Betrayed: I will not keep silent

 

Israeli Believers in Yeshua Have Been Betrayed
by Israel-Supporting Christians Long Enough!
I will not keep silent

by Donna Diorio

October 20, 2024

This morning I got a response to my latest Arrows from Zion (We Are Family: One New Man) from one of my Arrows subscribers. A missionary couple who at one time were based in Israel and are well acquainted with the issues of the Gospel there. They have been greatly encouraging to me in the years they have been on my mailing list. 

They wrote to tell me of their "shock" that the Million Women event opened with crediting IFCJ for financing the event. 

"Flabbergasted at the significance and ignorance of the leadership left me speechless. As with you, I believe Lou Engle to be a very sincere in the prayer movements, which made it all the more shocking to me! I follow Dutch Sheets who strongly promoted MWM and wonder just how many prayer “VIPs” are as ignorant as Lou!. . . .I instantly felt that this event had been hijacked through "well meaning” deception and ignorance."

He wondered "if any of the Messianic ministries (will) pick up on this."

As far as the Israeli Ministries, they will see it but they will say nothing - it will only release further targeting of them by anti-Gospel religious activist groups on them - groups that exist in Israel SOLELY for the purpose of persecuting Israel Messianic Jews. Let that sink in. At least 3 to 4 activist groups, always active against the Israeli believers AND SUPPORTED FINANCIALLY BY CHRISTIANS WHO FINANCIALLY SUPPORT UNSAVED JEWISH ORGS. 

Let that sink in: Christians are supporting groups who support the activists who hound Israeli believers in Israel. I cannot keep silent about that....and I have a difficult time with any who can. So many American Messianic Jews stood on that platform at the Million Women event - why did they not leave the event as soon as they knew of the ICEJ involvement and tell Lou exactly why? It is not like he is the first Christian over the years to betray the Israeli Ministries like this. 

Many famous Christian name over the years have done the same. Some have been approached by American Messianic leaders about the truth of what they were doing - I know some of them and specific names of those they confronted. They were always turned away and accused of "just jealous" of the Christians' relationship with Israeli unbeliever politicians and rabbis. TOO arrogant to even listen to what the repercussions on the Israeli body of Messiah would be the result.

I DON'T KNOW WHY OTHERS HAVE NOT SPOKEN OUT WHO KNOW BETTER but I do know I am not going to be one of them. If we will not stand up for our brothers and sisters in Yeshua in Israel, what good are we anyway?

The CHURCH has DEAF EARS about God's purposes for the body of Christ in Israel.

Last summer 2023, the Israeli Interior Ministry revoked 100 visas of a Christian organization that has been headquartered in Israel for 44 years. The International Christian Embassy has "invested nearly $25 million in humanitarian causes in Israel including building 250 bomb shelters and providing aid to Holocaust survivors and their families."  

By September with ICEJ appealing through lawyers and the media, ICEJ got a temporary return to the status quo. As a Jerusalem Post article put it, "ICEJ, Bridges for Peace and Christian Friends for Israel had been struggling to staff their organizations after the Ministry of Interior changed their policy without notice." 

Unfortunately, in the past, 1998 to be exact, Christian organizations in Israel entered into a 'gentlemen's agreement' with the religious Knesset members who were seeking to pass an "anti-missionary bill" in Israel. One of the figures in a major Christian organization became the "architect" of wording that pleased MK Zvili. So "to ease resistance to their own presence in Israel, the 'The Understanding' was struck. . . .The text of the document was viewed by many as a betrayal of the faith and also as a further betrayal of the Israeli believers in Yeshua who are Israeli citizens....(because) The agreement ultimately leaves the indigenous body even more vulnerable to un-protested persecution by the very Israeli religious organizations that "non-proselytizing" Christians have entered into agreement with. An important excerpt from the 1998 Agreed Text Between Representative Christian Bodies and MK Nissim Zvili:

"We believe that the covenant which God concluded with the people of Israel was never revoked. We deeply respect the Jewish people in their identity and integrity and will therefore not engage in activities, which have as their intention to alienate them from their tradition and community. Nor will we exploit, for the benefit of our denominational interests, such economic, social or psychological needs as may emerge. Recalling the grim events preceding Israel's rebirth, we are sensitive to their memories, hurts and feelings, even as we pursue our religious callings. We also recognize the potential for healing between our faith communities as we live in the midst of a Jewish majority, sharing its challenges while living together in a land sacred in both our traditions."

This wording leaves the Israeli citizen-ministries the ONLY ones carrying the Gospel to Israel. It also opens Israeli-citizen ministries to more persecution that Christians would agree with a statement that is tantamount to saying Jews do not need Messiah Yeshua. That is just not true, but many high profile, Israel-supporting Christians have been indoctrinated into that thinking through their alliances in Israel who insist they exclude alliance with the Israel Messianic body of believers.

The  Interior Ministry is the same one that tries to revoke the citizenship of Messianic believers in Yeshua, especially the leaders of ministries. They block applications for citizenship by any Messianic Jews seeking to live in Israel. 

Personally I believe that all the Israel-supporting Christians who believe they must align with unsaved Israel turning a blind eye to what it costs the body of Messianic Jews in Israel, because they are going to make Israel "jealous" by their generosity toward Israel, are above all else are kidding themselves.

Unsaved Jews in Israel will NEVER be "jealous" of your Christian faith when you have no care and concern for the Jewish Israelis who live among them and suffer persecution that you partially fund. Get serious! What about that is going to impress them and make them so jealous they want to become a Jewish believer in Jesus.

The unsaved Jews see clearly how you betray your spiritual family in the Israeli Messianic body. It is just like the Christians in Germany didn't make a fuss when the Nazis rounded up Jewish Christians. In fact they were told by their theologians that Christian Jews were being rounded up not because they were Christians but because they were JEWISH Christians! 

You that do the same thing are just as deceived as the German Christians were about the Jewish members of CHRIST's BODY. 

1 Corinthians 12:18-26 " . . . .But God has composed the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its members should have mutual concern for one another. 26 IF ONE PART SUFFERS, EVERY PART SUFFERS WITH IT; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it."

If you are waiting for an outcry from the Israeli ministries about this before you believe it, understand this: they cannot cry out without putting themselves in the crosshairs of immediate trouble. I am not writing these things to do anything but wake up those that can be awakened. Not to condemn you. All you have to do is wake up and quit treating our spiritual family in Israel as inconsequential.