23-Jun-14: Divesting Presbyterians: An afterthought

We belong to those "Jewish brothers and sisters" whom the Presbyterian Church USA leadership professes to love, and suggest this post be seen as expression of love right back.

Below, there's a video clip of a remarkable CNN interview with  the new moderator of the church. The sharp questions, dull answers and skirting around the point make it worth a few minutes of our readers' attention.

Click here for the CNN interview

Just a couple of final comments (with thanks to our friend ES): We think the true intentions of PCUSA are unmasked when they decided to divest from Motorola Solutions. What was its sin? The supply of surveillance equipment to Jewish communities. Now that equipment is entirely defensive, aimed at stopping the kind of terrorists who enter settlements and murder Jewish children in their beds. It saves lives on both sides. If Motorola needs to be sanctioned for this, what does this say about the church's view of the rights of people living in those communities to be protected from murderous thugs?

And Hewlett-Packard? Their equipment went to assist the enforcement of the embargo on  the Hamas-controlled, terrorism-infected Gaza Strip for reasons that are clear enough to most open-eyed folk. Is that embargo illegal and is that why Motorola ought to be punished, along with Israel? There are plenty of haters of Israel who say 'yes'. But a major United Nations review in 2011 found it was lawful and appropriate.

So what does Friday's PCUSA decision really say about those who voted for it, their views of the Jewish state and those who live here, and the nature of love?

22-Jun-14: Divesting Presbyterians

At the General Assembly [Image Source]

We wrote here a few days ago ["18-Jun-14: Sharing some thoughts with Christian advocates of an Israel boycott"] about the upcoming General Assembly of the of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) and the obsessive preoccupation with matters Israeli in evidence among certain of its activists. We also referred to a video statement that we made to those taking part.

It's a church in a state of serious resizing. Wikipedia numbers show it boasted 1,760,200 members in 2013. But there had been 3.1 million of them in 1984. The decline since 2000 (by our calculation) exceeds 30%, and it has been accelerating in the past few years. 

The General Assembly voted on Friday by 310 votes to 303 to divest from three US companies on the grounds that they profit from what the framers of the motions call Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. 

For the three companies - Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard - the decision to divest has close-to-zero significance. Ditto for the economy of the State of Israel. But Jewish leaders are saying it is likely to damage Jewish-Presbyterian relations for years to come. 

Strangely enough, given the effort and sweat invested over a period of years by the activists promoting last week's agenda, we have yet to hear of anyone claiming the Church decision brought peace closer.

Should that surprise or disappoint us? If not, what was this really about?

18-Jun-14: Sharing some thoughts with Christian advocates of an Israel boycott

Click for the video page

Presbyterians for Middle East Peace [website] asked two Israelis whose lives, in the group's words, have been forever changed by senseless violence to speak about their experience, the importance of reconciliation, and their hopes for the future.

They are Arnold Roth and Kay Wilson. Their two testimonies are online here in video clip form.

"For those of who truly care about peace, and I see them wherever I go in this country, we know that what's needed is to build bridges and not to blow them up." [Arnold Roth, speaking in the video clip]

The background is described today in a Commentary Magazine piece by Jonathan Mark: "Will the Presbyterian Church USA Vote for Divestment (and Irrelevance)?"

The Israel-Palestine Mission Network was formed by the PCUSA General Assembly in 2004, the same year in which it passed a resolution calling for “phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel.” While the Assembly was at it, it claimed that the “occupation” was “at the root of evil acts committed against innocent people on both sides of the conflict” and lectured Israelis on the importance of making peace with the Palestinians... In 2012, they almost persuaded the Assembly to disinvest from Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard, and Motorola for “profiting from non-peaceful activities in Israel-Palestine.” They lost 333 to 331. Encouraged, they are back at it again at this year’s General Assembly, which is meeting this week... Those members of the General Assembly who are merely foolish, rather than hostile to Jews, may vote for the resolution, which is admittedly much narrower than the one passed in 2004, thinking it relatively benign. That is the BDS strategy. Get what you can get, then publicly marvel at your momentum, even if what you got is less than what you were able to get ten years ago... The more likely result, momentum-wise, is even more departures from the church... Presbyterians may notice that they have leaders, and that these leaders are, increasingly, radicals and fools. Even devoted churchgoers can’t be blamed for leaving a church when it starts to smell this bad.

