The Lord is building his true Church.

Some 2,000 Anglicans met in Jerusalem last week for the third Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON). Only half of those present were clergy but all delegates were Bible-believing Christians, which created a great spirit of unity as they celebrated their theme of ‘Proclaiming Christ Faithfully to the Nations’.

They affirmed that “God’s gospel is tlife-transforming message of salvation from sin and all its consequences through the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ”. They affirmed that “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

The conference sent a message to all Anglican churches around the world, warning of the attacks upon the truth of the Gospel that are coming not only externally but also internally from those who seek to re-define the Gospel to make it acceptable in a secular humanist world. They said that the most obvious example is in the area of “gender, sexuality and marriage”.

They also cited the ‘prosperity gospel’ and ‘theological revisionism’, which “recast God’s gospel to accommodate the surrounding culture, resulting in a seductive syncretism that denies the uniqueness of Christ, the seriousness of sin, the need for repentance and the final authority of the Bible.”

The statement also says that “tragically, there has been a failure of leadership in our churches to address these threats to the gospel”. They state that during the past 20 years the leadership of the worldwide Anglican Church have not only failed to uphold godly discipline but refused to recognise the concerns of Bible-believing Christians, choosing instead to denounce GAFCON as a ‘one-issue pressure group’ and to accuse it of promoting schism.

The GAFCON statement said that the Anglican churches in some of the Western nations have led the way in departing from the teaching of the Bible and the historic doctrine of the Church.

GAFCON has recognised that Anglican churches in the Western nations have led the way in departing from the teaching of the Bible.

Boycotting Lambeth?

The GAFCON conference affirmed “We are not leaving the Anglican Communion; we are the majority of the Anglican Communion seeking to remain faithful to our Anglican heritage”. They accused the Episcopal Church of the USA, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Scottish Episcopal Church of all having departed from the Christian faith and become apostate churches. They stopped short of including the Church of England although they specifically called upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, not to invite representatives of these apostate churches to the Lambeth Conference in 2020.

They further recommended that if the Archbishop does not do this, all the GAFCON leaders should boycott Lambeth next time.

This is a serious challenge to the worldwide Anglican Church because the GAFCON leaders claim to represent the vast majority of Anglicans in churches around the world. They say that it is leaders of the Western Anglican churches who have rejected the Bible, turned away from truth and embraced the values of the world. They further claim that it is these Western churches that are creating disunity and that they should repent and return to the historic faith as originally proclaimed in the Bible.

The Glory Will Depart

It looks as though the Lambeth Conference in 2020 will be a watershed for the Anglican Church. Already there has been criticism of the clergy and laypeople who went from Britain and Ireland to attend the Jerusalem conference.

The liberal/LGBTQ+ clergy in the Church of England are strongly represented back home and are no doubt encouraged by having an Archbishop who has publicly stated that he wants the Church to be “more inclusive” – in other words, more friendly to the world and more hostile to Bible-believing Christians.

I personally think it would be a mistake for Bible-believing Anglicans to stay away from the Lambeth Conference two years from now. They should be there declaring their biblical faith in unequivocal terms, and warning about the consequences of departing from the truth. If the Church of England continues on its present path it will be like the Temple in the vision given to Ezekiel of the glory of the Lord departing.

Already, I believe, the angel of the Lord is going through the land to put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in the nation (Ezek 9:4) and who grieve for the unbelief in the Church. Soon the word ICHABOD will be written across the cathedrals of the Church of England.

Already, I believe, the angel of the Lord is going through the land to put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve over the nation (Ezek 9:4) and the unbelief in the Church.

The True Church

But God still has a faithful remnant who have not bowed the knee to Baal – who have not submitted to the pressures and bullying tactics of those who have embraced the worldly values of ‘equality’ and ‘tolerance’ (usually the most intolerant people!).

As the corrupt institutional structures of the established Church crumble, so God is already raising his new Church in the homes of believers where small groups meet with open Bibles and love in their hearts for one another. They are looking forward to the City with foundations whose architect and builder is God; to the new Church, refined and purified, that he can use to save the nation in the days of trouble that are coming.

