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KNOWN BY THE BAD COMPANY WE KEEP
The Presbyterian Church USA, and the other “mainline” denominations have chosen some weird companions in their search for peace in the Holy Land. These companions illustrate the church’s anti-Israel bias. They have created much of that bias.They also nurture a propaganda campaign that is flowing through our churches and colleges. They have prejudiced many of our members against Israel's struggle for survival.
SABEEL ECUMINICAL LIBERATION THEOLOGY CENTER
Sabeel is a prime example. It is highly active in North America, agitating for divestment and other actions to destabilize Israel. Its programs have crossed the line into outright anti-Semitism. Coe College, a Presbyterian School, sponsored a Sabeel presentation and found it necessary to write a letter of apology for the anti-Semitism expressed. In spite of this record, PCUSA identifies Sabeel as a “partner” and looks on it as a reputable source of information.
Sabeel’s founder is a Palestinian priest named Naim Ateek. He makes no secret of his objection, not only to the policies of Israel but to its very existence. In Sept. 2005, a group of clergy and rabbis, including PCUSA representatives, met with Ateek. The rabbis challenged his repetition of medieval anti-Semitic myths and his rejection of Israel. “He affirmed that he continued to support the suggestion that if Israel had a right to exist, it should have been created somewhere else but not on the Holy Land.”
CHURCHES FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE
PCUSA also relies heavily on a lobbying agency known as “Churches for Middle East Peace.” (CMEP) While pretending to adopt a balanced position, this group routinely sides with the Palestinians, and attacks our government's support for the Israeli democracy. CMEP leads its member churches in attacking Israel's self-defense against terrorism. It routinely condemns the security barrier, which is saving countless lives from suicide bombers. CMEP lovingly remembers Yasser Arafat's "life of service to the Palestinian people." But concrete Israeli moves toward peace, such as the Camp David offers and the Gaza withdrawal are met with criticism and with demands for even more unilateral concessions by Israel.
In April 2004, President Bush made an important statement supporting a peaceful settlement in the Holy Land. He made it clear that peace would require an abandonment of the "right of return" and a modest adjustment of the armistice lines to incorporate some settlement areas in Israel. Nothing in this program was surprising. It was the same formula promoted by President Clinton at Camp David and supported by moderate Palestinians. CMEP, however, lost no time in misrepresenting the announcement as a break with tradition and a threat to peace. This politicized lobby pretends to promote peace but undercuts the terms that serious negotiators on all sides realize are essential.
THE WORLD ALLIANCE OF REFORMED CHURCHES
In many ways the WARC is typical of church groups that are specifically anti-Israel and generally anti-Western. They try to appear even-handed by issuing expressions of goodwill and ritual denunciations of terrorism. A close look, however, shows that the general expressions are meaningless, while the specific demands are addressed to Israel alone and would gut Israel’s right of self-defense.
The WARC has been more careless. It occasionally drops the mask and reveals its true bigotry. In April 2002, at the height of the terrorist bombings, the WARC sent a pair of revealing letters to Prime Minister Sharon of Israel and to Chairman Arafat of the PA. The letters are worth reading. The one to Sharon is scathingly critical of Israeli raids that pursued the bombers and broke up the infrastructure of terror. It calls on Israel “to stop immediately the current operations by the Israeli Defense Forces.” It continues with the charge that “your government has turned its back on the search for a political solution.” (Remember that this came in the midst of the bombings that had been Arafat’s response to Israel's unprecedented offers of peace at Camp David/Taba. Israel had not turned its back on the search for peace. It had offered peace and been bombed in return.)
The WARC’s letter to Arafat is even more interesting. It makes no demands on Arafat other than a mild request that he "discourage" violence. It makes no reference to Arafat’s own role in the violence or to the fact that his Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade was leading the terror. And it criticizes Israel alone, expressing perplexity that “the Israeli government has chosen a military response to this very complex situation.” (Considering that the “complex situation” involved almost daily suicide bombings throughout all of Israel, the slaughter of innocents as they sat down to Passover, and the murder of teenagers at a disco dance, the WARC's puzzlement is misplaced.)
More recently, the WARC has shown that its stripes are unchanged in an attack on the entire economy of the West. It has denounced capitalism per se as “an immoral economic system defended by empire.” This sophomoric venture into economics embarrassed even Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, who now is president of WARC as well as clerk of the PCUSA.
The list could go on and on through a variety of churches, agencies and councils that propagandize against Israel. A generous interpretation is that the good will of church bureaucrats often exceeds their good judgment. Another list could be formed of groups like Sabeel that are consciously opposed to Israel's survival.
"By their fruits ye shall know them." Any group trumpeting the occupation as the "root cause" of the problem is guilty of either outright malice or historical illiteracy. Any group claiming that Israel is under a duty to open its land to terrorists is either naive or prepared to shed the blood of innocents. Any group that consistently demands specific, unilateral concessions from Israel while serving up platitudes to its attackers is biased. And groups that would punish Israel's democracy for defending itself while giving a pass to the worst tyrants on earth have lost their moral compass.
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