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Rev. Warnock of Georgia, candidate for US Senate

Rev. Raphael Warnock, lead pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, is running for the US Senate. His pastoral position was famously occupied by the late Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on MLK’s solid support and indeed admiration for Israel, MLK is proverbially turning over in his grave at the anti-Israel positions of his successor, Rev. Warnock.

Warnock has compared Israel’s security fence to the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 by the East German communists to prevent the free movement of East German citizens out of that horribly oppressive country. Israel’s security fence was erected to stop the influx of Palestinian murderers into Israel during the Second Intifada, 2000-2005 — the Palestinian campaign to murder Israeli shoppers, seder attenders, restaurant patronizers, bus riders, pedestrians, seminary students and other civilians.

The Berlin Wall was erected to deny human freedom.The Israeli security fence was erected to protect human life. Yet, Rev. Warnock compared them — and not long ago. Not in some distant, innocent past whose simplicities and falsities he has since outgrown by educating himself. Rev. Warnock made the comparison in 2019.

In a sermon in 2018 Rev. Warnock stated: “Claims that I believe Israel is an apartheid state are patently false — I do not believe that.” Here is what he does believe, also stated in a sermon in 2018: That nonviolent Palestinian protesters are shot down and killed by the state of Israel “as birds of prey.”

The “nonviolent” protesters Rev. Warnock referred to were at the Gaza border with Israel. In fact, most of the time, most of these protesters were armed and tried to use their arms to attack Israeli soldiers — a point that the Rev. Warnock himself has in part conceded, after he decided to run for the US Senate. Since he entered the political arena, Rev. Warnock has changed his tune. He has begun to acknowledge the pivotal role that Hamas — a US-designated terrorist organization under Presidents Trump, Obama, Bush and Clinton — played in arming the Gaza protesters or in serving as role models for their violence against Israel.

Now, after Rev. Warnock joined the Senate race, he has sought to win the endorsement of Jewish groups and smooth over the implications of what he himself said as recently as one and two years ago.

It is a telling tactic. Rev. Warnock does not speak positively of Israel, only regrettably about his negative characterizations of Israel. The closest Rev. Warnock can come in speaking positively about Israel is to quote MLK: “Israel’s right to exist as a state is incontestable.”

Rev. Warnock’s invocation of MLK sets up a particularly sharp contrast, not just because MLK spoke about Israel out of sheer admiration. It was much more than Israel’s right to exist that moved Rev. King. That is because MLK spoke out of moral conviction, a consistent embrace of humanity from his earliest days of activism. This is one critical reason why there is a Martin Luther King Day. His successor Rev. Warnock speaks out of expediency.

Look further at what Rev. Warnock says. He invokes the infamous rant of the late, proudly segregationist George Wallace and compares him to Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Warnock described Israel and Netanyahu 2015 as “occupation today, occupation tomorrow, occupation forever.” (Wallace: “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”)

Still more from Rev. Warnock:

Israeli policy is to be compared to South Africa’s occupation of Namibia.

“When I see nonviolent Palestinian young folk fighting for their basic dignity and humanity and they’re told to be silent and just die quietly — for me to stand up for them, makes me no more anti-Semitic than it makes me anti-white to say ‘black lives matter.’”

As if it were Israel, rather than Hamas, that expected Palestinians to die.

As if it were Israel, rather than Hamas, that ruins the lives of Palestinians by diverting foreign aid intended for civilian housing construction and business investment to the construction of terror tunnels.

As if it were not anti-Semitic for Rev. Warnock to single out Palestinian Arabs over, say, Yazidis, Kurds, Uighurs, Rohingya and many other unfortunate groups who have absolutely no connection to Jews. Rev. Warnock settles on Palestinians, fallaciously attributes their squalid conditions to Israel instead of to their leaders’ own undying refusal to live in peace with Jews — and then says he is not anti-Semitic!

We wonder whether Rev. Warnock knows the time-honored connotation of “Ebenezer.” It is an English rendition of the Hebrew even ha-ezer. The term has many connotations, most prominently in the section of the Code of Jewish Law that deals with family relations. Rev. Martin Luther King heroically tried to extend the boundaries of family across the races. Israel tries to extend the boundaries of the Jewish family across the races, ethnicities, geographies and languages of the Jewish people, and of the Arabs and the Jews in the State of Israel. Rev. Warnock could take the lesson.

Copyright © 2020 by the Intermountain Jewish News




3 thoughts on “Rev. Warnock of Georgia, candidate for US Senate

  1. Janna Blanter

    And yet somehow Atlanta jewish community is split over this vile antisemite with some supporting this man. Definition of “useful idiots” fully demonstrated

    Reply
    1. janey8228

      Congressional Democrats, are full of antisemites and Jews do nothing! Warnock is one of them! But some Jews just don’t get it and will continue to vote in the Democrat Party. Just look at the “wonderful” Iran nuclear deal, which Biden apparently wants to rejoin! Until Rabbis, Congressmen/women, Educators, and Media (forget this one!) speak out, it will continue to the next generation!

      Reply
  2. Yaakov Watkins

    Deuteronomy Chapter 11 Starting at verse 26

    “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing, that you will heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today; and the curse, if you will not heed the commandments of the Lord your God.”

    Until we start getting our act together, we will continue to have problems.
    signed
    Yaakov Watkins
    8899 East Prentice Avenue apartment 10102 Greenwood Village Colorado 80111
    303 669 4506

    Reply

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