This new Church will be the true ekklesia of the Lord, whose trust is in God alone and who have rejected the values of the world for the promise of the Lord: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty” (Zech 4:6).

Postscript

My grandson, Mark Cooper, who is training for the Anglican ministry, was in Jerusalem for the GAFCON Conference. It was his first visit to Israel. Mark is on the pastoral team of Toxteth Parish church, Liverpool. He sent me the following note:

It was incredibly inspiring to be around Bible-believing Christians from 50 nations, facing different challenges but with a powerful sense of unity. It was mentioned a few times that gatherings of global Anglicans (which were not just bishops) were incredibly rare twenty years ago and it showed something of how God is uniting Anglicans through the present problems, and the opportunity the Anglican Communion has to be a force for good.

What was especially moving to me was the courage of many Global South bishops. Many of these churches look fondly to Britain as a father in the faith and yet now they are finding they are having to take a stand against the direction the Western churches are taking. It was inspiring to see them finding their own voice. The passion this diverse mix of Christians showed to proclaim Christ was something that will stay with me for a long time.

Britain and the West succumbs to brainwashing on an unprecedented scale

We are currently witnessing a worldwide battle of the ages between truth and lies. And in recent days much of this has been focused on Israel – specifically at a conference in Jerusalem called GAFCON and on the northern borders of the Gaza Strip.

At the Global Anglican Future Conference, attended by nearly 2,000 Anglican leaders from around the world, a British evangelist warned of the Holy Spirit departing from the traditional Anglican Church if it continued to despise the authority of Scripture.

Rico Tice was giving an interview at the third such convocation of this body since its inception ten years ago for the purpose of maintaining the truth of the Gospel in the face of growing apostasy, including support for same-sex relationships.

Another Battle

Not many miles away, on the borders of Gaza, another battle for truth is being waged as the media is largely determined to spew out lies and propaganda in support of the Palestinian narrative.

It was reported that Israeli soldiers had killed a baby caught up in the riots over the alleged right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel. But it later emerged that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had paid a Gazan family to lie about eight-month-old Leila al-Ghandour dying from tear gas inhalation rather than from a pre-existing medical condition.¹

The Global Anglican Future Conference was set up ten years ago to maintain the truth of the Gospel in the face of growing apostasy.

Readers may well wonder how Palestinians, or anyone else, can get away with so much deceit. But as Israel Today journalist Ryan Jones puts it, “many, if not most, Palestinians have no problem telling bald-faced lies in order to smear Israel and advance their own nationalist agenda. This is because Muslims are permitted to lie to ‘infidels’ in service to Islamic causes, a concept known as taqiyya”.²

The Prophet Isaiah spoke of such wickedness when he wrote: “…Justice is driven back and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey” (Isa 59:14f).

Heading Towards a Sterile World

What a shoddy business. And the same people who are so ready to condemn Israel for defending her right to exist are engaged in the wicked brainwashing of Western nations on an unprecedented scale into believing that same-sex relationships are perfectly normal.

LGBTQ+ supporters in Australia.Nazi Germany’s lies about the Jews led to the systematic murder of six million people. With few exceptions, the German people blithely accepted the doctrine that Jews were a cause of all their economic and other problems, partly due to the intimidating nature of rule under the Third Reich. It was a doctrine, much like today’s new teaching on sexual ethics, that brooked no dissent, with the result that those who objected often paid with their lives.

Today, going along with the gay agenda is seen by most as the only way to maintain respectability and acceptance in social circles. This is why, in Australia, where they held a referendum on the issue, same-sex won the day. But if all those who voted for it practised what they preached, that great southern continent would soon become extinct!

The 1930s propaganda of Josef Goebbels seeped through the German national consciousness, almost without a whimper of opposition, just as the same-sex issue has done in Britain and the West where the general populace is bombarded with stories and images on national television and elsewhere glamourising, justifying and sanctioning homosexual behaviour.

