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Jewish World Review May 14, 2013/ 5 Sivan 5773 The Church of Scotland's Scandal By Dennis Prager
The essence of the report is that according to the Bible, Jews have no more attachment to the land of Israel than anyone else. Hence "promised land" is in quotation marks in the report's title — because there is no promised land.
In the report's words: "The New Testament contains a radical re-interpretation of the concepts of 'Israel,' 'temple,' 'Jerusalem' and 'land.' When the Bible mentions 'Israel,' it does not mean Israel; when it says 'temple,' the Bible does not mean the Jewish temple; 'Jerusalem' does not mean the city of Jerusalem; and 'land' does not mean land.
"Promises about the land of Israel," the report continues, "were never intended to be taken literally, or as applying to a defined geographical territory."
Even during the worst excesses of Christian anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages, it is doubtful that any normative Christian body declared that "Israel," "the temple," "Jerusalem" and "the land" no longer meant or were ever intended to mean what those words represent.
This claim is not only profoundly anti-Semitic. It is an act of theological forgery; it makes a mockery of the Bible as a coherent document and it renders Christianity inherently anti-Semitic.
It would be as if a major post-Christian religious body had announced that "Jesus," "Christ," "crucifixion" and "resurrection" had never meant what Christians and the Christian Bible had always understood them to mean. Imagine if a major Muslim body declared that Jesus means Muhammad; Christ means Quran; crucifixion means Islamophobia; and resurrection means the Hajj.
I have never equated criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. But the Church of Scotland report is not about criticism of Israel; it is about invalidating the Jewish people and invalidating the Jews' historically incontestable claims to the land upon which the only independent states that ever existed were Jewish.
Nor does the report devote a single sentence to how Israel's occupation of the West Bank came about: In 1967, Israel's neighbors sought to exterminate Israel just as Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and most Palestinians and other Muslims in the Middle East today wish to now. And that only because of that war, won by Israel, did Israel come to occupy the West Bank of Jordan.
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And the Church of Scotland did not think it important to even hint at what happened in Gaza after the Israelis gave the whole of Gaza to the Palestinians: The Palestinians converted it into a terror-state that regularly launches rockets into Israel to kill as many Israelis as possible.
And, most vile of all, the Church of Scotland never once notes, let alone condemns, the Muslim countries and organizations that seek to annihilate Israel, an existential threat that no other country or people in the world face.
The Church of Scotland has given voice to the ugliest depiction of Jews since medieval times. The official reaction of the Scottish Jewish community is that Christian-Jewish post-Holocaust dialogue seems to have been a moral and intellectual waste of time. I do not agree. But if other Christian churches do not condemn the Church of Scotland — despite its promise to revise its report to include a statement that Israel has a right to exist (!) — even pro-Christian Jews will wonder whether the Scottish Jewish community's reaction is valid.
And how did this happen? The report is a combination of medieval Christian anti-Judaism and contemporary leftist anti-Zionism. For Jews and Israel, that's a lethal combination.
JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles. Click here to comment on this column.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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