The Presbyterians [USA] have fallen into a bizarre and extreme anti-Israeli
bigotry. But decency is mounting a fightback. True Christians will have nothing
to with this behaviour, and they're protesting loudly
At a moment when the 221st General Assembly of
the Presbyterian Church (PC, USA) is holding its meeting in Detroit, a group of
Christians on June 13, 2014 courageously issued an open pastoral letter that
criticized the focus and tone of the present and possible future attitude of
the Church towards Israel.
The General Assembly (GA) is no longer debating,
as it has done since 2000, the issue of how the Israeli occupation of territory
taken in 1967 can be ended, but the question of whether the State of Israel
should exist.
The pastoral criticism stems from the
consequences of the publication in January 2014 of Zionism Unsettled, a
74-page supposed “study guide” produced by the Israel/Palestine Mission
Network, a unit of the PC (USA). The guide states clearly, “the problem is
Zionism.” Therefore, if Zionism is the problem, then logically the end of
Zionism is the solution.
The guide, in weird postmodernist language,
defines Zionism as the manifestation of “exceptionalist religious ideology
fused with political power.” This bizarre formula echoes that of “Jewish
Supremacism” coined by David Duke. Not all members of PC (USA), or indeed of
any other church, can be happy about its link with Duke, the former Grand
Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who in fact highly praised the
“study guide.”
So did Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of
Arab Studies at Columbia University, and an acquaintance of Barack Obama when
they were both in Chicago. Khalidi’s view is similar to that of the PC (USA):
“The denial of the rights of the Palestinians is
largely driven by the exception of Zionist ideology and its real world
implications.” Despite the endorsement of these “authorities,” the “study” is a
remarkably biased document in its demonization of Israel, and its promotion of
ethnic and religious stereotypes.
The pastoral letter of protest against all this
pungently maintains that it is not only patently false but also morally
indefensible to argue as does the PC (USA) that any Jewish desire for any form
of statehood within its historic homeland is inherently discriminatory. The
pastors also support a two state solution, a secure, independent Israel with a
Jewish majority living in peace alongside a viable, independent Palestine.
The letter recognizes a truth that has long been
ignored or deliberately misrepresented by the advocates of some form of boycott
of Israel and by the mainstream media. The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and
Sanctions) movement purports to be limited to bringing an end to the Israeli
“occupation” of Palestinian lands but its real goal is the end of Israel as an
independent state. Divestment should be opposed for that reason.
But the PC (USA) General Assembly is doing the
opposite. At the June meeting of the GA, 879 resolutions have been offered, and
138 of them concern Israel. As usual they call for the end of Israeli
“occupation,” the condemnation of Israel that it continually violates UN
resolutions and international law, and divestment, reported to be only $17
million, from the three apparent founts of evil in the world, Caterpillar,
Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions.
Since 2004, the PC (USA) has called for “a process
of phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in
Israel.” Many resolutions of this nature calling for boycott have been passed.
The GA in 2012 overwhelmingly supported a
boycott of products manufactured in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and
East Jerusalem. In 2014 it is seeking to withdraw church pension fund and
foundation investments from corporations that contribute to and profit from
what it calls the “growth of the Israeli settlement infrastructure and the
oppressive military occupation that controls Palestinian’s lives.”
Even more important is the rejection by the
pastoral letter of the charge that Zionism is “like other colonial movements.”
This rejection is significant in two respects. It is based on the history of the
Holy Land that Jews have been present there for several thousand years, and
have a legitimate claim to the land, even if not to all of it.
Even more, the now-fashionable accusation of
Israel being an “apartheid” state negates the legitimacy of Israel having any
share of the land, and denies the Jewish connection to the area.
It is disheartening that the narratives and
documents emanating from PC (USA) are the antithesis of dialogue on complex
issues and implicitly are grounded in hatred, not a desire for peace. Perhaps
not coincidentally, as a result of its evident bias its membership is reported
to have declined from 3.1 million in 1983 to 1.7 million today.
Even more perplexing is that this bias and
animosity, not only by the Church but also by others especially the advocates
of boycott, should exist and prevail in the light of recent events, two of
which are particularly pertinent. One is the kidnapping, assumed to be by
members of Hamas, of three Jewish boys, two aged 16 and the third 19, who were
yeshiva – religious -- students in the Hebron area on June 12, 2014.
The boycotters of Israel might be aware that the
boys were taken in an area that is controlled by the Palestinian Authority, not
in any “occupied territory.” Moreover, they might be perplexed, even offended,
that on news of the abduction, Palestinians handed out candy in the streets to
celebrate.
The second event, on the same day of the
kidnapping, is a dramatic illustration of the dialectically opposite value
systems of Jews and Palestinians in the Holy Land area of which the PC (USA)
and others appear unaware. It was the medical treatment in June 2014 of Amina
Abbas, wife of the president of the Palestinian Authority, in a hospital in Tel
Aviv.
She was given a private room with guards at the
door while she underwent foot surgery. Paradoxically, the granddaughter of the
Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, the rival of Abbas, was also treated in an
Israeli hospital in November 2013.
It is saddening that members of religious
denominations should ignore the complex problems and the horrors of the Middle
East, and reduce them to a single factor and source, Zionism.
They seem to be unconcerned about the relentless
violence in Syria and the cruel terrorism of ISIS, the al-Qaeda affiliate in
Iraq, that glories in slaughter of its enemies.
Why do the members of these religious groups,
and the secular boycotters of Israel, lose all credibility and any commitment
to truth by adhering to a double standards regarding Jews and other people? Are
they all hypocrites?
*Michael
Curtis, author of "Jews, Antisemitism, and the Middle East", is
Distinguished Professor Emeritus in political science at Rutgers University.
Curtis is the author of 30 books.
