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Mainline American Christian “Peacemakers” against Israel

Filed Under:   Anti-Semitism,  Diplomacy - Peace Process,  Hamas,  International Law,  Iran,  Israel,  Palestinians,  Terrorism,  TheMiddle East,  U.S. Policy,  World Jewry

No. 90,

In 2004 and 2005, a group of five liberal Protestant (or “mainline”) churches in the United States broadcasted anarrative that portrayed Israel as almost solely responsible for the violence of the Second Intifada. This campaign wasevident in “peacemaking” resolutions approved by the legislative bodies of these churches and in the booksproduced by the publishing houses associated with them.The peacemaking resolutions alleged that Israel controlled the violence directed at it during the Second Intifada andcould unilaterally end the Arab-Israeli conflict by conceding territory to the Palestinians. Support for this narrativebegan to wane in 2006 and 2007 under the impact of Hamas’s violence and misrule in the Gaza Strip and Hizballah’s2006 attack on Israel from Lebanon. During the summer of 2009, anti-Israel activists suffered setbacks in the mainlinecommunity.The materials published by these churches depict Israel as unable to make the sacrifices necessary for peace becauseof a flaw in its national character. Commentators from these churches are also harshly critical of Israel’s ChristianZionist supporters in the United States, portraying them as intent on bringing about Armageddon. This intenseinterrogation of the identity of Israeli Jews and the theology of Christian Zionists is coupled with silence about therole Muslim theology has played in fomenting violence against Israel in the Middle East.Largely because of their shrinking numbers, the churches involved in this campaign have had little impact on theAmerican public’s attitudes toward Israel. Nevertheless, by aligning themselves with extremist groups in the MiddleEast and the United States who seek to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state, these churches have contributed to themainstreaming of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in American society.

For the past several years, a group of five Protestant churches – the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church ofChrist, the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – havelegitimized the increasingly virulent anti-Israel movement in the United States. Although these churches have sufferedsubstantial membership declines since the mid-1960s, they still enjoy a considerable influence on the American scene,particularly on the Left, thanks to their role in American history and the affluence of their members.

These churches have used their influence to focus attention on Israel’s efforts to defend itself, most notably theconstruction of the security barrier between its citizens and Palestinians in the West Bank. The narrative presented bythese churches is that Israel could unilaterally bring an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict but chooses not to because offlaws in its national character.

In order to “help” Israel overcome its inability to make peace with its enemies, peace activists and leaders of thesechurches have argued for divestment from companies doing business with Israel so as to pressure the country intoenabling the creation of a Palestinian state, which would inevitably bring about peace. According to this narrative, it isIsraeli Jews and Christian Zionists in the United States who represent the primary obstacle to peace in the Middle East.Omitted from the narrative is the central role that Muslim theology regarding Jews and the land plays in fomentingviolence against Israel.

The “peacemaking” narrative offered by these churches fails to take into account one of the most troubling and enduringrealities of the Arab-Israeli conflict: that Israeli peace offers and withdrawals have been preludes to increased Arabviolence. By maintaining their emphasis on Israeli behavior, these churches have failed to help the American peopleconfront these unpleasant realities. They have also helped introduce open expressions of anti-Semitism into Americanmainstream discourse.

Early VictoriesOne early sign of trouble came in 2003 when the Episcopal Church’s General Convention passed a resolution that calledon the Bush administration to question the construction of the security barrier – without mentioning the suicide attacksthat preceded its construction.[1] This resolution was one-sided but tame compared to the divestment resolution passed

Dexter Van Zile, November 5, 2009

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by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) the following year. In addition to singling Israel out as a targetfor divestment, the resolution also charged that the occupation had “proven to be at the root of evil acts committedagainst innocent people on both sides of the conflict.”[2]

This resolution prompted Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR), a group that protests on behalf of Palestinians in Israeli society,to condemn the PC(USA) in a July 2004 letter that said the resolution “ignore[d] the homicidal ideologies that have sosadly taken hold among some of our Palestinian neighbors.” As for the allegation that the “occupation” was “at the rootof evil acts committed,” RHR asserted: “This is a restatement of the paradigmatic allegation that Jewish sins are somehowespecially significant, especially ‘at the root of evil.'” The letter also noted that the resolution “placed Israel’s alone at theheart of the situation” and that it directed “not one word of criticism to the government of the Palestinian Authoritydespite its manifest multitude of profound sins against God and the Human Rights of Palestinians and Jews.”[3]

This warning had little impact on the General Synod of the United Church of Christ (UCC), which in July 2005 passed a“Tear Down the Wall” resolution that called on Israel to take down the security barrier without asking the Palestinians tostop the terror attacks that prompted its construction.[4] The resolution described Palestinian suffering in exquisitedetail but made little mention of the suffering experienced by the Israelis, or of the Palestinian violence that caused it.

Also that year, the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) passed a resolutionaffirming a “Peace Not Walls” campaign. While exhibiting less animus toward Israel than the resolutions passed by thePC(USA) and the UCC, it still placed the onus for ending the Arab-Israeli conflict on Israel.[5] The Virginia and NewEngland conferences of the United Methodist Church (UMC) also passed resolutions calling for divestment from Israel in2005.[6]

One factor that contributed to the passage of these one-sided resolutions was a lack of organized opposition. This hadonce been provided by the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (NCLCI), founded in the 1970s. But thisgroup, which included experts in Christian-Jewish relations such as Sister Rose Thering, Isaac Rottenberg, Frank Littell,and Alice and Roy Eckhardt, faded as these persons disappeared from the scene either through ill health or retirement inthe 1980s and 1990s.

Consequently, the NCLCI was in no position to counter the impact of activism by Palestinian Christians, most notablyAnglican Priest Naim Ateek who founded the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in the 1990s. Ateek andother activists like him spent the late 1980s and the 1990s convincing denominational officials and local pastors that theFirst Intifada (1987-1991) was largely a nonviolent response to Israeli intransigence. As a result of these and similarefforts, some of which dated back to the years after Israel’s victory in the 1967 War, an infrastructure was in place toportray Israel as the villain when the Second Intifada erupted in 2000.

The process by which these resolutions were approved varied in detail from one denomination to another, but a fewgeneralizations can be offered. First, they were typically written by pro-Palestinian activists or denominational stafferswith input from Palestinian Christians who testified for their passage at the national assemblies. Once the resolutionswere released to the voting members or delegates before a national assembly, they generated considerable publicity forthe churches considering them, driven in part by criticism from the American Jewish leadership. This controversyprovided an opportunity for denominational leaders to portray themselves as struggling to find a balance betweenspeaking prophetically about Israel’s failings and seeking to maintain good relations with the Jewish people.

The texts of the resolutions varied but shared a few important characteristics: an emphasis on Israeli behavior, silenceabout the failings of Palestinian leaders, and a refusal to address the role Muslim theology about the Jewish peopleplayed in fomenting violence against Israel. They also shared a bedrock assumption succinctly communicated byEpiscopal Priest Richard Toll, chairman of Friends of Sabeel North America in December 2005: “End the occupation andthe violence will end.”[7]

Mainline Churches: An OverviewThese resolutions generated significant media coverage along with consternation in the American Jewish communitybecause they were issued by churches long regarded as dominant players in the Protestant or “mainline” establishmentthat were highly influential throughout American history.

