Are the Pharisees at it again?
Continuing from the article above:
…of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, seeking to toss people in prison for spreading the Good News of eternal life offered by the Son of God.
The proposed law makes it illegal to share Christian messages in conversation in person, online, as well as in print or by email.
Violators would be imprisoned for a year, with the punishment doubled to two years if believers are witnessing to someone under the age of 18.
Christians including Messianic Jews and Arabs sing a worship song for Jesus on a rooftop in Israel (Video screenshot)
…Online reaction has been swift, with comments including:
“Just so you’re clear. They want to lock you up for believing in Jesus Christ✝️”
“Because Jews are actually putting their faith in Christ. Major threat to the pharisees.”
“Image the backlash if someone wanted to do this with Judaism. Don’t expect any Republicans to denounce their donors for trying to ban Jesus.”
****
EXCLUSIVE: Two Knesset members propose legislation to outlaw sharing the Gospel in Israel and send violators to prison – could it become law?
From the article:
Former Trump-Pence official warns bill poses massive threat to free speech, human rights and religious freedom
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL – Is it possible that the Israeli government this year could pass legislation making it illegal for people to share the Gospel message in the very land where Jesus was born, raised, preached, died, buried and rose from the dead?
Unfortunately, yes.
As Palm Sunday and Easter approach – the two most sacred days on the calendar for those who follow Jesus as both God and Messiah – two members of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) introduced a bill last week that would ban any and all efforts to tell people about Jesus.
The bill would send violators to prison.
Should it begin to gain traction inside the Knesset and begin moving towards passage, the bill could create a major new headache for Netanyahu’s government by sparking a serious clash with Evangelical Christians in the United States and around the world who are among the biggest supporters of the State of Israel.
In the United States alone, there are some 60 million Evangelicals.
Globally, there are an estimated 600 million, according to the World Evangelical Alliance.
The bill could also draw sharp criticism from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, in the executive branch, among U.S. governors and others who love Israel and have always stood with the Jewish state, but would fiercely oppose efforts to silence followers of Jesus in the Holy Land.
Former U.S. Ambassador of International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback – who served during the Trump-Pence administration – is the first American leader to publicly warn that this new bill poses a massive threat to free speech, human rights and religious freedom.
On Friday, ALL ISRAEL NEWS emailed Brownback – a long-time and consistent friend and supporter of Israel – a professional translation of the bill in English, which was originally written in Hebrew, of course.
Surprised and concerned, the ambassador replied with the following statement:
“Free and democratic countries simply do not outlaw the free exchange of ideas and that includes religious beliefs and convictions. Article 18 of the Universal Charter of Human Rights – which Israel has signed onto – guarantees freedom of religion, including the right to decide your own faith beliefs.”
WHAT DOES THE NEW BILL ACTUALLY SAY?
The proposed legislation would outlaw all efforts by people of one faith who, in any way, want to discuss or try to persuade people of other faiths to consider changing their current religious beliefs.
The punishment for doing so would be “one year imprisonment.”…
****
Internal number: 2198904
The 25th Knesset
The Initiators: Members of the Knesset Moshe Gafni and Yaakov Asher
P/25/1526
Proposed Penal Law: Amendment – Prohibition of Solicitation for Religious Conversion – 2023
Amendment of clause 174A
1. In the Penal Law, 1977 (hereinafter: the Principle Law), in clause 174A-
(1) In the footnote, in the beginning will be added “solicitation or”
(2) What is written there will be marked “(B)” and before it will come:
“(a) someone who solicits a person, directly, digitally, by mail, or online in order to convert his religion, the punishment – one year imprisonment; and if the person was a minor, the punishment – two years imprisonment.”
Amendment of clause 368
2. In clause 368 of the Principle Law –
(1) in sub-clause (a), in place of “6 months imprisonment” will come “two years imprisonment”;
(2) sub-clause (b) – cancelled
Explanations
The Penal Law, 1977 (hereinafter – The Law) determines a number of offenses regarding solicitation to convert religion which are safeguarded in clauses 174A, 174B and 368.
Recently, the attempts of missionary groups, mainly Christians, to solicit conversion of religion have increased.
At times these attempts do not involve monetary promises or material gains and are therefore not illegal according to the current law, but the many negative repercussions, including psychological damages, warrant the intervention of the legislature.
This is particularly in light of the fact that most of the attempts to bring people to convert their religion target the weaker classes who, due to their social-economic standing, are more easily open to persuasion attempts such as these.
Therefore, it is proposed that alongside the prohibition of giving favors as an incentive to convert religion, also prohibited will be the act of solicitation to convert religion, when it is done directly to a person.
It is proposed to distinguish between a situation where the person being solicited is an adult – in which case the maximum penalty proposed is one year imprisonment – and a situation where the person being solicited is a minor in which case the maximum penalty proposed is two years imprisonment; and therefore it is also proposed to cancel clause 368B of the law which deals with solicitation of a minor to convert his religion.
Also proposed is to make stricter the punishment for someone who holds a ceremony of religious conversion of a minor, and make it two years imprisonment, instead of 6 months, as stated presently in clause 368A of the law.
A similar proposed amendment of the law was placed before the 24th Knesset by MK Moshe Gafni and a group of MK’s (P/24/1928).
The proposed law is identical to P/24/1928 and so was not re-checked by the legal department of the Knesset.
_______________________
Submitted to the Chairman of the Knesset and the Deputies and placed on the Knesset table 16 Tevet (January 9, 2023)
****
Does this law provide the same recourse of punishing Judaism and Islamic practitioners from converting others to their religion?
Does this law punish LBGT Ideologists from converting children to their beliefs?
Does this law apply to Atheists?
Does this law apply to political party ideology when practiced as a religion?
Does this law apply to cocks that crows three times?
Should a true free speach Christian Nation support any State with a law like this?
How many times can Christ be crucified?
****
Zechariah 12
KJV(i) 1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. 2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. 3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. 4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness. 5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God. 6 In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem. 7 The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah. 8 In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them. 9 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. 10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. 11 In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. 12 And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; 13 The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; 14 All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.
Note: Blue lines are embeds to Strong’s index numbers For Hebrew Dictionary.
Zechariah 13
KJV(i) 1 In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. 2 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land. 3 And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the LORD: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth. 4 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he hath prophesied; neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive: 5 But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.
6 And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.
7 Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. 8 And it shall come to pass, that in all the land (earth), saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. 9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.
Come out of Babylon for her judgement is near!
LOLGB+
Update 03/22/23 7:45 PM EST:
From the article:
…”Remember the whole issue of proselytization in Israel?,” Israeli legal expert David Benjamin told CBN News. “There’s always been a sensitive one, right? The Jewish state was set up to, to protect the Jewish people. Many Jewish people have been lost over the centuries, obviously to genocide. But also by assimilation, forced conversion, et cetera. So it’s a very sensitive point.”
He thinks this legislation would likely violate Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
“I think that the fundamental premise of the law is problematic in itself. I don’t think it’ll be, it’ll be unacceptable to outlaw. A person trying to persuade another person to adopt any idea, whether it be a religion or any kind of idea. You know, the free flow of ideas, freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, freedom of expression or, or fundamental pillars of any democracy.”
The Jewish Virtual Library reports Christians make up almost 2% of Israel’s population and accounted for 61% of tourists to the country in 2018. In fact, the largest percentage of tourists to Israel that year were Americans, numbering 813,000….
****
The Ezekiel 33 Watchman Report 