In July, 2004 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA – PC(USA) – voted to initiate a process of divestment from companies doing business in Israel with the hope that it would end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and improve the condition of Palestinians who live in those areas. In particular, proponents of divestment held up U.S.-based Caterpillar for condemnation because it sells armored tractors used to destroy the homes of suicide bombers.

“We have to send strong messages to such companies,” said Mitri Raheb pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, an ecumenical guest who encouraged the Presbyterian General Assembly to divest.

“Sisters and brothers, this is a moment of truth,” Raheb said.

Sadly enough, the members of the General Assembly voted to divest without a full airing of the facts surrounding the Arab/Israeli conflict. In particular, the proponents of divestment put the blame for the undeniable suffering of Christians in Bethlehem, the West Bank and Gaza at the feet of the Israelis, while ignoring enormous evidence of Arab/Muslim oppression of Christians in these areas. The narrative also gives short shrift to terror attacks against Israel by suicide bombers dedicated to Israel’s destruction.

The sad irony is that by adopting this one-sided dishonest narrative about the Arab/Israeli conflict as justification for divestment, the Presbyterians are contravening the spirit of the Barmen Declaration – one of the creeds included in the PC(USA)’s Book of Confessions. This declaration, written in 1934 by theologians in Germany during the Nazi’s rise to power warns about the dangers of Christianity being appropriated for the purposes of the state. At the time writing, Hitler was pressuring Protestant churches to expel converted Jews from their pulpits and was forcing religious leaders to embrace his obsession with racial purity as a source of revelation. Sadly enough, many church leaders who called themselves "German Christians" willingly accepted the changes and spoke of Hitler as a "German Prophet."

While the theologians who wrote the document were unable to stop German churches from handing themselves over to the Nazis, the declaration remains a powerful statement of the Church's obligation to God and its responsibility to the society in which it exists. Consequently, the declaration remains powerful influence on the outlook of many Protestant theologians and ministers, particularly in the U.S. where ministers invoke Barth’s legacy to warn of the excesses of nationalism. Indeed, the Declaration has become an important touchstone of belief for mainline Protestants in the U.S, with the Presbyterian Church (USA) including the Barmen Declaration in its book of Confessions and the United Church of Christ (UCC) regarding it as one of its historic testimonies...

...Given the centrality of the Barmen Declaration to modern-day Protestantism and the regularity with which it has been praised, interpreted, profiled, and invoked, one would think Protestants, Presbyterians especially, would be sensitive to the prospect of Christianity lending itself to nationalistic purposes, but for some reason the phrase “Palestinian Christian” evokes no ominous overtones for Protestant thinkers who tremble at the thought of “American” or “German” Christian. “Palestinian Christian” is a phrase they should recognize. “I am a Palestinian Christian” is the title of Raheb’s first book about the Arab/Israeli conflict...

Every Palestinian has a story.

That’s what a Palestinian pastor from East Jerusalem said during an early session of a national Presbyterian training event that began Feb. 10 on peace in the Middle East.

But the telling of those stories – painful and personal ones, for example, of the difficulty of teaching one’s children love for all people when those children are routinely humiliated by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints – opens the door to layer upon layer of complications.

Can the Palestinian stories be told without telling those of Israeli Jews? What about Muslims from the region? And how can Presbyterians have fruitful conversations with American Jews if the story the Palestinian Christians tell is so powerful and so negative?

This event was scheduled by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in the aftermath of the General Assembly’s controversial decision last summer to approve a process of phased, selective divestment in some companies doing business in Israel, in protest over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. More than 200 Presbyterians have come to Kentucky, where the denomination’s national offices are located, to learn more about what the assembly did regarding divestiture and about the history of PC(USA) involvement in the Middle East, in part to help prepare them for conversations already taking place across the country between Presbyterians and Jews angered by the assembly’s action...

...According to the four Palestinians who spoke this weekend in Louisville, however, the only villain in the Middle East is Israel.

One of the speakers was a Palestinian teenager, the other three are experienced anti-Israel activists who work full time for organizations that do not admit the right of a Jewish State to exist.

