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In a recent address to the annual summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), three-term Senator Ted Cruz startlingly claimed,
“In the last six months, I’ve seen more antisemitism on the right than I had in my entire life. This is a poison,” he continued. “And I believe we are facing an existential crisis in our party and our country. It’s a handful of voices that are spreading this garbage.”
Join others crying out to the Lord day and night.
Senator Cruz, arguably a leading light in the Republican party and a longtime supporter of Israel, presented the moment of division on the right as “a time for choosing.”
“And as for me, I choose to stand with you,” Senator Cruz said to the room of about 100 Jewish Republican donors. “I choose to stand with Israel, and I choose to stand with America.”
Rising Antisemitic Voices on the Right
In his remarks to the RJC, Senator Cruz did not mention the names of those he believed were in the anti-Israel camp on the right.
But later that week, he clearly alluded to Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News superstar now podcaster, and his interview with fellow podcaster and self-proclaimed white supremacist, Nick Fuentes, who gushed about his admiration for Adolf Hitler without a peep of pushback from Mr. Carlson.
Later in that same week, Kevin Roberts, President of the influential conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, unreservedly stood by the comments made by his ‘close personal friend’ Tucker Carlson. After pressure to resign, he issued a weak apology rather than a resignation, calling his remarks a ‘mistake’, and has held onto his position.
The damage done to Heritage by this debacle resulted in a mass exodus of many key leaders, including three Trustees, several senior staff and fellows, notably all the members of “Project Esther”, Heritage’s antisemitism task force.
Former Minnesota GOP Congresswoman, 2012 Presidential Candidate, and good friend of IFA, Michele Bachmann, resigned from the Heritage Foundation’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism (NTFCA), criticizing Heritage’s board of directors for failing to hold President Roberts accountable.
“The political left embraces antisemitism full stop,” Rep. Bachmann said, warning the right could soon be taken over by such thinking, telling Newsmax that “antisemitism has no place within conservatism.”
Applauding the strong support of “the most pro-Israel president in the history of the United States,” Senator Cruz called out his party as a whole.
“How many elected Republicans do you see standing up and calling this out? How many do you see willing to take on the voices on the anti-Israel right?”
We Have an Obligation
The Heritage gaffe is not an isolated incident. The scope of influence prominent podcasters, such as Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes, have among young Republicans includes broadcasting growing antisemitic sentiment among future party leaders, as well.
Candace Owens has become increasingly antisemitic in her comments. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Owens has claimed that Judaism was “a pedophile-centric religion that believes in demons…[and] child sacrifice.”
She’s accused Israel of being behind the assassinations of President John Kennedy and Charlie Kirk. She’s warned that criticizing Israel can get you killed. She claims Israel has “polluted American minds to believe that we must defend Israel out of morality and the evils of the Holocaust.”
In addition to his fawning interview of Fuentes and calling Fuentes “a cool guy”, Tucker Carlson regularly uses language in his popular podcast that Israel “controls” or “pulls the strings” in U.S. politics and media. Carlson has also claimed on his podcast that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was telling everyone he knows that he controls President Donald Trump and tells him what to do.
Senator Cruz has stated, “Fuentes and Carlson have a right to say what they are saying. But every one of us has an obligation to stand up and say it is wrong.”
Powerful Intercessory Prayer Desperately Needed
We turn to Derek Prince, founder of IFA, for guidance through his booklets, “Why Israel? God’s Heart for a People, His Plan for a Nation” and “Our Debt to Israel.”
In the final two chapters of “Why Israel?”, Prince presents us with questions and a higher vision.
First, the questions: “Are you willing to ask Jesus to give you His heart for the Jewish People? Are you willing to enter into an identification with the appalling evil that has been done in the name of Christ to the Jewish People? Are you willing to confess and repent for the continuing prejudices that are like an inundating tide?”
We cannot be intercessors in any real sense until we share the burden of the Lord for the situation for which we are praying.
“We”, according to Derek Prince, “simply need to humble ourselves before God and say, ‘God we have sinned. We have been guilty of the blood of the Jewish people. We, the Christian Church collectively, for 16 centuries have been instigators and perpetrators of antisemitism.”
