Ashley Church: Why I support Israel and the Jews

Remaining silent is no longer an option

Why would anybody stick their neck out and support Israel and the Jewish people in today’s toxic environment?

Who, in their right mind, would associate themselves with one of the most controversial and divisive issues of our time by putting themselves in the firing line over a tiny country on the other side of the world and a people to whom most of us have no direct connection?

Supporting Israel publicly isn’t like arguing about economic policy, or climate change or who should govern the country. Those debates can become heated, but they generally remain debates.

This is different. Mention Israel and the temperature rises immediately. The slogans start. The accusations start. People become angry – sometimes extraordinarily angry – as the issue reaches into them and accesses a darkness that bears little resemblance to reasoned disagreement. We see angry demonstrations, highly emotional social media posts, and those who do defend Israel being denounced and vilified.

And if the insane anger doesn’t deter most of us – the claims and the slogans probably do. Not necessarily because we believe them (in fact, I think most reasonable people instinctively understand that something about these claims is wrong) – but because ‘getting involved’ just feels like taking on a cause for which the price is too high.

So we do what most people do when confronted with confusion and controversy. We step back. We remain silent. We keep our heads down and get on with our lives.

I get it. That was once me.

I’ve supported Israel and the Jewish people for most of my life – but my support was largely passive until about 15 years ago. Up until then I admired Israel, and wished it well, but I felt no compulsion to defend it or support it in any tangible way.

And then I started paying attention. Slowly, over time, I read more, I started digging into history, I started asking questions and I started comparing what the activists were saying with what had actually happened.

And the more I learned, the harder it became to remain neutral because the popular story being told about Israel and the Jewish people is not merely incomplete – it is profoundly dishonest and misleading. Again and again I found accusations that simply did not stand up to scrutiny. I found omissions, distortions and propaganda repeated so often that they had become accepted wisdom.

And once I reached that conclusion, remaining silent no longer felt like an option. That decision changed the course of my life and shaped me into the tireless and forthright advocate for Israel and the Jewish people that I am today.

Has there been a cost? I think there probably has. I can’t point to a contract and say with certainty that I lost it because of my views on Israel. Likewise, I can’t identify one TV producer who explicitly told me that my support for Israel had lost me mainstream media opportunities that I once enjoyed on a weekly basis. Life rarely works that way.

But I would be naïve if I didn’t recognise that our views shape how others perceive us. Not necessarily because people are hostile. Sometimes because they are just cautious. Sometimes because they simply don’t understand the issue and find it easier to distance themselves from anyone who speaks too clearly about it.

That’s the nature of taking a stand on something controversial. The consequences are not always dramatic or obvious – but they shape the course of the opportunities that present themselves to us in ways that go far beyond what we know.

So would I do it again, knowing what I know now?

Without hesitation! In fact, the only thing I would change is that I would have spoken sooner and spoken louder.

Why?

• because the accusations made against Israel and the Jewish people are overwhelmingly false.
• because every day I see people who know almost nothing about this subject confidently repeating propaganda and slogans as though they were moral wisdom.
• because the Jewish people have the same right as every other people to nationhood, security and self-determination.
• because Israel is surrounded by nations that want to destroy it for reasons that have nothing to do with history and territory and everything to do with extremist ideology.
• because my Christian faith draws me to unconditional support of my Jewish brothers and sisters.
• and because my conscience simply will not allow me to do otherwise.

But there is also another reason.

Over the years I have become convinced that much of what we are seeing is no longer normal criticism of Israel. It is something darker. I see it in marches that drip with hatred. I see it in social media posts that excuse barbarism and celebrate violence. I see it in the vile disgusting responses to my own posts that are filtered out before people ever read them. Not argument. Not debate. Just ugly, poisonous invective.

And that matters, because the Jewish people have seen this before.

In the 1930s, hatred of Jews didn’t begin with death camps. It began with words, accusations, social exclusion, misinformation, propaganda and the steady normalisation of contempt.

Jews were portrayed as uniquely dangerous, uniquely manipulative and uniquely responsible for the world’s problems. Ancient conspiracies were revived. Their loyalty was questioned. Their motives were darkened. Their success was treated as suspicious. Their suffering was minimised. Collective blame became respectable and standards were applied to Jews that were applied to nobody else.

If that sounds familiar – it should. Israel increasingly occupies the place that Jews occupied back then: uniquely accused, uniquely demonised, uniquely isolated and uniquely expected to justify its very existence. It is the one nation expected to absorb attacks no other country would tolerate, and the one nation condemned for defending itself against enemies who openly seek its destruction.

The parallels aren’t exact, of course. Israel today is not the powerless Jew of 1930s Europe. But the similarity is striking and it should alarm every decent person.

So this is my plea to those people.

Look for yourself. Test the slogans. Read the history. Examine the claims. Ask why this tiny country attracts a level of rage that genuinely evil regimes never seem to provoke. Ask why Jewish students feel unsafe, why synagogues need security, and why old lies about Jewish power and influence are suddenly fashionable again. Ask also why Israel is subjected to double standards, collective blame, dehumanisation, conspiracy theories, and the social acceptability of hatred when the target is Jewish.

Then listen to what your conscience is telling you.

Mine tells me that something profoundly wrong is happening. That when lies are being normalised, hatred is being sanitised, and decent people are being intimidated into silence, looking away is not neutrality. It’s complicity.

The post-Holocaust phrase “Never again” wasn’t meant to be a slogan recited after another catastrophe. It was meant to be a warning system – a call to recognise the signs early and act on them.

That’s why I support Israel. That’s why I support the Jewish people.

And, God willing, I will continue to do so until the day I die.

Ashley Church is former CEO of the Property Institute of New Zealand and is an active social commentator. This article was sourced HERE