The Presbyterian Church is now under heavy Zionist attack by letter, telephone, and fax, after voting recently to declare Israel an apartheid state and to stop investing in Israel.
By Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Presbyterian Church (USA)
Israel Labeled an Apartheid State…
Presbyterians Under Attack by Zionists.

The divestment process, which involves dialogue with offending companies before any stock-selling occurs, will probably initially focus on Caterpillar, the Illinois machinery giant that sells bulldozers to the Israeli Defense Forces. Following are excerpts of a statement by Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick clarifying the actions, taken by a majority of 431-62, at the General Assembly.

“It is out of a faith and commitment, and with careful reflection, that the General Assembly took a number of actions concerning our relations with the Jewish community, as well as the situation of Israel and Palestine. The General Assembly mandated a study to “examine and strengthen the relationship between Christians and Jews and the implications of this relationship for our evangelism and new church development.” The focus of this action is to re-examine our theological understanding of Christian-Jewish relationship and to discern whether this particular form of outreach contradicts that understanding or violates our intention to do evangelism in a spirit of respect, openness, and honesty.

The assembly declared that Christian Zionism is not consistent with the basic values of Reformed theology because it makes use of idiosyncratic interpretations of Scripture to undergird a certain reading of current events, and to generate support for specific political goals that do not bolster work toward peace and potentially endanger Palestinian and Israeli people.

The assembly called for an end to Israel’s construction of the ‘separation barrier.’ While fully aware of our interest in Israel’s security, the major reason for this action was the assembly’s concern of the impact of the structure on the economic, social, and religious life of Palestinians. It raised legitimate questions, corroborated by Israel’s Supreme Court and the International Court of Justice, regarding the route of the wall. In previous assemblies, the church has called for an end to the occupation, as the principal cause of the conflict.

Although the decision to “initiate a process of phased, selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel” may invite comparison of Israeli policies with those of apartheid South Africa, the assembly has not asserted any moral equivalency between the two. The two situations are distinct. The focus of this action is to explore use of a proven tool of economic pressure to motivate real change in Israeli policies and movement toward peace. The assembly’s action calls for a selective divestment, and not a blanket economic boycott, keeping before us our interest in Israel’s economic and social well-being where these do not inflict suffering on Palestinian or Israeli people.

The Presbyterian Church has consistently supported the existence of Israel within legitimate and secure borders, and prayed for its security and well-being. It is, however, the conviction of the Presbyterian Church that “the security of Israel and the Israeli people is inexorably dependent on making peace with their Palestinian neighbors, by negotiating and reaching a just and equitable solution to the conflict that respects international law, human rights, the sanctity of life, and dignity of persons, land, property, safety of home, freedom of movement, the rights of refugees to return to their homeland, the right of a people to determine their political future, and to live in peace and prosperity.”

All of these actions are consistent with the commitment of the Presbyterian Church made in 1987 in A Theological Understanding of the Relationship between Christians and Jews, “never again to participate in, to contribute to, or (insofar as we are able) to allow the persecution or denigration of Jews.” That document also reminds us “both Christians and Jews are called to wait and to hope in God. While we wait, Jews and Christians are called to the service of God in the world.” This calling includes “ceaseless activity in the cause of justice and peace.”

As I made clear in a statement of May 28, 2002, “Palestinians are called, once and for all, to cease striking terror in the hearts of Israeli Jews by stopping attacks on noncombatants while they are carrying out the activities of their daily lives or the celebrations of their peoplehood. Israelis are called, once and for all, to cease striking terror in the hearts of Palestinians by stopping military operations that assault harmless people and disable Palestinian infrastructures. It is time to stop activities that increase hatred and mutual recrimination and that destroy hope, security, and trust…. Acts of hate and terror inflicted on innocent children and youth, women and men of Israel, and the larger Jewish community must be unequivocally condemned and vehemently abhorred. This is in no way inconsistent with speaking out about the political and military violence of the Israeli government or the militant activities of Israeli settlers.”