From the Crusaders, in the Middle Ages, who captured Jerusalem by shedding Jewish blood, to the ghettos of Europe and Russia and the 20th-century Nazi purge of six million Jews, while worldwide, Christians averted their eyes.
In the eyes of the Jews, multitudes of Christians stand condemned simply by their silence.
Israel – The Apple of His Eye
He found him in a desert land, and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him. He instructed him. He kept him as the apple of His eye. (Deuteronomy 32:10)
He who touches you, touches the apple of His eye. (Zechariah 2:8)
Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, and whoever curses Israel will be cursed.” (Numbers 24:9 Good News Translation)
From Israel’s inception, Satan has sought to destroy God’s chosen people and their nation. But God has preserved His nation, and He has called us to come alongside Israel in our time to fight our common enemy.
Our battle is not against flesh and blood. It will not be won by political moves. It will not be won with money. It will not be won with arms. But it will be won through warfare in another realm.
God is calling us to do battle for Israel in the Heavenlies through intercession for Israel. In so doing, we will be paving the way for the return of Christ.
We cannot expect antisemitism in our land to diminish if the Church is unwilling to lead the way.
Let’s Pray
(Prayer written by Derek Prince)
Lord God, I want to start by saying, “Thank you!” Thank you for Israel, both the land and the people. Thank you that you have chosen the land for your people and that You will uphold Your Word against all odds.
Thank you for Your salvation which comes to us through the death, burial and resurrection of our Savior, Yeshua Messiah, who was born to a Jewish mother in Bethlehem, Israel.
We praise You for the way You are regathering Israel to the land You gave them by Covenant. To You alone be the glory for the restoration or Your people and the softening of their hearts taking place now.
Lord Jesus Christ, You who are head over all things to the Church which is Your Body, We stand before you, Lord, and acknowledge with shame and sorrow our unutterable guilt in the sufferings of the Jewish people. O God, there is no way that we can express the sense of guilt and sorrow that has come upon us.
Now we stand before You, not merely to acknowledge our own personal sins, but we stand before You on behalf of the sins of the Christian Church. We are not indicating any particular denomination or section of the Church. We are repenting on behalf of the whole Church.
We are ashamed before You of our indifferences, Lord. O God, we are ashamed of our hardness and our materialism. We have let so many obstacles come between us and the interests of Your Kingdom, and the purposes of Your heart.
Forgive us, Lord. Blot out our sins as a cloud, and our transgressions as a thick cloud. Blot them out because of Your mercy, Lord. Blot out the dark cloud that hangs over the Church in this land because of antisemitism – that dark cloud which withholds the real outpouring of Your blessing. Blot it out, Lord, we pray, in Jesus’ name.
With this prayer, we now submit ourselves to You completely for Your purposes and Your will to be done in and through us. Teach us, remind us, and quicken us to intercede for Israel.
As we pray, remind us of the words Paul spoke in Romans 11:12: “if their fall means riches for the world, and their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring! Please bring Israel to that point of restoration and fullness we pray. We ask again that You would pour out upon us, Lord, a spirit of grace and of supplication.
Release Your Spirit upon us in the mighty name of Yeshua, Amen.
How are you praying about antisemitism on the right? Share your prayers and scriptures below.
Belinda Brewster analyzes cultural, political, and world events from a biblical worldview. Belinda’s passion is to equip, support, and encourage parents and grandparents who are courageously battling against the spiritual and cultural forces impacting children and grandchildren.
Reverend Susan Nye Thornton has served the Lord and his people as Pastor in three of the original Congregational Churches planted by the Pilgrims. She has recently retired from Chiltonville Congregational Church of Plymouth, the surviving daughter church of the original Pilgrim Church in Plymouth. She is an active Intercessor in Massachusetts, contributing regularly to IFA prayer calls each month.
Photo Credit: Screenshot/Tucker Carlson via YouTube, Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Candace Owens, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia, and Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Tucker Carlson, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia.