Jewish clergy from right across the political spectrum have paid attention, and are expressing themselves about as clearly and unitedly as independent-minded leaders ever do: see "Jewish leaders from every state urge Presbyterian Church to choose partnership and reconciliation over divestment and division" (via Religion News tonight), and the forcefully expressed "Enough! Why we won’t be at the Presbyterian General Assembly" (Jerusalem Post today).

A Christian journal, The Layman Online, says that

"Since 2004 the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been second only to sexuality issues in generating controversy at PCUSA assemblies. And judging by the volume and ferocity of the overtures advanced this year, the intensity of the anti-Israel activists will again almost match that of the same-sex marriage champions... These measures will create the impression of a popular groundswell of Presbyterians demanding that their denomination rebuke the Jewish state. In fact, however, the overtures come from a handful of presbyteries that have a record of pro-Palestinian advocacy. PCUSA members in general are more moderate, and more divided, on Israeli-Palestinian issues."

If the boycott Israel campaign decision does pass, Presbyterian Church (USA), a mainline Protestant Christian denomination, would be the largest religious organization in the country to impose sanctions on Israel, writes the religion correspondent at Voice of America. He quotes the Rev. John Wimberly, a retired church pastor, urging Christians to think twice before imposing sanctions on Israel. “There is a 2,000-year history of economic sanctions being used by Christians aimed at Jews and it's a bloody, nasty history and that is kind of my bottom line opposition right there..."  The proponents of BDS ignore Palestinian attacks on Israel, he observes, while the divestment proposal at the church's General Assembly has been pushed by lobbyists from outside the denomination. Wimberley, by the way, is now on the steering committee for Presbyterians for Middle East Peace, the people who posted the Arnold Roth video.

Jonathan Mark's observation about a dwindling church membership is supported by numbers we saw today over at Wikipedia. There were 1,760,200 members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 2013 according to PCUSA's own data. There had been 3.1 million of them in 1984. The decline since 2000 (by our calculation) exceeds 30%. 

While being boycotted by Presbyterians (if that turns out to be their decision this week) is no great honour, we expect the State of Israel will somehow survive it. 

We do wonder though about the future of a mainline church in steep decline which puts its name to a publication like "Zionism Unsettled: A Congregational Study Guide", promoted via the church's online bookstore, and aimed at "advocating for the human rights of Palestinians under military occupation". The editors at CAMERA point out that it promotes some serious lies: that Zionism and Israel have been sheltered from debate, particularly in mainline churches in the US; that Jews were well treated in Muslim countries in the Middle East until Zionism arrived in the region in the 19th century; and that Israel is singularly responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians. 

CAMERA also notes that the Presbyterian booklet is endorsed by James M. Wall (of whom we wrote here: "18-Jul-13: When he lionizes child killers, is James M. Wall speaking for mainstream Christians") which, for us, pretty much speaks for itself.

17-Oct-13: Making sense of never-ending corruption

Scene from the movie classic Casablanca: Renault, the police chief,
picking up his roulette winnings, is "shocked, shocked" to find gambling going on.
This has nothing, nothing, to do with Palestinian Arab corruption
and European willingness to be duped. [Image Source]

An article by Michael Curtis, "The Unsurprising Corruption of Palestinian Authorities" over on the American Thinker site, takes us several steps beyond the points we noted here in the past week (see "15-Oct-13: Which one factor, central to the conflict and the hatred, is almost never reported in the news media?" and "13-Oct-13: Massive scandal in Palestinian Arab financial affairs? No!") It's a great piece of analysis, and we urge everyone to read it all. 

The immediate trigger is a not-yet-released report by the European Court of Auditors into the income and spending of money given as foreign aid to the Palestinian Arabs by the EU. As we mentioned here four days ago, billions of aid dollars given to the Palestinians between 2008 and 2012 are unaccounted for and "lost". EU investigators who came to Jerusalem and the West Bank "were unable to obtain information or speak to Palestinian officials about corruption", as Curtis puts it. A more serious indictment would be hard to imagine. Still and unsurprisingly, it has gotten negligible media coverage. The usual reasons apply.

