Sizer Has Things Sized Up - Wrong

Stephen Sizer of Virginia Water, Surrey (just adore those English place names) is the pastor of Christ Church there and he is a Confessing Anglican, Mainstream and Reform, whatever that means and I am simply noting my own ignorance - no value judgment made. He also is an Advocate for Christianity Explored and a founding member of the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism (ISCZ), a member of the Advisory Council of Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding (EMEU).

He also promotes divestment policies towards Israel and, specifically, that the contract with Veolia to construct the Jerusalem light rail be canceled.

Now, there are a good few reasons to stop the light rail: environment issues, economic cost issues, urban transport failure, etc. But Sizer has a political agenda:

The company is, therefore, not only undermining the chances of a just peace for the Palestinians, but is also implicated in war crimes. As the tramway also constitutes a significant alteration to the infra-structureof the occupied territories it is contrary to section 3 of the Hague Regulations of 1907 which are part of international law.

Now, besides the fact that Veolia is a 5% partner, all of this legal mumbo-jumbo is not very impressive for those who know the facts. In all its history, Jerusalem, east, west, north and south, was united as one city. Even the 1947 Partition resolution which called for a corpus separatum envisioned an area from Bet Hanina almost as far as Ramallah to the outskirts of Bethlehem which means that all this talk of "East Jerusalem" is a fiction perpetrated by the illegal Jordanian conquest and occupation.

Jerusalem today, and since June 28, 1967, is once again a legal geopolitical entity. Those "East Jerusalem settlements" Sizer refers to are neighborhoods and/or suburbs just like exist in any city and in some cases, existed prior even to 1948 and were renewed, like Neveh Yaakov, after Arab destruction.

The light rail, however wrong it may be, is not intended other than to serve allthe population of united Jerusalem, Arab and Jewish.

Since Sizer promotes the Oberammergau Passion Play Festival, I do get a funny feeling about the man's religiosity. Does this carry over to his Mideast views?