Christadelphians take on the 1967 Six Day War

by Dr Bassam Dally

The message was loud and clear: Israel’s creation and survival is a miracle from God and is a fulfilment of God’s prophecy.

An advertisement placed by the Christadelphian church in my local newspaper, promised to tell anybody who cared to attend all about the 1967 war and how it fulfilled the Bible Prophecy. Intrigued by this, I decided to go and listen to the talk.

The hall had some 50 or so neatly dressed people from all walks of life and after a prayer the speaker, Steve, was introduced. He presented a well-polished, highly animated Power Point presentation which included maps, movies and quotes from the Bible. The message was loud and clear: Israel’s creation and survival is a miracle from God and is a fulfilment of God’s prophecy. The most surprising part about this presentation is the number of images of tanks, war planes, and war footage. Most of the slides were divided into two sections where in one section a quote from the Bible appeared and in the second a picture of a tank or some war footage.

I have never seen such Zionist propaganda presented by any Christian in my life. Any one who attended this talk would leave in no doubt about which side to take. The Palestinians were only mentioned towards the end of the talk with images of little children dressed as suicide bombers. Footage of Jews dancing in the streets was common and Ben-Gurion, Barak, and Netanyahu were often quoted.

The presentation made the following claims:

1. God’s existence was verified through the 1967 war as it fulfils a prophecy.
2. The 1967 war freed Jerusalem from “foreign” hands.
3. Israel’s survival through 1948 and 1967 is a miracle by God as the Jews were outnumbered and badly equipped.
4. The period 1967 to 2007 is a period where men had “fear” in their heart.
5. Geographically, Israel is “vulnerable” because the distance between the boundary of the West Bank and the Sea is very small and Palestinians may attack Israel and destroy it.
6. Missiles from Iran and Iraq can fall into Israel within minutes.
7. Russia had the intention of destroying Israel in 1967 but did not want to risk another World War.
8. Ariel Sharon had a heart attack because he attempted to divide Jerusalem.
9. Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated because he was going to divide Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, the session was not open for questions, but I had a chance to converse at length with a few people including the speaker after the session. I made the following points which neither of them was able to rebut:

1. Christianity has been in existence for the last 2000 years not for the last 40 years.
2. Christianity is all about peace, harmony and compassion. This presentation celebrates war, destruction and dispossession.
3. The 1948 and 1967 wars brought misery and destruction to defenceless people of whom more than 15 per cent were Christians and they did not get any mention in the entire presentation.
4. The supposed reunification of Jerusalem in 1967 is null as the Bible refers to OLD Jerusalem and the war did not change much of the structure or the city’s population.
5. Christians preach love and compassion towards the oppressed and the defenceless rather than support the oppressors and the occupiers

It was clear that much of the data and footage was Zionist propaganda material. I asked the presenter about the origin of his material and he confessed that he got some of it from a DVD from Israel. I did ask for a copy of the presentation which the speaker did not agree to give away initially using the excuse “it may be interpreted as rejoicing in war”. In other words he agreed with my assessment of his presentation. Later, when I mentioned that it was presented to the public, the speaker reluctantly agreed to send me a copy on a DVD. I’m not holding my breath.

The thing I learnt from this experience is that a well-informed individual can easily help bring a reality check to such blinded individuals and may reduce the damage they can do to our cause.