Wade Clark Roof and William McKinney note that these churches were, until the 1960s, part of a Protestantestablishment that enjoyed “social, economic and political power” and “great influence in shaping notions of propriety,legitimacy, taste and respect” in the United States. To be part of the American mainline, Roof and McKinney observe, is torelate to the “core aspect of American experience, to evoke its symbols and meanings in the collective experience of thepeople.”[8]

The historical influence of these churches is evidenced by what William R. Hutchinson calls the “Protestantestablishment’s massive footprints in the biographical dictionaries.” As he points out: “When C. Luther Fry, in 1931,surveyed the stated religious affiliations of Who’s Who biographees, he found that among the 16,600 who listed apreference, fully 7,000 were either Episcopalians or Presbyterians. Congregationalists, despite the smaller size of thatdenomination, numbered an equally astounding 2,000.”[9]

Thus the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists – the more prestigious of the Protestant establishment,known as the “Old Line” or “Big Three” – derived their influence from the positions their members held in society. Incomparison, the Baptists, Methodists, and Lutherans – who comprised a second, more numerous tier of this Protestantestablishment during the latter half of the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century – derived theirinfluence from the sheer number of their members, and as time passed, their growing affluence. People still joke that theEpiscopal Church is “the Republican Party at prayer,” while President Theodore Roosevelt once stated that he preferred

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speaking to Methodist audiences because they “represent the great middle class and in consequence are the mostrepresentative in America.”[10]

To be sure, these churches are not the bastions of influence they once were. According to Roof and McKinney, two forces– the growth of a youth counterculture in the 1960s with its emphasis on individuality, and the Evangelical revival of the1970s and 1980s – diminished these churches’ reach, optimism, and vitality. “The privileged Protestant mainline hasfallen upon hard times and no longer enjoys the influence and power it once had.”[11]

The numbers tell the story. In 1965, when the U.S. population stood at 194 million,[12] the membership of the six largestmainline Protestant churches (the five anti-Israel churches mentioned above plus the American Baptist Churches, whichhave not passed any resolutions related to the Arab-Israeli conflict) came to 28 million.[13] In 2007, when the UnitedStates had 302 million inhabitants,[14] these churches had only 18 million members.[15] In other words, these churcheshad shrunk by an average of 35 percent while the country’s population had increased by 55 percent.

More specifically, during that period the PC(USA)’s membership declined by 31 percent; that of the Episcopal Church by38.3 percent; the UCC’s by 44 percent; the ELCA’s by 17 percent; the UMC’s by 28 percent; and that of the AmericanBaptist Churches by 12 percent.[16]

Roof and McKinney attribute the decline of the mainline churches to societal change. It should be noted, however, thatother conservative Protestant or “Evangelical” churches in the United States – which are typically pro-Israel – have in thesame period enjoyed significant growth. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention, a conservative church that splitfrom the Northern Baptists over slavery, had 10.7 million members in 1965 and 16.3 million in 2007 – an increase of 51percent. And the Assemblies of God, another Evangelical church that had 572,000 members in 1965, had 1.6 million in2007 – a drastic increase of 184 percent.[17]

Part of this shift is due to demographics. Mainline churchgoers typically have higher education levels and fewer childrenthan Evangelicals, who on average have children at an earlier age and have more of them.

Other processes are at work, however. Roger Finke and Rodney Stark have documented the trends of church decline andgrowth.[18] They describe how established churches have been losing market share to upstart revivalist sects for muchof their history, largely because they did not provide the religious environment that would attract new converts whowould replace members who had died or fallen away from the church.

Finke and Stark report that the Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians (the earlier-mentioned “Big Three”)were losing market share to the upstart sects – most notably the Baptists and the Methodists – as far back as the 1800s.These upstart churches grew in numbers because they imposed demanding religious practices on their followers, whichattracted new converts by imparting a sense of purpose, identity, and order to their lives. Finke and Stark note thatchurches with “high membership demands form a distinctive religious community with tight social networks andabundant resources.”[19]

The Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians loosened the membership requirements and decreased thedemands they imposed on their parishioners in hopes of keeping them within the church. As the Baptist and Methodistchurches grew and as their members became more affluent, they eventually fell into the same trap as theCongregationalists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians. They became part of the Protestant establishment and ultimatelystarted the process of decline.

The upshot is that mainline churches – the churches mostly likely to attack Israel – have been in serious decline fordecades and their leaders do not seem to have any idea how to stop or reverse the trend. In 1991, when the top sixmainline churches had 23.3 million members,[20] McKinney warned that “the liberal branches of Protestantism areshrinking both as a proportion of Protestantism and of the general public.” He continued:

Nor am I terribly optimistic about the future. The demographics remain daunting. Mainstream Protestantsare older than the general population, have fewer children, and are less effective than other religiousgroups in holding the loyalties of their offspring. While their churches once benefited from whatsociologists call “upward mobility switching” (people changing from conservative to liberal denominationsas they advance economically), the rising socioeconomic status of conservative groups has taken away theincentive to switch churches as one’s status changes. Moreover, there are few signs that the mainstreamchurches are eager to refashion their message or redeploy their mission resources to the end of reachinglarge numbers of new people. As a sociologist, I find little evidence of the constituency of latentmainstream Protestants lurking in church parking lots waiting for the right moment to enter. There may besympathetic baby boomers around to offset the steadily increasing death rates of the major denominations,and we soon should see a small turnaround in the annual membership reports [this did not occur], but froma membership standpoint mainstream Protestantism is not the wave of the future. I would like to be provedwrong, but for once conventional wisdom seems to me correct.[21]

In sum, the five churches that have been so critical of Israel have failed to achieve their most basic task – propagating theChristian faith.[22] And yet their leaders have, with the support of the “peace” activists in these churches, directed asteady dose of criticism at Israeli leaders who are struggling with much more complex issues of war and peace.

Despite this irony, these churches remain, for two reasons, valuable sources of publicity and legitimacy for the cause ofanti-Zionism in the United States.

First, members of these churches come from the upper strata of American society and are generally better educated thanthe general public; 35 percent have graduated from college or attained a postgraduate degree compared to 24 percent ofthe general population. Wuthnow and Evans report that “among those who are currently employed, nearly half (49

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percent) of mainline members are professionals, managers, or owners of businesses, compared to only 26 percent of thegeneral population.”[23]

Another source of the mainline churches’ influence is the role that they (or their antecedents) have played in formulatingwhat sociologist Robert Bellah called “American civil religion” in a landmark 1967 essay. Bellah noted that while theUnited States “segregates the religious sphere, which is considered to be essentially private, from the political one” theAmerican people still share “common elements of religious orientation” or “civil religion.”

This civil religion comprises a number of tenets, including the belief in the presence of a divine force in American historyand the notion that the United States fulfills a providential function in world affairs or is the “New Israel.” Such beliefs,Bellah suggests, “play a crucial role in the development of institutions and still provide a religious dimension for thewhole fabric of American life, including the political sphere.”[24]

The impact of these churches and the beliefs they propagated can be seen throughout American history. Members ofthese denominations authored, debated, and approved both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution andwere the mainstay of successful reform and protest movements such as abolitionism in the 1800s, women’s suffrage andProhibition in the early 1900s, and the civil rights and antiwar movements in the 1960s. More recently, activists of thesechurches contributed to the nuclear disarmament campaign of the 1980s. Still more recently, pastors, theologians, andactivists have promoted the cause of gay rights.