Same-sex propaganda has seeped through British national consciousness, as the general populace has been bombarded with stories and images glamourising, justifying and sanctioning homosexual behaviour.

And even our church leaders have succumbed to it, undermining the authority of God’s word in the cause of breaking down boundaries of decency and propriety that have underpinned our civilisation for centuries. We are fast heading for a sterile world where the traditional family is a thing of the past and where the future holds little hope.

Hopefully the world will soon wake up in shock at the devastation it has caused, and no-one will be able to say they didn’t know what was going on.

A Different Religion

At GAFCON, meanwhile, Rico Tice, a gifted evangelist on the staff of All Souls, Langham Place, and co-author of the much-acclaimed Christianity Explored course, revealed he had resigned from the Archbishops’ Evangelism Task Group because it meant having to submit to the authority of a Bishop – Rt Rev Paul Bayes of Liverpool – who validates same-sex.

“It’s a different religion”, he said, adding: “I think it’s a great wickedness to tell people who are on the road to destruction that they are not.”³

He went on: “There is no power in evangelism unless you’re submitted to Scripture.” And he suggested that God would remove his power from the institutional Church, as he did in the days of John Wesley, if there was no repentance.

He admitted that the problem had been compounded by Christians who have changed their position for emotional reasons because family members had turned gay.

The Truth Brings Freedom and Peace

Meanwhile the Archbishop of Uganda has threatened to boycott future meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Stanley Ntangali said:

Unless godly order is restored in the Anglican Communion, we shall not attend other meetings invited by Canterbury…The church of Uganda is an evangelical church, and we obey Christ and the authority of the Bible, and the apostolic faith. So we have no apology for the stand we have made and will continue to proclaim the gospel of Christ to the nations, uncompromisingly.⁴

The conference has written a Letter to the Churches challenging the Archbishop of Canterbury to speak the truth about the Gospel and human sexuality clearly and publicly and to discipline those within the Anglican Communion who have abandoned it.

In a similar way, lies about Gaza stir up trouble and strife in the Middle East which could erupt into a major war. Lies destroy society whereas truth brings freedom and peace, both among families and the wider world. Spreading lies about human sexuality could well cause as much, if not more, damage to the world at large than the tendency for Arabs to be economical with the truth.

Lies destroy society whereas truth brings freedom and peace, both among families and the wider world.

Appeasement Will Not Succeed

Prince William, on his tour of Israel, will hopefully have learnt from his visit to the Holocaust Museum that the anti-Semitism displayed by Palestinian Authority politicians has all the hallmarks of another attempt at genocide. After all, that is the oft-stated aim of Israel’s opponents.

The Prince’s great-grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, took sides in a previous conflict by hiding Jews who would otherwise have been murdered by the Nazis. Will the British Foreign Office allow him to take sides when Jews, now living in their own land, are equally threatened?

He says he wants peace – most of us do – but Neville Chamberlain’s experience should be a lesson to us all.

Notes

1 Jerusalem News Network, 22 June 2018, quoting Ynet News.

2 A Nation Reborn, Charles Gardner (Christian Publications International), p93.

3 Christian Concern, 19 June 2018. Click here to watch the full interview.

4 Ibid.

The doctrine of baptisms. (Part 1)

Paul Luckraft reviews two books by the pastor of Father’s House Sabbath Congregation, North Wales.

The NHS received a birthday promise from the Prime Minister this week of an additional £20 billion, to coincide with money released after Brexit, topped up by extra tax. This is to bring some relief to the pressure that the NHS is under.

The Real Problems

70 years ago, surely it was the leading of God to bring a national system into being that promised the best of healthcare 'from cradle to grave' for all the people of our country – helping to instil hope for the rebuilding of a better nation after the devastation of war.

Who could have foreseen the breakdown of our society only one generation later, bringing unbearable pressures on this health service? This week, coincident with the announcement of extra funding, we hear that there is now a new sickness for the NHS to treat resulting from children becoming obsessed with computer games. Will extra money really solve our problems?

