A few days ago UK researchers announced that 17 skeletons belonged to Jews were found at the bottom of a medieval well in Norwich, England. The Jews were murdered in a pogrom or had been forced to commit suicide rather than submit to demands for conversion to Christianity.

The bodies date back to the 12th or 13th Centuries, at a time when Jewish people faced killings, banishment and persecution throughout all Europe. Those 17 Jews were killed because of “replacement theology,” the most ancient Christian calumny arguing that because of their denial of the divinity of Christ, the Jews have forfeited God’s promises to them which have been transferred to the Church.

Some 10 centuries later, global Christian forums are reviving this theological demonology against the heirs of those 17 Jews: the Jews of the State of Israel. The World Council of Churches, an ecumenical Christian body based in Genève and boasting 590 million worshippers, just ended a four-day conference in the Greek city of Volos. Not a single word of criticism was uttered there against the Islamists who are persecuting Arabs who believe Jesus.

Lutherans arrived to Volos from the United States, Catholics and Protestants from Bethlehem and Nazareth, Orthodox Christians from Greece and Russia, lecturers from Beirut and Copts from Egypt. The conference declared the Jewish State “a sin” and “occupying power,” accused Israelis of “dehumanizing” the Palestinians, theologically dismantled the “choseness” of the Jewish people and called for “resistance” as a Christian duty.

The conference denied 3,000 years of Jewish life in the land stretching between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, took sides against the very presence of Israel, likened the defensive barrier that has blocked terrorism to “apartheid,” attacked Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria invoking the name of God and conceptually dismissed the Jewish state, imagining it to be a mixture – Islamic, Christian and perhaps a bit Jewish. It even legitimized terrorism when it talked about the “thousands of prisoners who languish in Israeli jails,” proclaiming that “resistance to the evil of occupation is a Christian’s right and duty.”

Copying Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric

In the last few months we have seen a radical and dangerous increase of attacks on Israel by the Protestant and Catholic churches. While the US is home to many Christian supporters of Israel, the groups more closely linked to global public opinion, European bureaucracy, the media industry, the United Nations and various legal forums are all violently anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. They are paving the way for a new Jewish bloodbath by the theological exclusion of Israel’s Jews from the family of nations.

The patriarch of the Antioch Church, the Catholic Melkite Gregory III Laham, proclaimed that there is a “Zionist conspiracy against Islam,” reviving old conspiracy theories that led to infamous pogroms. In Antwerp, once called “the Belgian Jerusalem,” a highly respected and government-funded Catholic school, the College of the Sacred Heart, just hosted a “Palestine Day” replete with anti-Semitic references and activities for youngsters. One stall at the event was titled “Throw the soldiers into the sea,” allowing children to throw replicas of Jewish and Israeli soldiers into two large tanks.

The most influential international Catholic peace movement, Pax Christi, just promoted a boycott of Israel’s goods “in the name of love.” The most hated Israeli product includes Ahava, the famous Israeli cosmetics company, whose shop in Covent Garden, London, has just been closed by the company after years of demonstrations. Strangely, Ahava body lotion tubes have been chosen as a satanic symbol of Jewish colonialism.

Today, most of the divestment campaign against Israel is driven by Christian groups such as the Dutch Interchurch Organization and the Irish Catholic group Troicaré, both funded by the EU. The United Church of Canada, a very popular and mainstream Christian denomination, just voted to boycott six companies (Caterpillar, Motorola, Ahava, Veolia, Elbit Systems and Chapters/Indigo) and South African bishop Desmond Tutu convinced the University of Johannesburg to severe all its links with Israeli fellows.

Last year the Methodist Church of Britain voted to boycott Israeli-produced goods and services from Judea and Samaria. The catholic Pax Christi is also leading the campaign glorifying Mordechai Vanunu, Israel’s nuclear whistleblower who had converted to Christianity.

La Civiltà Cattolica, the Vatican magazine reviewed by the Holy See secretary of state before publication, in January opened with a shocking editorial on Palestinian refugees. Adopting the Islamist propagandist word “Nakba,” just recently invoked by Arab mobs to breach Israel’s borders, the paper declared that the refugees are a consequence of “ethnic cleansing” by Israel and that “the Zionists were cleverly able to exploit the Western sense of guilt for the Shoah to lay the foundations of their own state.” Indeed, Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric is alarmingly similar.

Israel a ‘foreign implant’

Israel’s relationship with the Vatican is different from Jerusalem’s relationship with Albania or Luxembourg for example, because the Catholic Church has more than one billion adherents and a global moral authority. At the Rome synod, Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros, a cleric chosen by Pope Ratzinger to draft the synod’s 44 final propositions, denied the Jewish people’s biblical right to the Promised Land. “We Christians cannot speak about the Promised Land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a chosen people”, Bustros said, reviving the “replacement theology.”

