In nearly all the public and private tirades against Israel, Hamas is generally ignored, or statistics are thrown around that 1200 dead Israelis do not justify 20,000+ dead Palestinians. It is disproportionate we are told. This is a very transactional view of human lives, but it makes bad press for Israel and fails to add that if you build tunnels under hospitals and schools, hide behind ordinary citizens while firing rockets at the IDF, don't expect ordinary citizens not to die. There is overwhelming evidence that Hamas still manages to fire rockets into Israel despite being severely degraded.

Israel has shown an amazing degree of restraint. They have been ambushed and blamed for deaths they have not caused, with the world press ready to jump all over them, virtually ordering Israel to the ceasefire table, even as Hamas has shown no sign of surrendering or releasing some 130 hostages, - while taking food and water which Israel has allowed for humanitarian purposes - from their own people to continue a war they know they cannot win.

Enter the churches.

Almost to a church, the major world denominations now blame Israel for the carnage in Gaza. They cite the numbers, the devastation of Gaza infrastructure, the growing poverty and disease while refusing to even cite Hamas as the reason for the war in the first place.

I have not read one single story in the MSM that calls on Hamas to lay down its arms or release the hostages, (only if it benefits the ratios of 3 to 1 Palestinians held in Israeli jails for real crimes.)

Now churches are resurrecting the "Christ killer" accusations going back to Justin Martyr and Melito of Sardis as early as the 2nd century. The accusation that the Jews were Christ-killers fed Christian antisemitism and spurred on acts of violence against Jews such as pogroms, massacres of Jews during the Crusades, expulsions of the Jews from England, France, Spain, Portugal and other places, and torture during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions.

Yet Christians know full well that the collectivity of humanity's evil and universal sinfulness brought about the death of Christ. The Romans were just as guilty as local Jewish leaders, but the bigger ontological picture cannot be ignored.

Today the churches are fueling the demonization of Jews that we have not seen in decades. It is again rearing its ugly head. Revenge and blood lust are now being laid at the doorstep of Israel. Is it justified? We must answer no.

Behind it is the doctrine of supersessionism. This is the doctrine that holds that supersessionism, also called replacement theology or fulfillment theology, is a theological doctrine which describes the personal conviction that the Christian Church has superseded the nation of Israel assuming their role as God's covenanted people, thus asserting that the New Covenant through Jesus Christ has superseded or replaced the Mosaic covenant exclusive to Jews. (This reads Romans 11 out of Scripture.)

Supersessionist theology also holds that the universal Christian Church has replaced ancient Israel as God's true Israel and that Christians (including gentiles) have replaced the biological bloodline of ancient Israelites as the people of God.

This lethal fiction has been pumped out for decades by the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem. Its founder, Father Naim Ateek, is an Anglican priest who heads the St. Georges Church in Jerusalem and founder of Sabeel, an anti-Israel organization. He is a close friend of many senior Anglican bishops. Sabeel is used as a major resource by Anglican clergy, aid agencies and pilgrimage companies, is a crucial source of systematic, theologically based lies and libels about Israel. It is well known for its anti-Israel tirades, says British Jewish newspaper columnist Melanie Phillips.

Among Anglicans, the second largest Christian denomination in the world, Israel is being given the "bums rush."

Former Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer spent a career attempting to strip Israel and the biblical destiny of the Jewish people from Christian belief. In his book Zion's Christian Soldiers, Sizer's antisemitism is on display as he attacks Christianity's fundamental biblical belief that God blesses those that bless Israel and curses those that don't. He refers to Christian Zionists as "misguided" and blames them even as he was defrocked and banned from clerical duties by a church tribunal. The British Jewish community welcomed the church tribunal's decision. Sizer is a huge supporter of Sabeel.

The same prejudice has been on copious display in the liberal Protestant churches led by the Church of England, reports Phillips. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said: "The relentless bombardment of hospitals and civilians in Gaza is intolerable. It's against international humanitarian law -- it must stop and stop now. The misuse of hospitals by Hamas does not justify attacks by Israel. Two wrongs don't make a right."

Welby conspicuously failed to acknowledge that under international law a hospital can be attacked if it is being used as a terrorist command center or ammunition store, as Gaza's hospitals have been. (And King Charles plans to knight this guy!) Sir Justin Welby Knight order of the Post-Modern Gallimaufry.

Moreover, for the leader of Anglicanism to represent the battle between civilization and barbarism as "two wrongs" reveals a church that has lost all claim to moral authority, said Phillips.

Sadly, the Church of England has already lost its moral authority when it embraced the blessing of same sex unions. This is just icing on the Hamas cake.

"We watch with horror the way many western Christians are offering unwavering support to Israel's war against the people of Palestine," wrote the Sabeel organization. But Israel is not waging war on the people of Palestine but on a subset namely Hamas. The fact that Hamas hides among its own people using them as human shields cannot be ignored.

Furthermore, we must make the distinction between murdering innocent civilians as Hamas did, with wartime bombing in which civilians sadly die. For the record Hamas rockets rained down indiscriminately on Jewish settlements for years with no outrage from the UN or world opinion.

The bombing of the historical Greek Orthodox church of Saint Porphyrius was blamed initially on the Israelis till it was discovered by officials with the church in Gaza that the structure remained intact and unharmed during the shelling.

Another incident that got worldwide attention was a claim by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem that a sniper of the IDF murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, where the majority of Christian families has taken refuge since the start of the war. No warning was given, no notification was provided. They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish, where there are no belligerents.

This incendiary allegation was repeated uncritically as fact across the western media.

Israel ended the confusion when the Prime Minister's Office stated categorically: "There was no fighting in the Rimal neighbourhood on Saturday where this Catholic church was located."

Pro-Palestinian marches with "free Palestine" banners are now common on the streets of major world cities. Smaller counter pro-Israeli groups are fearful by comparison.

If Israel is to win this war it must continue its pledge to destroy Hamas even if world opinion goes against them. To leave even five Hamas alive is enough for them to start over, and that is intolerable. Till death us do part, might be the best epitaph Israel can offer Hamas. Hopefully it will come sooner rather than later.

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