These churches no longer exert the influence over American identity that they did in their heyday. Nevertheless, they ortheir historical antecedents were on the winning side of a number of major controversies throughout American history –slavery, women’s suffrage, civil rights, and the Vietnam War – and hence still play a role in determining how right-mindedAmerican progressives should think about issues faced by the American people.

It is this aspect of the mainline churches that has made them so attractive to anti-Israel activists in both the Middle Eastand the United States. If the leaders and so-called peace activists of these churches could convince the generalmembership that Israel could unilaterally bring about an end to the conflict but does not because of some flaw in itsnational character, this could help transform bipartisan American support for Israel into an artifact of the hard Right.

Reality Strikes BackThe assumption that Israel could stop Palestinian violence through concessions, peace offers, and withdrawals becameincreasingly untenable, however, after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. This move was followedby a 2006 electoral victory for Hamas, a group devoted to Israel’s destruction, and increased rocket attacks from theStrip. It was also followed by Hamas’s kidnapping of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, which provoked a round of hostilities betweenIsrael and Hamas in June 2006. The notion that territorial concessions would lead to peace was further undermined thefollowing month when Hizballah attacked Israel from Lebanon – from which Israel had unilaterally withdrawn in 2000.

As Palestinian (and Arab) misdeeds became too obvious to ignore, pro-Palestinian activists started to experience somesetbacks at national gatherings of churches in 2006 and 2007 when groups within the mainline community rose inopposition to the passage of one-sided resolutions about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The most noteworthy of these groupswere Presbyterians Concerned for Jewish and Christian Relations,[25] the Committee to End Divestment Now,[26] andChristians for Fair Witness on the Middle East (Fair Witness).[27] The first two organized opposition to divestment in thePC(USA); the third focused on promoting a more comprehensive understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the fourother mainline churches that had taken one-sided stands about the conflict. In the course of their work these groupsemphasized events in Gaza that undermined confidence in the notion that Israeli concessions would lead to peace.

Jewish groups were also involved in the early efforts to oppose the passage of these resolutions. Virtually every nationalJewish organization expressed concern or even outrage at the text of individual resolutions during 2005 and 2006. Astime progressed, however, it became apparent that statements from Jewish groups had an ambiguous impact onproceedings. On the one hand, such statements drew attention to the one-sided narrative presented in these resolutions;on the other, they appeared to provoke denominational leaders and peace activists to take a harder line against Israel.For example, at the UCC’s 2005 General Synod, Rev. John Thomas, the denomination’s president and general minister,helped ensure the passage of a divestment resolution targeting Israel – over the objections of the committee that dealtwith the issue of “economic leverage” – because not to do so would “send the wrong signal to the Jewishcommunity.”[28]

Thomas also subsequently complained about Jewish groups working with groups inside the UCC to oppose divestment,charging that they allied themselves with the (ecumenical-Christian) Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), which hedescribed as having an agenda matching that of “AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby that largely controls theWashington agenda on the Middle East.”[29] Thomas’s expression of contempt for Jewish efforts to influence hisdenomination’s position on the Arab-Israeli conflict, coupled with his welcoming attitude toward Palestinian Christianactivists from Sabeel, opened the door to harsher polemics from Rev. Jeremiah Wright in 2009 (see below).

Some Jewish activists helped foment antagonism toward other Jews who worked to defend Israel’s reputation. Forexample, Liat Weingart, an activist from Jewish Voice for Peace encouraged an audience of Methodists in 2008 to ignorethe concerns of groups such as the Anti-Defamation League that opposed anti-Israel divestment resolutions, stating that“If you haven’t been accused of anti-Semitism yet, you haven’t been doing the work of Justice.”[30]

As the tendency of these churches to discount testimony from pro-Israel Jews became increasingly evident, Jewishgroups began to take a more hands-off approach, allowing Christians to work from within to confront the distortednarrative promoted by peace activists in these churches.[31]

The first fruits of Christian activism became evident in 2006 when the PC(USA)’s General Assembly passed a resolution

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ending the church’s policy of singling Israel out for divestment.[32] And in 2007, the UCC’s General Synod effectivelyapproved a resolution acknowledging that it had “yet to fully address other forces contributing to the ongoing violence,oppression and suffering in the region” and calling for the establishment of “a Task Force to engage in ongoing andbalanced study of the causes, history and context of the conflict.”[33] In 2008, a divestment resolution put forth by UMCactivists did not survive the denomination’s General Conference.[34]

That is not to say these churches have fully condemned Israel’s adversaries when it was warranted. For example, whenHamas murdered three Palestinian children outside a school in Gaza in November 2006, these churches engaged in littleif any criticism. They also said very little when Hamas threw Fatah members off rooftops during its violent takeover ofGaza in June 2007.[35]

These churches have been similarly soft-spoken when it comes to Iran’s misdeeds. They have little criticism of the Iranianregime’s Holocaust denial, efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and support for Hamas and Hizballah.

This silence has not been across-the-board, however. In 2008, Rev. Thomas, the UCC president and general minister whodisparaged pro-Israel Jewish activism in the aftermath of his church’s 2005 General Synod, distanced himself from adinner with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad organized by the Mennonite Central Committee. He alsocondemned the Iranian president for his Holocaust denial.[36]

A New Leaf in 2009?The trend continued in June 2009 when the Episcopal Church’s General Convention voted down a one-sided resolutionthat, like the UCC’s 2005 “Tear Down the Wall” resolution, called on Israel to remove the security barrier withoutdemanding that the Palestinians put an end to the terror attacks.[37] Later that summer, the ELCA passed a fair-mindedresolution about the Arab-Israeli conflict that expressed concern for the wellbeing of both Palestinians and Israelis.[38]

The UCC’s Executive Council issued an imbalanced statement that portrayed the security barrier as a cause and not aresponse to violence against Israel, but did at least acknowledge that Israel had a story to tell about the Arab-Israeliconflict.[39] The UCC’s General Synod also passed a resolution that called for “an end to the violence, repression, andbloodshed, against peaceful Iranian demonstrators, media, and others.”[40]

The United Church of Canada, a liberal Protestant church similar in many ways to the five anti-Zionist churches in theUnited States, also handed its anti-Israel activists two setbacks at its General Council meeting in 2009. First, on 11 August2009 the General Council repudiated the background material accompanying three anti-Israel resolutions submitted bypeace activists in Toronto as “provocative, unbalanced and hurtful.”[41] A few days later the General Council rejected thethree resolutions themselves, two of which called for a boycott of Israel.[42]

Resilient AnimusThese events indicate that these churches have distanced themselves from the anti-Israel narrative promoted by pro-Palestinian activists. Nevertheless, these activists still enjoy some influence. For example, while the UMC did not pass adivestment resolution at its 2008 General Conference, it did pass a resolution condemning the construction of thesecurity barrier as a violation of international law – predictably without mentioning the suicide bombings that led to itsconstruction.[43] It also passed another resolution calling for a study of the denomination’s investments in, among otherplaces, the Middle East.[44] Taken together, these two resolutions provide groundwork for yet another round of debateover divestment from Israel at the denomination’s next General Conference in 2012.