The breakdown of family life and the denial of even the existence of God, who has helped us in times past, will not be solved through cash injection into the NHS alone. Some Christian medical professionals have even lost their jobs through offering prayer to patients or trying to point them to God.

Learning to Seek the Lord

We Christians often find it difficult to balance our expectations of God’s help in times of trouble. Should we be able to cope through prayer alone, or through visits to the GP? How much should we seek help from our local medical teams, seeing them as part of God’s provision?

I have an interesting anecdote from the time when the NHS was in its infancy, to illustrate this balance of prayer and practical helps. At a Bible College with which I am familiar, two students went to the Director at the same time, with the same medical complaint. He paused in prayer before guiding them. One he sent to the GP and the other he sent to her room to pray.

So here is a thought to take us prayerfully through the week as we continue to hear deliberations from the Government and the media as to how best to prop up the funding of the NHS: What is God saying to us about sickness in our nation and how we might return to full health, not just individually but also nationally? This sickness that besets us is both physical and spiritual.

Author: Clifford Denton

How do you read? Quick, slow, skim, glance? Or word for word – too slow!? Last year I read that John F Kennedy read ten newspapers every morning over breakfast, and managed to retain all the important facts for his coming decisions that day. Do we retain things we read last week, last month - last year?

Memory is a funny thing and often seems to play tricks. Yet we all know how, when we can’t recall something (like names!), it often comes to the surface later, after we let the process go. So the brain continues to search for it.

Storing up good things

I still remember the benefit at school of learning by repetition – we called it learning ‘by heart’ – an interesting phrase. In Hebraic understanding, the heart is also the seat of the mind and the will. Things we put in our heart often stay there. They help in the decisions we make.

Our hearts are treasure stores: where your treasure is, there will be your heart also (Luke 12:24). Jesus told us that a good man, out of the good treasures in his heart, brings forth good things (Matt 12:35). He also taught that we shall have to give account for every careless word spoken! Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks! Where is our treasure? Earth, or Heaven?

When we read the Bible carefully and invest time to hear and obey its wisdom, we grow in our understanding of the Word and in the knowledge of God. This, in turn, becomes for us a store of treasure to draw on in times of need. Are the Word’s riches our treasure store?

Reading with a ‘hearing’ heart

Proverbs 2 is an encouragement to receive the treasure of God into our hearts by stretching or extending them for wisdom and understanding. Solomon asked not so much for wisdom as for a discerning heart (1 Kings 3:9), but in Hebrew it is lev sh’ma - a ‘hearing’ heart. Solomon asked to hear God’s wisdom in his own heart.

With many other voices around today, it is God’s charge to us also:

If you will receive my treasure, attend to wisdom and extend your heart to understanding; if you cry for understanding, seek her as silver and search for her as hidden treasures, then you shall know the fear of God and find the knowledge of God. For God gives wisdom; out of His mouth comes knowledge and understanding. (Prov 2:1-6)

The following verses reveal to us the treasure of ‘reading’ His word and ‘hearing’ with our heart: from this comes victory for the upright, a shield for our walk, a guard for our path and protection for our way (Prov 2:7-8).

Treasure in Jars of Clay

We know that we have this treasure in earthen vessels (2 Cor 4:7). But this should make us that much more aware of our need to seek wisdom, understanding and knowledge from the One who is The Word.

John tells us that Yeshua was The Word right from the beginning (John 1:1). Let us seek and hear Him, for His Father said, “This is My Son, listen to Him” (Luke 9:35; also Prov 1:33).

Author: Greg Stevenson

Truth has stumbled in the streets – and in the pulpits.

For the second week running the BBC on its Radio Four Sunday programme interviewed a young woman who had been an evangelical and then changed her beliefs to become a homosexual.

It would appear that the BBC has got its researchers scouring the land for these unusual specimens to make a big display of presenting them as part of its programme of normalising the abnormal. Every programme from quiz shows and entertainment to soap operas and documentaries must have its token LGBTQ+ representative.

