WCC General Secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit

The World Council of Churches has a long history of inciting hostility toward Israel. It has demonized Israel while remaining relatively silent about the misdeeds of its Arab and Muslim adversaries, even when these adversaries are responsible for murdering and oppressing Christians in the Middle East. For some background about the WCC’s antipathy toward the Jewish state (and tendency to appease totalitarian countries and political movements, go here).

For people who know the WCC’s feckless history when dealing with issues related to Israel, it’s hard to be surprised at the pronouncements that come out of the organization’s headquarters in Geneva.

But today, April 17, 2014, the WCC issued a statement that is a surprise.

The statement, signed by the WCC’s General Secretary, Rev. Dr. Olav Fyske Tveit, expresses “solidarity with the nearly 5000 Palestinian men, women and children languishing in Israeli prisons.” The statement says that this decision will disrupt “an already fragile peace process,” and that it has “deepened heartache for many families, relatives, friends and indeed, the entire Palestinian people.”

Predictably, Tveit offered no gesture indicating that he understood the suffering and heartache that some of these prisoners, especially those convicted of murder and terrorism, have caused to Israelis.

But that’s no surprise. While the people who organized the WCC did express some shock over the Holocaust in the 1940s, the organization has always been more bothered by Israeli efforts to defend Jewish lives than it has been by attempts to end them.

The statement also expresses disappointment that Israel cancelled a hoped-for release of prisoners who had been in jail since before the Oslo Agreement of 1993.

But that’s no surprise either. The organization has always had a soft-spot for “liberation” movements no matter how violent or totalitarian.

The surprise comes when the statement declares “Some prisoners have been in Israeli jails since 1948.”

With this statement, Tveit indirectly asserts that there are Palestinians who have been in Israeli jails for the past 66 years!

Now that’s a surprise!

But surprise, surprise it’s not true.
(more…)

Since the outbreak of the “Arab Spring”, examples of influential regional figures offering a balanced and flexible perspective of the Israeli-Arab conflict have emerged. These more moderate voices in the region contrast with an opposing trend among Western academics, particularly in humanities disciplines, who rigidly adhere to a Marxist-derived ideological fantasy that is detached from both historical reality and the existing situation in the Middle East.

An example of a more flexible, balanced approach was revealed on March 19, 2014 by MEMRI, the non-partisan organization that translates Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu and Dari media. MEMRI posted a video of Syrian rebel leader Kamal Al-Labwani on Syrian Orient TV. Labwani was asked by a skeptical interviewer about his views on Israel. The following is a portion of the exchange:

I am opposed to the dogmatic mentality that classifies all Shiites, all Jews, and so on as our eternal enemies. Since the Battle of Khaybar and until the establishment of Israel, we lived together with the Jews, and there was no war. The problem began with the entity that they established as a result of WWII. This problem can be resolved another way, not like that. The proof is that the Arab countries made peace with [Israel]. We would not be the first. We would be the last.

But Israel has genuine fears about its security. If we realize that and allow Israel to feel secure in its Sunni surroundings – after all, it is Arab Sunni land that Israel has taken – and if we make Israel feel more welcome, it may yet give up its hostile mentality which is the cause for the destruction.…

Interviewer: Is it really in the interest of Israel to see the Syrian people live in prosperity and democracy? Israel thinks about the long term. It must know that after a period of reconstruction, the Syrian people will return to its principal cause.

Kamal Al-Labwani: You insist on thinking that Israel’s raison d’etre is to kill the Arabs.

Interviewer: Israel has expansionist goals.

Kamal Al-Labwani: Not true. The people of Israel fled persecution in the Nazi Holocaust, and they want to live in peace.

Interviewer: But this peace at our expense. You talk with such sympathy to Israel… Israel occupied land that does not belong to it.

Kamal Al-Labwani: That’s true. But so did Germany. We too massacred one another. We too massacred one another. When we conquered Homs, we drove its people out. What the Lebanese are doing…

Interviewer: Does one crime justify another?

Kamal Al-Labwani: Such is life, such is history. This is a people that fled persecution and the Holocaust, and came to this region. They were exploited by colonialism, which prevented them from going anywhere else. We have not dealt with the issue rationally. Let me tell you, it is in our interest today to engage in a peace process. Instead of letting the displaced Palestinians continue to suffer…

Interviewer: Even if the [Jewish] people were displaced and suffered, they found their peace and quiet by conquering the land of other people…

Kamal Al-Labwani: True, but the Arabs had also come and conquered this land. Such is history. People never stay put. The Armenians came, the Circassians, came, the Turks left, and the Ottoman Turks came, and now the Safavids are coming… ” The land belongs to Allah, and He gives it to whoever He wills of his servants.” Nobody has a historical right to a piece of land. Historical right is a Nazi, racist, French, German concept, which has caused problems all over the world.

