Mainline Protestantism, Anti-Semitism, and the "Christian Century"

For almost 100 years, the Christian Century has been a major publication of mainstream American Protestantism. During the 1930s and 40s, it distinguished itself by its conspicuous lack of sympathy for Jews in Hitler’s Europe and its hostility toward Zionism. When he took over the publication in the 1970s, James M. Wall tentatively apologized for its prior sins, but did not give up its anti-Zionism. Since his departure, the magazine has backed away from such positions, while Wall has become a regular contributor to the openly anti-Semitic Veterans’ News Network, a purveyor of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Dexter van Zile writes:

As Wall’s tenure proceeded, the Christian Century became fundamentally hostile toward the Jewish state, largely mirroring—and fueling—the cult of anti-Zionism that existed in mainline Protestant churches in the United States. Under Wall’s leadership, the magazine treated the Jewish state just as the magazine had treated Jews under [the previous editor’s] leadership.

When Wall retired from his post as editor of the Christian Century in 1999 and took on the title of senior contributing editor, . . . his anti-Israel bent became even more pronounced. In his regular columns, Wall’s obsession with Israel became full-blown, with his writings becoming increasingly unhinged from reality. In 2005, he wrote a piece that falsely asserted that Israel’s security barrier completely surrounded the city of Bethlehem. Also that year, he described Hizballah and Hamas—two terrorist organizations—as “Muslim non-governmental groups.”

Read more at Gatestone

More about: Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, Jewish-Christian relations, Protestantism

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF