Do You Condemn Jewish Anti-Arab and Anti-Christian Hate?

456 Views 3 min Jul 24, 2024

"Just as antisemitism by the church should be condemned, you should also condemn anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Christian discrimination of the present racist state of Israel." Nic Lesmeister, Executive Director of Gateway Center for Israel, gives an "unequivocal YES" to this statement as he navigates this controversial topic in another episode of "Responding to Viewer Comments."

Nic provides a biblical reply based on the teachings and tenets of Jesus - especially Paul's writings in Ephesians 2 - the Jewish Messiah in whom we as Christians place our faith. He also balances our responsibility of holding our Jewish friends accountable for these wrong attitudes while refuting claims that Israel is a systemically racist country.

Video Transcript

Okay, so the comment is: “Just as antisemitism should be condemned, so also should be the anti-Arab, anti-Christian and anti, anti-Muslim racist state of Israel, or all those anti things expressed in the racist state of Israel”

So I just have to say, I absolutely agree. I think Paul would agree with this. I think Jesus would agree with this. The whole point of Paul’s writing in Ephesians 2 was to break down the wall of enmity that literally existed. There was a literal wall that went around the temple that said, Gentiles, you can’t come beyond this. You’re a second class citizen. And Paul was saying, no, in Jesus, everyone is a first class citizen. That doesn’t make you Jewish and it doesn’t make you Gentile. You keep your same distinction, but you’re no longer better than anybody else. So that I think is part of the message that believers in Jesus should bring to our Jewish friends in love, is to say, Hey, listen, we put our faith in Jesus. He’s your Messiah. He’s the Messiah of Israel. He was the one sent by God to bring the Jewish people back into full relationship with the God of Israel.

And some of the things that he taught was to love your enemy, to lay down your life for your enemy, to be kind to your enemy, all of these things. So should we condemn when our Jewish friends have an anti-Arab sentiment? Absolutely, we should. That is wrong. That is superiority. That’s the opposite of God’s plan for Jew and Gentile to be mutually in submission to one another in love. Should we condemn it when it’s anti-Christian? Yeah. We have a video about it being anti-Christian, if you will. There’s real issues in the state of Israel with discrimination against Messianic Jews, Jews who put their faith in Jesus, and against Christians. And there’s definitely real issues with Arab hatred in Israel. And so it’s not our role to wag our finger at people, but it is to build relationship and then say, Hey, I want to talk to you about some things that concern me about the way that you talk or relate to your own citizens or your own neighbors. And I’m not saying I know everything you need to listen to me, but everybody has blind spots and we all need friends to help us see around our blind spots. So I 100% agree that we should be speaking against these things or speaking up about them. And let me just be clear, the state of Israel is not a racist state. That is a wrong terminology. It’s not anywhere near that. It has its own shortcomings just as America does. It is nowhere near systemically racist at all. The end.

Hey, seriously, thank you for commenting on our videos. If you’re somebody that’s commented and you’ve been critical about what we’re saying, literally I hope we love you and we want to keep learning with you. Please, if you don’t agree with what we’re saying, put it in the comments. We just ask you to be kind and let’s learn together. We’re not saying we’re right all the time. Look seriously. But let’s go through the process of learning together and working together to solve some of these technical tricky questions. So please keep commenting, and I hope this was helpful for you as you guys listen to some of these things and looking forward to seeing you in another video.