“He gives the land to whomever He will of His servants.” After 40 years, the statute of limitation applies to all these crimes. A person who was born in Israel and whose parents came and did all those things – are you going to hold him responsible for what his forefathers did? Long ago, the Sunnis and Shiites had a dispute, and eventually Hussein was killed. Am I supposed to pay the price today? Does that make any sense?

If only the academics who signed the ASA boycott petition or the numerous anti-Israel agitators dispersed throughout academia were able to overcome their ideological fantasies and deal with the history and contemporary reality of the conflict as honestly as this Syrian leader has.

On the way to a family Passover seder near Hebron, Baruch Mizrachi was shot dead by a terrorist sniper and his wife and son were wounded. It is unclear whether or not Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned this heinous act.

According to The Jerusalem Post:

Contrary to the accounts of the meeting in Ramallah of Israeli [opposition] members of Knesset Horowitz and Bar, Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh says Abbas has not condemned Passover eve killing of Baruch Mizrachi.

But it is clear that another high-ranking PA official has condemned the terrorist act. According to Artuz Sheva:

PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash met with Israeli journalists and condemned the murder on IDF Radio.

“This Israeli who was murdered, it hurts [. . .] we condemn the killing of any person,” Al-Habbash stated. “The principle of killing and violence is completely unacceptable.”

But wait, Palestinian Media Watch reports that, on official PA television:

Just two weeks ago, this same Al-Habbash defended and honored all Palestinian terrorists who are in Israeli prisons:

“All the Palestinian prisoners who protected [our] land, honor and homeland are prisoners of freedom; they are prisoners of war. They are not criminals, will never be and have never been. Their hands committed no crime. They were defending themselves. They are an inseparable part of this national Palestinian movement and one of its authentic elements.”

That doesn’t sound like much of a condemnation of terrorism. In fact, Al-Habbash has made a number of troubling statements in the past including glorifying terrorists, calling for jihad in Jerusalem, and alleging that Israel intends to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque in order to build the Jewish “alleged Temple.”

You may also recall that CAMERA previously posted that Al-Habbash admitted that peace talks are nothing but a ploy, using as a “model” an instance where Mohammad concluded a peace treaty and then came back and breached it through violence.

A high ranking PA official says one thing to Israelis and the opposite to Palestinians. He calls for sham peace talks. And yet, the media is silent on this duplicity. Where’s the coverage?

Watch a video of PA President Mahmoud Abbas applauding after Al-Habbash says, “I don’t think that there is anyone who doesn’t know where Jihad is supposed to take place… Jerusalem is the direction, Jerusalem is the address.

If you have noticed that the New York Times news pages are slanted against Israel, you have probably also noticed the predominantly anti-Israel voices given a platform on the editorial pages. CAMERA has. CAMERA is undertaking a campaign to inform the public about The Times’ anti-Israel bias and how the newspaper omits key information and misrepresents facts.

Unfortunately, The New York Times has been wrong for decades. On December 20, 1924, the newspaper ran this article:

It goes without saying that Hitler was absolutely not “tamed by prison.” However, Times readers did not get a full picture of how wrong this assessment was because, as historian Laurel Leff proved in her book, “Buried by The Times,” the newspaper downplayed the horrors of the Holocaust by printing stories on little-read back pages, running items without headlines and burying key facts within larger articles. Failing to give proper weight to arguably the most important news story of the twentieth century is clearly wrong.

And Times wrongness continues to this day. CAMERA’s six-month study of The New York Times details how the newspaper treats Israel with a harsher standard, omits context, and shows a clear preference for the Palestinian narrative. As for the opinion pages, The New York Observer recently ran a story quoting current and former Times reporters savaging the pundits, particularly Tom Friedman:

…One current Times staffer said, “It really isn’t about politics, because I land more to the left than I do to the right. I just find it …”

He paused for a long time before continuing and then, unprompted, returned to Mr. Friedman. “I just think it’s bad, and nobody is acknowledging that they suck, but everybody in the newsroom knows it, and we really are embarrassed by what goes on with Friedman. I mean anybody who knows anything about most of what he’s writing about understands that he’s, like, literally mailing it in from wherever he is on the globe. He’s a travel reporter. A joke. The guy gets $75,000 for speeches and probably charges the paper for his first-class airfare.”

