The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is not nearly as hostile toward Israel as some of the other mainline churches in the United States. Thanks to the behind-the-scene efforts of a small, but effective group of Christian-Jewish scholars who take Arab and Muslim leaders at their word when they talk about destroying Israel, the resolutions about the Arab-Israeli conflict passed by ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly in 2005 acknowledged Israel’s legitimate security needs. The church even pledged to draw attention to the plight of Christians in countries like Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, suggesting that at least a few ELCA members and leaders know that not every Christian in the Middle East blames Israel for their suffering.

Still, there are times when even Lutherans can miss the point about life in the Middle East.
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This weekend (Oct. 21 and 22), the Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kansas will host a “peacemaking” conference organized by Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center and its sister organization in the U.S. – Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA).

Sabeel’s founder, Rev. Naim Ateek, an Israeli-Arab who lives in Jerusalem, is well known for his use of imagery reminiscent of the deicide charge in reference to Israel, the Jewish state. For example, Rev. Ateek has written that the “occupation” is the equivalent of the stone blocking Christ’s tomb and that “The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily.” He has also compared Israeli officials to modern-day Herods. (According to the Gospel of Matthew, Herod killed all the infants in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill the infant Jesus.)

Sabeel’s brittle narrative about the Arab-Israeli conflict is easily challenged.
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Katharine Jefferts Schori

On Nov. 4, Katharine Jefferts Schori will be invested as Presiding Bishop of the the Episcopal Church.

When she takes over her duties, one pressing issue she’ll have to contend with is the one-sided anti-Israel narrative broadcast by so-called peace and justice activists of the Episcopal Church, whose idea of “justice” involves demanding Israel take down its security fence without asking the Palestinians to stop the suicide attacks that prompted its construction. Moreover, the resolutions these activists submitted to the Episcopal Church’s General Convention did not ask the Hamas leaders of the Palestinian Authority even to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

One place Rt. Rev. Jefferts Shori might want to look is her church’s Web site, which is a veritable cornucopia of distortions, and in some instances outright lies, about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Plug “Jenin” into the site’s search engine (it’s in the upper right-hand corner) and you will find a total of nine links, the first of which gains the reader access to an article that falsely accuses Israel of digging mass graves in Jenin to cover up “war crimes” in 2002.

Four years later, the Episcopal Church has failed to update or correct this article, even though it has been thoroughly discredited.

Jenin was the scene of a battle in 2002 in which 52 Palestinians, most of them combatants, and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed. The Israelis went into Jenin as part of “Operation Defensive Shield,” which began in response to an unprecedented wave of suicide bombings that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians. One of the worst of these attacks took place at Netanya on March 27, 2002. That attack killed 30 Israelis and injured another 140. That attack, by the way, is all but ignored on the Episcopal Church’s Web site. See for yourself.

To be fair, the Episcopal Church does obliquely acknowledge (without specifically mentioning) the Park Hotel Bombing of 2002 in a statement issued on April 10, 2002:

We are shocked by the escalating violence in the Middle East following the attacks during Passover and Easter. In this recent wave of violence, thousands of innocent victims have died or are suffering as a result of suicide bombings and the incursion of the Israelis army into the West Bank.

But make no mistake—this purpose of this statement was not to condemn Palestinian behavior, and it mentioned nothing about Palestinian “war crimes.” Rather, the violence was mentioned as a hook for the Church’s fund-raising effort on behalf of Palestinian medical centers.

The recent abduction of Fox journalists Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig by Palestinians in Gaza on August 14 presents a disturbing dilemma for their colleagues in the region. Obviously, journalists need to be careful and guard their words in public interviews so as not to jeopardize their own safety or that of their colleagues. But how far to go?

Interviewed on “Special Report with Brit Hume”on August 23, Fox’s Middle East correspondent Jennifer Griffin responded to questions about the two kidnapped journalists who were seen for the first time in nine days on a videotape released by their captors. Griffin appeared to bend over backwards to portray her colleagues’ Palestinian kidnappers in the best possible light, even going as far as to suggest that this abduction was more just a form of Palestinian hospitality than a real kidnapping.

At first, Griffin repeated the captives’ statement that they were being treated well, “as guests”:

Well, I think what was most interesting is that they do appear to be in good health. That’s good news. They went out of their way to show how their captors had treated them with respect. They had given them clean clothes, and water and food and went out of their way to talk about how they had access to bathrooms and all sorts of things and that they’re being treated as guests.

It is certainly fair to report the captives’ statement—including their assertion that they are being treated well. But even if she was hesitant to point out that the hostages’ words should be received with skepticism—their lives are, after all, in the hands of those they were praising—did she really need to actively whitewash the taking of hostages? Apparently she thought yes, as she continued to elaborate on Palestinian hospitality, explaining the captives were regarded as honored guests:

This is very important in Palestinian society and in an Arab society. Being a guest is almost an honored value, something that you and I perhaps wouldn’t necessarily pick up on being from the west. But this is a very important point.

And it’s very important to note that the Hamas spokesman, Rafi Hamed who spoke about this today said that these two guests of the Palestinians should be released immediately and unharmed. This is significant, because that means that the Palestinians themselves are sending a message to the captors that these are their guests and they are responsible for their safety and well-being.

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For more information about Hezbollah:

Comprehensive New Yorker magazine article by Jeffrey Goldberg
“IN THE PARTY OF GOD: Are terrorists in Lebanon preparing for a larger war?”

Interview with Jeffrey Goldberg
http://www.ujc.org/content_display.html?ArticleID=63594

Michael Totten visits with Hezbollah
http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/guess-whos-coming-to-iftar/42/

The Hezbollah in America: An Alarming Network
by Daniel Pipes
National Review

“Party of Hell”
Barbara Newman in National Review on “the most dangerous terrorist group in the world.”
An interview with Barbara Newman, author of the book Lightning Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil.

An article by Craig Smith in today’s New York Times about Hamas’ new television station, entitled “Warm and Fuzzy TV, Brought to You by Hamas,” conceals from readers the groups declared territorial objective—replacing all of Israel with an Islamic state.

Smith quotes a Palestinian involved with the new television station:

“I will show them our rights through the history,” he said, “show them, ‘This is Nablus, this is Gaza, this is Al Aksa mosque, which is with the Israelis and should be in our hands.’”

Nowhere does Smith clarify that, of course, Hamas’ claim has never been limited to Nablus, Gaza or even Jerusalem.

It would have been easy to clarify. For example, Smith could have cited Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, who was quoted in yesterday’s Guardian saying: “Nobody among our sons and grandsons will accept Israel as a legal state. … Not in this generation, not in the next generation, will we accept it here.”

Instead, the reporter again fails to clarify Hamas’ objectives when he euphemistically writes about the Hamas seal, saying it “depicts the Dome of the Rock (which stands alongside the Al Aksa mosque in Jerusalem) between swords and an idealized map of Palestine.”

Idealized? Would that be a map showing Nablus, Gaza and Jerusalem–the locations mentioned by Sharawi–as part of Palestine? Well, not exactly. As apparent in the Hamas seal pictured, an “idealized map of Palestine” includes the West Bank, Gaza and all of Israel.

So why doesn’t Smith say so?

Palestinian “militiamen” have reacted to the Gaza disengagement. From Islamic Jihad:

Hundreds of militiamen from Islamic Jihad marched in formation and fired in the air at a rally on a Gaza City beach, while a flotilla of boats flying the organization’s black flags circled in the water.

“Our enemy should understand that the state of Palestine is not just Gaza, it stretches from the river to the sea,” said Abu Walid, a senior military commander in Islamic Jihad, as 300 men masked in black balaclavas prayed on the beach, then rehearsed with rifles and grenade launchers. “The Palestinians now have the momentum to seize all of Israel.”

And from Hamas:

Asked about Hamas’s future plans, Zahar said: “Neither the liberation of the Gaza Strip, nor the liberation of the West Bank or even Jerusalem will suffice us. Hamas will pursue the armed struggle until the liberation of all our lands. We don’t recognize the state of Israel or its right to hold onto one inch of Palestine. Palestine is an Islamic land belonging to all the Muslims.”

More cause for concern.

Islamic Jihad training in the Gaza Strip, Aug. 13, 2005

August 11, 2005 AFP photo of Young Israelis playing the guitar on the beach in the Gush Katif settlement of Shirat Hayam, in Gaza Strip. Are these some of the same “radical” Israeli youngsters “playing guitar ” who Martin Fletcher from NBC considers “extremely violent” and “who probably smoke dope?”

On August 18, NBC’s Martin Fletcher reported as news his own unsupported conjecture about young protesters. Fletcher opined:

These young radicals are like anti-globalization protesters or any other protesters all over the world; they are extremely violent and aggressive.

These youngsters who are living by themselves in these small settlements playing the guitar, singing songs, half of them are probably smoking dope, praying, and they are violent. They are very hostile and aggressive toward the press, threatening us all the time.

What evidence does Fletcher have that these youngsters are “extremely violent” or that “half of them are probably smoking dope?” How can the NBC reporter speculate about the drug habits of a group he knows little about? Since Fletcher did not support any of these defamatory comments with proof, he should have refrained from passing his own opinion off as fact.

(Hat Tip: J. Harris)

Why does a Chicago Tribune news story about a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) divestment campaign against Israel read like a press release issued by the Church itself?

Because, Tribune staff reporter Manya A. Brachear used chunks of the Church’s August 5th press release as her news report; Brachear lifted, near verbatim, two entire paragraphs of the press release, including its partisan language and inaccurate information. For example, the Tribune reported that:

Caterpillar manufactures heavy equipment used for demolition of Palestinian homes, the uprooting of olive trees and construction of roads in the occupied territories limited for use by Israeli settlers.

The Presbyterian Church’s August 5 press release:

Caterpillar manufactures heavy equipment used for demolition of Palestinian homes, the uprooting of olive trees, construction of roads and infrastructure in the occupied territories for use only by Israeli settlers…

There are no “settlers-only-roads” in the territories (or, for that matter, in pre-1967 Israel). This is a common media distortion. In fact, foreigners, non-settler Israelis (including Arabs), and Palestinians with appropriate security clearance are free to use any road. Since the violent uprising against Israel, during which Palestinian vehicles were used in driveby shootings of Israelis, there have been restrictions of vehicles with Palestinian license plates on certain roads.

The Chicago Tribune should consider adopting Northwest Indiana Times ethics policy regarding use of press releases. It states that:

Information in press releases should be confirmed for accuracy before being included in a news story. Any information not independently confirmed must be attributed to the release or statement and its issuing organization.

Listeners from around the world can tune in to hear “The World From a Jewish Perspective,” whose producer Shlomo Fleischmann this week interviews Tamar Sternthal, CAMERA’s Israel director. Sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Brevard, the show can be listened to on the Internet all this week. The CAMERA interview begins just over 20 minutes into the broadcast.