Group blasts PCUSA report
on Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Layman, February 24, 2010
Calling the new Presbyterian Church (USA) proposed policies on Israel “draconian” and “poison,” the Simon Wiesenthal Center is asking members of the denomination to reject the Middle East study team’s anticipated recommendations.
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“We are deeply troubled that current moves underway in the church radically depart from its 2008 commitment that its review of Middle East policies would be balanced and fair,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center. “Instead, PCUSA leadership appointed a committee of nine, seven of whom were on record as holding anti-Israel positions. The sole member sympathetic to Israel soon quit in protest over the extremist anti-Israel political agenda reflected in its recommendations.”
Among the recommendations, according to the Wiesenthal Center, are:
- A call for the United States to withhold financial and military aid to Israel;
- An apology to Palestinians for even conceding that Israel has a right to exist;
- A boycott of Israel and full right of Palestinian return;
- Embracing the Kairos Palestine Document, which “denies any connection between Biblical covenants and the Jewish people,” and “begins Israel’s history only with the Holocaust.”
“These recommendations effectively open up a theological front against Israel, to add to the diplomatic and academic ones pursued by other haters of Israel,” Cooper said.
According to a PCUSA news release, the committee recommendations are as follows: Call for an immediate end to the occupation; endorsing the Kairos Palestine document’s “emphases on hope, love, non-violence and reconciliation”; and urging the United States to take swift action toward a just peace.
At the 218th PCUSA General Assembly in 2008, commissioners approved the Special Committee to Prepare a Comprehensive Study Focused on Israel/Palestine with the charge of preparing recommendations for the 219th General Assembly, which meets July 3-10 in Minneapolis, Minn.
The committee had its final meeting in January and is scheduled to release its report by March 5, a PCUSA news release said.
On Feb. 23, Stated Clerk of the PCUSA GA Gradye Parsons released a statement on the criticism.
“We support the existence of Israel as a sovereign nation within secure and recognized borders,” he said. “We support Israel’s existence as granted by the (United Nations) General Assembly. We support Israel’s existence as a home for the Jewish people. We have said this before, and we say this again. We say it because we believe it; we say it because we want it to continue to be true.”
In his statement, Parsons also echoed past GA actions and defended the Palestinian position.
“We are distressed by the continued policies that surround the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, in particular,” he said. “Many of us come to this work out of a love for Israel. And it is because of this love that we continue to say the things we say about the excesses of occupation, the settlement infrastructure and the absolute death knell it is sounding for the hopes of a two-state solution, a solution that the Presbyterian Church (USA) has supported for more than 60 years.”
According to a PCUSA news release, all but one member of the committee voted to approved its recommendations to GA. The chairman of the committee is the Rev. Ron Shive (Salem), who is joined by the Revs. Susan R. Andrews (Hudson River), John Huffman (Los Ranchos), Rebecca Reyes (New Hope), Marthame Sanders (Greater Atlanta) and Byron Shafer (New York City); and elders Frederic W. Bush (Los Ranchos), Nahida H. Gordon (Muskingum Valley) and Lucy Janjigian (Palisades).
In a call to action on the Wiesenthal Web site, the organization recommends sending protest letters directly to Parsons, Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow and General Assembly Mission Council Executive Director Linda Valentine.
In addition to criticizing the recommendations of the report, Wiesenthal also implies that the committee isn’t an accurate reflection of the whole denomination and questions the denomination’s priorities.
“PCUSA has some of the staunchest supporters of Israel in its ranks,” said Rabbi Yitzchok, Wiesenthal’s director of Interfaith Affairs. “They are as frustrated as we are that their church leadership team spends so much energy on the Arab/Israeli conflict where there are relatively few Presbyterians who live in either Israel or the disputed territories, and spend too little energy on major human rights issues impacting Christians and Presbyterians who live in Muslim countries, China and North Korea.”
With more than 400,000 members in the United States, the Wiesenthal Center is among the largest international Jewish human rights organizations.