An Open Letter to the UK Director of World Vision
Charles Badenoch
World Vision
Opal Drive
Fox Milne
Milton Keynes
MK15 0ZR
Dear Sir,
I write as Director of an Evangelical ministry operating AIDS/HIV orphanages in Africa and sponsoring evangelistic ministry in The Middle East, and as an activist on behalf of Christians persecuted in Islamic countries.
As a further 1 million Black African Christians face genocidal extermination in Sudan at the hands of Islamic Arab militias with the de facto complicity of the Sudanese government, I forward a letter to be published in our journal, on our MORIEL web site, (1.7 million visitors per month) and in VANGUARD magazine ‚ regarding your cover article on ‘The Dividing Wall’ in your Spring edition. ‚ Predictably your article ignores the Islamic genocide against Christians but accosts the one nation in the Middle East fully protecting the human rights of Arab Christians – Israel.
The edition also contains articles about Ethiopia and The Horn of Africa, but predictably ignores the vicious Islamic persecution of Christians there in Eritrea and Somalia. The edition also contains two articles on Zimbabwe (from where I have only recently returned) but ignores the atrocities being perpetrated on a grand scale by the Mugabe regime against Black and White alike. Your ‘Prayer Guide’ only mentions earthquake victims in Iran, but conveniently avoids asking for prayer for the families of the countless Christian victims of Islamic persecution by the tyrannical mullahs. Only Israel is singled out for criticism in the name of some convoluted notion of ‘justice’. Sir, any honest Christian familiar first hand with these regions of the world as I am can ‚ not help but recognize the biases of your position and the hypocritical double standards that
World Vision under your direction has quite frankly come to represent.
In the opinion of many people, World Vision has departed from its evangelistic origins and hence from its claims to be an Evangelical organization. It is now deteriorated into a mere social political organization in Evangelical masquerade with a social political gospel that biblically is no gospel at all.
It is not Israel who beheads people for becoming Christians, it is Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran. Even in allegedly “moderate’ Islamic countries like Jordan over 1,000 honor killings of woman occur annually and in Egypt Christians are arrested and persecuted.
In Malaysia there is an Islamic regime where an ‚ apartheid policy against those not non ethnic Malay Moslems is enshrined in national law and converting to Christianity means imprisonment. We have 200,000 Christians slaughtered in East Timor by Islamic militants (many of them little children), nearly 60,000 dead Christians killed by Moslems in The Philippines, and thousands more in Northern Nigeria , and in the last 10 years 2.3 million Christians killed in the Sudan while you say little or nothing. When Christians are martyred by Moslems ‚ it doesn’t feature much in your editorial emphasis. When the one Middle East nation guaranteeing religious freedom to Arab Christians stands up to militant Islamic aggression, you apply another standard. I fail to see what Israel is guilty of other than what every civilized nation in the world should be guilty of – resisting jihad.
You quote your Arab staff but ignore the pro Zionist policies of Arab (mainly Palestinian Arab) Evangelicals such as ex Islamic terrorist Walid Shobat, journalist Yosef Farra, and evangelist Asis Shorush, who support Israel knowing what happens to Christians, (especially Evangelicals), in Islamic countries. Your report omits mention of the battle cry of Arafat’s followers ‘First The Saturday People, Then The Sunday People” (first we murder the Jews then we murder the Christians).
Your biased article mentions The Church of The Nativity in Bethlehem. I was in Bethlehem when Islamic terrorists held the monks hostage and by the account of one of the monks who escaped looted the sanctuary. Your article mentions Jewish Settlements.
The archaeological record confirms the historical and biblical Old Testament and New Testament accounts that The Jews are the pre Arab indigenous people of The Land and by definition a Jew cannot logically occupy his ancestral homeland any more than an Apache can occupy Arizona or a Maori can occupy New Zealand.
From The Ivory Coast, to The Balkans, to The Far East – there are three times as many ‚ armed conflicts in today’s world involving Islam than all of the other religio-people groups put together. If Israel didn’t exist we would still face the same problem -jihad. Even right here in Britain we have had Lockerbie, The Bradford riots, and thousands of savages rioting in London demanding the murder of a UK citizen for writing a book.
A Palestinian state apart from Jordan has never exited in history . In 1968 the Cairo born Yassir Arafat (by birth an Egyptian Arab, not a Palestinian Arab and most of his henchmen are Tunisian) said that “Jordan is Palestine” and in 1970 King Hussein of Jordan said that “Jordan is Palestine”. Only in 1970 when Arafat tried on Jordan what he today tries on Israel Jordan systematically exterminated 15,000-18,000 Palestinian Arabs in 12 days in ‘Black September’.
Pre 1967, if a West Bank Arab said he was Palestinian he would have been arrested and probably shot, as the Kuwaitis massacred the Palestinians in 1991, and as the ‘Palestinians’ massacred each other in Lebanon in the 1980s. Once Israelis do to Moslems Arabs what the Moslems Arabs do to each other, then I will listen to your otherwise contrived complaint. The late King Faisal II of Iraq (deposed by the Baathists) and the former Saudi King Musharif (deposed by the Wahabists) all agreed that Israel was the homeland of the Jews as did the Druse, Circasian, and Negev Bedouin Moslems, just ‚ as Arafat and King Hussein agreed Jordan was Palestine.