Resilient support for anti-Zionism is also evident in the PC(USA). Although the denomination’s General Assembly did passa resolution rescinding the policy of singling Israel out as a target for divestment, the denomination’s investmentcommittee (MRTI) is still following the divestment process set forth by the 2004 General Assembly and is working withthe same list of offending companies it created in response to the 2004 vote.[45] Moreover, the denomination’sIsrael/Palestine Mission Network recently published a booklet titled Steadfast Hope: The Palestinian Quest for Just Peace(2009). Like other mainline publications described below, it portrays Israel as solely responsible for the conflict andminimizes Israel’s efforts to mollify its adversaries. For example, the first page of this document states that “While therhetoric surrounding the conflict may be changing, actual policy has not: no settlers have moved back to Israel….” In fact,Israel withdrew more than eight thousand settlers from Gaza in 2005 and several hundred others from the northern tip ofthe West Bank.

Further evidence of some activists’ underlying animosity toward Israel can be seen in an online forum for UCC members.One blogger who participates in this forum, going by the name Gregg, often portrays Israel in an unfair light. His polemicsinclude assertions that Israel uses security concerns as a “smokescreen” for “Israeli aggression toward Palestinians” andthe false claim that “non-Jews” are not allowed to serve in the Israeli army. Ironically, the blogger made these statementswhile participating in a UCC fact-finding trip in early September 2009.[46]

A similar animus can be seen in the statements of Rev. Margaret Payne, bishop of the ELCA’s New England Synod, whomade numerous false assertions during a radio interview in Washington, D.C., in March 2009. For example, she stated thatthe security barrier completely surrounds Bethlehem and that Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem (owned by theLutheran World Federation) was the only hospital in the country providing cancer treatment to Palestinians. When askedto correct the record, she not only refused to make a retraction but promised to continue to “look for every opportunitythat I can find to advocate for the end of Israeli occupation,” revealing her belief that the conflict results from Israelipolicies and not from Arab and Muslim rejectionism.[47]

Out in the Open: “Them Jews”

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The extent to which mainline anti-Israel animus spills over into anti-Semitism became evident when Rev. JeremiahWright, the retired minister of Trinity UCC in Chicago, expressed contempt toward Israel and its Jewish defenders in aJune 2009 interview to the Daily Press (Hampton Roads, Virginia). Wright said he did not expect to have any contact withhis former congregant, President Barack Obama, until he was a lame duck or out of office because “Them Jews ain’t goingto let him talk to me.” He went on to blame the American Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC) for the estrangementbetween himself and Obama: “‘Ethnic cleansing is going on in Gaza. Ethnic cleansing (by) the Zionist is a sin and a crimeagainst humanity, and they don’t want Barack talking like that because that’s anti-Israel,’ Wright said.”[48]

Wright subsequently “clarified” his remarks, stating that he meant to say “Zionists” and not “Jews,” but the conclusionwas inescapable: Wright’s anti-Israelism was not a cover but a vehicle for his anti-Semitism.[49]

The abovementioned Rev. Thomas immediately distanced himself and the UCC from Wright’s comments.[50] Yet it wasThomas himself who opened the door to such frank expressions of anti-Semitism by portraying AIPAC in suchcontemptuous terms in March 2006. Wright’s statement was merely a coarser expression of Thomas’s assertion thatAIPAC controlled Israel-related discourse in Washington – a claim readily contradicted, for instance, by Obama’sinsistence on a West Bank settlement freeze. In his remarks, Rev. Wright walked through a door opened for him by hisdenominational president three years earlier.

The BooksWhereas the resolutions passed by these churches in 2003, 2004, and 2005 portray Israel as in control of the violenceand enmity directed at it, the books and printed materials they distribute portray Israel as unable to exercise this controlbecause of some flaw in its national character or in the psyche of its Jewish majority.

For example, a “Mission Study” published by the UMC in 2007 portrays Israeli Jews as too scarred by the Holocaust tomake peace with their Arab and Muslim adversaries.[51] In this text, written by Rev. Stephen Goldstein, a Jewish convertto the UMC, Israeli attitudes toward its neighbors are not a response to the repeated multiarmy attacks against Israel orthe persistent terror attacks by groups like the PLO, Hamas, and Hizballah over the past several decades.

Instead, Israel’s suspicion of its neighbors is a delayed response to the destruction of European Jewry by the Nazis in the1940s. Goldstein asserts that as a result of the Holocaust, Israelis have been gripped by a “paranoiac sense of isolationthat has been a main characteristic of the Israeli temper since 1948″ and that this outlook “has been the single mostsignificant factor in Israel’s unwillingness to trust their Arab neighbors or the Palestinians, whose land they havecolonized, and who are being victimized on a daily basis.”

Citing Amos Elon’s 1997 book A Blood-Dimmed Tide, Goldstein also reports that “Standing behind each Arab orPalestinian, Israelis tend to see SS men determined to push them once again into gas chambers and crematoria.”[52] TheHolocaust indeed plays a significant role in Israeli and Jewish identity. Nevertheless, in asserting that its impact on theJewish outlook is the main obstacle to Israel trusting the Arabs and Palestinians, Goldstein ignores the more than sixty-year history of violence against Jews and Israel in the Middle East.[53]

Goldstein’s text is not unique but emblematic of a whole genre of printed materials that portray Israel as a colonialistoccupying power whose intrusion has disrupted a previously idyllic Middle East. Augsburg Fortress Press, publishinghouse of the ELCA, published two books during the Second Intifada alleging that Israel’s decision to send troops into theWest Bank in 2002 was motivated merely by a desire to dominate the Palestinians and not by the need to stop thecampaign of suicide attacks that began in 2001.

For example, one of the books – Bethlehem Besieged by Mitri Raheb, pastor of a Lutheran church in Bethlehem – providesthe following context for Operation Defensive Shield, which began on 2 April 2002:

There was no reason to invade “our little town” with hundreds of military tanks and armored vehicles,accompanied by Apache helicopters. The excuse Israel used for invading Bethlehem was a suicide bombingthat took place on March 29 in Jerusalem by a young Palestinian from Deheishe refugee camp nearBethlehem. The blast killed Ayat al-Akhras and two Israeli people and injured two dozen more. The decisionto invade, however, was made weeks before. Before the suicide bombing had taken place, Israeli PrimeMinister Sharon had already launched his military offensive, called “Operation Defensive Shield,” and Israeliforces were already rolling into Ramallah and had besieged Palestinian President Yasir Arafat in hisheadquarters. Three days later, they were in Bethlehem and in front of our house.[54]

Raheb’s chronology leaves out some important facts, most notably the 27 March 2002 suicide bombing that killed thirtyIsraelis and injured 140 more during a Passover celebration at the Park Hotel in Netanya. Raheb also fails to report thatduring March and the first two days of April 2002, more than eighty Israelis (mostly civilians) were killed by Palestiniansuicide attacks and more than thirty-five civilians were killed by gunfire. Any honest description of Operation DefensiveShield would include this information. But Raheb ignores it, acknowledging only one suicide attack and portraying it as an“excuse” for the invasion.

Given Raheb’s ideological commitments, it is no surprise he would author such a distorted text. What is surprising,however, is that a respectable publishing house would package and distribute it.