Edmond Farhat, a Maronite Apostolic Nuncio, who is a sort of Vatican’s ambassador, described Israel’s place in the Middle East in terms of a rejected “foreign implant” that which has no specialists “capable of healing it.”

Elsewhere, the current Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, named by Pope Ratzinger to represent the Catholic community in Israel and the West Bank, is sponsoring an appeal against the “Judaization of Jerusalem.” Indeed, at this time, new anti-Israel policies by the most powerful Christian groups are breathing new life into Medieval doctrine that demonized Jews for hundreds of years.

The latest excavations in England suggest the Jews were thrown down the well together, head first, the kids after the parents. Five of them had a DNA sequence suggesting they were likely to be members of a single Jewish family. Some 10 centuries later, five Jews from the same Israeli family, the Fogels of Itamar, were slaughtered in their own beds. A famous Italian priest, Mario Cornioli, wrote immediately after the massacre in a subliminal justification of the killings: “What is Itamar? An illegal Israeli colony built on stolen land.”

The replacement calumny has changed its language, yet it still marks a death sentence for the Jewish people: Israelis, like Lucifer, were God’s chosen but were cast out for their rebellious and evil ways, and now deserve to be obliterated from the so-called “Holy Land,” the argument goes. From Norwich to Itamar, the Jewish martyrs are an everlasting and heroic stain in this horrible, theological blood libel.

Nearly 25 months after the Declaration of Independence, the Knesset codified one of the most fundamental principles of Zionism – the right of Jews to make aliya (to immigrate to the State of Israel). Although the 1948 Declaration of Independence opened the gates of the country “for Jewish immigration and for the ingathering of the exiles,” the declaration held no force of law. Thus, on July 5, 1950, the Knesset passed the Law of Return granting every Jew “the right to come to this country as an oleh” (a Jewish immigrant to Israel).

The modern State of Israel was established to fulfill the national self-determination of the Jewish people in its historic homeland. Members of the Zionist movement, which envisioned the establishment of the state, began emigrating from the Diaspora decades before the establishment of the state. The governments of the Ottoman and British Empires, however, in the name of ethnic and civic stability, severely limited Jewish immigration to the land of Israel.

While small numbers of Jews were allowed to settle in the land, many more were turned away, especially in the period leading up to the establishment of the state. At that time, during and after the Second World War, the numbers of Jewish refugees wishing to immigrate were at their highest ever.

With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 as the national home of the Jewish people and the Declaration of Independence opening the gates of Jewish immigration, hundreds of thousands of Jews made their way to Israel. But the young country had no immigration law, which meant that the ability of Jews to immigrate had not yet been legally enshrined as a right. The 1950 Law of Return fulfilled that need, officially recognizing that “Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh,” providing a small number of exceptions.

After July 5, 1950, all Jews were eligible for immigration and received citizenship upon arrival in the country.

Aside from guaranteeing Jews in the Diaspora the right to immigrate, however, the state itself stood to benefit from the Law of Return. As the democratic nation-state of the Jewish people, Israel needed to ensure a Jewish demographic majority in order to maintain its Jewish character alongside its democratic government. By guaranteeing the right of Jewish immigration, the state was actually encouraging Jews to immigrate, thereby increasing the Jewish majority.

The original law was written ambiguously. While explicitly granting a specific right to Jews, it did not provide a definition for Jewishness. Only 20 years later would it be amended to specify who qualified as a Jew, an amendment that for the purposes of the law expanded the definition of a Jew to a large number of people who were not Jewish under halacha. The amendment made anybody with one Jewish grandparent or anyone married to a Jew eligible for immigration.

The 1970 amendment to the Law of Return has been attributed to several different interests and concerns. The expanded definition it adopted was the definition of Jewry first codified in the Nuremberg Laws by Nazi Germany. One explanation for this expansion is that as the homeland of the – historically persecuted – Jewish people, the State of Israel should allow immigration by anyone who could be ostensibly persecuted for being Jewish. Therefore, it is said, the Nazi definition of Jewishness was adopted.

Another explanation is that following the capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Six Day War, it became more apparent than ever that Palestinians posed a significant demographic threat to the Jewish majority in Israel. The growing awareness of the demographic threat, it is said, drove the government to expand eligibility for immigration under the Law of Return in order to encourage mass immigration from eastern bloc countries where assimilation was widespread.

The 1970 amendment, however, created a new set of problems for those immigrants who arrived under its expanded eligibility. Being Jewish enough to immigrate according to the standards of the government did not make one Jewish according to the officially empowered rabbinate, which controls several key components of legal affairs in Israel, primarily family law. The most publicized problem these immigrants face is their inability to marry and divorce in the State of Israel.

