by Ilan Solomons on Friday, October 22, 2010 at 3:36pm
I was amazed this week to discover how little the community leadership understands about the active role Christians are playing in publicly standing up for Israel in this country. David Sacks makes it sound as if they are content to keep their views of pro-Israel sentiment to the confines of their own Church circle and that only a limited number venture into the public forum.
He is obviously not aware of the work groups like Bridges for Peace, Christian Friends of Israel, and Ebenezer (just to name a few), have done in public forums to defend the State of Israel. There are many other Church leaders who often attend Israel rallies when called upon to do so in this country and are on the front lines of the battle while in many cases a Jew is nowhere to be found.
When SAUJS demonstrated against the South African governments recall of its Ambassador to Israel, it was the African Christian Democratic Party(ACDP), represented by Steve Swart who was the only South African politician along with his party that were willing to publicly take a stand against South Africa's radical decision to recall its Ambassador after the Flotilla incident. Not one Jewish politician in the DA, ANC or ID (all these parties have Jewish representatives by the way) was willing to publicly support Israel on this issue.
The real problem is that the leadership of the Jewish Board of Deputies and the Zionist Federation have not created more programmes and initiatives that would include many thousands if not millions, of Christian Zionist in this country.
Even as we speak many Christian academics and activists are actively involved in supporting SAUJS's public campaign to fight this outrageous and disgraceful issue of the attempted termination of the Ben-Gurion - UJ agreement that seeks to improve the quality of water in this country, while many Jewish people are doing nothing about this very serious issue.
I respectively suggest that the SAJBD and the SAZF spend less time worrying about Justice Goldstone and the 'danger' he represents in attending his grandsons' Bar mitzvah and more time strengthening alliances in the Christian Zionist community.
It is always good for people that live in Ivory Towers to come down to the grass roots level and see what is actually going on before they talk on matters they have no actual understanding of.
He is obviously not aware of the work groups like Bridges for Peace, Christian Friends of Israel, and Ebenezer (just to name a few), have done in public forums to defend the State of Israel. There are many other Church leaders who often attend Israel rallies when called upon to do so in this country and are on the front lines of the battle while in many cases a Jew is nowhere to be found.
When SAUJS demonstrated against the South African governments recall of its Ambassador to Israel, it was the African Christian Democratic Party(ACDP), represented by Steve Swart who was the only South African politician along with his party that were willing to publicly take a stand against South Africa's radical decision to recall its Ambassador after the Flotilla incident. Not one Jewish politician in the DA, ANC or ID (all these parties have Jewish representatives by the way) was willing to publicly support Israel on this issue.
The real problem is that the leadership of the Jewish Board of Deputies and the Zionist Federation have not created more programmes and initiatives that would include many thousands if not millions, of Christian Zionist in this country.
Even as we speak many Christian academics and activists are actively involved in supporting SAUJS's public campaign to fight this outrageous and disgraceful issue of the attempted termination of the Ben-Gurion - UJ agreement that seeks to improve the quality of water in this country, while many Jewish people are doing nothing about this very serious issue.
I respectively suggest that the SAJBD and the SAZF spend less time worrying about Justice Goldstone and the 'danger' he represents in attending his grandsons' Bar mitzvah and more time strengthening alliances in the Christian Zionist community.
It is always good for people that live in Ivory Towers to come down to the grass roots level and see what is actually going on before they talk on matters they have no actual understanding of.
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