Now all of a sudden you say it is ‘Palestinian land’, when the very existence of such a category of people is manufactured. They are not distinct from any other Arabs; according to the original Hope -Simpson demographic report of the UK government in 1948 upon which the UN partition was decided, the indigenous ‚ Arab population was 130,000 in all of Israel, the rest are the descendants of Arabs who immigrated (usually illegally under British Colonial law). The rest were called Jordanians ( Jordan has a 70% “Palestinian’ population, although its government is Hashemite). Your claim of a ‘Palestinian Land’ is historically ludicrous. The West Bank was part of the original British Balfour Declaration promising the land to the Jews, and in 1948 Jordan seized The West Bank , having ‚ no UN mandate, during the UN partition. Like the Moslems who persecute Christians, you re write history. The academic term for this of course is
‘ revisionism’, and a revisionist can only ‚ either be ignorant ‚ about that which he pontificates or else is a mere liar. As a Christian, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt.
Moreover, from May 1948 until June 1970, Gaza, The West Bank, East Jerusalem, and The Golan were all in the hands of Arab Moslems. If they wanted another Arab Moslem state (in addition to Hashemite ruled Jordan) why didn’t they simply create one when they had 20 years to do so?
When Arafat was offered a state with a return of 97% of captured land , an equivalent amount of Israeli land in lieu of the retained 3% , and East Jerusalem as its capital by the Ehud Barach government, Arafat rejected it and called for ‘1 million martyrs’ to die in the jihad, launching a spate of suicide bombings the wall has largely stopped. Israel didn’t build that wall – Islamic terror and jihad did.
You say you left feeling angry Mr. Badenoch. I once left feeling angry also – like last June when I saw a bus blown up by a suicide bomber murdering 17 people practically right in front of my own eyes. The wall has all but stopped such Islamic suicide attacks.
Your biggest misrepresentation however (one that some would call a malicious lie) is that of the socioeconomic plight of Palestinian Arabs on The West Bank and in Gaza. For once sir, may I humbly suggest you tell your readers the truth regarding this issue. According to The World Health Organisation, prior to the first Intifada the standard of living of Gaza Arabs in terms of everything from unemployment, to infant mortality and longevity improved under the Israelis 370% above what it had been pre 1967, while the West Bank Arabs saw an improvement of 320%. ‚ Indeed, building those Jewish settlements you loathe has been a main source of Arab job creation. Any displacement or loss of private land due to the wall (only a small stretch is a wall, mostly it is a fence – another of your sculptured inaccuracies) can and has been contested in a democratic manner in the Israeli courts. Can you find me a democracy with an independent judiciary in any of the surrounding Islamic countries Mr. Badenoch? Can you find me a single Arab Moslem country assuring Christians and Jews the same rights Moslems are given in Judeo-Christian countries? I find no euphemism sir for the blatant hypocrisy of such detestable dual standards.
The American government, the EU, and many Palestinian Arabs themselves moreover testify to the misappropriation of the huge cash grants the Palestinian Authority received from the international community; Arafat’s cronies stole the money and some was even diverted into the funding of terror, especially the Al Aqsa Brigade. Now somehow , Charles Badenoch & World Vision place the blame for the dire economic straights of the Palestinian Arabs solely on Israel. You are plainly a man who maligns the truth.
Even if I did not believe the scriptures, the historic, archaeological, and demographic facts would remain, proving much of what is today being trumpeted in the name of ‘international law’ is political and not legal decision. Why does international law not contend for the Moslem occupied Arab Christian regions of Lebanon or The Arab occupied Berber regions of North Africa and rule on the far worse oppression and human rights violations throughout the Moslem world?
More to the point, why is ‚ World Vision not rather a voice for the persecuted church instead of adding its voice to the voice of their persecutors against the only country in the region that does safeguard the religious freedom of Arab Christians? ‚ Whatever your agenda is Mr. Badenoch, please find another name for it; it is certainly not ‘Christian’.
Clearly, World Vision under the direction of yourself, is no longer a biblically Christian organization but is rather a blinded organization that has truly lost its way. As a Christian ‚ activist on behalf of the persecuted church, I can only thank God that there is at least one country in The Middle East where my Arab brothers in Christ are not persecuted for their faith in Jesus, and that one country is the one you unjustly fault – Israel.
A Jew named Jesus Christ said that His people the Jews would return to Israel and Jerusalem in The Last Days, and as a Christian, I personally ‚ believe Him (Luke 21:24, Zechariah 12:1-10). The Jews have exactly 1/6 of 1% of the land the Arab nations have- the Land God gave them, and they are going to keep it. When they have God’s approval, they don’t need the approval of a backslidden ministry with a biased agenda, and the disapproval of one Charles Badenoch amounts to absolutely nothing (Genesis 12:1-3).
Sincerely,
James Jacob Prasch
Director, Moriel ‚ Ministries
MORIEL encourages our readers to write the trustees of World Vision in protest of World Vision’s anti Israel bias.
The Trustees
World Vision (UK)
World Vision House
Opal Drive
Fox Milne
Milton Keynes, UK
MK15 02R