Another former Times writer, someone who has gone on to great success elsewhere, expressed similar contempt (and even used the word “embarrass”) and says it’s longstanding.

“I think the editorials are viewed by most reporters as largely irrelevant, and there’s not a lot of respect for the editorial page. The editorials are dull, and that’s a cardinal sin. They aren’t getting any less dull. As for the columnists, Friedman is the worst. He hasn’t had an original thought in 20 years; he’s an embarrassment. He’s perceived as an idiot who has been wrong about every major issue for 20 years…”

If you read Friedman’s column on Sunday you know that some things never change. The Times was wrong on Hitler and is wrong today on Israel. As for a balanced and contextual assessment of Israel-related issues, in The New York Times… Where’s the coverage?

You can watch a lecture by Laurel Leff by clicking here or watch a shorter presentation by Hunter College High School student Anna Blech:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Brandeis University has announced it’s rescinding an honorary degree that was to be given to Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, best-selling author and human rights activist. Hirsi Ali participated in CAMERA’s 17th Annual Gala Dinner on April 6 as keynote speaker.

Capitulating to a campaign by CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) and voluble student and faculty protests, Brandeis President Frederick Lawrence issued the statement withdrawing the honor. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism funding case involving Hamas.

Hirsi Ali has received numerous awards previously, including in 2006 as recipient of the American Jewish Committee’s Moral Courage Award.

Hirsi Ali issued the following statement in response to the Brandeis action:

Yesterday Brandeis University decided to withdraw an honorary degree they were to confer upon me next month during their Commencement exercises. I wish to dissociate myself from the university’s statement, which implies that I was in any way consulted about this decision. On the contrary, I was completely shocked when President Frederick Lawrence called me — just a few hours before issuing a public statement — to say that such a decision had been made.

When Brandeis approached me with the offer of an honorary degree, I accepted partly because of the institution’s distinguished history; it was founded in 1948, in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, as a co-educational, nonsectarian university at a time when many American universities still imposed rigid admission quotas on Jewish students. I assumed that Brandeis intended to honor me for my work as a defender of the rights of women against abuses that are often religious in origin. For over a decade, I have spoken out against such practices as female genital mutilation, so-called “honor killings,” and applications of Sharia Law that justify such forms of domestic abuse as wife beating or child beating. Part of my work has been to question the role of Islam in legitimizing such abhorrent practices. So I was not surprised when my usual critics, notably the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), protested against my being honored in this way.

What did surprise me was the behavior of Brandeis. Having spent many months planning for me to speak to its students at Commencement, the university yesterday announced that it could not “overlook certain of my past statements,” which it had not previously been aware of. Yet my critics have long specialized in selective quotation — lines from interviews taken out of context — designed to misrepresent me and my work. It is scarcely credible that Brandeis did not know this when they initially offered me the degree.

What was initially intended as an honor has now devolved into a moment of shaming. Yet the slur on my reputation is not the worst aspect of this episode. More deplorable is that an institution set up on the basis of religious freedom should today so deeply betray its own founding principles. The “spirit of free expression” referred to in the Brandeis statement has been stifled here, as my critics have achieved their objective of preventing me from addressing the graduating Class of 2014. Neither Brandeis nor my critics knew or even inquired as to what I might say. They simply wanted me to be silenced. I regret that very much.

Not content with a public disavowal, Brandeis has invited me “to join us on campus in the future to engage in a dialogue about these important issues.” Sadly, in words and deeds, the university has already spoken its piece. I have no wish to “engage” in such one-sided dialogue. I can only wish the Class of 2014 the best of luck — and hope that they will go forth to be better advocates for free expression and free thought than their alma mater.

I take this opportunity to thank all those who have supported me and my work on behalf of oppressed woman and girls everywhere.

Dr. Elizabeth Prodromou, Assistant Professor at Boston University, Visiting Professor at Tufts University, and former vice chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, wrongly identified Israel as one of the countries in the Middle East where Christians are persecuted and the survival of Christianity is in danger.

Dr. Prodromou (photograph above) did this during a presentation titled “Myth Busting and Reality Checking,” which she gave at a conference in Brookline, Mass., on March 28, 2014.

