The Isaiah 5:20 Hermeneutic

An interim ruling has recently been handed down from an Australian Court which has pro-Palestinian activists celebrating, but Jewish Australians again wondering whether Australia’s judicial system truly supports them in the ongoing battle against antisemitism. 

The Jewish Independent ran a story on 11 July 2024 which pointed to that fact that prominent businessman and Palestinian activist, Hash Tayeh, was to be investigated for reciting the chant “All Zionists are terrorists” at a pro-Palestinian rally.  Mr Tayeh was eventually charged and ordered to appear in the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria.  According to the official Court documents, Mr Tayeh was fighting five charges of using insulting words in a public place, contrary to the Summary Offences Act 1966.  According to the Act, a person may be criminally charged for breaching Section 17(1)(c) which states: “Any person who in or near a public place or within the view or hearing of any person being or passing therein uses profane, indecent or obscene language or threatening, abusive or insulting words shall be guilty of an offence”.  The prosecution sought to argue that the chant “All Zionists are terrorists” constituted “insulting words”.

According to reports from the case (which is ongoing), the Magistrate ruled that the prosecution must prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that Tayeh’s words were intended to offend.  The implication is that the prosecution has yet to meet prosecutable thresholds.  However, it seems those thresholds are somewhat open to interpretation.  In fact, the Court stated that there is a “higher threshold as to what constitutes insulting words when those words are a form of what might be loosely characterised as ‘political communication’”.  In other words, the Court wants the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the words used were intended to insult, rather than simply used generally in the context of robust political expression.   

To avoid charges of antisemitism, it has become commonplace for people to claim they are not antisemitic, they are just anti-Zionist.  So, from the outset, the court case was always going to revolve around whether “Zionist” is used as a euphemism for “Jew”.  Although it has been competently addressed in the past, on account of the recent Court case, it appears it is once again necessary to emphasise why anti-Zionism is in fact antisemitism.  Of course, when we address this issue, it is important to understand the goal of those who oppose Zionism.  In claiming that Zionism is a settler-colonialist ideology that has forcibly taken Palestinian land, the goal is to dismantle the State of Israel in favour of a new State of Palestine where, supposedly, Jews and Palestinians would live in peace and harmony. 

While ever the aim of Zionism was to create for the Jewish people a home in Eretz-Israel (the land of Israel) secured by international law, the goal of anti-Zionists is to manipulate that same international law to discredit political Zionism as odious and illegitimate and with it, destroy Israel’s historical, covenantal and legal right to live in its ancient homeland.  However people choose to frame it, the anti-Zionist message is unmistakably clear—there should not be a country that is distinctively Jewish.  Or more to the point, there are many who hold the abhorrent view that there should be no more Jews.  That is how Dennis Prager summed up the anti-Zionist movement in his book Why the Jews?: “The contention that anti-Zionists are not enemies of Jews, despite the advocacy of policies that would lead to the mass murder of Jews, is, to put it as generously as possible, disingenuous. If anti-Zionism realized its goal, another Jewish holocaust would take place…Therefore attempts to draw distinctions between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are simply meant to fool the naive.”

Sadly, anti-Zionist rhetoric does not only come from the pro-Palestinian mob, it also comes from those within the Christian community whose anti-Zionist tendencies have led them to upend established interpretive principles where it concerns the Bible.  In other words, they have fundamentally adopted a hermeneutic which I can only bewilderingly describe as “the Isaiah 5:20 hermeneutic”.  Using this hermeneutic, they claim the land of the Bible is Palestine not Israel, that the Son of God is a Palestinian not a Jew, that Israel is an illegal occupier not divinely covenanted owner and that the return of Jews to the land is a catastrophe not a miracle.  

In times like these, I am reminded of Psalm 129:5-8: Let all those who hate Zion be put to shame and turned back.  Let them be as the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up, with which the reaper does not fill his hand, nor he who binds sheaves, his arms.  Neither let those who pass by them say, “The blessing of the LORD be upon you; we bless you in the name of the LORD!”  At the time this Psalm was written, roofs were flat and usually composed of a mixture of mud and mortar, wood and thatching.  Typically, seeds were blown from the surrounding fields and settled on the housetops.  Those seeds took root quickly, but in the shallow soil and baking heat, the grass withered. 

Since October 7, anti-Zionists (some who have “blown in” from hostile nations) have taken root in certain communities, espousing their false doctrines and hateful rhetoric.  Yet, we are reminded that, like the grass on the housetop, they will not last because they have sunk their roots into the shallowness of lies rather than the deep, rich soil of God’s truth.  In Psalm 1 we are introduced to the contrast of life’s two paths—the way of the righteous and the way of the ungodly.  Psalm 1:3-6: He [the one who delights in the law of the LORD] shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.  The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.  Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.  For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.    

Sadly, there are many in the world who are like the grass on the housetop—visibly prominent for a little while, but lacking depth and susceptible to withering from the harsh winds of false doctrine.  Others desire to be like the righteous man of Psalm 1—a tree which finds its strength, stability and sustenance in God’s Word.  Just as it appears there are more blades of grass than trees in the natural world, so it seems that those who hate Zion and Zionism outnumber the trees.  Yet, the mighty tree stands strong because its roots are deep and fed by the living water.  Praise God for all of you “trees” out there!