamas and attended a conference on Holocaust denial in Iran. (More on this story here). Cohen thinks that those who died in the Holocaust deserved it.
Dr Jawad Sharbaf – head of the NEDA Institute in Iran who has previously asked Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson for assistance.
…All of which I’d say reflects pretty badly on the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism’s participation in the Jakarta conference.
So, John Hubers, do you believe that: the Holocaust never happened, if it did the Jews deserved it, Hitler was a good man, it is acceptable for children to become suicide bombers in a jihad against the Zionist Entity, attacks by on the Royal Navy is fair game if they attempt to stop the smuggling of arms into Gaza, it’s okay to kill Jews around the world, the ushering in of a global Islamic caliphate will be preceded by a genocide of the Jews, and according to the Quran Israel will be destroyed in 2022?
In your own words:
“Do you or don’t you? If you don’t – please let us know what you do believe. Remember what the Bible says about fence sitters??”
Seismic Shock 
The British Government has cut tes to the Muslim Council of Britain because of Daoud Abdullah.
If even Hazel “Pollyanna” Blears can see no good in Abdullah, why oh why is Dr Sizer sharing platforms with hm?
Maybe OT but thought you might be interested:
http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2009/03/pastor-john-hagee-is-israels-hero-again.html
You’ve listed Fakhry, Meshal, Habib & Sharbaf as attending, but I can’t see them on the green flyer you’ve appended. Are they listed somewhere else?
You can see their names here:
http://www.islammuhammadi.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=372
Sharbaf listed here:
http://www.voiceofpalestine.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59&Itemid=38
Habib here:
http://www.mail-archive.com/ppiindia@yahoogroups.com/msg62652.html
Several things: Stephen Sizer does what he does on his own. The fact that he chose to attend that conference was entirely his choice. You’ll have to take up that issue with him. This blog, however, was addressed to me. I answered your questions, but noticed that rather than dealing with the issue raised in my blog you chose to engage in character assassination. I have no idea why you chose to do that, but I’m not going to assume that its because of the people you associate with. I’m assuming that you made the choice on your own to do this.
Now back to the issue at hand. It was entirely appropriate to make the link I did as one of the defining motifs of Christian Zionism is the belief that the land which is currently under dispute between Israelis and Palestinians belongs to Jews. This is not open for discussion with them. This is a matter of faith. At the third International Biblical Congress on Christian Zionism, which was endorsed by the fourth, they were even more explicit in saying that all of the land belongs to Israel, including Gaza, the West Bank and Golan Heights.
When the army rabbinate made this statement it was, in this sense, a reflection of a tenet of the Christian Zionist faith. There was a direct link. My question, therefore, was whether or not those who signed on to these statements, as well as people who have been publically forthright in supporting Israel’s right to the entire land using biblical borders (a map including in Hagee’s Jerusalem Countdown shows the “Royal Land Grant” which includes not only this land but all of Jordan, parts of Iraq and Saudi, most of Lebanon and Syria.
So it was, indeed, legitimate to ask: “do you believe, as the rabbi does, that the land should be “cleansed” of “gentiles?” This is, in fact, the crucial issue for Christian Zionists. If Israel has a divine right to this land and there are several million Arabs living on it who are not planning to move anytime soon, the only logical conclusion is that they believe Israel has the right to force them off the land.
As for my trip to Syria where the leaders of our church were hosted by the leaders of the Christian Arab community in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, which included a visit to the president of Syria at the behest of the General Secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches who was at the time a Syrian Protestant pastor, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue I have raised. I would hope that you actually attempt to deal with the issue at hand rather than engaging in ad hominem attacks which only in the end show the weakness of your own point of view.
Let’s try (I know this may be hard for you) to have a logical, thoughtful discussion here. I’m assuming you are capable of that?
John Hubers: you made this comment for the website http://www.christianzionism.org, which represents as I understand The Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism. I thus consider you as a representative of this body. Much more as you co-founded the group with Stephen Sizer and others.
Sizer was not merely in Jakarta in a personal capacity, he represented The Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism in Jakarta.
He admits it himself here:
http://stephensizer.blogspot.com/2008/05/lost-in-transit-on-road-to-jakarta.html
More details on the Voice of Palestine conference here:
https://seismicshock.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/stephen-sizer-responds-to-criticism/
I find it astonishing to believe that Stephen Sizer has represented your organisation without your knowledge, and allowed ISCZ to be associated with Fred Tobin’s Adelaide Institute.