I encourage Presbyterians to maintain their relationships with people of other faiths, with sensitivity to the fragility of trust in the present climate of violence and terror. I also encourage all of us to seek opportunities for respectful conversation with Jewish neighbors about disagreements regarding Israeli policy and forms of public policy advocacy for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
—For the complete release, see PCUSA Washington Office: http://www.cmep.org/Alerts/2004July26.htm

By Dr. Tony Klug, The Jewish Chronicle
The Wall is Now a Barrier to Peace
An entire population is being brutalized…beyond endurance,
and the future welfare of the Israeli people is being put at risk,
to satisfy a dangerous ideological urge and reward a militant settler constituency.

It doesn’t seem so long ago when an explosion of joy consumed Israel and the wider Jewish world as the barricades that had divided Jerusalem for 19 suffocating years were triumphantly dismantled in the wake of Israel’s military victory in the 1967 war. Now the barbed wire, fences, and concrete barriers—eight metres/26 feet high in some places—are back, courtesy of Israeli politicians and engineers, not only in the capital city but all over the captured territories.

As a researcher, I used to move about virtually unhindered through the West Bank in the 1970s as, mostly, did its Palestinian inhabitants. There were few Jewish settlements, few roadblocks and few terror attacks. Even travel across the old Green Line border was barely monitored. The official Israeli approach was to let the Palestinians see the Jewish state for what it was, not as “mendacious Arab propaganda” had projected it for two decades. Once Palestinian attitudes had changed, the argument ran, the territories would be returned. Indeed, Palestinian attitudes and policy did go through a steady, profound transformation.

The Israeli strategy was not unsuccessful. Peace was on the horizon—until the settlements policy started in earnest. With it came the waning of Palestinian hope for eventual independence and the onset of despair and fear for the future. The fine sentiments of the Oslo Accords restored hope for a while. But the concomitant division of the West Bank into three security areas, giving rise to a major expansion in the number of Israeli checkpoints (currently about 500), severely curtailed the Palestinians’ freedom of movement between their own towns and villages. Humiliating searches by young Israeli recruits became commonplace.

The enforced requisition of Palestinian land and other resources to accommodate the burgeoning Jewish settlement program continued apace. Palestinian resistance grew in tandem, at times involving murderous attacks on Israeli civilians. And now, in apparent response, we have the monstrous Wall. Were its route to trail the markedly shorter ‘Green Line’ as envisaged by its original architects, this would at least lend credence to the security argument (and keep it internationally legal). Instead, it has been weaving its way around settlement blocs deep into the West Bank, effectively annexing huge chunks of Palestinian land and separating Palestinians from their fields, workplaces, schools, universities, hospitals, places of worship, and their families and friends.

This is the other side of Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal scheme. An entire population is being brutalized and alienated beyond endurance, and the future welfare of the Israeli people and state is being put at risk, to satisfy a dangerous ideological urge and reward a militant settler constituency. If the Palestinians fail to gain their place in the sun, the Israelis will never be left in peace to enjoy theirs. Each holds the key to the other's destiny. The answer to Israel’s security is not to tighten the screw and further inflame the passions. This will invite perpetual conflict.

The erection of the wall is tantamount to giving up on peace—probably still attainable on well-rehearsed terms—and to an acceptance by Israel of a permanent international pariah status. This is not inevitable and is in no one’s interests. We should not blindly be supporting it.
—Dr. Tony Klug is an international relations specialist and co-vice chair of the Arab-Jewish Forum. Published in the Jewish Chronicle (UK).

Israeli High Court Orders Reply on Barrier Ruling
A UN report says the 440-mile barrier will cause serious human suffering to 700,000 Palestinians, cutting them off from their farms, jobs, and schools.

Israel’s High Court has ordered the government to respond within 30 days to a World Court [International Court of Justice] ruling that the West Bank barrier is illegal, and has already ordered changes in the barrier route. The Israeli Attorney General has advised the government to reroute the barrier, arguing that this will help Israel to avoid international sanctions. The ICJ decision against the barrier creates a legal reality for Israel, which could serve as an excuse and a catalyst for activity against Israel in international forums, to the point of sanctions.

The Israeli government has previously said it will ignore July’s non-binding verdict by the ICJ, the UN’s highest legal body, that parts of the barrier built on Palestinian land should be pulled down. Israel continues to argue that the barrier is needed to stop attacks by Palestinian militants, but the Palestinian Authority says the real goal of the barrier is to grab more Palestinian land. The wall is built inside the West Bank and in parts cuts a long way into the territory.

