Return of the Peacemakers
Return of the Peacemakers
By Alf Cengia
Putin recently informed Netanyahu that we were no longer living in the 5th century BC. I’m not sure what the Israeli Prime Minister thought of that remark but I’m betting he didn’t jump on the phone to announce the good news to Mossad.
As Brian Shrauger reports, the context of the conversation occurred three days before Purim:
Purim is an international Jewish, and Israeli, holiday established during the reign of Persian king Xerxes I who governed from 486-465 BCE. According to the biblical book of Esther, a powerful administrator in Xerxes’ administration persuaded the sovereign to sign a genocidal law aimed at annihilating Jews throughout the empire.
Putin may want to remind the Iranian regime of the same thing. In a January 2017 article, Gatestone Institute collected a handful of 500BC type statements emanating from Iran. For example:
“The Zionist regime – as we have already said – will cease to exist in the next 25 years if there is a collective and united struggle by the Palestinians and the Muslims against the Zionists.” ~ Iran’s Press TV citing Khamenei
Perhaps Khamenei is just someone who enjoys a good round of sardonic humor at Israel’s expense. Just in case, though – those party loving ISIS folk might also need to be sent the memo Netanyahu got. But wasn’t it a pity Vlad wasn’t around to inform the Arab nations in 1948 and 1967 that this wasn’t 500 BC?
A vision of Netanyahu reaching over and slapping the back of Putin’s head crossed my mind. I wouldn’t trust Vlad as far as I’d like to throw a KGB agent – especially if I was a dissenting journalist. As they say in Moscow – once a KGB agent always a KGB agent. Scorpions can’t help doing what they do and leopards don’t change their spots. You know the drill.
The Russian Czar’s peacemaking overture to Netanyahu is obviously intended to protect Russian investments. Somehow he has to manage a genocidal Iran on the one hand and Israel’s determination not to be destroyed, on the other.
Vlad isn’t the only wannabe “peacemaker.” There’s a long list of Christian clergy dead set on insinuating themselves into the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They often cite Matt 5:9 and refer to themselves as “peace makers.”
Kairos Palestine promotes itself as a “peace maker” entity. Yet it supports the Palestinian Liberation Theology of Naim Ateek. Unfortunately Ateek hates Jews. That’s never a plus for a peacemaker. Dexter Van Zile cites him in a 2005 article for Discover the Networks:
“In this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. It only takes people of insight to see the hundreds of thousands of crosses throughout the land, Palestinian men, women, and children being crucified. Palestine has become one huge Golgotha. The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily. Palestine has become the place of the skull.” ~ Naim Ateek
It is tragically ironic that this “peace making” inevitably involves blaming Israel for the Palestinian woes. The problem is so endemic that the CAMERA organization was formed to correct ubiquitous “fake news” spread by media and, sadly, Christian leaders.
Anglican priest Stephen Sizer is another peacemaker who rails against Zionism. His church ordered him to desist from commenting on social media due to a series of misdemeanors. The final order followed his entertaining of a connection between Israel and 9-11. Sizer was cautioned again more recently and ordered to remove offending materials from his Facebook page.
I’d hoped he’d repent during his exile. Unfortunately he’s shown that the leopard adage is true in his case. All the while he has been champing at the bit, waiting for his retirement, so that he can indulge his passion. To that end he’s announced the launching of his Peacemaker Mediators (“Charity”).
The list of individuals associated with PM is revealing. Names like Naim Ateek, Manfred Kohl, Gary Burge and Steve Haas, among others, are on the list. Burge and Kohl have been active in the anti-Israel Christ at the Checkpoint Conferences.
In fact Gary Burge has led tours to Palestine aimed at informing young evangelicals about the oppressive dynamics driving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (read Israel). One wonders when he’ll organize tours to Africa, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan etc. Likewise, did Sizer mention the oppression of Iranian Christians when he was in Iran finking on Christian Zionists? Were all those hangings brought into the conversation
Don’t hold your breath.
Peacemaker Mediator Steve Haas (Lausanne Movement) once connected Christian Zionism to the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, and Apartheid South Africa. He laments that evangelicals have wedded a narrow Christian theological narrative to Zionist political ideology.
In fact Hass and company have wedded “social justice” and “liberation theology” with prejudice towards Israel and the Jews. For more on the Lausanne Movement and Haas, watch John Haller’s 2015 video. You can pick it up at the 54 minute mark.
Expect more to come once Sizer – Founder and CEO of Peacemaker Mediators – is unchained.
These people delude themselves. Contrary to their peace-making overtures, they antagonize against Israel and the Jew. They’re achieving the diametric opposite. No one can bring permanent peace to the region – not even President Donald Trump.
The only true Peacemaker is Jesus Christ (Isaiah 9:6; Rev 7:17, 21:4).
Christ will return as a conquering King and rule with a rod of iron. And while it has become fashionable to only speak of God’s love – Jesus’ return will be preceded by wrath on this world (Rev 6:16-17; 11:18; 19:15 etc). One reason for Christ’s return is found in Hos 5:15 and Matt 23:39 and corroborated in Zech 12:2-3, 14:3.
Israel will call out to their LORD and He will respond.
Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. Rev 19:15-16
A final note on a pet peeve: The prophetic books and Revelation speak of God’s wrath, this world’s destruction and a future kingdom. Yet revisionists tell us we should dig deeper to find the “real meaning” behind prophetic-apocalyptic Scripture. In fact they’re not digging for genuine meaning – they’re covering over the plain sense of these texts.
I’d advise rethinking that strategy (Rev 22:18-19).
Maranatha