Arab ACE card trumps anti-Israel campaign
By Charles Gardner
As genocide is being committed against Christians, Yazidis and even ‘dissident’ Muslims across the Arab world, the international finger of criticism continues to point at Israel.
The latest example is a UN report urging swift action to oppose and end Israeli “apartheid”, although this has since been withdrawn from the international body’s website on the orders of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres following pressure from the United States.1
However, because the apartheid accusation keeps being repeated on many political fronts, my Christian Friends of Israel colleague David Soakell has produced an ‘ace’ card exposing all this nonsense with a timely series of testimonies from Arabs which I have aptly titled Apartheid Claims Exposed (ACE).2
He tells us that Israeli Arabs – both Christian and Muslim – are risking disapproval from their own communities by volunteering for the Israeli Defence Forces in increasing numbers, disproving the lie that Israel is a racist, apartheid state. (Non-Jews are not obligated to serve in the IDF).
One Muslim female soldier said: “I wanted to enlist because it is my duty to serve and protect my country.” And she is even allowed weekly visits to her family during the Ramadan fast, so there is no difficulty with her practicing her religion in the Jewish state.
Ibrahim Bari, an African Muslim refugee, went public with his testimony, saying: “In the army, I made friends for life [and] would do everything to defend Israel.”
Elinor Joseph, an Arab Christian serving in the IDF, says: “This is my country. When I see the [Israeli] flag waving in the wind I get excited.”
Another Arab-Israeli soldier, Monaliza Abdo, adds: “I came to serve my country and my home.”
And Major Ala Wahib, the highest-ranking Muslim in the IDF, asks: “Is Israel inherently racist – an apartheid state? Well, do you think that such a country would tolerate a person like myself getting to the position I am today? Someone who has not only fought alongside Jewish soldiers, but now trains them too? …I do not serve in the army to kill people – I serve in it to save people. When Hamas fires rockets, or Fatah encourages stabbings, we are here to protect the lives of all Israeli citizens, Jewish and non-Jewish.”
Adam Ram has also decided to “break the silence” by standing against the slander and constant defamation of Israeli soldiers. A Bedouin serving as a combat soldier in Hebron, a particularly tense area, he says: “The war is against all Israelis, regardless of who you are, because when a terrorist leaves his home with a knife, planning on murdering a soldier or a civilian, he does not care if his victim is a Jew, a Muslim or a Christian …As long as you hold a blue Israeli ID card, you are a fair target.”
Furthermore, Palestinians he has met on the streets see them as their protector, preferring them to the failure that is the Palestinian Authority which, incidentally, contributes just 10% of the cost of medical care for Palestinians treated in Israel – the rest is paid by the Israeli taxpayer.3
“As opposed to Daesh and other Islamic regimes, Israel is democratic and extends rights even to those who are not citizens of the state,” Adam adds.
Contrast this with the blatant discrimination against non-Muslims in much of the surrounding Arab world, where even Muslim women do not share the rights of their menfolk.
Meanwhile a group of North African journalists from Muslim Arab countries, visiting the Jewish state as guests of the Foreign Ministry, have described their first impressions of Israel as “appearing Western and free” and as “an opportunity to see the real Israel without the media acting as a middle man”.4
Even if all this criticism of Israel was justified, it is out of all proportion to the reality that exists in the region. The tiny Jewish state has had to suffer wars and rumours of wars on a constant basis since she emerged once more onto the world stage as a new nation in 1948.
The world, particularly in the shape of the United Nations, is largely silent as terror stalks the streets of Jerusalem but at the same time condemns the Jews for stealing land allegedly not their own.
The sabre-rattling of Israel’s enemies involves guns, knives, rockets, missiles and even the threat of nuclear weapons. But more than anything it is a battle for truth in the midst of ferocious spiritual warfare which demands the engagement (in prayer and other ways) of all who love the truth, perfectly revealed in our Messiah Yeshua. And we must stand up for Israel against such shocking bias that is so transparent it demands a rewriting of history.
Accusing Israel of being an ‘apartheid’ state is just the latest in a long line of anti-Semitic attempts to invoke the wrath of a world effectively rebelling against the God of Israel, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah.
First there was identity theft as Yasser Arafat invented a ‘Palestinian’ nation where Jews were once known as Palestinians; then the Jews were accused of stealing ‘Palestinian’ land they had inhabited for thousands of years, which God himself had given them according to the Scriptures, and to which they even acquired an international legal right through a treaty signed at San Remo on the Italian Riviera in 1920. And now, in raising their protests during the recent Israel Apartheid Week, students have abandoned their inquiring minds in pursuit of a vendetta of lies and propaganda against the only democracy in the Middle East.
Open their eyes, dear Lord!
Notes
1The report was produced by the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (comprised of 18 Arab countries), according to World Israel News, March 15, 2017. Its removal from the UN website was requested two days later.
2CFI’s Watching over Zion newsletter, March 9, 2017
3Ibid
4United with Israel, March 16, 2017