Israel orders US-based Christian TV channel off air

Israeli regulators absorb announced that they’re taking an evangelical broadcaster off the air, pronouncing the channel hid its missionary agenda when it utilized for a license

June 28, 2020, 1: 16 PM

3 min be taught

JERUSALEM —
Israeli regulators on Sunday announced they ordered a U.S.-primarily based mostly evangelical broadcaster taken off the air, pronouncing the channel hid its missionary agenda when it utilized for a license.

In his resolution, Asher Biton, the chairman of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, said he had told “GOD TV” on Thursday that it had seven days to cease broadcasting.

“The channel appeals to Jews with Christian yelp,” he wrote. “Its normal quiz,” he said, talked about that it was once a “position focusing on the Christian inhabitants.”

The resolution was once first reported by the Haaretz day-to-day.

The controversy over GOD TV’s “Shelanu” position has place Israel and its evangelical Christian supporters in an ungainly plot, exposing tensions the 2 facets absorb lengthy papered over.

Evangelical Christians, seriously within the US, are among the many strongest supporters of Israel, viewing it because the success of biblical prophecy. Some seek for it because the harbinger of a 2d coming of Jesus Christ and the high of days.

Israel has lengthy welcomed evangelicals’ political and monetary toughen, seriously as their have an effect on over the White Home has risen within the middle of the Trump administration, and it has largely shrugged off concerns about any hidden religious agenda.

Nonetheless most Jews study any effort to convert them to Christianity as deeply offensive, a legacy of centuries of persecution and compelled conversion by the fingers of Christian rulers. In fragment on listing of of those sensitivities, evangelical Christians, who customarily mediate salvation can simplest come via Jesus and preach the Gospel worldwide, hardly goal Jews.

In a observation, Shelanu said it was once bowled over by what it called Biton’s “unprofessional resolution.”

It said its existing license “talked about unequivocally” that it will in all probability well maybe broadcast its yelp in Hebrew to the Israeli public. Most Christians within the Holy Land talk Arabic. “As a result of this fact it’s miles underneath no circumstances certain what was once unsuitable beyond political concerns,” it said.

Ron Cantor, Shelanu’s Israeli spokesman, said the position would reapply for a license. He said the position’s administration hopes the council will approve the quiz “and thus avoids a severe diplomatic incident with a total lot of thousands and thousands of educated-Israel evangelical Christians worldwide.”

When GOD TV reached its seven-twelve months contract with Israel’s fundamental cable provider earlier this twelve months, it supplied itself as producing yelp for Christians.

Nonetheless in a video message that was once later taken down, GOD TV CEO Ward Simpson suggested its genuine goal was once to persuade Jews to settle for Jesus as their messiah.

“God has supernaturally opened the door for us to consume the Gospel of Jesus into the properties and lives and hearts of his Jewish of us,” Simpson said within the video.

In a subsequent video, Simpson apologized for any offensive remarks and said GOD TV would alter to all rules.

Freedom of religion is enshrined in Israeli rules, and proselytizing is allowed as lengthy as missionary actions are no longer directed at minors and develop no longer involve financial coercion.

GOD TV was once founded within the U.Ok. in 1995 and in a roundabout plot grew correct into a 24-hour community with offices in just a few countries. Its global broadcasting licenses are held by a Florida-primarily based mostly non-profit. It claims to reach 300 million households worldwide.


ABC News


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