 |
United Church minister Karin Brothers at al Quds
Day rally in Toronto.
Inspired by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, antisemites the world over
gather on al Quds Day to protest the presence of Jews in Jerusalem. More here. |
The
United Church of Canada has formally voted to align itself with the antisemites.
In a historic vote on August 17, the church passed a motion calling for a
boycott of goods produced by Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
This
is a betrayal of the United Church’s claims to friendship with the Jewish
people and a betrayal of its own membership, 78% of whom want the church to stay
out of the issue or remain strictly neutral (see here).
The
UCC is not boycotting Syria where the government is slaughtering its own
citizens by the thousands, or North Korea where the government starves its own
people, or any of the dozens of murderous tyrannies around the globe. Only
Israel. Because, says the UCC, Israel is a democracy (more on this
rationalization here)
and because the church’s partners in the Middle East have called for a boycott.
But
these partners are nothing but a rogues’ gallery of Israel-haters and
antisemites.
First, there’s the Middle East Council of Churches. Like every one of the United Church’s Middle East partners, the MECC seeks the dissolution of Israel. The MECC insists on the so-called “right of return,” which means that Israel must open its borders to the five million descendants of Palestinians originally displaced by Arab wars against Israel.
In
other words, the MECC’s prerequisite for peace is to replace Israel with a
majority Palestinian state.
On
closer inspection, the MECC looks even worse. The Syrian Orthodox Church is
represented on the MECC’s executive council by George Saliba, the Archbishop of
Mount Lebanon and an open Jew-hater.
According
to Saliba (here),
Jews incite unrest in the Arab world in accordance with The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion – an infamous antisemitic tract much admired by Hitler that describes
how Jews supposedly conspire to rule the world.
Next,
there’s Greek Orthodox Archbishop Theodosios Atallah Hanna, one of the authors
of the Palestine Kairos Document, which the UCC vigorously promotes in Canada (more
here).
In the Kairos Document, Hanna and the other authors talk about the need to end the occupation, but for Hanna all of Israel is occupied Palestine. Speaking at a Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem in 2003, Hanna said:
“Palestine is from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river. … We
emphatically refuse any concession on [even] a grain of the land of our
precious homeland…. The Zionist Jews…should go somewhere else in the world to
establish their state and their false entity… They must leave their homes.”
Nor
is Hanna shy about the use of violence. In the same sermon, Hanna said: "We do not believe in so-called
'peace with Israel' because peace cannot be made with Satan… The Palestinians'
rights will be restored only by resistance. What was taken by force will be
restored only by force… We encourage our youth to participate in the
resistance, to carry out martyrdom attacks.” (See here.)
Given Hanna’s enthusiasm for violence, it’s no
surprise that in the Palestinian Kairos Document, which the United Church has
so enthusiastically embraced, Hanna and the other authors defend terrorism as
“legal resistance.” (Much more about Archbishop Hanna here.)
Pastor Naim Ateek of the Sabeel Liberation Theology
Center in Jerusalem is another United Church partner and co-author of the
Kairos Document. Statements issued from the Sabeel Center are more two-faced on
the subject of violence.
On the one hand, Sabeel always calls for
non-violent resistance, and on the other hand, praises the violence of others. So
for example, Sabeel lauds the Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli towns
as “a blow to the arrogance
and hubris of the Israeli government.”
Although these rockets are directed exclusively against civilian
targets, Sabeel insists
this is not terrorism, and though their rockets strike at
homes,
schools and hospitals, Sabeel says the Hamas killers “are seeking justice and
freedom.”
And as in the
Kairos document, Ateek insists that “international law gives them the right to resist and to defend
themselves.” He doesn’t explain how shooting rockets at innocent civilians can
possibly be described as “defence.”
Similarly, in an essay on suicide bombing, Ateek condemns
the practice, but does so while heaping praise on the bombers.
According to Ateek, these “healthy, beautiful and
intelligent young men and women” murder Jews
in a “noble” cause because the world “has not heard their anguished cry
for justice.”
Ateek doesn’t mention that Hamas has been
responsible for most of the terrorism and that Hamas regularly explains that
its purpose is to destroy Israel.
It has nothing to do with justice. On the
contrary, Hamas’s founding charter looks forward to the day when the very trees
of the land will call out, “There is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him.”
Ateek is also notorious for reviving Christian
antisemitism. He favours the image of Jews as Christ-killers, and his sermons
feature lines such as: “In this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross
again with thousands of crucified Palestinians all around him.”
Are Jews really so evil? Do we crucify thousands
of innocents? Do we nail up Jesus every year at Easter time? For two millennia
such lies were used to justify persecuting Jews. Ateek is doing his best to
bring that all back.
Such are the United Church of Canada’s partners
in the Middle East. The United Church claims it rejects antisemitism, claims it
seeks peace, claims and it doesn’t consider the Jewish people its enemy.
I doubt they're fooling anyone but themselves.
I doubt they're fooling anyone but themselves.
This piece was
previously published in the Jewish Tribune in Canada and at Harry's Place in Britain.