Another text, Water from the Rock: Lutheran Voices from Palestine, published by Augsburg Fortress in 2003, is marred bysimilar omissions. This essay collection edited by Ann E. Hafften, which fails to offer an honest description or assessmentof Palestinian violence against Israelis, includes a diary entry written by Palestinian Nuha Khoury who reports that Israelbombarded Gaza City, Ramallah, and Jericho on 12 October 2000.[55] Khoury does not mention, however, the lynching oftwo Israeli soldiers at a Palestinian police station in Ramallah that same day. Khoury also invokes the image ofMohammed al-Dura’s death to portray the Israelis as cold-blooded killers: “The image of Muhammed, the 12-year-old boy

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who was killed execution style by the Israeli soldiers, is haunting both Palestinian children and parents, who watched thehelplessness of Muhammed’s father and his inability to protect his son from the Israeli bullets that killed the son and leftthe father permanently paralyzed.”[56]

In addition to giving unwarranted credence to the notion that al-Dura was killed by the Israelis, Khoury falsely reportsthat al-Dura’s father was “permanently paralyzed.” He was not paralyzed; moreover, the injuries he claimed were causedby Israeli forces were in fact treated by an Israeli doctor several years before the Second Intifada.[57] On this score,Hafften and Augsburg Fortress Press allowed Khoury to convey – wittingly or unwittingly – a blatant falsehood to ELCAmembers. Peter Pettit, director of the Institute for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Muhlenberg College in Allentown,Pennsylvania, notes that these essays give readers the overall impression that “Israel simply decided one day to occupyPalestine and oppress the Palestinians, without cause or preamble or debate.”[58]

Possibly the most severe example of how mainline publications have contributed to demonizing Israel is Whose Land?Whose Promise: What Christians Are Not Being Told about Israel and the Palestinians. It was authored by Rev. Dr. GaryBurge, an ordained minister in the PC(USA) and a professor of the New Testament at Wheaton College in Illinois. This text,published in 2003 by Pilgrim Press, which is owned by the UCC, condemns Israeli Jews for using the Bible to justify thecreation of an exclusivist state that discriminates against Arabs in its midst – in violation of the teachings of the Hebrewprophets.

To buttress his claim that Israel is an exclusivist state, Burge falsely states that Israeli Arabs are denied the right to servein Israel’s military and denied access to union membership and to national political parties. In actuality, Arabs mayvolunteer, but are not drafted, into the Israeli military. Arabs belong to unions in Israel. And they serve in the Knesset, insome instances using their seats to argue against Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state.[59]

To give his critique added force, Burge portrays Israeli Jews as reenacting the sins of ancient Israel, thereby nullifyingtheir claim to the land. He compares Israel’s acquisition of territory, in particular the village of Beisan during the 1948War, to the theft of Naboth’s vineyard by King Ahab and his wife Jezebel. Or as Burge puts it: “Once in the Old Testament,an Israelite king coveted a vineyard in Jezreel in the same manner that Beisan was coveted by the Israelis.”[60] Later hewrites:

In the early days of Israel’s birth, when Zionism fueled the vision that would shape the country’s future,Israeli troops coveted the strategic site of [Beisan]. Unlike Ahab’s day when Naboth’s vineyard was valuedfor its good location and remarkable fertility, in the 1940s Israel coveted Beisan for its strategic value.Beisan sat on the main highway connecting the Jordan Valley to inner Galilee and the west. Soon IsraeliHighway 71 would be built and a large Arab population was inconvenient. And just as in the days of Ahab,impure motives and military prowess won the day. Beisan was stolen. And over five thousand people losttheir homes.

If Elijah had visited the day after Beisan had been “cleansed” of its Palestinians, what would he say? “Thussays the LORD, Have you killed and also taken possession?” When forgetting to how to treat aliens andsojourners, Israel has forgotten its own theological history – not simply its biblical history of suffering inEgypt, but its twentieth century history of suffering in Europe.

God calls Israel to live in the land with righteousness because in its history Israel itself has experiencedprofound unrighteousness. When Israel refuses to act in this manner, the nation jeopardizes its own claim tolive in the land. (emphasis added).[61]

Here Burge hangs a biblical condemnation of Israel on a distorted comparison between the royal theft of a vineyard froma loyal, law-abiding subject and the military acquisition of territory from a dangerous enemy in wartime. To make thiscomparison work, Burge portrays the Palestinians who were forced out of Beisan – a combination of fighters from theArab Liberation Army and adult males from the town who had been conscripted into a local militia organized by the ArabLeague Military Committee (the women and children having been evacuated previously)[62] – as the equivalent ofNaboth, who posed no threat whatsoever to the king who eventually murdered him. Naboth was not, like the Arabirregulars in Beisan, part of an effort to destroy Israel.

Burge provides another dose of moral obtuseness when he writes that by taking possession of Beisan, Israelis had“forgotten” their own “twentieth century history of suffering in Europe.” He thereby draws a false equivalence betweenthe murder of Jews in Europe – because they were Jews – and the conquest of a strategically valuable town. Theimplication is that because their people suffered a genocide, Israeli Jews cannot use force or wage war in pursuit of theirown survival.

Burge also invokes the New Testament to portray Israel’s creation as a violation of the boundaries set for the Jewishpeople by Christian theology and Scripture. The most egregious example is his interpretation of John 15:6, which states:“If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into thefire and burned.” Burge interpreted this verse (which was used to justify the execution of heretics during the SpanishInquisition)[63] as follows: “God’s vineyard, the land of Israel, now only has one vine, Jesus. The people of Israel cannotclaim to be planted as vines in the land; they cannot be rooted in the vineyard unless first they are grafted into Jesus.Branches that attempt living in the land, the vineyard, which refused to be attached to Jesus will be cast out andburned.”[64]

The implication – intended or not – is inescapable. Israeli Jews, because of their refusal to accept Jesus as the Messiahhave no claim to the Land of Israel and can justifiably be cast out of their homes and burned. Burge’s use of John 15:6 as abasis for judging Israeli sovereignty is irresponsible and shocking. Moreover, it was published by the UCC, whose 1987General Synod passed a resolution that lamented Christianity’s “frequent portrayal of the Jews as blind, recalcitrant, evil,

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and rejected by God,” and called on the denomination to create liturgical materials that “reflect a sensitivity to the imageof Jews and Judaism.”[65]

Christian ZionismThe willingness of the UCC’s publishing house to print Burge’s text – despite its use of Scripture to demonize the Jewishstate – is indicative of another aspect of the anti-Israel animus in the mainline community: an obsessive focus on themillennial beliefs of Christian Zionists in the United States. Burge’s text, as offensive as it is, is tolerable because itcritiques Christian Zionism.

These five churches routinely portray the Christian Zionist movement as an obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and an important source of suffering and violence in the Middle East. Typical of such argumentation arerecent writings of Rev. Robert O. Smith, the ELCA’s continental-desk director for Europe and the Middle East. Smithrecounts a conversation prompted by his negative reaction to seeing the voluminous sales figures for the Left Behindseries[66] broadcast on an airport television when returning from his first trip to the Middle East in 2002:

One of my travel companions took issue with my disapproval. “It’s just another way of reading the Bible,”she exclaimed.

