Malmö, Sweden; Toronto, Canada; Sydney, Australia; Swindon, England
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I opened my morning copy of The Jerusalem Post last November 25 and was startled by a page-four story.
According to the report, Pastor Shaun O’Sullivan, 36, of the Awaken Ministry, an evangelical outreach in Swindon, England, had been arrested 16 times in the last five years.
His offense? In one case, he had greeted shoppers in the city’s pedestrian zone by saying, “God bless you.” Another time, in a conversation with a Muslim woman, he had said, “We love the Jews.” For his bold declarations of faith, O’Sullivan has been stabbed, beaten up and his children’s lives have been threatened.
The police are not inept; they are afraid. They don’t want to anger the Muslim population. Christians can be suppressed, but don’t provoke the Muslims. So, they can scream horrible insults at the Jews in their demonstrations, but the authorities look the other way.
In Sweden several years ago, we had presented a lecture and music program at a church 20 minutes north of Malmö. At the end of the evening, the pastor walked next to us, with an assistant driving his car alongside us. Our host said the neighborhood had become Muslim and it was no longer safe outside at night.
Eva from Umeå (380 mi./635 km. north of Stockholm), sent us a letter last fall. “I live in a house with four apartments,” she wrote. “In three of them live Muslim families. If your letter comes to the wrong door, it is not good for my life. Please don’t send any more letters.”
This is how far we’ve come.
In Toronto, Canada, you might speak with Rabbi Joe Kanofsky of the Kehillat Shaarei Torah synagogue. The Orthodox congregation has been attacked 10 times in the last year and a half. Windows have been smashed and the sanctuary vandalized. “I often joke with my congregants that I wish everyone were as determined to get to synagogue as these guys,” the rabbi says. “They’ve scaled our fences even when we’ve increased security. Synagogues used to often leave their doors unlocked, but we live in uncertain times.”
Anyone who thinks problems have decreased since the Gaza ceasefire last October 10 is mistaken. The number of incidents has increased, says Noah Shack, one of the congregation’s leaders: “What we are seeing is that for these extremists, it was never just about Israel’s actions in Gaza,” Shack said. “The conflict in the Middle East may have given their extremist activities a focus, but now that there is a path to peace, they are doubling down on their attacks because for them it’s not about peace, it’s about destroying Israel and the Jewish people.”
Shack said police have thwarted half a dozen terrorist plots against Jewish communities in the past two years.
In September, Canada officially recognized a Palestinian state for the first time. Following the issuance of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court, Prime Minister Mark Carney has stated he would arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he travels to Canada (Times of Israel, November 23, 2025).
Canada has the reputation of being a peaceful, friendly nation, but in 2024 Jews reported a total of 6,219 antisemitic incidents, an average of 17 attacks of harassment, vandalism and violence per day. The number of incidents increased six-fold in one year. Canada has 400,000 Jews and 40 million inhabitants.
For comparison, Germany, with 85 million people, including 125,000 Jews, had 6,238 antisemitic attacks in the same year.
Switzerland has not been spared. Last November, when we tried to reserve a hall in Zurich for a lecture at a public facility where we’ve rented for 40 years, we were abruptly declined by the administration because “your organization violates the values of our institution.” That’s bizarre. More specifically, the representative wrote that the (long-discredited) “two-state solution” was the only solution to the Gaza war. Hats off to the rental staff for their apparent foreign-policy expertise.
Curiously, I recall lectures we gave in one of their halls a few years ago. A large brass tablet with a relief image of Vladimir Lenin, the first leader of Soviet Communist Russia, who had spoken in that hall, was hung prominently on the back wall. Of course. The administration has exposed itself, though the tablet has been discreetly removed from its website photos.
Zurich, Switzerland
We recall another incident a year ago. One of our supporters in Zurich was traveling home by tram after work. She landed in the middle of an anti-Israel demonstration and her carriage was surrounded and shaken violently by protesters. She was trapped inside for an hour. As to the demonstrators, they eventually went home safe and satisfied.
Three years ago, I was in Zurich having coffee with two elderly ladies who lamented developments in Europe. They spoke calmly about the “coming war.”
They were only partially right. There is no coming war. The war has already begun and we are in the midst of it. The atrocities of October 7 in Israel, the murder of Jews in Washington and Colorado, the massacres of Jews at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, are all a manifestation of it–and Christians will not be kept out of it, as Pastor O’Sullivan attests.
Jews are the first targets, but not the only ones. It is a worldwide war against the West and its Judeo-Christian, biblical values. It will not be fixed by silence or indifference.
For over two years, there were weekly gatherings of tens of thousands, collectively millions internationally, of demonstrators glorifying Hamas and denouncing Israel with the same slogans at every location. “The final battle,” they proclaimed.
To clarify, they were not against perceived violations of human rights by Israel, even when posters declared otherwise. It is not about an imaginary Palestinian state or Palestinian people.
The proof? In Iran in January protestors began demonstrating against the regime. Tens of thousands of them were murdered by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s shock troops. But the anti-Israel protestors worldwide, who were so active against “evil” Israel, fell silent. Suddenly, human rights didn’t matter.
The situation was starkly described by US Ambassador to Israel, Pastor Mike Huckabee: “This is not a geopolitical struggle, the Left versus the Right, the liberal versus the conservative. This is a vertical battle between Heaven and hell, between good and evil, between light and darkness” (JNS International Summit, Jerusalem, April 28, 2025).
Many people in this world hate God, hate God’s Word and those who cling to it. They therefore hate God’s chosen people, the Jews…and Christians. This is the key.
It is certain that God will protect His people because He is a righteous God, but He requires our participation in defeating evil. Indifference is never rewarded.
“If you say, ‘Behold, we knew it not,’ does not He that ponders the heart consider it? And He that keeps your soul, does He not know it? And shall not He render to every man according to his deeds?” (Prov. 24:12).
“I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then said I: ‘Here am I! Send me!’” (Isai. 6:8).