Because theJewishpeople have never been truly safe in any nation for the long term, I reluctantly accept and support the need for aJewishhomeland.I would have much preferred to have seen the creation of aJewishstate following World War II carved out from lands in eastern Germany through western Poland. However, that boat has since sailed on an ocean of fallen tears.The fact is that both Palestinians andJewsare indigenous to what we call the Middle East, andJewsexisted there when the area was known as the land of Canaan. Palestinians andJewsare distant cousins. Yes, it is also true that mostJewswho reside in what today is called Israel arrived during the late 19th and 20thcenturies. Related Israels shocking attack on Lebanon is setting itself up for long-term failure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu oversaw a plan to sabotage pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon but it could blow up in his face. Today,23countries have declared Islam the state religion; there arethreeHindu majority countries; infourcountries Buddhism is the official religion;15nations have declared a form of Christianity as their official religion; and157countries and territories are majority Christian. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today How Christian History has contributed to Middle Eastern conflictsI recently led a discussion with a group of progressive Christians on the history and current conflicts between Palestinians andJewsin the Middle East, the very issue that has sparked massive demonstrations on campuses and communities worldwide.Following introductions and the workshop agenda, I opened with a critical question, which I asked them first to consider alone, and then to pair with a partner to discuss. When I completed the question, I heard audible gasps and looks of disbelief and even of shock.The two-part question was:Has any part of the overall history of Christianity affected current events in the Middle East?If so, how? If not, why not?While it took a few minutes for some of the participants to absorb the question, they eventually connected with one another. After approximately 10 minutes, we had a larger group discussion about what came up for them. After some reluctance, some acknowledged with a sense of surprise rather than of objection: Im still in utter shock. I never thought about this question, one said. Another added, This is not the direction I thought we would be going in this workshop.A third remembered a slide from a PowerPoint presentation I sent to the participants two days prior to the workshop of a condensed history of the Middle East: I think I understand. It began the first time early Christians accusedJewsof killing Jesus.I followed with additional questions: WouldJewsrequire a state if Christian countries had welcomed them as trusted neighbors and as contributing participants to the cultural tapestry of the countries in which they inhabited, especially if they had unrestricted access to travel to and in the Holy Lands? And then I asked, If Christians had welcomedJews, would the Christian Cross have ultimately been chiseled into the Nazi Swastika? In other words, without two millennia of Christian persecution, could we have avoided the Holocaust and the desperate need for aJewishhomeland?The final question I asked them to discuss was, How have Christian countries impacted the development of the state of Israel, the displacement of Palestinians, and the continuing tensions between the peoples of the area?Antisemitism: A condensed (and unfortunately long) historical timelineFormerPresident Donald Trumpgave a campaign speech Thursday, September 19, purportedly on the topic of antisemitism.During his speech, Trump lecturedJewsthat they must vote for him in the upcoming November presidential sweepstakes, and if they do not, that theJewishpeople would be partially to blame for his defeat. Trump repeated his perennial warning that the Democrats hold a curse overJewishvoters.Trump said if he loses the race: Blame theJews.Throughout millennia, strong leaders have blamedJewsfor causing the problems of humanity. They have stereotyped and accusedJewsof many crimes, including: Killers of GodIn service of / fathered by the DevilCatholic host desecratorsPoisoners of drinking wellsTransmitters of diseasesUsurers (people who make loans at unreasonably high rates)Ritual murderers & abusers of Christian childrenPeople of immature / inadequate religious consciousnessForced circumcisers onto non-JewsProselytizers of JudaismClannishAlien raceWanderers / statelessFreedom-killing CommunistsSuper CapitalistsSexually perverseOversexed or sexually frigid femalesLecherous males preying on Christian womenFeminized and non-athletic malesControllers of world economic systemsExaggerators of the extent of anti-JewishoppressionControllers of the mediaFinancially cheap cheatersExploiters of the oppressedHolders of dual / multiple