<p><img src="images/stories/mikeevans.jpg" border="0" align="left" />My heart broke when I read the report out of Iran of the violently anti-Semitic remarks made by Iran’s vice president. Mohammad-Reza Rahimi claimed the Talmud was responsible for the spread of illegal drugs around the world! Rahimi told stories of gynecologists killing black babies on the orders of the Zionists and claimed the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was started by Jews. He falsely claimed that no Jews died in that uprising.  <br /> <br />My gut reaction was, why in the world are we supporting any cooperation with these people?</p>
<p>This is the same lie that led a mob to surround my great-grandfather’s synagogue while he observed the Sabbath, nail the doors shut and set fire to the building. They screamed “Christ-killers!” while he and his congregation burned to death. The ancient lie of anti-Semitism and blaming the Jewish people for all the problems of the world is alive and well in Iran today. When I personally confronted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York City and asked him why he felt the way he did about the Jewish people he replied, “Have you read the Protocols?”</p>
<p>He was referring to “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” a forgery printed in Czarist Russia more than 100 years ago that claims to reveal a Jewish plot to take over the world. This evil book helped inspire the Holocaust, and it is a best-seller in the Arab world still today. Hatred of the Jewish people is not just historical—it is alive and well in our world and we must fight it.</p>
<p>What we are seeing unfold is a new version of anti-Semitism ... a veiled and disguised form of racism and bigotry that is rendered “acceptable” by virtue of being directed at a state rather than an individual. Anti-Israeli sentiment is the new anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>And, this new version is just as ugly as the hatred that spawned the pogroms and the Holocaust ... and it’s driving Iranian leaders to work to “wipe Israel off the map.”</p>
<p>Jerusalem is Ground Zero for spiritual warfare in our world today. It is the target of the enemy. And it is vital that you and I do our part to not only pray for the peace of Jerusalem but to speak out in support of Israel’s right to her capital city.</p>
<p><a href="http://jerusalemprayerteam.org/">GOTO JerusalemPrayerTeam.org &gt;&gt;&gt;</a></p>