Protests Against Israel

“And I went back and saw all the oppression that is done under the sun: the tears of the oppressed who have one to console them, and from the hand of their violent oppressors there is none to console them” (Ecclesiastes 4:1, Alter translation).

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects free expression of beliefs, limited only by governmental right to regulate when, where and how a protest may operate. Throughout its history, Americans have protested against oppression. The Boston Tea Party occurred on December 16, 1773, in Boston, Massachusetts, when patriots — frustrated with Britain’s “taxation without representation” dumped chests of imported tea — into the harbor. This act of defiance demonstrated that Americans would no longer submit to taxation and tyranny quietly. It rallied the 13 colonies to fight for independence. Neither George Washington nor Benjamin Franklin approved of the action.

In March 1956, ninety black defendants awaited trial in a run-down courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama, charged with interfering in a company’s business “without a just cause or legal excuse.” They had organized a boycott of the city’s buses protesting its segregated seating. Martin Luther King, Jr., took up the cause of segregation across all the southern States, and over the course of a decade became synonymous with nonviolent protest. His movement’s enduring influence brought the end of repression for many. Although today media writes of Martin Luther King with respect, at the time he was portrayed as an anarchist disruptor.

Robert Shapiro, professor of political science in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University recently wrote: “Public opinion changes on the issues as a result of the effectiveness of the protests doing one very important thing — raising the visibility and salience of the issues.”

Anti-Israel Protests and Rise of Antisemitism

In cities across the country, highways have been blocked, trains have been delayed and sections of college campuses have been shut down by hundreds of so-called protests. Protest “camps” were erected on college campuses. These protestors were not fighting their own oppression, but Israel’s defensive moves against Hamas in response to October 7, 2023, terrorist attack and hostage-taking. The protests demand a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to U.S. military assistance for Israel, and financial divestment from arms suppliers. Of course, they demand amnesty for those disciplined or fired for protesting. Many want U.S. intervention to divide the land permanently between Israel and Arabs (Palestinians).¹

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(1) Leading up to Israel’s independence in 1948, it was common for the international press to label Jews, not Arabs, living in the mandate as Palestinians. According to Zachary Foster, the first use of the word “Palestinian” to describe Palestine’s Arabic speakers was by Khalil Baydas in 1898. Farid Georges Kassab, a Beirut-based Orthodox Christian, “noted in passing” in his 1909 book, Palestine, Hellenism, and Clericalism, that “the Orthodox Palestinian Ottomans call themselves Arabs, and are in fact Arabs,” despite describing the Arabic speakers of Palestine as Palestinians throughout the rest of the book.

These protests led directly to a doubling of antisemitic incidents globally in 2023. According to a joint report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Tel Aviv University (TAU), the U.S. set a national record for the most such incidents in a year, with more than 3,700 occurrences in the final three Pro-Israel counter display months of 2023 alone — a fourfold increase over the same period in 2022. France saw incidents nearly quadruple in 2023 versus 2022 — more than 1,600 in total — while the UK saw a year- over-year increase of almost 2,500 incidents. Germany also increased significantly in 2023. According to TAU Professor Uriya Shavit, the current state of antisemitism is not yet at levels leading up the Holocaust but is threatening the very existence of Jewish life in the West. Many Bible Students believe that the last great immigration to Israel, with now over seven million Jews, will be from Western nations including the U.S., which holds the second largest population of Jews in the world.

International support is diminishing for Israel’s right to defend itself and the Biblical land it occupied for millennia. Bible students realize that Israel must learn a hard lesson: only God can be counted on to defend them (Exodus 5:1, Luke 1:68). Danger intensifies as Israel’s leadership succumbs to pressure from its traditional allies. At some point, perhaps not too long into the future, Israel will realize that “all her lovers have forgotten her” (Jeremiah 30:14).

Sadly, for Jews living in the lands of strangers where they were scattered almost 2,000 years ago, antisemitism is as alive as ever. Now, anti-Jewish sentiment is visibly linked with anti-Israel sentiment. In spite of everything positive the Jewish people have contributed to science, medicine, etc. public sentiment for Israel wanes.

For over a decade, Hamas’ firing of missiles, mortars and rockets at civilian populations in Israel drew no protest from the United Nations. Instead, protests now attach Nazi imagery to Jews and Israel. Ironically, in the eyes of world media, Hamas and Hezbollah are merely “freedom fighters.”

When the Time is Right, Jehovah will Intervene

“It will come about that just as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you that you may become a blessing. Do not fear; let your hands be strong.” (Zechariah 8:13 NAS). The original promise to father Abraham was not for a Canaan in heaven — but a Land of Promise on Earth. God literally showed Abraham the Land which he would receive as an everlasting possession: “Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land, in the length of it, and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee” (Genesis 13:14-17).

God’s purpose in promising to make a great nation through Abraham, repeated to Isaac and Jacob — and then to Israel as a nation — is to establish them in the Land and make them the benefactors of all peoples. “And thy seed [Jacob’s seed] shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 28:14).

Christians are encouraged to remember that the Apostle Paul said, “By your mercy, they [Israel] shall receive mercy” (Romans 11:31). No other sympathetic attitude is consistent with the compassionate Mercy of God. For now — in a world of escalating antisemitism — it will mean supporting and encouraging the Jewish people to believe in Israel’s prophetic destiny as a blessing to the world. Christians should comfort and encourage Israel as instructed through the prophet Isaiah.

“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins” (Isaiah 40:1, 2).