loyaltiesGreedy for wealthSo, let us go back millennia through a condensed timeline to find out where these tropes developed and extended to current eras. I could go back further, but I will begin in ancient Egypt:Several plagues fell upon ancient Egypt, so Blame theJews. Under ancient Greek rule, since they will not assimilate to our ways, they must die and for their own death, Blame theJews.Greco-Roman writers accusedJewswho adhered to their religious beliefs as bigots fighting in defense of circumcision and a pigless diet, so lets Blame theJews.Under ancient Roman rule and the murder of Jesus of Nazareth, early Christian writers declared for Jesuss death, Blame theJews. During the split between Judaism and Christianity during the first century of the common era,Jewswho would not convert were depicted as evil, rebels, and heretics against God, and eventually murdered so, Blame theJews.Money lending (forbidden to Christians) fell toJews, who were seen as cunning, cheap, and miserly thieves and in the service of the landed classes so, Blame theJews.Pope Urban II who called and funded the First Crusade in 1095 argued, Let us first avenge ourselves on them [theJews] and exterminate them from among the nations so that the name of Israel will no longer be remembered, or let them adopt our faith. In other words, lets Blame theJews. In 1144, the beginning of the so-called Blood Libel in England, when Christians accusedJewsof sleighing William of Norwich, a Christian male child, to use his blood in the making of their sacredJewishmatzos, resulting in Christians murderingJews. So, lets Blame theJews.Powerful leaders evictedJewsfrom several European nations during the Middle Ages, and in Germany, they were forced to wear a pointed hat to distinguish them from Christians so that others could Blame theJews.The Fourth Lateran Council of the Church orderedJewsto wear distinctive yellow badges in 1215 choosing yellow because it symbolized racial disgrace to help Blame theJews. Pope Gregory IX ordered all copies of theJewishholy book, theTalmud, confiscated in 1239, so lets Blame theJews.King Edward I, in 1290, issued an edict expelling allJewsfrom England, which remained in force until 1657, andJewswere expelled from France in 1182 & 1400, so lets Blame theJews.From 1348 to 1354, masses connected with the myth thatJewswere baby killers,Jewswere unjustly blamed for bringing on the Bubonic Plague by poisoning drinking wells, killing nearly one-third of the entire European population into Asia. Even though ticks had spread the disease through rats, nonetheless, masses decided, lets Blame theJews. Spanish Christian theologians in 1391 devised the doctrine ofLimpieza de Sangre(purity of the blood) whereby BaptizedJewsremainedJewishin the view of the Church, and therefore, a danger to society. BaptizedJewswere forbidden to practice medicine, surgery, or pharmacy because it was thought thatJewswere always ready to murder Christians, so lets Blame theJews.King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella during the Spanish Inquisition drove the lastJewsfrom Spain and Portugal who had not already been murdered sinceJewswere no longer needed for the economic roles they once filled, so lets Blame theJews.The Protestant Reformation in the 16thcentury resulted in a schism in Christianity. Catholic and Protestant leaders, however, agreed on one issue: the evilness of theJews. So lets Blame theJews. In 1526, Protestant reformer Martin Luther published a book called,On theJewsand Their Lies. Some have referred to this as the first work of modern anti-Semitism, so lets Blame theJews.For example: Luther wrote, First, their synagogues should be set on fire.He said Jewishprayer books should be destroyed and rabbis forbidden to preach. The homes ofJewsshould likewise be smashed and destroyed and their residents put under one roof or in a stable like gypsies, to teach them they are not master in our land. He effectively said, Blame the Jews.The 18th-century French philosopher Voltaire asserted, TheJewsare nothing more than an ignorant, barbarian people, who combine the foulest greed with a terrible superstition and an uncompromising hatred of all the peoples who tolerate them and at whose cost they even enrich themselves.[T]heJewsare cowardly and lecherous, greedy, and miserly, so lets Blame theJews. In many European countries, Christian leaders often forcedJewsto reside in designated, often overcrowded areas. Bishops often prohibitedJewsfrom living among Christians. These areas would come to be called Ghettos, so lets Blame theJews.The largest European ghetto was in Imperial Russia where the majority of RussianJewswere forced to live between 1835 and 1917. Called The Pale of Settlement, it extended from the Crimea to the Baltic Sea, so lets Blame theJews.During the United States Civil War in 1862, Major General Ulysses S. Grant unfairly accusedJewsof plotting to illegally engage in the cotton trade, and ordered allJewsexpelled from the states of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky, then under the control of the Union Army forces an action reminiscent of European forced expulsions ofJews. So again, lets Blame theJews. Wilhelm Marr, a Hamburg, Germany anarchist and writer, coined the term anti-Semitism in his 1879 pamphlet, The Victory of Judaism over Germanism.He hatedJews, and he warned of the imminent finalJewishvictory to conquer and enslave the Western world so basically, lets Blame theJews.Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, coined the term eugenics in 1883 from the Greek, well born or good origins or breeding. Galton championed the science of improving the qualities of a race by controlling human breeding, claiming that TheJewsare specialized for a parasitical existence upon other nations, so lets Blame theJews.Phrenology the study of the shape & size of the human skull, based on the belief that they indicate human mental facilities and moral character becomes a stream within the eugenics movement. Some phrenology advocates assert that a section of the Jewishskull and brain are abnormally developed, indicating thatJewsare highly concerned withmoney and finances. This, they assert, has developed as an evolutionary process over time. As late as 2014, Nicholas Wade in his book,A Troublesome Inheritance argued thatJewspossess an evolutionary genetic adaptation to capitalism the same way that Tibetans who live at high altitudes possess an evolutionary genetic adaptation to extreme environments, so lets Blame theJews. Frederick Nietzsche, a leading European philosopher, in 1887 published hisThe Genealogy of Morals, in which he wrote: It was theJewwho, with frightening consistency, dared to invert the aristocratic value equations good/noble / powerful / beautiful / happy / favored-of-the-gods and maintained that only the poor, the powerless, are good; only the suffering, sick, and ugly, truly blessed.Jews, to Nietzsche, were a disease corrupting the nations, so lets Blame theJews.Originally appearing under the reign of Czar Nicholas II in Russia around 1895, an anonymous author who worked for the Russian secret police in Paris wrote a booklet,Protocols of the Learned Elders ofZion, to influence the policies of the Czar regardingJews. It contained the alleged minutes of a supposed conference organized by rabbis to plot howJewswould overtake and dominate the world. So lets Blame theJews.ThoughJewswere allowed very little control over the conditions surrounding their lives in many European countries, by the end of the 19thcentury c.e., the stereotype ofJewsas powerful with an interest in world domination persisted into the current era, led purportedly by the super-industrialist Rothchild family, so lets Blame theJews. Adolph Hitler said about Germanys loss in WWI: Blame theJews.Hitler asserted that he had been influenced by the theology of Paul in the Christian Bible, and by the works of Martin Luther, as well as many Christian theologians of his time regarding the evilness and inferiority of theJews. In his 1925Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler wrote, Today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against theJew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord, so lets Blame theJews.Henry Ford, the U.S. automotive pioneer argued thatJewscontrolled world finance. He had theProtocolstranslated into English in 1927 and published it in his newspaper,The Dearborn(Michigan) Independent, thereby introducing it to a large U.S. audience. Adolph Hitler bestowed on Henry Ford the highest award given to a non-German. Following WWII at the Nuremberg Trials, Baldur von Shirach, Hitlers leader of Hitler Youth, stated that Hitler had become Jew-wise by reading Henry Fords own writings about theJews, so lets all Blame theJews. Father Charles E. Coughlin an Irish-Catholic priest, anti-Jewish, and anti-Communist used his radio broadcasts in the U.S. during the 1930s to warn that theJewswere out to destroy the U.S. economy. He defended Hitlers treatment of theJewsas warranted in the fight against Communism, so lets Blame theJews.Following the McCarthy era, xenophobes alleged that an underground Communist cabal had infiltrated the U.S. government, and since Communist was viewed as a Jewish influence, lets Blame theJews.According to the fraudulent Great Replacement Theory, white people are being replaced by a globalist conspiracy bringing in immigrants of color in primarily European-heritage nations like the United States and Great Britain. So we must Blame theJews because we wont allow Jewsto replace us.Well, as Spanish philosopher GeorgeSantayana, has warned, Those who cannot remember the past are destined to repeat it. Unfortunately, we keep forgetting, or more correctly, we fail to learn our past, and, therefore, we keep repeating it.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.