Here you can read the Voice of Palestine aims, which include the dismantling of the state of Israel:
http://voiceofpalestine.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=6
I suggest your organisation withdraw from Voice of Palestine and publicly apologise for its participation in the event. Sharing platforms with militant Islamists and Holocaust deniers who openly promote genocidal policies towards Jews is hardly a good way to promote peace in the Middle East.
You make an interesting assumption here, that whatever Stephen Sizer does is done as a representative of our organization. This would be a legitimate assumption to make if, indeed, the institute had promoted this conference on its website, in which case you could say that the Institute endorsed it. You could also make the assumption that the views you find unacceptable that were represented at this conference represent the views of our Institute if we had promoted them on the website. In fact you will find nothing like this on the site.
The fact is, Stephen Sizer decided to attend this conference by his own decision, following the dictates of his own conscience. That this is the case with all who are members of our Institute (which includes pastors, students, university professors, lay persons, and a Conservative Rabbi from LA) is born out by the fact that we all have our own lives. Our institute, in fact, exists only as an educational, informational network of individuals concerned by the threat Christian Zionism poses to peace in the Middle East, not to mention its distortion of orthodox Christian belief. This can be checked (should you be interested) with the State of Illinois where we are registered which states clearly that we have no function outside of an educational one. We are not, like CUFI, a political action committee. We are not in any way involved in political advocacy. We exist simply to make available to the public through our website (which I created and run) information about Christian Zionism, both as a theological and political phenomenon.
We have no funding. We run no conferences. We send no representatives anywhere as there is nothing to represent. Stephen Sizer represents himself, which is certainly understandable as he is a recognized author and preacher, accepting invitations to various events to promote his books, etc. I don’t know what he preaches on Sunday morning, nor what he says at conferences. I have put some of his material on our website. He does the same with material from our website. We have, in other words, a common interest in challenging Christian Zionism. If, however, he asked me to promote holocaust denial on our website (which he won’t because he does not hold these views nor promote them), I would not accept this. If you read the purpose statement of the website you will see that it has nothing whatsoever to do with this. But then I’m not holding my breath as what is becoming clear is that you are less interested in discussing issues than in destroying peoples’ reputation with innuendo, ad hominem attacks and suggestions that keep any opinions other than your own from being heard.
So I’ve answered your questions. At this point you are free do do whatever you like. I would prefer, however, that if you have anything further to add about the issues you have raised that you take them up with Stephen Sizer himself. I know he would welcome a discussion as he is a very intelligent person who is actually quite able to handle his own business.
One final note: next time when you have something you wish to discuss with me please be so kind as to drop me an email using the “contact us” button on the website. The fact that you didn’t do this, choosing instead to use ridicule and innuendo, tells me that perhaps you really aren’t interested in discussing issues in a reasonable way, preferring instead to try to silence those whose opinions are different from your own. And thus my need to move on.
John,
I am very grateful that you are distancing ISCZ from the Jakarta Nakba conference. It is most encouraging. Nevertheless I think to avoid further confusion you should really make sure not anyone can use your group’s name as they see fit.
Otherwise it is confusing – you claim you’re not a political advocacy group yet your group was represented at a political conference in Indonesia.
c.f. your comment:
“You make an interesting assumption here, that whatever Stephen Sizer does is done as a representative of our organization. This would be a legitimate assumption to make if, indeed, the institute had promoted this conference on its website, in which case you could say that the Institute endorsed it.”
http://stephensizer.blogspot.com/2008/05/lost-in-transit-on-road-to-jakarta.html
“Participating organisations and NGOs included the Centre for Middle East and Islamic Studies, University of Indonesia; the International Union of NGOs defending Palestinian Rights (Iran); Neturei Karta International – Orthodox Jews who oppose Zionism (USA); the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism (me); The United Ulama Council (South Africa); the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt); Bethlehem Bible College (Palestine); Innovative Minds (UK) together with other speakers from Norway, Lebanon, Australia and Switzerland. Members of the Indonesian parliament and various Middle East ambassadors mingled with journalists, reporters, students and faculty from the university”
I’m more than willing to remove this article from the Seismic Shock blog (and on Harry’s Place if possibe) if your group will agree publicly to clear up this controversy. Fred Tobin is most likely under the impression that the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism is an ally of the Adelaide Institute, and I think he says so on his site (don’t want to put the link here again, it’s in the Adelaide Institute report I think). I hope you’ll realise how serious this is.
You’re more than welcome to challenge Christian Zionism, but please would you take steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
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