“It is hard to overestimate the negative repercussions of the decision of the International Court of Justice at The Hague for the state of Israel in various realms, including issues that go beyond the separation fence,” said a report commissioned by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Apart from the ICJ ruling, a UN report has concluded that the 700 km (440-mile) barrier is and will cause serious human suffering to 700,000 Palestinians, cutting them off from their farms, jobs, and schools. Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in June this year that one section of the barrier must be rerouted to minimize its impact on civilian populations.
—Ha’aretz

Israel has no choice but to quit more areas
if it is to reman a free and democratic state.
Deputy PM: “More Jewish Settlements Must Go”

Former Jerusalem mayor and Israel’s current deputy prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said Israel might have to pay a tough price: the withdrawal of Jews from the West Bank that is likely to involve more than the four settlements slated for evacuation. Current plans foresee a full pullout of Jews from Gaza and the closure of only four of more than 100 West Bank settlements, most of which the world community considers illegal under international law. Olmert said Israel had no choice but to quit more areas if it was to remain a free and democratic state. The US-backed roadmap peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians obliges Israel to stop settlement growth while Palestinians are required to act against militant attacks on Israel.

Currently there are 400,000 settlers in the West Bank Palestinian areas (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza Strip, 130 settlements authorized by Israeli governments, and about 100 unauthorized settlements, of which 60 have been built during Ariel Sharon’s government. Israel spends about $500 million on settlements annually, excluding huge security costs.
—Sources: Peace Now group and Ha’aretz newspaper

Many Israelis Not Making it Financially

A report from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics claims that 46% of Israelis are struggling to meet their bills every month. The Social Workers’ Union head told Army Radio that the food most frequently sacrificed was basic foodstuffs, harming skeletal, cognizance, and other health systems. “What this means,” she said, “is that a portion of Israel’s children are growing up with flawed bodily systems, and some of Israel’s elderly are literally falling apart.” Thirty-eight percent of families did not have enough money to heat their homes, and 16% of prescriptions were not used because people could not pay for the drugs. Some 45% of those in need of dental treatment didn’t seek it, and 50% of those who didn’t have comprehensive health insurance gave up on it because of financial constraints.

Increasing pressure is being put on the government to explain its disproportionate funding of settlers, and the continuing high costs of military expenditures.

By William Fisher, The Jordan Times.
"A new international poll reports that
Arab attitudes towards the US have plummeted to all-time lows."
Winning the War of Ideas

One of the more under-reported conclusions of the Sept. 11 Commission is that the struggle against Islamic extremists is more than a military, intelligence, financial, and diplomatic battle. It is a war of ideas. And it is a war the US is losing. “The United States must do more to communicate its message,” the report declares. It quotes Ambassador Richard Holbrook wondering: “How can a man in a cave out-communicate the world’s leading communications society?” And Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage worried that Americans have been “exporting our fears and our anger, not our vision of opportunity and hope.”

Underscoring America’s problems is a new Zogby International poll of 3,000 respondents in Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The poll reports that Arab attitudes towards the US have plummeted to all-time lows. In contrast to the Bush administration’s insistence that US ‘values’ and political ideals are behind the hostility, the poll findings show that Arabs see US policies in the Middle East as, by far, the main factor fostering the Arab world’s growing antagonism towards Washington.

When asked an open-ended question about what the US could do to improve its image among Arabs, significant pluralities in each country called for Washington to either “stop supporting Israel” or “change Middle East policy.” Faced with such a hostile environment, how should the US go about doing a better job of communicating its messages to the Arab world?

The September 11 Commission had this recommendation: “Recognizing that Arab and Muslim audiences rely on satellite television and radio, the government has begun some promising initiatives in television and radio broadcasting to the Arab world, Iran, and Afghanistan. These efforts are beginning to reach large audiences.” The commission was referring to the US taxpayer-financed satellite television channel, Al Hurra (The Free One). Its start-up early last year cost about $102 million, added to the previously launched Radio Sawa, a Middle Eastern Radio Network with Arabic programming, and a radio station directed at Iran. Featuring mostly American pop music and a smattering of news, the radio stations have attracted substantial audiences in eight Arab countries, including Iraq. Now that they have begun to win acceptance, news content is gradually increasing.

