Israel boasts about being safe for Christians and other minorities, yet is unwilling to crack down on soldiers and civilians whose actions are taking a hammer to ties with Christians

On Sunday, an image of an Israeli soldier operating in Lebanon spread rapidly across social media.

It so perfectly encapsulated some of the worst tropes about Israel and Jews that many instinctively assumed it was an AI-generated product meant to slander the Jewish state.

Friends of Israel who thought the photograph might be real prayed it wasn’t, so damaging was the picture.

Their prayers went unanswered. An IDF soldier had indeed taken a hammer to the face of a statue depicting Jesus in the Christian town of Debel in southern Lebanon. There was no AI, no manipulation, no getting around an image that points to a deep moral morass in the IDF and in broader Israeli society.

It is hard to think of an image that could be more damaging to Israel on the world stage right now.

The emergent “woke right” in the US — led by figures like Tucker Carlson — contends that Jews are enemies of Christians, who are persecuted by Israelis in the Holy Land. Carlson has devoted multiple episodes of his popular podcast to speaking with local Christian figures about hardships imposed by Jerusalem.

The movement is working hard to convince Christian Zionists, the backbone of America’s support for Israel, that Israelis harbor a not-so-secret disdain for Christians, and that their natural allies are the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the political spectrum, Israel is cast as a uniquely cruel fighting force, going out of its way to destroy homes, lives and religious sites. All of this is done with a bizarre glee by IDF forces, say anti-Israel social media figures.

And, of course, there is the millennia-old charge of deicide, that Jews collectively bear eternal guilt for the death of Jesus on the cross. That accusation, which has led to the death of untold thousands of Jews, has been adapted in Palestinian liberation theology, which recasts Israeli soldiers as the Romans and Palestinians as their victim, Jesus.

Read More Here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/destruction-of-jesus-statue-should-serve-as-moral-wake-up-call-for-idf-israel/