"Absolute rubbish, replies Reverend Dr Stephen Sizer when asked about the popular Christian view that Jews are the chosen people and that Israel is the Holy Land which gives them the right to return.
The senior pastor of Christ Church in Surrey, England, who has a master's in theology from Oxford University, stresses that the New Testament never once mentions that the Jews are the “chosen people” nor does it say that the land belongs to the Jews.
In fact, he adds, the Hebrew scripture doesn't say that either.
“God's chosen people are not based on race but based on faith,” he insists.
Quoting from the Bible, Deuteronomy Verse 23: “Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite (Jordanian) for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian because thou wast a stranger in his land. The children that are begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the LORD in their third generation” and from Psalm 87, Dr Sizer points out what God is saying in these verses is that the Egyptian, Jordanians, Palestinians, Iranians, Lebanese, and the Africans are all part of His people on the basis of faith, not race.
“When you divide people in racial terms, you are denying what the Bible says. The land is to be shared. If one race gets the land and everyone else doesn't, this is contrary to what the scripture says. The word chosen' is a word used to describe people who recognise Jesus, not exclusively a racial group, Jewish or anyone else.”
He adds that Jesus' apostles were told to go out of the land and take the message to the world but they were never told to come back.
Controversial views no doubt, especially in the West, when it comes to dealing with Israel and Palestine.
Dr Sizer says he was raised in the 1960s and 1970s in the United Kingdom with an affinity towards the Jews and Israel and a dislike of the Palestinians and Muslims due to horrific cases like the 1972 Munich massacre, where the Israeli Olympic team was held hostage and killed by Palestinian terrorists.
Then as an adult, he spent a few weeks in the Israeli occupied territories and met Christians, Muslims and Jews who were suffering, and experienced what life was like with curfews, checkpoints, no running water or electricity, demolition of Palestinian homes, seizure of lands and assets, being fired on by Israeli soldiers, Jews-only roads and his perspective changed.
The victims of the holocaust have now become the abuser.
“I was bullied as a kid in school. When I see someone being bullied, I can't walk by even if it's risky. I intervene,” says Dr Sizer who specialises on the Israel-Palestine issue and has written a number of books on it.
He has also made a film titled With God On Our Side to provide an insight on US support of Israel.
His PhD thesis examined the origins of the Middle East conflict and the political agenda of Christian Zionism in Britain and the US.
“Betrand Russell says most people would rather die than think'! Most Christians believe what they are told. As a pastor, one of my jobs is to get people to think things through for themselves so what I write is designed to get Christians to start the internal process of questioning things they have come to believe.
“It isn't to destroy. It is to get them to think,” maintains Dr Sizer who is in Malaysia to speak on the Middle East Conflict: A Christian Perspective as a guest of Viva Palestina Malaysia.
He says that churches in the Far East are heavily influenced by American Christianity, which is a fusion of American imperial values and Christian traditions. The fact that the American churches are wealthy also helps to buy influence.
And Dr Sizer wants to prick the balloon and wake people up to the reality.
He says Europe is still living with the legacy of the holocaust and dealing with its guilt, which makes it reluctant to criticise Israel.
It is worse in the US, he says, because “there is not even a single congressman or senator” who dares speak critically of Israel; it would amount to political suicide and turn off the taps of their campaign funding.
“If there is one subject which no politician of any political party in any particular country won't speak up on that is dangerous,” he says, adding that US politicians are only able to speak their minds once they have retired, like President Jimmy Carter.
And even then, Carter was virtually thrown out of the Democrat Party because “he is seen as a liability even when he speaks the truth”.
So Dr Sizer was not at all surprised by the more than 20 standing ovations Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received when he addressed the US Congress recently “because the Israel lobby buys every single politician”.
Drawing parallels from the Bible story of Jacob and his favourite son Joseph to whom he gave a coat of many colours, Dr Sizer says the US is like Jacob and it is treating Israel like Joseph.
“Jacob was not a good father. He spoilt one of his sons and what did that lead to? Hatred, jealousy, envy and attempted murder. As American foreign policy is unilateral (lop-sided towards Israel) rather than multilateral, it is generating hatred among the Arab nations because the US says it is for freedom and democracy but only if you buy our weapons', only if you sell us cheap oil', only if you let our companies come in and reconstruct Iraq', etc.”
He points out that Israel also keeps postponing the peace process while it steals more Palestinian land. And more than 80% of Palestine's West Bank is now under Israeli control.
“Of course, Israel's borders are not secure because of what they have done with the West Bank! Israel is the only country in the world that has never defined what its borders are.
“If I want you to respect my right to exist but I won't tell you what those rights are and I won't define where my land is, how can I expect you to accept them especially when I have taken your property?
“If I steal your land, then give 80% of it back, is that a concession?” Dr Sizer says, pointing out that being a good neighbour is the best defence.
It takes only 80 seconds for an Israeli jet fighter to fly from Tel Aviv to Amman, which is more than ample for defence, he adds.
Stressing the difference between the Jews, Judaism, Israel and Zionism, Dr Sizer says: “Jew is the race, Judaism is the faith, Israel is the country and Zionism is the political system.
“You can be a Jew and an Israeli and not a Zionist. I will defend your right to be a Jew, your faith and your right to live as an Israeli citizen within secure borders but I will also defend the rights of Israeli citizens who are not Jewish to the same rights.”
But Dr Sizer rejects Zionism.
“Zionism is a political system that says the land belongs to the Jewish people and other races must get off or be treated as second class citizens. What about Arabs born in Israel? They are not Jewish. Does that mean that because they are not Jews they can't be Israeli citizens? That's like saying only Malays can be Malaysian citizens.”
That would be like apartheid, he says.
So, Israel is conflicted as to whether there should be a one-state or two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine problem.
“If it's a one-state solution, it has to give equal rights to everyone including Palestinians. But if it's two-state solution, Israel has to give up land and its settlements for the Palestinian state.
“But Israel is like a child that went to visit its grandmother. The grandmother has given it a sweet and the child has put its hand in the jar and grabbed three sweets. But it has to let go of one sweet to get its hand out but it doesn't want to,” he says.
Dr Sizer feels US President Obama has been disappointing in his first year in office because he (Obama) said Israeli settlements must stop, yet Israel went ahead to build more and the US didn't do anything to stop it.
Nevertheless, he remains hopeful about Obama getting a second term in office and wanting to go down in history as the president who achieved peace in the Middle East.
Dr Sizer points out there is more awareness these days about what is going on.
Every British Prime Minister since 1948 is the patron of the Jewish National Fund, which holds in trust 70% of the land in Israel exclusively for Jews, and deprives Palestinians of their rights, he says.
“This week, British Prime Minister David Cameron stepped down as patron. He didn't want the bad publicity that goes with being associated with apartheid.”
For Dr Sizer, the boycott, disinvestment and sanctions campaign against Israel is slowly working.
Taking the Ahava Dead Sea beauty product, which is popular in the US, as an example, he says Sarah Jessica Parker stepped down as the face of Ahava recently and an Ahava shop in Covent Garden, London, had to close when women demonstrated outside it, protesting against “stolen beauty”.
The product is deemed to be stolen from Palestine as it is made in illegal settlements in the West Bank.
“Getting to people's conscience is the way forward,” says Dr Sizer, an optimist who believes peace will come to Israel and Palestine “sooner or later”.
“Did you think apartheid in South Africa would end without a war? Did you think that communism would end without a war? The Berlin wall came down when ordinary people said we've had enough.”
Dr Sizer will be speaking at KGPA Bukit Kiara on Monday night.