For the past 20 years the BBC has been infiltrated by LGBTQ+ people who now make up a significant percentage of the staff.¹ Their influence can be seen every day in programmes and reporting. Our official state broadcasting service has effectively been taken over by a powerful lobby group who, although only representing 1.7% of the population, are determined to force their views on the rest of society by brainwashing the nation.

I listened to the programme with my usual analytical antennae raised high; even so, I was shocked to hear some of the things claimed by a young woman who said she had been an evangelical until the age of 35. She had written many popular worship songs but she had always struggled with her sexuality until after a nervous breakdown she was counselled by a liberal theologian who helped her to read the Bible in a different way, so now she is happy to tell the world that she is a homosexual.

But the thing that really shocked me was that she said that she had since talked with Archbishop Justin Welby who encouraged her to apply for ordination, saying that she would be just the kind of clergy that he wants to see in the Church of England. So now we have not only the state broadcasting service but also the state Church promoting LGBTQ+ agendas!

Now we have not only the state broadcasting service but also the state Church promoting LGBTQ+ agendas!

Friendship with the World

This is not the first time the Archbishop has said similar things. He told the Church Synod last year that he wanted the Church to become “more inclusive” (code for more open to compromising with secular humanists, other religions and the LGBTQ+ lobby) and he wrote to all CofE primary schools telling the teachers to encourage the children to cross-dress if they wanted, in order to prepare them for the kind of world in which they are growing up. It would appear that the Archbishop’s objective is to make the Church acceptable to the world.

This is surely the exact opposite of the Gospel of Jesus Christ where the object is to transform the world, not to befriend the world! Jesus said, “I have come to bring fire on the earth…Do you think that I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division” (Luke 12:49).

The plain fact is that the Gospel offends the world. It brings division because those who love the world and its values hate the values of the Kingdom of God (James 4:4). The Gospel offends the world because the world hates truth. If the Church seeks friendship with the world, the Church ceases to proclaim the Gospel!

Denying the Nature of God

Of course, there is a cost to discipleship. There always was and there always will be. The 3^rd Century Church leader Tertullian said that ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church’.² The Christian Church was born in blood, which is both a theological and an historical statement.

The Roman Empire persecuted the Church and cruelly executed Christians because they could see that the Christians were proclaiming a Gospel that was diametrically opposed to the values of the Roman world. Once the Church begins to compromise with the world it ceases to declare the word of God and it ceases to be the bearer of truth.

It would appear that the Archbishop’s objective is to make the Church acceptable to the world.

Truth is an essential part of the very nature of God. Isaiah recognised this when he heard God say “I, the Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right” (Isa 45:19). And Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). He described the Holy Spirit who would come from the Father as “the spirit of truth” (John 14:16). But the world hates truth because it exposes the evil and corruption of its ways.

When truth and its associated values of justice and righteousness are abandoned, disaster falls upon that nation. There is a telling verse in Isaiah 59: “Justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey” (v14). This is exactly what has happened in Britain over the past two or three decades. Once you abandon truth, you put yourself outside the protection of God and disaster soon follows: hence the mess we are in today.

Truth Turned Upside-Down

But it is not only the politicians and the media who are peddling fake news and corrupt values. We now have the Archbishop of Canterbury as head of the state Church saying that a lesbian woman is just the kind of clergy the Church of England needs!!

Does he not realise the terrible damage he is doing to family and marriage by promoting the LGBTQ+ agenda? Truth has indeed not only stumbled in the streets, but in the pulpits of the Church of England under a disastrous Archbishop. Has he not read the Scripture: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness”?

You cannot turn truth upside-down without incurring the wrath of God and that goes for archbishops as much as it does for corrupt politicians and greedy businessmen. Back in the 1980s in Prophecy Today we criticised Archbishop Robert Runcie for promoting New Age teaching and liberal unbelief. We said we could not imagine a worse Archbishop – maybe we were wrong!