Some bullet-point extracts from his important piece, starting with the extraordinary largesse that has created the conditions for the monumental scale on which official Palestinian corruption is done:

• The Palestinian Authority received, per capita of the people it controlled, 25 times more aid, mostly given to UNRWA (UN Relief and Work Agency) for Palestinian refugees, than Europeans received after World War II. 
• Transparency International, a Berlin group concerned with monitoring corporate and political corruption, states that the ineffectiveness of the Palestinian parliament since 2007 has "given the executive (branch of Palestinian government) unlimited management over public funds." There have been "significant shortcomings" in management of funds. The group is currently investigating 29 Palestinian officials on counts of fraud and money laundering.
• Moreover, over three-quarters of the funding of UNRWA comes from democratic, non-Arab countries...
• Since 2008, the U.S. has given on average about $600 million a year to the Palestinians in bilateral aid: in 2013 the U.S. is giving $444 million. In addition, the U.S. has given $4,150 million to UNRWA since its establishment: it is the largest single state donor.
• Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority... again laid blame on the "Israeli occupation" for the difficult economic situation of the Palestinians... This "occupation" exploited Palestinian resources and lands which directly led to an increase in deficit. In fact, the estimated budget deficit in 2013 is expected to be $1.4 billion. As a result he doubted that there would be funds available to pay the November salaries of the 150,000 PA workers... He did not try to define in which sinking hole the lost nearly $3 billion had gone.
• U.S. aid has been given not only for humanitarian reasons, but also in the hopes that Palestinian terrorism may be ended, and that Palestinians would be encouraged to enter into the peace process. So far those hopes have been in vain.
• Instead of dealing with the reality of Palestinian wastage and theft of financial resources, critics of Israel persist in their bias and prejudicial behavior. Typical of this is the vote of the Presbyterian Church, USA, to boycott all products from Israeli settlements in the disputed territories and its call to all nations "to prohibit the import of products made by enterprises in Israeli settlements on Palestinian land."
• Instead of making peace with Israel the Palestinians have been wasting their resources. In view of the evident continuing corruption and mismanagement that almost everyone is now willing to acknowledge it is hard to take seriously, as some well meaning people have done, the Palestinian pretense of being victims of "Israeli oppression."

The leadership of the European Union, which obviously knows as much as we do and far more about this ongoing scandal has been silent since the London Times first reported it this past weekend. In any event, there is nothing new about it. We wrote here seven years ago: 

Don't be offended. But if you're a European who cares about what's being done with the taxes you pay to your government, the Palestinians are playing you for a fool. Not just you alone, but also your government, your politicians and your public-sector watchdogs.

Some earlier posts: 

• 3-Oct-13: The business of terror: how money-making and power impact the search for peace 
• 1-Oct-12: Hamas corruption: More-than-keeping-up with the Fatah kleptocrats 
• 12-Jul-12: Secret bank accounts, sweetheart deals for insiders, incredible riches for the president's sons: why would any Palestinian Arab politician ever give this up for... peace? 
• 16-May-12: Ten years late, the assault on financial corruption at the highest levels of Palestinian government may finally be going somewhere

5-Feb-08: Living with the Gazans - Christian Edition

We'll let the New York Daily News speak for itself:

Gaza Baptists targeted by extremists
Violence by extremists has left Gaza's few Christians, such as this nun shown praying during the Christmas season in Gaza City, fearing for their safety
Monday, February 4th 2008, 4:00 AM
GAZA CITY - The Gaza Strip is home to 1.5 million Muslims - and about 3,000 increasingly frightened Christians. The small evangelical Baptist community has been a principal target of the extremists because of its missionary work, which has been halted. "Christians get killed here, let alone a Muslim who converted," said Ashraf, 36, who did not give his last name. "I stopped going to church even before the coup." And recently, even his church leader, pastor Hanna Massad, has fled to the West Bank. The murder of Baptist congregant Rami Eyad in October sent shock waves through Gaza's Christian community. Eyad's religious book shop had been bombed in April. Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab al-Ghusain condemned the killing but said that no one has been arrested. He blamed Al Qaeda elements and said Hamas was not involved. "We have increased security in Christian neighborhoods and near churches," Ghusain said. The Rev. Archimandrite Artemios leads St. Porphyrous Geek Orthodox Church, founded 1,600 years ago in Gaza's old city. He says he dares not try to persuade anyone to join his dwindling congregation. "If I baptize a man, I will have to visit his tomb," Artemios said. "We are against anything, even conversion, if it jeopardizes the peaceful relations between Muslims and Christians."

So in the face of this appalling racist hatred, where are the proud Christian denominations lately? Shouting from the rooftops? Well, not exactly. See

• "Methodist Lobby Office Unveiling Anti-Israel Divestment Proposal".
• "Churches Decry Israel's Treatment of Gaza".
• "National Middle Eastern Presbyterian Caucus calls for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its siege of Gaza residents"

...all of them from the past few days.

We're almost tempted to criticize them. But then what do we understand of Christian replacement theology?