Moshe Phillips is president and Benyamin Korn is chairman of the Religious Zionists of America, Philadelphia, and both are candidates on the Religious Zionist slate (www.VoteTorah.org) in the World Zionist Congress elections.
The campaign against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress has reached a new low, crossing the line that divides criticism of Israel from the darkest antisemitic canards.
We do not use the term “antisemitism” lightly. Criticism of individual Israeli leaders or specific Israeli government policies is of course perfectly legitimate. But every sober-minded observer understands that criticism of Israel is sometimes just a thin mask for promoting anti-Jewish stereotypes and conspiracy theories.
The campaign of whispers, leaks and rumors against Prime Minister Netanyahu this week dropped that mask and began promoting one of the ugliest anti-Jewish canards: that Israel is trying to control the United States government.
A full-page ad in The New York Times on Feb. 19 featured photos of a smiling President Obama and a scowling Prime Minister Netanyahu, under the headline: “Who is our Commander in Chief?”
The message could not have been more clear: the Israelis –the Zionists, the pro-Israel lobby, the Jews– are trying to turn Israel’s prime minister into America’s commander in chief.
Even now, after many years of unwavering Iranian commitment to “the bomb,” Washington still refuses to give up hope on diplomacy. Soon, however, President Barack Obama and his supporters will finally understand that Iran’s posture on nuclear “negotiations” has always been a contrivance. Then, when even the most residual military options will already have been forfeited, Israel’s only remaining hope for long term survival will likely have to rest upon certain indispensably complementary strategies for nuclear deterrence and ballistic missile defense.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands that Israel can never rely too heavily upon anti-missile defense systems. Inevitably, such systems would have “leakage.” Like it or not, therefore, Israel will have to depend upon some form of “coexistence” with an already nuclear Iran. Although an eleventh-hour preemption against Iranian nuclear assets and infrastructures might still seem appropriate in some circles, it could no longer be undertaken without incurring genuinely overwhelming costs.
This post is a analytical explanation of a film produced by Al-Hayat Media of the Islamic State, which portrays the ritual slaughter of 21 Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya, in the film “A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross”. Words in blue are from the film, either in the form of titles or sub-titles, or as narration. Text in red is for the words of Muhammad or the Qur’an. This is Part 2 of a paid of posts about this film. Part 1 is Bearing the cross: a letter to the Islamic State. This post has also appeared on Lapido Media.
The Coast of Wilāyat Tarābulus [in the region of Tripoli] by the Mediterranean Sea
The people of the cross, the followers of the hostile Egyptian Church
The opening scenes show the 21 men being led along the coast towards the camera, each one held by a hooded captor.
This is the first of a two-part post on the 21 Egyptian martyrs killed in Libya. This first part is a reflection, as a Christian, on aspects of this event and reactions to it. The second part, ‘A message signed with blood to the Nation of the Cross’ consists of explanatory notes on the texts – spoken and written – which were part of the Islamic State’s film of their ritual beheadings. This post has also appeared on Lapido media.
The Islamic State sent me a letter this week. This letter was in the form of a short film produced by the Islamic State’s Al-Hayat Media centre. This was not addressed to me personally, but to all Christians everywhere. Its title was A Message Signed with BLOOD to the Nation of the Cross. This was a video of the ritual slaughter of the 21 Egyptian Christians. Their blood flowing in the ocean waves was the ‘signature’ at the end of the video.
As I write this it is Ash Wednesday. This is the start of forty days of Lent, a period of fasting and contemplation for Christians all over the world. For many centuries it has been a custom of Christians to receive a mark of the cross in ash upon the forehead as a sign of repentance.
As I received this mark of the cross today I was thinking of the 21 Egyptian Christian martyrs. Copts permanently bear the sign of the cross, tattooed on their wrists, as a sign that they will refuse to renounce their beliefs.
