Given Raphael Warnock's history of virulently anti-Israel rhetoric, why are Jewish Dems dressing this radical in moderate clothing?

All eyes are on Georgia. With the U.S. Senate hinging on that state’s two run-off elections, the politically charged atmosphere is anything but peachy keen. And as the focus of election angst slowly shifts from the executive to the legislative, the challenge for Republicans to maintain their majority in the Senate intensifies.

Georgia held two Senate elections this year, both of which advanced to runoffs under state law. And new elections are to be held on January 5th. Republican Senator David Perdue, up for reelection, faces the left-wing Democrat Jon Ossoff, while Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler is up against the even more left-wing Democrat Raphael Warnock.

The balance of the next Senate is currently 50 Republicans to 48 Democrats. If Democrats win both races, the Senate would have a 50-50 split, with the Vice President as the tie-breaking vote. With the Vice President likely being Kamala Harris, essentially all three branches of power will end up in Democratic hands.

The pressure is on.

None more so than in the Loeffler vs Warnock race, which has captured the national spotlight and trained it on the ever-expanding hypocrisies of the left. The Reverend Warnock, Senior Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the historic church once co-pastored by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., uses his faith as his credentials and his clerical pulpit to preach social activism. And largely agnostic progressives lap it up, belting out “Amen” to his calls for radical progressive changes to America.

Suddenly, fierce advocates of separation of church and state are now eager to conflate the two. Left-wing radicals, no doubt infrequent churchgoers, worship a pro-choice pastor who supports the Green New Deal, government-run healthcare, and defunding the police. Devotees of Black Lives Matter, an organization with Marxist leaders who disavow religion and whose platform includes the call to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear-family-structure,” have swiftly become enamored of the clergyman and call him their own.

In the vein of the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, there seems to be little that is reverent about Warnock. Take his 2016 sermon, where he demanded that the public “repent for its worship of whiteness”. Or his support for the Equality Act. Or his 2011 sermon, when he declared that in “America, nobody can serve Gd and the military.” Or his praise for the anti-American and anti-Semitic Jeremiah Wright and defense of his curse driven condemnation of America. Whereas Obama, in his 2008 campaign, felt ostensibly compelled to disavow Wright, Warnock, in his campaign, admires Wright as a “preacher and a prophet.”

There is irony in watching Democrats woo voters towards a religious candidate, where once Obama denigrated those voters who “cling to guns and religion”. And there is further irony in watching leftists, who relentlessly promote a social agenda at odds with devout Americans and who mock religious adherents and challenge their religious liberties in the courtroom, defend Warnock with almost religious-like fervor.

Warnock proudly calls himself “an activist preacher” and proclaimed, “I’m entering the race to translate my work of activism and creative agitation into legislation”. But lately, in the face of Republican attacks, this activist preacher has been backpedaling on some earlier remarks, such as calling police “thugs and gangsters”. And claiming that his religious teachings are being misinterpreted, as are his ties to the late radical black James Hal Cone who called white Christians “satanic” and called for “the destruction of everything white”.

Georgians should beware of any attempt by this radical to dress up in moderate clothing and rationalize earlier inflammatory rhetoric. This is especially true regarding Warnock’s views on Israel. In the past few weeks, both Warnock and his Democratic supporters have tried to whitewash past sermons and statements that are virulently anti-Israel. Positions which Loeffler says demonstrate a “long history of anti-Israel extremism”.

In a 2018 sermon, Warnock amplified his preacher’s voice to slam the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and accuse the Jewish state of murder. “We saw the government of Israel shoot down unarmed Palestinian sisters and brothers like birds of prey,” he railed. “It is wrong to shoot down God’s children like they don’t matter at all. And it’s no more anti-Semitic for me to say that than it is anti-white for me to say that black lives matter. Palestinian lives matter.”

As recently as last year, Warnock signed his name to a statement comparing Israel to “previous oppressive regimes” such as “apartheid South Africa” and alleging that the security wall that prevents Palestinian terrorism is “reminiscent of the Berlin Wall”. When these statements were exposed, Warnock quickly sought to allay critics by issuing a new statement claiming he stands with Israel. “Without reservation, you can count on me to stand with the Jewish community and Israel in the U.S. Senate.”

As if on cue, progressive Jewish groups, many of which share Warnock’s views, rose to defend their man. And Jewish social justice warriors, whose religion is largely derived from the hackneyed phrase of tikkun olam and the injunction “love thy neighbor” (unless that neighbor disagrees with you), offered bona fide citations of Warnock’s good standing with the Jewish community.

Jewish Democratic Council of America is working vociferously to elect both Warnock and Ossoff. The organization produced a letter signed by two hundred “Jewish faith leaders” attacking opponents for “spreading falsehoods” about Warnock’s position on Israel. And – surprise! – expressed how they are “deeply concerned about the possibility that racial bias is driving these false accusations”.

Naturally, comparisons were made to the late Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. But though Warnock preaches from a pulpit used by King, there seems to be little else they share. King is remembered for his strong bond with the Jewish people and steadfast support for Israel. King famously said, “Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world.”

Warnock’s agenda, which seems to include an anti-Israel one, places him squarely in the far left-wing of the Democratic Party. While that faction failed to produce huge gains in Congress on November 3rd, it has steadily been making inroads on local, state and national levels. And every win for a radical is a loss for American values and for bi-partisan support for Israel. With the stakes this high, the choice on January 5th couldn’t be clearer.