As church group blasts Israel, Jews should reach out to Christians

Jewish Telegraphic Agency
February 23, 2005

By Dexter Van Zile

BOSTON, Feb. 23 (JTA) – Jews in the United States have every reason to
express shock over the World Council of Churches’ decision to encourage
members to follow the lead of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in divesting
from Israel.

The dominoes are falling against Israel. First, U.S. colleges embraced
the cause of divestment, next the Anglican Church announced that it was
studying the issue, then the Presbyterian Church (USA) adopted the
policy – and now the World Council of Churches on Monday encouraged
denominations to do the same.

It looks bad, but Jews need to understand that lay members of Christian
churches remain firm in their support for the Jewish state. Jews need to
reach out to Protestants in the pews of the churches that fund the WCC,
telling them that the council isn’t worthy of their support and that
it’s time to start a divestment campaign of their own – against the WCC.

Jews might be surprised at the response they get. U.S. Christians
stopped listening to the WCC long ago. Many still have not forgiven the
WCC for giving $85,000 to the Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe in 1978,
months after the group shot down an airliner, killing 38 of the 56
passengers on board. Terrorists killed 10 survivors.

American Christians know the WCC has a history of supporting violent
`liberation’ movements in Central America, Africa and East Asia.

They know the WCC ignored the plight of dissidents behind the Iron
Curtain and `built bridges’ with killers and tyrants, just as leaders
from the Presbyterian Church (USA) recently extended offers of
friendship to Hezbollah, a group that killed 241 U.S. Marines in 1983.

The reaction of Presbyterian lay members was so strong that two church
employees were fired for meeting with Hezbollah, demonstrating where the
denomination’s true power and conscience rest – in the pews, not in the
minds of the movement’s theologians.

American Protestants know the WCC turns a blind eye to the violence
perpetrated by the Muslim regime in Sudan, instead focusing its
criticism on Israel. They know this without having to read the study by
the Institute on Religion and Democracy that reports that between 2000
and 2003, the WCC issued 36 human-rights complaints against Israel and
two about Sudan, where close to 2 million black Africans, many of them
Christian, were killed and tens of thousands were enslaved in a
self-declared jihad waged by the Islamist regime in Khartoum.

They know the WCC is foolish to praise the leaders of the Presbyterian
Church (USA) for embracing divestment, even after the denomination
released a survey showing that 42 percent of the church’s members oppose
the decision and only 28 percent support it.

Knowing all this, lay Protestants in the United States long have
regarded the WCC as irrelevant.

But it’s a mixed blessing. Because they have grown used to ignoring WCC
pronouncements, Protestants do not understand the lethality of the
organization’s one-sided condemnations of Israel. They do not understand
that the WCC’s soft-pedaling of terrorism against Israel only encourages
more terrorism against Jews.

Because U.S. Christians spend more time listening to the pastors in
their pulpits than to their denominational leaders, they don’t know that
some of their theologians harbor ill will toward Israel and an obsession
with the Jewish state’s alleged misdeeds that borders on the pathological.

Because U.S. Christians always have enjoyed religious freedom in
America, they do not understand the oppression suffered by Christians in
the Middle East and the threat faced by Jews in Israel.

Once U.S. Christians understand these things – and groups like ours are
making a full-court press to educate them – they will know which
organizations are the true, legitimate targets of divestment.

They just have to be told. Their own leaders will not tell them, so
their Jewish friends and neighbors – and their Christian allies – will
have to step into the breach for the sake of Israel, the United States
and all of our children.

Dexter Van Zile is a member of the Judeo-Christian Alliance, an
initiative of the David Project that promotes a fair and honest
discussion of the Middle East conflict in Protestant churches. He also
is a member of the United Church of Christ, which will consider
divestment at its General Synod in July.