Truth has indeed not only stumbled in the streets, but in the pulpits of the Church of England under a disastrous Archbishop.

We are all accountable to God for our lives and those who carry great responsibility should take the greatest care to guard the truth. If the Archbishop leads the Church of England further into apostasy, he will be depriving the nation of a potential prophetic voice that could yet declare the truth in an age of scepticism and corruption. He will surely be held accountable before God.

Signs of Revival?

Many ordinary people across Britain are aware that the nation is in a mess. Even some newspapers are recognising that the nation is in trouble, with everything from political chaos, collapsing social systems (NHS) and rising mental health problems, to knife crime, drugs and gang warfare among young people.

What the nation desperately needs is a prophetic voice to declare that we have abandoned the word of the Lord and we are reaping the consequences! Church leaders need to declare the word of the Lord with simple direct authority and the Archbishop should lead the way.

If the institutional Church (not the true ekklesia of God) fails to lead in preaching the Gospel, God will bypass it and raise up prophetic voices elsewhere: as John the Baptist said, “I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.” It may be God’s intention to raise up a grassroots movement by putting his word into the mouths of the faithful remnant of believers. This would fulfil the wish of Moses who said, “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” (Num 11:29).

Guide to Christian Workers

Give us a watchword for the hour,

A thrilling word, a word of power;

A battle cry, a flaming breath,

A call to conquest or to death;

A word to rouse the church from rest,

To heed the Master’s high behest.

The call is given, ye hosts arise,

The watchword is EVANGELIZE!

To fallen men, a dying race,

Make known the gift of gospel grace.

The world that now in darkness lies,

O Church of Christ, EVANGELIZE!

(Our thanks to reader Penny Rutter for submitting to us this verse, taken from the back of her Bible)

References

1 11.5% of bosses and 10.6% of staff, surpassing an 8% quota. See here.

2 Original quote: “We multiply whenever we are mown down by you; the blood of Christians is seed.” Apologeticus 50, s.13.

Further shameful acts exposed as Prince makes historic visit to Israel

As evidence has come to light of further shameful acts of anti-Semitism carried out by British officials during its charge over the territory formerly known as Palestine, it is hoped that next week’s Royal visit to Israel will help heal the wounds of those who suffered.

I reported last month on a special ceremony held near Haifa at which UK representatives shared a ‘declaration of sorrow’ for the way our country treated Jews in the years leading up to the re-birth of their nation in 1948.
A more detailed report of that 11 May event has since come into my possession¹ and I am thus able to reveal – exclusively - some shocking facts shared by Holocaust survivors and others attending the ceremony, organised by Love Never Fails, an alliance of Christian groups supporting the Jewish state.

Atlit detention camp (now a museum). Photo Gemma Blech, courtesy Anne Heelis.It took place at Atlit, a former detention camp where Jewish refugees were held as part of British policy to limit immigration to the region, adding further trauma to a people who had already suffered terribly under the Nazis.

Granted a League of Nations mandate to prepare a safe homeland for Jews, Britain instead interred them behind barbed wire complete with watchtowers.

Harrowing Stories of Betrayal

Among those who shared their harrowing stories of the time was Hannah Avrutsky. A survivor of the notorious Warsaw ghetto,² she was hidden in a monastery before being smuggled to the Exodus ship bound for Israel in 1947, only to face a British naval blockade and be sent back to a Displaced Persons’ camp in Germany, where so many of her people had been murdered!

Ben Zion Drutin spoke of being hospitalised after being wounded by the British on board the Exodus and then held in Atlit for six months.

Arie Itamar, who was eight years old on the Exodus, compared Israel to a “betrayed lover” during the Mandate.

Granted a League of Nations mandate to prepare a safe homeland for Jews, Britain instead interred them behind barbed wire complete with watchtowers.

Pinchas Kahane spoke of his parents’ escape from Auschwitz, his birth in a Cyprus detention camp and how Britain prevented them leaving the camps until February 1949, well after the establishment of the State of Israel.

