A New Haman is Rising
A New Haman is Rising
Antisemitism is not new. For as long as there have been Jewish people, there have been those committed to their destruction. From the early pages of the Bible, to Haman’s genocidal aspirations, to the gas chambers of the Holocaust, there has been an effort by God’s enemies to destroy His chosen people.
On August 12, 2015, the Councillor on Human Rights, Nelly Shiloh, spoke at the UN and stated that “Antisemitism is not a relic from the past, but an ever-present reality for Jews in many places. We must take action now to eradicate the plague of Jew-hatred from our future.”1
Unfortunately, not only is antisemitism present in our current world, there are new Hamans continually rising and coming from all directions.
The Muslim world is rife with antisemitism and anti-Judaic sentiments. Jewish people are considered descendants of apes and pigs. Leaders of the Palestinians incite youth to stab, run over, and attack Jewish people. The Jerusalem Post reported: “Anti-Semitic cartoons, television series and debased fantasies—including the blood libel—are so ubiquitous as to merit little comment. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is openly sold and widely read. Religious and political leaders regularly invoke the basest anti-Semitic stereotypes.”2 Muslim religious leaders often preach of the day when Israel is destroyed and Jewish people are murdered. This hatred has also been exported to Europe where attacks and even murder of Jewish people by Muslims is becoming the “new normal.”
Sadly, within the Jewish world itself there are extremists that hinder the peace process with the Palestinians. More destructive is that these extremists’ efforts cause great harm to their own people. There are two branches of this extremism: religious and secular. However, both oppose Israel for ideological purposes and work hand in hand with those who are dedicated to Israel’s destruction. The religionists see the “secular” state playing God, while the secular “non-Zionist Jews” oppose Zionism because they falsely believe that Zionism oppresses the Palestinian people. While the complete opposite is true, for them the narrative of Hamas is just too convincing.
The most heartbreaking form of antisemitism is that which comes from the Christian world—a rise in what can only be called “super replacement” theology. This presupposes that God is finished with the Jewish people, literally “replacing” the Jewish people with a “new people,” the Church. This distortion of God’s promises to the nation of Israel has led many Christians to embrace the narrative of those who are dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
The Bible paints a completely different present and future for the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. Deuteronomy 30:1-6 states that Israel would experience dispersion because of disobedience but would also be saved as a nation and experience restoration to its land. Likewise, Ezekiel 36–37 promises the future salvation and restoration of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland. Jeremiah 31:35-37 explicitly promises the perpetuity of the Jewish people as a nation. Finally, the New Testament affirms these promises in Romans 9-11; Matthew 19:28 (apostles rule over the 12 tribes of Israel); Matthew 23:27-39 (Israel will accept the Messiah); and Acts 3:19-21 (restoration is preached to the leaders of Israel).
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2 https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Anti-Semitism-is-a-Muslim-problem-415035
