Parsons letter stirs new anger over Mideast
By Alan F.H. Wisdom, The Layman, October 22, 2012
Just when it seemed that Presbyterian Church (USA) debates over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had calmed at least slightly — after last summer’s General Assembly narrowly turned aside a proposal for anti-Israel divestment — the flames of controversy have reignited. Jewish groups, and some Presbyterians, are taking offense at a letter signed by Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons challenging “the continuation of unconditional U.S. financial assistance to the government of Israel.” Seven major Jewish organizations expressed their objections by cancelling plans to attend a Christian-Jewish Roundtable scheduled for Oct. 22-23.
Parsons joined other oldline Protestant denominational heads in an Oct. 5 letter urging members of Congress to undertake “an immediate investigation into possible violations by Israel of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act and the U.S. Arms Export Control Act which respectively prohibit assistance to any country which engages in a consistent pattern of human rights violations.” The church leaders requested “regular reporting on [Israel’s] compliance and the withholding of military aid for non-compliance.” Co-signers of the letter included top officials of the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the American Baptist Churches and the National Council of Churches.
Israel alone targeted
The Oct. 5 letter referred to the 2011 U.S. State Department Human Rights Report, which it said “details widespread Israeli human rights violations committed against Palestinian civilians, many of which involve the misuse of U.S.-supplied weapons.” The letter also condemned the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. “Rights violations resulting from Israeli settlement activity,” it charged, “include separate and unequal legal systems for Palestinians and settlers, confiscation of Palestinian land and natural resources for the benefit of settlers, and violence by settlers against Palestinians.”
Parsons and the other denominational heads asserted, “In our Christian call to be peacemakers, we have worked for decades to support both Israelis and Palestinians in their desire to live in peace and well-being.” They said they had “witnessed the pain and suffering of Israelis as a result of Palestinian actions and of Palestinians as a result of Israeli actions.” But their disapproval in the letter was directed exclusively at Israel’s actions. They voiced no criticisms of the Palestinian Authority or any of the neighboring Arab governments.
The church officials affirmed that laws linking U.S. military aid to respect for human rights “should be enforced in all instances.” Israel, however, was the only nation that they targeted for possible withholding of military aid.
Jewish groups call off meeting
Jewish organizations responded in an Oct. 17 letter to their partners in the Christian-Jewish Roundtable. They expressed “umbrage at the content of the [October 5] letter, the antipathy to Israel it represents, and the lack of communication to Jewish partners in advance of the release.” The seven groups said they could no longer take a “business-as-usual approach” in relating to oldline Protestants. They proposed, “In lieu of the forthcoming Roundtable … we are calling for a meeting with the senior leadership of our agencies and the senior leadership of the Christian institutions that joined the letter to Congress” to “determine a more positive path forward for our communities.”
The seven organizations were among the most prominent in the U.S. Jewish community: the American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith International, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), the Rabbinical Assembly, the Union for Reform Judaism, and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
“The letter signed by 15 church leaders is a step too far,” complained JCPA President Rabbi Steve Gutow. “The participation of these leaders in yet another one-sided anti-Israel campaign cannot be viewed apart from the vicious anti-Zionism that has gone virtually unchecked in several of these denominations. We remain committed to the enterprise of interfaith relations because it is central to the development of a just and righteous society. But these churches have squandered our trust. They either refuse to pay attention to our plea for a fair appraisal of the situation or they simply do not care.”
Dissent among Presbyterians
Parsons’ endorsement of the October 5 letter also provoked dissent within the PCUSA. Presbyterians for Middle East Peace (PFMEP) charged that “he [Parsons] has misrepresented PCUSA policy on this important issue. Contrary to General Assembly instructions, we have become a partisan player in the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict. Our entire denomination is under attack for something it has never adopted as policy.”
The most recent PCUSA policy statement on the Middle East, adopted by the 2010 General Assembly, “calls on the U.S. government to exercise strategically its international influence, including making U.S. aid to Israel contingent upon Israel’s compliance with international law and peacemaking efforts.” But PFMEP cited another statement, from the 2008 General Assembly, which asked “PCUSA members, congregations, committees and other entities to become nonpartisan advocates for peace.” The 2008 assembly vowed that “we will not over-identify with the realities of the Israelis or Palestinians.”
PFMEP noted that the State Department Human Rights Report, from which the Oct. 5 letter drew its criticism of Israel, also contained criticism of Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza. “The three most egregious human rights violations across the occupied territories,” according to the State Department, “were arbitrary arrest and associated torture and abuse, often with impunity and particularly against security or political prisoners, by multiple actors in the region; restrictions on civil liberties; and the inability of residents of the Gaza Strip under Hamas to choose or hold to account their own government.” PFMEP found it ironic that the State Department practiced “exactly the kind of balanced approach to issues the General Assembly instructed our staff and committees to take.”
A gentler tone toward Palestinian politicos
On Oct. 16 Parsons sent a letter to leaders of Fatah and Hamas, the Palestinian political movements that control, respectively, the West Bank and Gaza. Parsons addressed the secular nationalist Fatah and the Islamist Hamas, which is sworn to “jihad” until Israel is “obliterated,” as “Dear Partners in Peace.” He appealed to the two factions to “renew your efforts toward reconciliation” and a united front in dealing with Israel.
“We continue to challenge the injustices of the Israeli occupation, the expansion of the settlements and the hardships imposed
on all Palestinians,” the stated clerk assured the Fatah and Hamas officials. “We have spoken strongly and consistently against our own government’s years of military aid and other forms of support for Israel’s violations of human rights and international law. Yet our voice is weakened and ignored as long as we cannot point to Palestinian leaders that will sit at the table with Israel as unified, viable representatives of the Palestinian people.”
Parsons made no mention of any hardships imposed on Israelis by the threat of Palestinian terrorism. Nor did he challenge any injustices for which Fatah and Hamas might be responsible. He simply asked the two militant groups to work better together.