I’m drawing a red line, too – Part 2
You’re Talking on a Piece of Jewish History
A blessing in your pocket
And then there’s the telephone. It’s the result of a long chain of inventors from all kinds of backgrounds, and that chain includes a striking number of Jewish names. Martin Cooper made the first call from the street in 1973 using the first portable cell phone, which he had developed at Motorola. Amos Joel figured out in the 1970s how to prevent a call from dropping when driving from one cell tower to another. Andrew Viterbi developed a method in 1967 to correct errors in digital signals, which was used in mobile telephony for many years. Hedy Lamarr, known as a movie star, was granted a patent in 1942—along with composer George Antheil—for a frequency-hopping system. That idea later resurfaced in wireless technologies, though the connection to Wi-Fi and GPS is less direct than is often claimed. John von Neumann described in 1945 the architecture upon which virtually every computer since then has been built. Andy Grove, as CEO of Intel, led the company during the era when the microprocessor became ubiquitous. Philippe Kahn sent the first photo from a cell phone in 1997. And Jan Koum, together with Brian Acton, founded WhatsApp, which is used by more than two billion people.
All of them are Jewish, or of Jewish descent, and all are a link in something from which we benefit every day. I’m not saying this to hold Jewish people accountable, as if their safety depended on what they’ve given us. A person doesn’t have to earn their worth; it’s been given to them. But it’s good to be grateful. In all of this, I see the promise made to Abraham. And that is why I say to the people who marched in Amsterdam on Sunday—and just as much to myself—that we have all benefited in our own lives from the work of Jewish scientists and inventors. That is not a reproach. It is a reason to speak with respect.
Am I a friend of the Jews?
I ask myself that question, too. I am no friend of Netanyahu. I am not a politician, and politics is often a dirty business—in the Netherlands, in America, and also in Israel, where promises are made but not kept, and wars break out that bring the world to the brink of the abyss. I do understand that a government cannot simply ignore a massacre like the one on October 7. Am I a friend of the State of Israel? I find that hard to say. Am I a friend of the Jewish people? Definitely.
I have great respect for a people who have endured oppression for all these centuries, including at the hands of Christians. Pogroms, exoduses, and six million murdered in the Holocaust, about a million of whom perished in Auschwitz. The generation that is still with us has written down what they experienced in the camps and gas chambers. Read *The Choice* by Edith Eger, an Auschwitz survivor who describes how, even after enduring the worst, one can still choose life. I have respect for a people who are so strong and so determined to survive.
Prince and Savior
That is why I would like to add something that weighs most heavily on my heart. The greatest Jew I know—the one God has given us—is not Abraham, not Isaac, and not David, but Jesus Christ. He was born of a woman, a virgin, and God made him a blessing. Peter said in Jerusalem that God had sent His servant Jesus to His people to bless them by turning each of them from their wicked ways (Acts 3:26), and that God had exalted Him as Prince and Savior to grant Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins (Acts 5:31).
And that invitation is not limited to Israel. All nations are invited to receive that forgiveness, because Jesus gave His life as a perfect sacrifice. Paul writes to the Ephesians: ….in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:7). Jesus is a descendant of the Jewish people, a shoot from the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:10; Romans 15:12). For me, that is the greatest blessing this world can receive: to be redeemed from guilt and ultimately to have eternal life in the presence of the Father, both now and in the age to come. That is why I rejoice with the Jews, and that is why I love this people: from them the Messiah has come. Whoever entrusts their life to Him—I and everyone else—will experience what a blessing God has given to humanity in Christ, and thus also through the Jewish people.
Let’s count our blessings
We now benefit from all these blessings: the greatest of which is spiritual healing through Jesus, but also literature, medicine, universities, and technology. Jewish people have made an enormous contribution to these.
That is why I do not say that the 200,000 people in Amsterdam should be ashamed. I understand that you are protesting against injustice in which innocent people are killed. But I have serious reservations about the word “genocide,” the slogan “from the river to the sea”, and signs saying that Jews must leave. I know that the International Court of Justice is still considering the question of genocide and that a UN commission of inquiry in 2025 reached a different conclusion than I did; I still have reservations about it. A state has the right to defend itself against an armed attack, as stated in Article 51 of the UN Charter, and in this case, it involves a struggle against Hamas. That right has limits: even in war, rules apply that protect civilians, and Israel, just like any other country, can be held accountable for adhering to them.
Let’s count our blessings. To begin with, the blessings that the Jewish people have brought us.
You can read the first part again here - To Part 1
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