“You’re right,” I said. “The problem is that people are dying because of that way of reading the Bible. Wejust saw them.”[67]

The problem with Christian Zionism, Smith asserts, is that it promotes a “solidarity with Israelis and other Jews [that]sometimes implies they stand against most of Israel’s neighbors, most of whom are Muslim.” This rhetoric, Smith claims,frightens Muslims in the United States and abroad.[68] In another piece, Smith also quotes Israeli author GershomGorenberg’s concerns about the tendency of Christian Zionists to see “Jews as actors in a Christian drama leading to theend of days.”[69]

To be sure, many Jews and Muslims are uneasy about Christian Zionist theology, but the conversation cannot stop here.Whereas Smith and other commentators in these churches routinely raise concerns about how Christian Zionistsultimately view Jews and Muslims, they say very little about how Jews and Israel are viewed by Muslims in the MiddleEast. The great irony is that these churches, which have been most amenable to investigating how Christian beliefscontributed to the Holocaust, have proved unwilling to address how Muslim teachings about the Jewish people havecontributed to the continuation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the few references to this problem appeared in adocument issued by the Episcopal Church’s Committee on Socially Responsible Investment in 2005: “The SRI Committeealso notes examples of hostility and anti-Semitism of certain Arab states in the region against the state of Israel.”[70]Clearly, the subject requires much greater attention.

Israeli journalist and author Yossi Klein Halevi provides some badly needed background:

The despair so many Israelis feel today has been deepened by the religiously inspired hysteria against theJewish people now spreading throughout much of the Muslim world. As a Jew who learned to love Islam andits choreographed prayers of surrender, this has been a particularly devastating time. Shamefully fewMuslim clerics have denounced the ritual mass murder committed in the name of God and Islam. Instead,the Arab world has indulged in a frenzy of Jew-hatred unprecedented anywhere since Nazi Germany.Government-controlled media deny the reality of the Holocaust and resurrect medieval libels accusing Jewsof using the blood of gentile children for religious observance. Much of the Muslim world seems intent onreviving the demonization of the Jews abandoned by the Christian world after the Holocaust. The Muslim-Jewish relationship, which has known glorious moments in the past, seems to be descending into an abyss.[71]

Although Halevi is careful to offer a word of hope that someday Muslims can rework their theology toward the Jewishpeople in a process similar to the “heroic effort” by Christians to rethink their theology after the Holocaust, heacknowledges that this has not yet happened. Noting that “mainstream Islam hasn’t yet accepted the legitimacy of Jewishsovereignty over any part of the Holy Land,” he continues:

Muslim theologians continue to insist that Jews (and Christians) must ultimately be brought under“protected” Islamic status-allowed to practice their faith so long as they surrender to Muslim rule. In theMiddle Ages, that doctrine was a marked advance over Crusaders’ “convert or die” approach to interfaithdialogue; but in a pluralistic world, “protected status” is an insult.[72]

Troubling AffiliationsIn some instances, leaders and activists from these churches have gone so far as to legitimize the agendas of extremistgroups in the Middle East and the United States. For example, numerous officials from the PC(USA) met with Hizballahleaders in Lebanon during 2004 and 2005. In one of these meetings, Ronald H. Stone, a former professor at PittsburghTheological Seminary, praised the group for its willingness to “dialogue” with him. He added: “As an elder of our church,I’d like to say that according to my recent experience, relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easierthan dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders.”

Another retired Presbyterian theologian characterized Hizballah as “the group that’s brought peace to that region of theworld,” adding, “Is terrorists the right word? They are resistants. To listen to their side of the story is important to get attruth.”[73] The PC(USA) distanced themselves from these comments and fired two staffers who, along with Ronald Stone,met with Hizbollah in 2004. Nevertheless the damage was done – theologians from a prominent Protestant denomination

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affirmed and legitimized Hizbollah, a group with well-documented hostility toward Jews.[74]

Officials from the UMC and the UCC have affiliated with the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation, which in June 2007hosted a rally in Washington, DC, at which protesters carried signs that read “F*&K Israel” with the “s” in Israel drawn tolook like a swastika – a clear and undeniable expression of anti-Semitism. Other protesters carried signs that read “Fromthe River to the Sea Palestine Will Be Free” – a clear and undeniable call for Israel’s destruction.[75]

In October 2009, a website operated by the Israel/Palestine Mission Network (IPMN), an organization created byPC(USA)’s General Assembly in 2004, promoted anti-Israel incitement from a number of different sources. One of thesewas Al-Manar, the Hizballah-controlled television station that was designated as a “Global Terrorist Entity” by the U.S.Department of the Treasury in 2006. In addition to mainstreaming Al-Manar to Presbyterians and to the general public,the IPMN also promotes false allegations about Israel tunneling beneath the Temple Mount – allegations that havecontinued to incite violence.[76]

These churches have also provided substantial moral and logistical support to the abovementioned Sabeel EcumenicalLiberation Theology Center, which supports a one-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict or “One state for two nationsand three religions.”[77]

Members of the Episcopal Church were early supporters of Sabeel’s sister organization in the United States, Friends ofSabeel North America (FOSNA), and both Sabeel and FOSNA have reached out to other denominations for financial andlogistical support. The PC(USA), the Disciples of Christ (also mainline), and the UMC routinely send missionaries who workin Sabeel’s office in Jerusalem. Upon returning to the United States, these missionaries play an important role in thepassage of anti-Israel resolutions by their denominations.[78]

These churches have also cooperated with the anti-Israel agenda of the ecumenical World Council of Churches (WCC),with WCC press releases condemning Israel routinely being published on denominational websites. The denominationshave also given ample publicity to anti-Israel statements of the (American, and also ecumenical) National Council ofChurches (NCC). Fortunately, since Michael Kinnamon, a theologian from the Disciples of Christ became the NCC’sexecutive director, the organization has shown little if any hostility toward Israel and has condemned Ahmadinejad’santi-Israel rhetoric.[79]

Limited Influence, Real DamageFor all their efforts, it appears these churches have had little long-term impact on American public opinion about theArab-Israeli conflict. A recent poll by Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies and Stan Greenberg of GreenbergQuinlan Rosner Research on behalf of the Israel Project found that in August 2009, 59 percent of the American peopleregarded themselves as Israel supporters while only 8 percent saw themselves as supporters of the Palestinians.Moreover, 63 percent of the respondents said the United States should side with Israel in its conflict with thePalestinians.

This does not mean, however, that the animus of these churches can be ignored. Instead of counteracting Arab andMuslim efforts to demonize the Jewish state, leaders and peace activists have facilitated this process. They also havehelped open the door to blunt expressions of anti-Semitism on the American scene.  

*     *     *

Notes[1] “Oppose Construction of the Israeli Security Wall – 2003-D081,” General Convention of the Episcopal Church, 2003.Retrieved 10 September 2009, www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/acts/acts_generate_pdf.pl?resolution=2003-D081.

[2] “On Supporting the Geneva Accord, Urging Israel and Palestine to Implement the Accord,” Item 12-01 – Overture 04-32, passed by the PC(USA)’s 216th General Assembly in Birmingham, Alabama, on 2 July  2004. Retrieved 14 July 2009,  http://index.pcusa.org/NXT/gateway.dll?fn=default.htm$f=templates$vid=GA216:10.1048/Enu$3.0.

[3] Rabbis for Human Rights, “Bad Waters: An Open Letter to the Presbyterian Church (USA),” 26 July 2004. Retrieved 14July 2009, http://tinyurl.com/njy8g6. (This link is to a Google cache of the document. Rabbis for Human Rights no longerdisplays the letter on its website, and has blocked archive.org from archiving its site. The original link to this letter waswww.rhr.israel.net/pdf/presbyterian_26_07_04.pdf.)