Al Hurra has gained a modest audience of about 7-10 per cent of Arab viewers of inter-national news but it has been viewed with suspicion by most Arabs. The Zogby poll found that Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, two indigenous Arabic channels, enjoy an overwhelming share of the growing satellite TV market in the Middle East. Al Hurra’s programming will require a substantial overhaul before it will be able to capture meaningful market share among Arab viewers. This presents the US government with tough choices: to be credible it needs to present a more authentic American reality—warts and all—and a far more diverse range of opinions, even including those of people who hate America, if it is to shed its propagandist image.

There are those Americans who have counseled the government to ‘take out’ the Arab networks. One of them is Frank Gaffney Jr., a neoconservative Reagan-era Defence Department official. Some warned darkly that this measure confirmed fears that an American occupation of Iraq would create a new puppet authoritarian system, not a Western-style liberal democracy rooted in freedom of the press.... To those who will decry this as censorship, they should be reminded of President Bush’s injunction shortly after we were attacked two years ago: “In the war on terror, you are either with us, or with the terrorists...”

There is no doubt that stations like Al Jazeera are, in the words of Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper, “daring, aggressive and timely; but also selective, demagogical, and gruesome.” The US should keep working to strengthen Al Hurra by making its programming more appealing to its Arab audiences. And at the same time, Americans—and not only government officials—need to engage with the major Arab networks.
—William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East for the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development. He served in the international affairs area in the Kennedy administration. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

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NOTICE – For MennoLetter readers in the Northeastern United States there will be a Conference on Israel held at East Petersburg Mennonite Church in Pennsylvania,
on September 24-25. Please write to us for details – office@mennojerusalem.org
We look forward to meeting many of you there during that event. – ed.

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By Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times
"We have quite properly linked the fundamentalist religious tracts of Islam with the intolerance they nurture, and it’s time to remove the motes from our own eyes."
JESUS AND JIHAD
“It’s harder to feel empathy for such people if we regard them as infidels and expect Jesus to dissolve their tongues and eyes any day now…”

In the latest of the LEFT BEHIND series of evangelical thrillers, Jesus will return to Earth, gather non-Christians to his left, and toss them into everlasting fire: “Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again.”

These are the best-selling novels for adults in the United States, and they have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. The latest is Glorious Appearing, which has Jesus returning to Earth to wipe all non-Christians from the planet. It’s disconcerting to find ethnic cleansing celebrated as the height of piety. If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of Glorious Appearing and publish it in Saudi Arabia, jubilantly describing a massacre of millions of non-Muslims by God, we would have a fit.

We have quite properly linked the fundamentalist religious tracts of Islam with the intolerance they nurture, and it’s time to remove the motes from our own eyes. In Glorious Appearing, Jesus merely speaks and the bodies of the enemy are ripped open. Christians have to drive carefully to avoid “hitting splayed and filleted bodies of men and women and horses…” As my New York Times colleague David Kirkpatrick noted in an article, this portrayal of a bloody Second Coming reflects a shift in American portrayals of Jesus, from a gentle Mister Rogers figure to a martial messiah presiding over a sea of blood. Militant Christianity rises to confront Militant Islam.

This matters in the real world, in the same way that fundamentalist Islamic tracts in Saudi Arabia do. Each form of fundamentalism creates a stark moral division between decent, pious types like oneself—and infidels headed for hell. No, I don’t think the readers of Glorious Appearing will ram planes into buildings. But we did imprison thousands of Muslims here and abroad after 9/11, and ordinary Americans joined in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in part because of a lack of empathy for the prisoners. It’s harder to feel empathy for such people if we regard them as infidels and expect Jesus to dissolve their tongues and eyes any day now…

I often write about religion precisely because faith has a vast impact on society. Since I’ve praised the work that evangelicals do in the third world (Christian aid groups are being particularly helpful in Sudan, at a time when most of the world has done nothing about the genocide there), I also feel a responsibility to protest intolerance at home. Should we really give intolerance a pass if it is rooted in religious faith?
—excerpted from the July 17th issue of The New York Times

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We welcome your letters about the articles we include,
or your suggestions on other topics you would like to read about.

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Glenn Edward Witmer is the North American Mennonite Church representative in Israel, as well as Administrator and Director of Program Development and Publication for the Bat Kol Institute, Jerusalem. His responsibilities include teaching in the Biblical literacy program in the land of the Bible. Please visit their website.