Dr Miri Nehari, whose father had been a leader in mobilising the escape of Jews from Europe after the Holocaust, read out a British telegram to the Polish Government-in-exile asking them to close the borders to escaping Jews.

Brits and Israelis together at the Atlit meeting. Photo courtesy of Anne Heelis.Zehavit Blumenfeld, whose 70^th birthday has coincided with that of Israel’s, said: “I do not forget, but I forgive.” She was born in the Cyprus detention camps where 53,000 Jewish refugees from the Holocaust were interned by the British.

She and others were moved by the warmth and sympathy of the Christians who came to express their sorrow and hope that Prince William’s visit will be an important step towards reconciliation.

The testimonies concluded with stories of British collusion with Arab terror during the Mandate. Noam Arnon, representing the Hebron Jewish Community, spoke on behalf of those who had survived the 1929 massacre there, outlining British complicity.

Zehava Fuchs witnessed the Hadassah convoy massacre as a girl in 1948 when the British had deliberately not intervened to rescue Jewish passengers – 78 people, mainly doctors and nurses, were killed in the attack by Arab terrorists. Zehava is still unable to attend a barbeque as it reminds her of the smell of burning flesh.

Declaration of Sorrow

Rachel Rust, daughter of a former British officer who served in Palestine, confessed her deep sorrow at the cruel treatment handed out by the British army.

On a positive note, Rita Offenbach shared how her mother was among 180 Jewish fighters rescued after being besieged by Arabs attacking their convoy. Another paid tribute to British officer Orde Wingate who is still much loved in Israel for having laid the foundations of the Israeli Defence Force in creating special night squads.

The declaration of sorrow read, in part: “We grieve that [Britain’s policies] led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews who could have escaped Hitler’s ‘final solution’ if the gates to their ancient homeland had been fully open.”

Many Israelis are still waiting to hear an apology from Britain for her betrayal of Israel. There is still a need for much repentance and reconciliation.

Film-maker Hugh Kitson³ expressed sorrow, not only for the failures of the Mandate but also for the fact that today’s British Government fails to recognise Israeli sovereignty over their own capital city.

Many Israelis are still waiting to hear an apology from Britain for her betrayal of Israel in breaking a pledge to prepare a safe refuge for the Jewish people. Israel came into being without our help in the end, but not before many lives were unnecessarily lost due to the delay. There is still a need for much repentance and reconciliation.

Hope Persists

Prince William is scheduled to touch down on Monday for the start of the first ever official visit to Israel by a British Royal, during which he will pay his respects at the tomb of his great-grandmother, Princess Alice of Greece, who hid a Jewish family from the Nazis during the war. It is hoped that the visit will mark a turning point in Britain’s relationship with Israel.

It is certainly encouraging that, according to a senior Conservative source, British Home Secretary Sajid Javid will take steps later this year to fully ban Hezbollah, one of Israel’s most implacable enemies. Since banning the terrorist group in 2008, Britain has continued to recognise its political wing – a distinction not even accepted by Hezbollah, a heavily armed proxy of Iran which has held successive London rallies against the Jewish state.⁴

Also encouraging is Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s condemnation on Monday of the United Nations Human Rights Council over its long-standing anti-Israel bias, demanding the Council drop a controversial agenda item placing Israel under intense scrutiny.⁵

These are indeed steps in the right direction, and we trust and pray that the Duke of Cambridge will encounter true peace as he walks in the footsteps of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

References

1 My thanks to Rosie Ross, Israel’s Love Never Fails representative, for the Atlit report, and to her colleague Anne Heelis for passing it on to me. Further signatures to the declaration can still be made at www.nachamuami.com.

2 Where Jews were herded into a cramped, unsanitary location as a staging post for being transported to death camps.

3 Hugh Kitson’s latest documentary Whose Land? explores Israel’s historic and legal rights to their land.

4 Jerusalem News Network, 18 June 2018, quoting the Jewish Chronicle.

5 JNN, 20 June 2018.