SAWSAN BITAR is employed by the Sabeel Center. Sabeel is a Palestinian Liberation Theology center and intensely anti-Israel. Sabeel insists on the "right of return," which is code for eliminating the Jewish State.

NUHA KHOURY is Deputy Director of the International Center of Bethlehem. This is a Lutheran-supported organization that, like Sabeel, is intensely anti-Israel. Her boss, Reverend Mitri Raheb, appeared at the GA to speak in favor of the divestment. Khoury has toured the US giving anti-Israel propaganda talks.

ALEX AWAD is a prominent anti-Israel activist and author. He is employed as a Methodist missionary, but his mission is not to preach the Gospel of Jesus to non-Christians. Awad devotes his time to “taking… tour group(s) through a Palestinian refugee camp,” and writing anti-Israel books and articles...

I went to a meeting of the Presbyterian Church this weekend. They were talking about divesting from companies that do business in Israel.

While at the meeting, I obtained a copy of the May/June 2004 issue of Church and Society, a magazine published by the Presbyterian Church.

It includes an article written by a UCC pastor (that’s my denomination). His name is Robert Hamerton-Kelly.

It begins with the following passage:

"On deep cable a few weeks ago, there was a semi-propaganda movie of the kind we see more and more as the religious violence of the State of Israel becomes more egregious. It is about a Polish village, whose inhabitants were all Jews, and their dreadful fate during the 1940s. One scene sticks in my mind: an avuncular rabbi, a cross between Santa Clause and "Fiddler on the Roof" tells the story of the exodus to ten or so angelic children aged about six through nine. No scene could warmer and more engaging, more full of love and beauty, and then the narrative begins. This genial old man asks the children, "Why do we celebrate Passover?" He then answers his own question: "Because God killed the firstborn children of the Egyptians and told us to mark the doorposts of our houses with the blood of the lamb so that the angel of death might pass us over." I was appalled and thought immediately of two things: 1) That this gave the children permission to kill those who were not like them, and 2) That the Apostle Paul had been such a child and then such a rabbi."

This passage is one of the most offensive I’ve seen in all my life. Take a look at the magazine for yourself to verify the quote. If you want I can mail you a copy. I have called the magazine’s editor Bobbi Hargleroad to register my complaint. I’ve called twice and sent her a message via the PC(USA)’s website:

When confronted with a passage such as this, it's hard to decide what to begin unpacking first -- the sloppy scholarship or the unmistakable hostility toward Jews. The scholarship, if it can be called that, is terrible. What is 'deep cable' and exactly what was the name of the movie Kelly is using as the point of departure for his essay?

In this passage, Kelly offers a sidelong glance and a wink to his ideological allies as if to say "Just let them accuse me of anti-Semitism. If they can't tell the difference between criticism of Israel and hostility toward Jews, that's their problem." The problem is that Kelly's unproven accusation of religious violence by the state of Israel is combined with the familiar anti-Jewish stereotype of the Jews controlling the media (because how else can we explain the appearance of such "semi-propaganda" at such a convenient time?) and an assertion that the rabbi's story gave his listeners the permission to kill. Really? How exactly? Did the children act on this permission in this piece of semi-propaganda Kelly can't be bothered to name? And is Kelly implying their is a connection between the Book of Exodus and religious violence of the state of Israel Kelly can't be bothered to detail? Between Kelly's intellectual sloppiness and his undeniable hostility, it's clear he is a man used to being listened to as he speaks from the pulpit, but not one used to being interrupted with inconvenient questions from his listeners.

Imagine if a similar passage was written about Islam or the Arab world. People would be outraged.

This is shameful. Absolutely shameful. What makes this passage even more shameful is that it was putatively edited by Ronald Stone. Ronald Stone, you may recall, was the individual who met with Hezbollah in Oct. 2004 and said the following:

“As an elder of our church, I’d like to say that according to my recent experience, relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialog with Jewish leaders.”

Shocking. Shocking. Shocking.