...Teachers are asked to tell the children how the pass system for Palestinians resembles the pass system under Apartheid South Africa. "Apartheid is similar to the pass system that exists for Palestinians," the teacher's guide asserts. Then the children are to sample the injustice of the pass system themselves in a game in which some children are denied juice and grapes if they don't have the right pass. Such fun! And such learning! The teachers are admonished: "Remind the children that when people are denied things that they believe everyone should have, they feel bad and sometimes they become angry."...

JCPA Dismayed by Methodist Church's "Outrageous" anti-Israel Educational Materials

New York - Expressing "shock" and "dismay" the JCPA today called for the United Methodist Church to give serious consideration to retracting several troublesome publications that "demonize" Israel, distort facts, and threaten to "turn the clock back on Christian-Jewish relations." The Methodist materials include a 225 page Mission Study for adults, a children's book, and a teachers guide.

"It is a sad day when friends speak of one another in these terms," said Steve Gutow, JCPA Executive Director. "I was particularly distressed to see the conditions created by the birth of Israel called "original sin" and to see Israelis characterized as 'hysterical' and 'paranoiac.' The quest for peace is not helped by those who demonize and distort."

The children's book has a cartoon showing several Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint with rifles aimed on a car with a 'Peace on Earth' license plate. A guard tower stands in the background and barbed wire is all around. "It is hard to imagine what good can come from such depictions," commented JCPA Chair Lois Frank. "As someone deeply committed to peace and to educating children to treat others with respect, I would be just as astonished by a children's book that characterized Palestinians in such a deplorable fashion."

According to Ethan Felson, JCPA Associate Executive Director, "when taken together, the Methodist materials paint a very troubling picture." Felson added, "the implicit and explicit thrust is that Israel is not only wrong, but evil. The Mission Study labels mainstream Israelis as racist, extremist, and terrorist. The founders of Israel are accused of 'pillaging, raping women, massacring the old and young, and committing major atrocities.' There is a complete whitewashing of Arab rejection of Israel and the Palestinian resort to terror. Also expunged from the record is every Israeli peacemaking effort. The history and memory of the Holocaust is abused. The 850,000 Jews who fled Arab lands are never mentioned. Most shocking is the use of theologically retrograde language. Not only does the Mission Study use the term "original sin," the children's guide ends with 'next year in Seattle,' a painful twist on the millennial Jewish yearning repeated each year at Passover, 'next year in Jerusalem.' Such insensitive use of religious language threatens to turn the clock back on Christian-Jewish relations."

The materials were published by the church's General Board of Global Ministries and produced by its Women's Division.