[4] “Tear Down the Wall,” 25 General Synod, United Church of Christ. Retrieved 14 July 15, 2009,www.ucc.org/synod/resolutions/gsrev25-16.pdf. The General Assembly of the Disciples of Christ, another mainlineProtestant denomination that shares a board of ministries with the United Church of Christ, passed the same resolutionunder a different title (“Breaking Down the Dividing Wall.” Retrieved 3 September, 2009,www.disciples.org/Portals/0/PDF/ga/pastassemblies/2005/resolutions/0522.pdf.)

[5] ELCA’s “Churchwide Strategy for Engagement in Israel and Palestine” was approved at the denomination’s 2005Churchwide Assembly. Retrieved 15 September 2009,www.elca.org/~/media/Files/Our%20Faith%20in%20Action/Justice/Peace%20Not%20Walls/StrategyFull.ashx.

[6] United Methodist News Service, “Two United Methodist Gatherings Urge Selective Divestment from Israel,” 14 July2005. Retrieved 3 September 2009,www.umc.org/site/c.gjJTJbMUIuE/b.886089/k.A105/Two_United_Methodist_gatherings_urge_selective_divestment_from_Israel.htm.

[7] “An Open Letter from Friends of Sabeel to Our Supporters and to Internet Media,” 12 December 2005. Retrieved 3

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September 2009, www.miftah.org/display.cfm?DocId=9124&CategoryId=18.

[8] Wade Clark Roof and William McKinney, American Mainline Religion: Its Changing Shape and Future (New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 74-75.

[9] William R. Hutchinson, ed., Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment in America, 1900-1960(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 11.

[10] Roof and McKinney, American Mainline Religion, 88.

[11] Ibid., 4.

[12] Population Estimates Program, Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau, Historical National Population Estimates:July 1, 1900 to July 1, 1999. Internet release date: 11 April 2000 (revised 28 June 2000). Retrieved 22 October 2009,www.census.gov/popest/archives/1990s/popclockest.txt.

[13] Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, 1967.

[14] Population Estimates Program, Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Estimates of the Population for theUnited States, Regions, States, and Puerto Rico: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2007. Release date: 27 December 2007. Retrieved22 October 2009, www.census.gov/popest/states/tables/NST-EST2007-01.xls.

[15] Yearbook of Canadian and American Churches, 2009.

[16] Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, 1967, 1968, and 2009 and U.S. Census.

[17] Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, 1967, 2009

[18] Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006).

[19] Ibid., 251.

[20] Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, 1993.

[21] William R. Hutchinson, Catherine L. Albanese, Max L. Stackhouse, and William McKinney, “The Decline of AmericanReligion in American Culture,” Religion and American Culture, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer 1991): 153. Retrieved 15 July 2008,www.jstor.org/stable/1123868.

[22] Matthew 28:19.

[23] Robert Wuthnow and John H. Evans, The Quiet Hand of God: Faith-Based Activism and the Public Role of MainlineProtestantism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 11-13.

[24] Robert N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” Dædalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol.96, No. 1 (Winter 1967): 1-21. Also  http://web.archive.org/web/20050306124338/www.robertbellah.com/articles_5.htm(retrieved 22 October 2009.)

[25] www.pcjcr.org.

[26] www.enddivestment.com.

[27] http://christianfairwitness.com.

[28] John Thomas, “Re: [CCM] Internal CCM Dialogue,” an email to UCC conference ministers on 8 June 2005, posted onUCCtruths.com on 19 August 2005. Retrieved 16 September 2009, www.ucctruths.com/Archive/2005AugustArchive.htmland www.ucctruths.com/JohnThomasletteronDivestment.html.

[29] John Thomas, “The IRS, the IRD, and Red State/Blue State Religion,”  lecture presented at Gettysburg College, 7 March2006; United Church of Christ, 12 March 2006. Retrieved 20 October 2009, www.ucc.org/news/john-thomasthe-irs.html?print=t.

[30] Quoted in Jeff Walton, “There Is Nothing Fuzzy or Hazy about the Occupation,” Institute on Religion and Democracy,28 April 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2009, www.theird.org/Page.aspx?pid=604.

[31] So, at least, it has appeared to this author during 2005-2009.

[32] “On Rescinding and Modifying Certain Actions of the 216 General Assembly (2004) Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” approved by the PC(USA)’s General Assembly on 21 June 2006. Retrieved 10 September 2009,http://pc-biz.org/Explorer.aspx?id=689.

[33] The resolution was sent to the denomination’s Executive Council for implementation as part of a consent calendarapproved by the General Synod. This resulted in the resolution’s implementation without being debated in committee oron the floor of the General Synod.

[34] “Divestment (80132-FA-NonDis),” rejected as part of a consent calendar by the UMC’s General Conference on 28April 2008. Retrieved 8 September 2009, http://calmcs.org/2008/Menu.aspx?type=Petition&mode=Single&number=132.

[35] Dexter Van Zile, “Still the Silence,” Jewish World Review, 29 June 2007. Retrieved 7 September 2009,www.jewishworldreview.com/0607/silence_still.php3.

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[36] Dexter Van Zile, “Rev.’s Kinnamon and Thomas Get It Right on Ahmadinejad,” CAMERA, 26 September, 2008.Retrieved 18 September 2009, www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1543.

[37] “Wall around Palestine,” Resolution A039. Retrieved 3 September 2009,http://gc2009.org/ViewLegislation/view_leg_detail.aspx?id=743&type=Original.

[38] Dexter Van Zile, “ELCA Rejects Extremism, Expresses Concern for Both Palestinians and Israelis,” 25 August 2009.Retrieved 3 September 2009, http://camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1720.

[39] “Israel-Palestine Consultation Report,” 16 June 2009. Retrieved 3 September 2009,www.ucc.org/synod/pdfs/gs27report-onmiddleeast.pdf.

[40] “Solidarity and Friendship with Iran,” 27 General Synod (2009), United Church of Christ. Retrieved 21 September2009, www.ucc.org/synod/resolutions/gs27/solidarity-and-friendship-with-iran.pdf.

[41] The background material accompanying one of the resolutions obliquely accused Canadian MPs of taking bribes towork on Israel’s behalf. It also falsely accused – without substantiation – unnamed Canadian MPs of being “dual citizenswith Israel.” See Dexter Van Zile, “Update: Proponents of Israel Boycott Attempt Hijack of United Church of Canada,”CAMERA. Retrieved 8 September 2009, http://camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=51&x_article=1707.

[42] Dexter Van Zile, “Hijacking Interrupted: United Church of Canada Says No to Anti-Israel Boycott,” CAMERA, 14 August2009. Retrieved 8 September 2009, http://camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=45&x_article=1715.

[43] “Israel-Palestine Conflict (80441-GM-R323),” adopted by the UMC’s General Conference on 2 May 2008. Retrieved 8September 2009, http://calms.umc.org/2008/Menu.aspx?type=Petition&mode=Single&number=441.

[44] “Socially Responsible Investment Task Force (8032-FA-NonDis-!),” adopted by the UMC’s General Conference on 28April 2009. Retrieved 10 September 2009, http://calms.umc.org/2008/Menu.aspx?type=Petition&mode=Single&number=832.

[45] Dexter Van Zile, “The Bias Remains the Same,” CAMERA, 3 January 2008. Retrieved 10 September 2009,www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=51&x_article=1419.