The Law of Return is also controversial for another reason entirely, not for its expanded inclusion but rather for its exclusion. Some claim that the guaranteed right for Jews to immigrate is discriminatory to non-Jews and therefore runs counter to the democratic value of equality under the law. However, it is argued that the Law of Return – and the principle behind it – is the same principle of self-determination that led to the creation of the state as the national homeland of the Jewish people. Zionism and its manifestation – the State of Israel – is predicated on the right of Jews to immigrate.

Legally speaking, one of the most often-cited contemporary explanations of why the Law of Return does not negate the equality guaranteed in democracy is a principle called, “the special key,” articulated by former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak.

Barak argues that while Jews are given the privilege of immigration, their privileged status ends there. In a 2008 Haaretz interview, Barak explains, “Israel is a home to which a Jew, as a Jew, is given a special key with which to enter – a golden key, which is not given to others. But once you enter the home, all those who reside in it are equal, non-Jews, too.”

A few months after taking up his post as the IAF’s ninth commander in October 1977, Maj.-Gen. David Ivry was invited to a special meeting.

Sitting around the table were defense minister Ezer Weizman and representatives of the IDF Operations Directorate and the Mossad. The participants were sworn to secrecy as they began speaking about the country’s options in the face of Saddam Hussein’s continued construction of a 70-megawatt, uranium-powered French reactor near Baghdad.

At the time, Israeli efforts were focused on the diplomatic track, getting France to cut off its assistance to Iraq. Israel remained unconvinced by France’s promise that it would retain supervision over the rector and ensure that it was not used to develop a nuclear weapon.

For the IDF, it was a period of peacemaking.

Anwar Sadat had recently visited Israel, and the air force was beginning to plan the evacuation of its bases from the Sinai Peninsula – including Etzion, the one that would be used two years later to launch the attack in Iraq.

Nevertheless, it was time to prepare a military option.

But to do so, Ivry had to come up with a good excuse for why his staff needed to prepare a bombing mission in Iraq. Luckily for him, around the same time, there were intelligence reports that a Soviet Tupolev 22 supersonic bomber was going to land at Iraq’s Habinia Airfield.

He told his staff that the government was considering attacking the airfield, and to prepare a way to get there.

In the 30 years since Operation Opera – Israel’s bombing of the Osirak reactor on June 7, 1981 – Ivry has given few interviews. In honor of the 30th anniversary of the historic bombing last month, he agreed to sit down with The Jerusalem Post this week and retell the story.

Ivry, 77, is today president of Boeing Israel.

Since completing his term as IAF commander, he has served in some of the country’s most senior and sensitive defense-diplomatic positions. He was deputy IDF chief of General Staff, director-general of the Defense Ministry, chairman of Israel Aerospace Industries, head of the National Security Council and ambassador to the United States.

He remembers the operation like it was yesterday, and the interview with the former fighter pilot is a stark reminder of the many challenges Israel faces as it evaluates its options to stop Iran’s race for nuclear power.

The considerations, debates and military complications in the years leading up to the 1981 operation are similar to those the government and IAF of 2011 face as they consider military options to stop Iran. Throughout the interview, on more than one occasion, there is a sense that Iraq is Iran and Hussein is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A few weeks after being instructed to draw up the plans, Ivry’s staff – despite some members’ claims that it was impossible – presented him with a number of creative ideas how to get IAF Phantom and Skyhawk fighter jets to Iraq. 1979 was spent modifying the midair refueling systems on the IAF’s Hercules transport aircraft so they could service Phantoms, and technology was developed so Skyhawks could refuel one another.

“In general, the plans were not all that attractive because of the refueling problem,” Ivry says.

The real breakthrough came later that year, when US secretary of defense Harold Brown came to Israel. It was a few months after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the US had 75 F-16 fighter jets that were on order for the Iranian Air Force but could no longer be delivered. Israel was in negotiations for its own first order of 75 F-16s and was in the middle of ironing out questions about integrating Israeli technology into the planes.

“Weizman called and asked that I join him in the meeting,” Ivry recalls. “I came in, and he asked if the IAF would be interested in receiving the Iranian F-16s. I said yes.”

The answer was not simple, since it meant that Israel would receive planes that did not have its own ingenious technology, but in the back of his mind, Ivry was thinking about Osirak and how the F-16s could solve Israel’s refueling problems.

The first planes arrived in July 1980 – had Israel turned down the offer, it would have begun to receive its order in 1982 – and Ivry immediately ordered his pilots to begin testing the aircraft’s range, and to push them to the max.

