By Charles Gardner —
We’re getting used to the idea of it being an upside-down world in these days of ever-increasing woke madness. But the shocking news of a synagogue being set on fire in Australia takes things to a new low.
The image of a burning synagogue sets off inevitable flashbacks to the scenes in Germany and Austria in 1938 that sparked the darkest moments of modern history. For that Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) pogrom saw more than 250 Jewish houses of worship burnt to the ground.
But this was in Melbourne, in the heart of the supposedly civilized new world that welcomed Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in the aftermath of World War II.
Though I’m 12,000 miles away on the other side of the globe, and 2,500 miles from Israel, suffering daily onslaughts on their sovereignty, I have felt greatly distressed and battle-weary from constant efforts to alert my fellow Christians to the grave dangers we are all facing, only for the warnings to seemingly fall on deaf ears as we descend into deepening darkness.
Australia’s Jewish community were apparently not surprised by the outrage in view of the huge spike in antisemitism over there, as here, since the October 7th massacre 14 months ago. Even one of the world’s most prestigious places of learning, Oxford University, has reportedly become a hotbed of antisemitism where students have accused Israel of genocide.
The irony of the Melbourne attack is that the synagogue targeted is Ultra-Orthodox and a-political to the extent that they don’t even recognize the State of Israel. But it exposes the ignorance of students and the rest of the left-wing rent-a-mob who have little or no idea of the background to the Middle East conflict, or of Israel’s legal claim to their land for that matter.
Thankfully, no-one was killed, though two people were injured and one of Australia’s busiest synagogues was left in ruins. But the pain goes much deeper as God’s chosen people are once more singled out with murderous intent.
The Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups have committed themselves – like Hitler did – to the extermination of Jewish people. It’s in their charter! And yet it’s Israel that is being accused of genocide. You couldn’t make this up.
As for some of our students, the Bible asks: “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” And as many protestors are busy shaking their fists at God, we are reminded that our (gospel) message is not about “the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing” (1 Corinthians 1:20 & 2:6).
But I am heartened to see that woke nonsense is beginning to unravel as the so-called Rainbow Laces of the LGBT+ campaign group Stonewall come undone. After football chiefs pressured players into wearing armbands identifying with this ideology, the Crystal Palace captain – a born-again Christian – wrote ‘I love Jesus’ over his and was promptly reprimanded.
He nonetheless chose to write ‘Jesus loves you’ when he played again shortly afterwards. But Muslim footballers refusing to wear such gear (good for them) did not face the same criticism.
All of which exposes the two-faced hypocrisy of a sporting hierarchy in thrall to the oil-rich Arab states. The truth is that Britain has become intimidated by aggressive Islam – unlike our Jewish friends in the Middle East, it has to be said. Thank the Lord for their courage, as they are not simply fighting for their own existence, but for Western civilization as a whole.
But with our supposedly even-handed law enforcement policies, antisemitic chants go largely unchecked while Jewish people feel increasingly abandoned.
Writing in the Australian Financial Review, Justin Amler referred to anti-Israel protests in Sydney “where the only person moved on by the police was a Jewish man accused of a ‘breach of the peace’ when he unfurled an Israeli flag…”¹
Yet another irony of such blatant antisemitism is that Australia was effectively founded – long before Captain Cook got there – by a Jewish Catholic Portuguese explorer, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros who, in dedicating his discovery to the Lord, called it the ‘Land of the Holy Spirit’.
But all is not lost. For I am in touch with dear Christian friends there who are working and praying hard on Israel’s behalf, reminding all who are willing to hear that they are still the apple of God’s eye. (Deuteronomy 32:10, Zechariah 2:8)
¹ December 6th 2024
