Church Bureaucrazy About Israel

Eyes Wide Shut: Peter Makari, Executive for the Middle East and Europe of the Common Global Ministries Board of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)(Photo: Dexter Van Zile)

One of the charges CAMERA levels at mainline Protestant churches in the U.S. is that they exhibit a monomaniacal focus on Israel while ignoring the misdeeds and human rights abuses of its adversaries in the Middle East. This assessment is typically based on the resolutions submitted to the national assemblies of these churches. The problem is not limited to resolutions approved or debated at national church gatherings, however. Another place where this monomaniacal focus can be seen is on the newsfeeds of the churches.

Probably the worst offender is the Common Global Ministries of the United Church and the Disciples of Christ. This organization, which is the overseas arm of the two denominations mentioned above, sends missionaries and activists to countries throughout the world.

Theoretically, Global Ministries is, well, a global concern, but you would not know that from its newsfeed which links to articles produced by denominational leaders and staffers, and so-called peacemaking groups such as Sabeel and Churches for Middle East Peace and para-church organizations such as the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches. Serving as a news aggregator, the Global Ministries newsfeed focuses a huge amount of attention on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians while ignoring other conflicts where many more people are killed.

During all of 2011 and the first four and a half months of 2012, the Global Ministries newsfeed linked to a total of 593 articles, 208 which deal with the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. (One article, posted today, talks about the creation of a “national UCC Palestine/Israel Network.”)

In other words, approximately 35 percent of all the articles listed on the Global Ministries newsfeed since Jan. 1, 2011 and today were related to Israel.

During this same period of time, the newsfeed linked to approximately 10 articles, (less than two percent of the total) related to Syria, where approximately 12,000 people have been killed in fighting between the Assad regime and anti-government rebels during the past 15 months. Nigeria, where Christians have been routinely attacked, is hardly even mentioned in the newsfeed during 2011 or 2012.

And Egypt, where dozens of Coptic Christians have been killed by Muslim extremists and government soldiers since the beginning of 2011, merited only 28 links — less than five percent of the total — on the Global Ministries news feed during this same time frame.

This is kind of odd given that the Global Ministries Executive for the Europe and Middle East is Rev. Dr. Peter Makari, an Egyptian American who wrote a book Christian-Muslim relations in Egypt! Couldn’t he throw some links to his fellow Christians in Egypt?

Apparently not! Talk about Eyes Wide Shut!

Don’t believe us? Go look for yourself, here.

Just start scrolling down. And keep scrolling down. You can go all the way back to 2005!

And just tick off how many times you see the “[Israel-Palestine]” tag next to an article!

You’ll see for yourself. These folks are obsessed.

Start counting.