In the beginning of 1981, Ivry got the green light from Prime Minister Menachem Begin to move ahead with the attack. The plan was to attack on a Sunday, when the facility would be mostly empty and the French scientists would not be at work. The attack would be at dusk so that if needed, Israel would have a long night to rescue downed pilots.

Ivry presented the plans to the cabinet on a number of occasions. He was aware that he needed to project confidence. As the commander of the IAF, all eyes were on him in the meetings. He had to believe in the plan, convince the chief of General Staff at the time, Raful Eitan, and then explain to the cabinet how it would work.

“If the IAF commander says it’s not possible, then there is no operation,” he explains.

But not all of the country’s defense chiefs were in favor of the strike. The Mossad chief at the time, Yitzhak Hofi – like Meir Dagan, who recently voiced opposition to attacking Iran – was against it, as was the head of Military Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Yehoshua Sagi.

The major concern was the fallout of the strike – the effect it would have on the peace process with Egypt, how it would impact relations with France and the US, and the assessment that ultimately a strike would only set back Saddam’s nuclear program by two to three years.

Ivry did not spend much time thinking about the philosophy behind the need for the strike. While Begin spoke about preventing a second Holocaust and termed Osirak an existential threat for Israel, Ivry focused on the fine details of the plan, reviewing how the planes would get there, at what angle they would come in for the bombing, and how they would fly back home.

The possibility of nuclear weapons in Saddam’s hands, he explains, was simply a reality with which Israel could not live.

“If you decide that nuclear weapons in Iraq is an existential threat, then there are not a lot of questions that need to be asked,” he says.

The first date given for the bombing was May 10.

Ivry and the pilots flew down to Etzion Air Force Base. The planes were loaded with the bombs, and the pilots were beginning to ignite the engines when Ivry got a call to stop. The head of the opposition at the time, Shimon Peres, was against the bombing, and Begin needed more time.

The next date set was June 7. On Friday, June 4, the commander of the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet was changing command, and Eitan wanted Ivry to fly with him to Naples. They left on Thursday night and returned Friday afternoon. With them on the plane was the US military attaché to Israel, who had caught a ride to the ceremony.

“On the way back, I radioed Tel Aviv and spoke with the head of operations, who gave me the code word that we had a green light for the operation for Sunday,” he says. “After we landed, the attaché went to his weekend, and I went to Jerusalem for one last meeting with Begin, Eitan and [Foreign Minister Yitzhak] Shamir.”

What also helped in preventing the world from realizing what was happening was the international crisis that had evolved following Syria’s deployment of sophisticated surface-to-air missile systems in Lebanon. Begin had promised that Israel would attack if they were not moved.

“Everyone thought we were busy with Lebanon, and this was to our advantage, even though it also insulted some of our allies since they were caught completely off guard,” Ivry says.

The day of the operation, Ivry and Eitan spoke with the pilots. Eitan spoke about the significance of the operation. Ivry focused on the details – the route, the altitude, the way to evade Iraqi air defense systems and what direction to come in and bomb the target.

“We knew that the planes would get there and succeed in bombing the reactor,” Ivry says. “Our biggest concern was about the return flight and whether a plane would be shot down. Since the planes did not have any fuel to spare, they would not have been able to use their thrusters to maneuver if they were intercepted.”

Just after 5:35 p.m., the leader of the eight F-16s that had flown 1,600 km. from the Etzion Air Force Base in the Sinai Peninsula broke radio silence and said the words “Everyone Charlie” – the call that meant all the planes had dropped their bombs and were heading back home.

For Ivry, the Osirak bombing was not the IAF’s greatest aerial achievement under his command.

That title would go to the 1982 bombing of the 17 surface-to-air missile systems that Syria had deployed in Lebanon, without losing a single aircraft – one of the most impressive operations carried out by a Western country to suppress Soviet air defense systems.

The bombing of the reactor resonated more for the deterrence it created for Israel.

“It was a few years after the Entebbe operation and helped show the world that Israel could really go anywhere it needed to,” Ivry explains.

Ten years later, US Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney presented Ivry with a photo of the bombed-out reactor taken by a US satellite after the First Gulf War.

At the bottom of the photo, which hangs in Ivry’s Tel Aviv office as a constant reminder of the threats and challenges that Israel continues to face, Cheney wrote: “With thanks and appreciation for the outstanding job you did on the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981, which made our job much easier in Desert Storm!” When it comes to Iran, one would expect the man who commanded the bombing of Osirak to be more forthcoming. But Ivry is careful with what he says.

He insists that the government needs to exhaust all available options before using military force, diplomacy and sanctions. Otherwise, he says, the people will never forgive their leaders.

But, he says, those who claim that delaying the program by only a couple of years is not worth the risk, could be wrong.

“The situation can evolve in between,” he explains. “The same was said about Saddam, and in the end he never got it.”