[46] Gregg, “East-Jerusalem-Separation Barrier,” 4 September 2009 entry on blog titled “Straight Speaking Express,”hosted on the UCC site “My UCC.” Retrieved 21 September 2009,http://community.ucc.org/post/gregg/blog/east_jerusalem_separation_barrier.html.

[47] Dexter Van Zile, “Lutheran Bishop Responds Angrily to CAMERA Letter,” CAMERA, 8 June 2009. Retrieved 21September 2009, http://camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=5&x_article=1682.

[48] David Squires, “Rev. Jeremiah Wright Says ‘Jews’ Are Keeping Him from President Obama,” Daily Press, 10 June2009. Retrieved 20 October 2009, www.dailypress.com/news?dp-local_wright_0610jun10,0,7603283.story.

[49] Grance Franke-Ruta, “Wright Says He Didn’t Criticize All Jews,” Washington Post, 12 June 2009. Retrieved 20 October2009, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061104139.html.

[50] Chuck Currie, “Commentary: Jeremiah Wright’s Anti-Semitic Comments Must Be Condemned (Updated),” UCC in theNews, 11 June 2009. Retrieved 20 October 2009, http://community.ucc.org/post/ucc-news/commentary_jeremiah_wrights_antisemitic_comments_must_be_co.html#comments.

[51] Stephen Goldstein, Israel-Palestine: A Mission Study for2007-2008. Women’s Division, General Board of GlobalMinistries, United Methodist Church, 2007.

[52] Ibid., 102.

[53] Dexter Van Zile, “Methodist Manual Maligns Israel, Stereotypes Jews,” CAMERA, 13 February 2008. Retrieved 16September 2009, www.camera.org/index.asp?x_print=1&x_context=48&x_issue=4&x_article=1449.

[54] Mitri Raheb, Bethlehem Besieged (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2004).

[55] Ann E. Hafften, ed., Water from the Rock: Lutheran Voices from Palestine (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press,2003), 57-58.

[56] Ibid., 58. Al-Dura’s death was invoked in a similar manner in another essay in this collection (“This Time of CrisisCalls Out to God”) written by Pastors Michael and Susan Thomas (77).

[57] For a detailed analysis of the al-Dura controversy, see Richard Landes’s website, seconddraft.org. See also “Jamal AlDurah Presents: Scars from the Past.” Retrieved 17 September 2008, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U03h2oEZd0.

[58] Peter Pettit, “Palestinian Lutheran Voices” (review essay), Lutheran Quarterly, Vol. 20 (2006): 92-96.

[59] Dexter Van Zile, “Mainline Churches Embrace Gary Burge’s False Narrative,” CAMERA, 23 August 2007. Retrieved 29October 2009, www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1356.

[60] Gary Burge, Whose Land? Whose Promise: What Christians Are Not Being Told about Israel and the Palestinians(Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2003), 82.

[61] Ibid., 92-93.

[62] Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

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About Dexter Van Zile

view all posts by Dexter Van Zile →

Dexter Van Zile is Christian media analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle EastReporting in America. He has a BA in politics and government from the University ofPuget Sound and an MA in political science/environmental studies from WesternWashington University.

2004), 226-227.

[63] Christine Caldwell Ames, Righteous Persecution: Inquisition, Dominicans, and Christianity in the Middle Ages(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 229.

[64] Burge, Whose Land?, 176.

[65] “Relationship between the UCC and the Jewish Community,” 16 General Synod, United Church of Christ, 1987.Retrieved 6 August 2009, www.ucc.org/education/polity/pdf-folder/relationship-between-the-ucc-and-the-jewish-community-1987.pdf. The other four denominations covered in this essay have issued similar statements with varyingdegrees of authority.

[66] This is a multivolume series written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins and published by Tyndale. The first of thesetexts is titled Left Behind: A Novel of Earth’s Last Days. These books, which tell the story of the rapture and the resultingArmageddon, have sold millions, sparking a cottage industry of criticism from liberal Protestant theologians whocondemn their allegedly pernicious influence on the American people.

[67] Robert O. Smith, “Christian Zionism: It Challenges Our Lutheran Commitments,” The Lutheran, June 2009, 18.

[68] Ibid., 22.

[69] Robert O. Smith, “Jewish-Christian Difficulties in Challenging Christian Zionism,” Christianzionism.org, 2 February2006. Retrieved 22 September 2009, www.christianzionism.org/Article/SmithR02.pdf.

[70] Social Responsibility in Investments Committee of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, “CorporateEngagement by the Episcopal Church on Issues Related to Israel and the Palestinian Territories,” 3 October 2005,www.anglicancommunion.org/the-holy-land/data/usa.pdf.

[71] Yossi Klein Halevi, At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew’s Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in theHoly Land (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), xv.

[72] Ibid., xvi.

[73] Dexter Van Zile, “Hezbollah and the PC(USA): A David Project Backgrounder,” David Project Center for JewishLeadership, December 2005. Retrieved 22 September 2009, http://judeo-christianalliance.org/materials/Hezbollah%20and%20PC(USA).pdf.

[74] Alexa Smith, “Two staffers gone in wake of Hezbollah meeting,” Presbyterian Outlook, ” 12 November 2004.Retrieved 3 November 2009, http://www.pres-outlook.com/news-and-analysis/1-news-a-analysis/1285.html. Also seeWilgoren, Jodi, “Presbyterians Say Meeting in Middle East Isn’t Official,” New York Times, 2 December 2005.

[75] “UCC Fueling Anti-Semitism,” Ucctruths.com, 12 June 2007. Retrieved 22 September 2009,http://ucctruths.blogspot.com/2007/06/ucc-fueling-anti-semitism.html. This rally was organized in part by Rev. DianeFord Jones, minister of communication and mission education for UCC’s Justice and Witness Ministries in Cleveland, Ohio.Rev. David Wildman, who serves as a staffer of the General Board of Global Ministries for the UMC, also serves on theSteering Committee of the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation.

[76] Dexter Van Zile, “Presbyterian Peacemakers Promote Hezbollah Website and Anti-Israel Incitement,” CAMERA, 14October 2009. Retrieved 22 October 2009, http://camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=37&x_article=1751.

[77] Sabeel, “The Jerusalem Sabeel Document.” Retrieved 22 October 2009, www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=39.

[78] Dexter Van Zile, “The Episcopal Church’s Anti-Israel Media Campaign,” CAMERA, 6 September 2006. Retrieved 22October 2009, www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=45&x_article=1194#.

[79] Dexter Van Zile, “Rev.’s Kinnamon and Thomas Get It Right on Ahmadinejad,” CAMERA, 26 September, 2008.Retrieved 18 September 18, 2009, www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1543.

*     *     *

Dexter Van Zile is Christian media analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. Hiswritings have appeared in numerous American Jewish newspapers as well as the Jerusalem Post, Ecumenical Trends, andthe Boston Globe. He has a BA in politics and government from the University of Puget Sound and an MA in politicalscience/environmental studies from Western Washington University. He is a Massachusetts native.

Publication: Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism

Filed Under:   Anti-Semitism,  Diplomacy - Peace Process,  Hamas,  International Law,  Iran,  Israel,  Palestinians,  Terrorism,  TheMiddle East,  U.S. Policy,  World Jewry

Tags:   Christian, Israel, Jews, Mainline, Peacemakers, United States, zionism

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5/16/2015 Mainline American Christian "Peacemakers" against Israel

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