During her talk, Prodromou stated that the current persecution and cleansing of Christians in Syria reflects broader realities in the Middle East, including Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

In an ironic twist considering the title of her talk, she presented as “myth” the reality that Israel protects Christians and that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christianity is growing.
(more…)

The New Yorker likes to insert into its articles digs at Israel. Another one popped up in the introduction to a piece on the Russian annexation of Crimea. George Packer writes,

Annexation has an ugly sound, owing to an unhappy past. The term describes, among other tragedies, Saddam Hussein’s attempt, in 1990, to swallow Kuwait whole, as the nineteenth province of Iraq; Indonesia’s invasion, in 1975, of East Timor; Morocco’s absorption, the same year, of Western Sahara; and Israel’s declaration, after the 1967 war, of East Jerusalem as part of a united capital. The German word for it is Anschluss. Like most coerced unions, annexations come wreathed in clouds of lofty, dishonest language—key themes are popular will, historic grievance, divine providence—but they almost always happen at the end of a gun.

The magazine has a reputation for skillful writing, but not so much for accuracy or for making sound historical analogies, especially when it comes to Israel.

With the exception of Israel, the annexations Packer lists – by Iraq, Indonesia, Morocco and Germany – share common traits; they were unprovoked acts of aggression ordered by authoritarian rulers. Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem was the result of a defensive war fought by a democratic state responding to aggression committed by Jordan. That’s a big difference.

There are other differences too. Some of the annexations involved territories on which the annexers had dubious historical claims. There is no reasonable doubt about the connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem. Furthermore, the city had only been divided for 19 years as a result of Jordanian aggression in 1948.

But the fact that Packer lumps together these distinctly different events, each with its own historical context, is of no importance to The New Yorker. All that matters is that it sounds clever and allows the smug writers at the magazine to take another swipe at Israel.

The Washington Post reported:

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry is canceling a planned trip to Ramallah on Wednesday to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas amid new threats from the Palestinian leader to circumvent U.S.-backed peace talks with Israel.

Kerry had planned to make an emergency trip to Abbas’s West Bank headquarters in hopes of announcing a breakthrough, according to a senior State Department official.

An official familiar with the talks had said earlier Tuesday that negotiators were discussing in broad outline a plan that would require Israel to slow settlement construction and release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinians would in turn agree not to pursue recognition of a Palestinian state or other redress through the United Nations in order to keep alive the hope for a solution negotiated between the two sides.

But this is evidently not to be. As The Times of Israel wrote:

In an apparent breach of understandings with the US and Israel, and with a proposed agreement to extend peace talks awaiting a Palestinian response, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday evening signed an official appeal to join 15 UN bodies.

At a PLO meeting in Ramallah, Abbas president formally requested membership in the international organizations for the “State of Palestine.”

“The Palestinian leadership has unanimously approved a decision to seek membership of 15 UN agencies and international treaties, beginning with the Fourth Geneva Convention,” Abbas said on television after signing the demand.

This should come as no surprise to anyone observing – and especially conducting – the negotiations. Less than two weeks ago, the spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, Ahmad Assaf, stated on official Palestinian Authority television, as translated by Palestinian Media Watch:

Our membership in the UN is also a weapon. And that’s an important card. It’s a weapon that’s in our pocket. I didn’t use it on day one. I didn’t say, as soon as I got membership in the UN, that I want to go to the International Criminal Court – no. We’ve been waving it around for two years now: We’ve obtained the release of the prisoners, we blackmailed [Israel], that is, in quotation marks, and we’ve taken important positions because we have a card that we’re waving around.

This has apparently always been the plan: pocket irreversible Israeli concessions such as the release of murdering terrorists, and then go to the United Nations and international organizations to pursue isolation, persecution and prosecution of Israel. These can hardly be seen as “good faith” negotiations. And yet, while the media lionize the released terrorists on page one, on Palestinian Authority double-dealing, they are silent. Where’s the coverage?

Watch the video of Assaf’s statement:

CATC Conference Director Munther Isaac addresses 2014 attendees. (Dexter Van Zile)

What a difference two years can make!

At the 2012 Christ at the Checkpoint Conference, Munther Isaac, (who recently got his Ph.D. from Oxford Center for Mission Studies), told attendees that Palestinian Christians “have always enjoyed the support of the Palestinian leaders” and that they “worship with freedom and exercise [their] rights like all Palestinians.”

Isaac made this statement while introducing Salaam Fayyad, who was then serving as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.

Two years later, attendees heard a different story. The first night of the conference, Munir Kakish, the leader of the Council of Evangelical Churches in the Holy Land called on the Palestinian Authority to recognize Evangelical churches and accord them their civil rights. Here is what he said:

As a religious group, we are still unable to practice our basic civil rights to issue marriage certificates, register our church properties in the name of the church, or even open bank accounts to manage our churches’ financial affairs.

One of these statements cannot be true.

If Christians “worship with freedom” and “exercise rights like all Palestinians,” then why can’t Evangelical churches open bank accounts in Palestinian society?